They stumble and struggle to continue
Men read hate-tweets sent to two women sports reporters.
[W]ith its #MoreThanMean campaign, the Just Not Sports podcast is trying to make people understand that online harassment is very real, and very harmful.
This powerful PSA video features male volunteers reading hateful tweets (which they didn’t write) that have been sent to two Chicago-area women sports personalities, Sarah Spain, a columnist and radio host with ESPN, and Julie DiCaro, an update anchor for WSCR-AM 670 The Score and writer at the Cauldron.
The women had seen all the tweets before, but the men — who thought they were being recruited for a much more light-hearted, Jimmy Kimmel-style “mean Tweets” segment — had no idea what was coming.
Do they find it painful? They seem to…or maybe they just find it awkward, with the women sitting right in front of them.
The men’s faces fall, horrified and embarrassed. They stumble and struggle to continue. Most of them do, eventually, reluctantly, without looking the women in the eyes, because this is what they agreed to do for the video. A few of them just have to stop.
They apologize — for themselves, to their mothers, on behalf of the entire male gender.
The video concludes with the caption: “We wouldn’t say it to their faces. So let’s not type it.”
Online harassment of journalists and commentators falls hardest on women and people of color. It’s especially true for those who write about controversial topics.
But sometimes all a woman has to do to invite torrents of online hate is to remind people that she’s a woman — either by writing specifically about “women’s issues,” or by writing about topics, like sports, that some people don’t seem to think women should have opinions about.
The video is tough to watch. Which makes it a little easier to imagine how tough it is to read these kinds of messages every day.
Well if we don’t like it we can just stop being journalists and commentators, bloggers and essayists, writers and critics.
It’s sad that I’m thinking less about the day when the harassment no longer happens as much as the glorious day when verbal abuse doesn’t have to be filtered through a man for the public to take it seriously. Because if the women had simply reported what was written to them,t hey’d be accused of being thin-skinned and dramatic.
“…Online harassment … especially true for those who write about controversial topics.”
Or if a woman has the gall to be noticed writing about, say, cupcakes.
This women was interviewed on local radio here yesterday. Being a female sportscaster has its own unique set of problems. Some men resent their presence in the milieu and are quick to make disparaging remarks about female anatomy.
I sometimes attend hockey matches and have noticed that there are many, MANY women in the crowd. So if their presence at a hockey match raises not an eyebrow, then why can’t they report/comment on one just like men?
What would happen if the men who WROTE those notes were asked to read them publicly?
As bad as the online, and public, culture is; the stalker/troll subset really do seem to be pathological on an individual level. By reserving their savagery to anonymous venues, they can maintain a mask of normality while most men don’t realize they’re out there.
Or women. :Ppp
I don’t have the whatever to even watch that. Interesting experiment however, for those who do.
Here in Australia, the blokes who run the TV networks just put their mates in as commentators, no matter what the viewing public wants. They know that diehard fans aren’t going to switch off just because of one or two yobbos in the commentary box, and take full advantage of that.