Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity

May 29, 2020

Whitesplaining and Mansplaining: An Example

Filed under: Feminism,Protests — Patrick Durusau @ 7:36 pm

I was blocked by @LadyMenopause at the end of this exchange, so what follows are my views on “whitesplaining” and “mansplaining,” not hers.

Twitter Exchange, @LadyMenopause and @PatrickDurusau, May 28, 2020.

After sleeping on it, I think my posts were guilty of both “whitesplaining” and “mansplaining,” but have no idea what prompted @LadyMenopause’s response.

As far as “mansplaining,” the tweet that prompted by response by @LadyMenopause was not about protest tactics, targeting, the best ways to engage oppressors or anything of the sort. (I really need to start archiving my timeline.) So my initial response, suggesting better targeting for Republican majority areas, was off-topic and hijacking her thread, for a topic of no evidence interest to her.

Another aspect of “mansplaining” was my dismissal of her view of Republican areas as guarded by “rednecks with all their artillery in front of them….” Whatever I or you may think about that view of Republican areas in Minneapolis, it is her view. I continued to err in treating the topic as one about tactics and strategies, which were not her focus.

On “whitesplaining,” I am a child of a violent white culture and assume that resources and tactics can be whistled up with little or no difficulty. My perspective also does not account for members of the Black community, their hopes and desires, to say nothing of their interest (or lack thereof) in wading in their oppressors blood. Unlike some white people, I don’t think I can evaluate or even properly consider the hopes and desires of the Black community. To suggestion action anyway, is a form of “whitesplaining.”

I’m utterly convinced that Black people, women, and others have been, are and likely will be oppressed by the white male capitalist patriarchy. I have had no doubts on that score for decades. I try to not speak the language of the Empire but as you can see, I can and do fail. Apologies to anyone who was offended and should you be called out for either “mansplaining” or “whitesplaining,” perhaps this will be a good starting point to discover your error.

PS: When you see me falling into “mansplaining” or “whitesplaining,” I’d appreciate a comment, here or on Twitter. Thanks!

October 28, 2019

How-To Black Box Google’s Algorithm of Oppression

Filed under: Algorithms,Bias,Feminism,Search Algorithms,Search Data,Searching,sexism — Patrick Durusau @ 6:55 pm

Safiya Noble’s Algorithms of Oppression highlights the necessity of asking members of marginalized communities about their experiences with algorithms. I can read the terms that Noble uses in her Google searches and her analysis of the results. What I can’t do, as a older white male, is authentically originate queries of a Black woman scholar or estimate her reaction to search results.

That inability to assume a role in a marginalized community extends across all marginalized communities and in between them. To understand the impact of oppressive algorithms, such as Google’s search algorithms, we must:

  1. Empower everyone who can use a web browser with the ability to black box Google’s algorithm of oppression, and
  2. Listen to their reports of queries and experiences with results of queries.

Enpowering everyone to participate in testing Google’s algorithms avoids relying on reports about the experiences of marginalized communities. We will be listening to members of those communities.

In it’s simplest form, your black boxing of Google start with a Google search box, then:

your search terms site:website OR site:website

That search string states your search terms and is then followed by an OR list of websites you want searched. The results are Google’s ranking of your search against specified websites.

Here’s an example ran while working on this post:

terrorism trump IS site:nytimes.com OR site:fox.com OR site:wsj.com

Without running the search yourself, what distribution of articles to you expect to see? (I also tested this using Tor to make sure my search history wasn’t creating an issue.)

By count of the results: nytimes.com 87, fox.com 0, wsj.com 18.

Suprised? I was. I wonder how the Washington Post stacks up against the New York Times? Same terms: nytimes 49, washingtonpost.com 52.

Do you think those differences are accidental? (I don’t.)

I’m not competent to create a list of Black websites for testing Google’s algorithm of oppression but the African American Literature Book Club has a list of the top 50 Black-Owned Websites. In addition, they offer a list of 300 Black-owned websites and host the search engine Huria Search, which only searches Black-owned websites.

To save you the extraction work, here are the top 50 Black-owned websites ready for testing against each other and other sites in the bowels of Google:

essence.com OR howard.edu OR blackenterprise.com OR thesource.com OR ebony.com OR blackplanet.com OR sohh.com OR blackamericaweb.com OR hellobeautiful.com OR allhiphop.com OR worldstarhiphop.com OR eurweb.com OR rollingout.com OR thegrio.com OR atlantablackstar.com OR bossip.com OR blackdoctor.org OR blackpast.org OR lipstickalley.com OR newsone.com OR madamenoire.com OR morehouse.edu OR diversityinc.com OR spelman.edu OR theybf.com OR hiphopwired.com OR aalbc.com OR stlamerican.com OR afro.com OR phillytrib.com OR finalcall.com OR mediatakeout.com OR lasentinel.net OR blacknews.com OR blavity.com OR cassiuslife.com OR jetmag.com OR blacklivesmatter.com OR amsterdamnews.com OR diverseeducation.com OR deltasigmatheta.org OR curlynikki.com OR atlantadailyworld.com OR apa1906.net OR theshaderoom.com OR notjustok.com OR travelnoire.com OR thecurvyfashionista.com OR dallasblack.com OR forharriet.com

Please spread the word to “young Black girls” to use Noble’s phrase, Black women in general, all marginalized communities, they need not wait for experts with programming staffs to detect marginalization at Google. Experts have agendas, discover your own and tell the rest of us about it.

January 7, 2019

200 Black Women in Tech … On Twitter

Filed under: Diversity,Feminism — Patrick Durusau @ 3:32 pm

The 2018 List of 200 Black Women in Tech to Follow On Twitter List by Jay Jay Ghatt.

I assume most people reading my blog are likely technical experts in one or more areas. To become such experts, you have worked, read, practiced and talked to others about your area of expertise. Becoming or even getting close to being an expert, is hard work.

Notice that you didn’t say, for example, you saw an XML book in a bookstore or a friend of yours had a book on XQuery or you remember other people like you, who didn’t know anything about XML, discussing it. That’s not the path to becoming an expert in XML.

Surprise, surprise, surprise, that’s also not the path to being an expert in any other field.

It’s also not the path to learning what diversity and feminism can bring to tech. If you don’t think tech needs help, remember there are legacy flaws in chip architecture more than 20 years old.

We can’t know if a design environment enriched by diversity and feminism would have avoided those flaws. What we do know is those flaws and many others were produced in monochrome and non-diverse environments. So, should we continue with design process conditions known to fail or should we try for more complex interactions?

For the impatient:

FOLLOW ALL: If you are on Twitter, you can follow everyone on this list at once by following this Twitter List! (emphasis in original)

For the non-impatient, Ghatt has all 200 members with their Twitter bios listed, should you want to pick and choose.

The first step towards the advantages of diversity is to start listening to diverse voices. That requires effort on your part. Just like becoming an expert.

January 6, 2019

Supporting Black Women/Girls Survivors – @ErynnBrook

Filed under: Feminism — Patrick Durusau @ 10:45 pm

Erynn Brook @ErynnBrook created a Twitter thread on supporting Black Women/Girls survivors.

I started to extract all the resources she lists but then thought: Part of educating yourself about Black Women/Girls and their issues is taking the time to ferret out stories, resources and to spend time listening to them.

I may yet create a collated version from Brook’s thread but for the moment, take her advice:

Spend some time with the stories you see and really listen to black women

to heart.

October 13, 2018

“Oh I wish that I could be Melania Trump [Richard Cory]”

Filed under: Feminism,Politics — Patrick Durusau @ 2:24 pm

Among the shallow outpourings of scorn on Melania Trump, Arwa Mahdawi‘s Melania Trump claims of victimhood have a hollow ring, is representative of the rest.

Consider this snippet from her post:

…
In an interview with ABC News, the first lady said, “I support the women and they need to be heard” but added that if they come forward as victims they must “show the evidence”. Unfortunately, Melania did not elaborate on what sort of evidence she considers acceptable. Might she accept, for example, a tape of her husband boasting about grabbing women’s crotches without their consent?

Despite her immense advocacy for women, I’m sorry to report that Melania feels let down by the sisterhood. “I could say I’m the most bullied person in the world,” she said in her interview.

Listen, I support the Melanias and they need to be heard, but if you’re going to come forward as a victim, you must show the evidence. And right now all the evidence seems to point at the first lady being just as morally bankrupt as the president and deserving every ounce of criticism she attracts. If you do feel any spark of sympathy for Melania, I suggest you redirect your attention to the thousands of migrant children the Trump administration has kidnapped.
…

As far as Melania’s “show the evidence” comment, in context she clearly says that the media, emphasis on the media, goes too far when someone says they have been assaulted. Not quite the same impression as you get from Mahdawi’s account.

Melania may have been sexually abused or assaulted and being unable to “show the evidence,” she has suffered in silence along with millions of women around the world. If speaking out without evidence makes your life worse, then her advice may not be too far off the mark.

If she has abuse issues in her past, like any other survivor, she has an absolute right to speak or NOT speak about her prior abuse. Neither Mahdawi nor anyone else has the right to demand Melania shed her personal privacy so they can judge her legitimacy.

It’s not clear what Mahdawi find surprising about:

I could say I’m the most bullied person in the world

A question was asked and Melania answered. What other source of information would you use to judge a person’s view of the world?

Mahdawi’s projection of an imaginary world that Melania occupies reminds me of Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson, re-written by Paul Simon as Paul Simon – Richard Cory Lyrics, which reads in part:

They say that Richard Cory owns one half of this whole town
with political connections to spread his wealth around
born into society a banker’s only child
He had everything a man could want power, grace and style
But I work in his factory and I curse the life I’m living
and I curse my poverty and I wish that I could be
Oh I wish that I could be, Oh I wish that I could be Richard Cory

…

oh he surely must be happy with everything he’s got

…

“Richard Cory went home last night and put a bullet through his head.”

In Mahdawi’s imaginary world projection, Melania is not bullied by Trump and his band-of-sycophants. Nor has she paid a high price reach her present position and/or to remain there. Mahdawi is welcome to her fiction, but it’s not a valid basis for judging the words or actions of Melania Trump.

Spend less time fantasying about the First Lady and more on bringing the Trump administration to an end.

PS: To help you remember this lesson in the future:

September 25, 2018

Abuse Apologist News Bingo

Filed under: Feminism — Patrick Durusau @ 6:21 pm

I saw a delightful “bingo” graphic that is on point for all abusers in the news, from www.shethepeopleusa.com. In reduced form:

I have also uploaded the graphic in its original size.

The Abuse Apologist Bingo game is sadly familiar. But it could also be used to play Abuse Apologist News Bingo. To see who and when news stations report, repeat and amplify these excuses for abusers.

To that end, I drafted the Abuse Apologist News Bingo game, that includes these instructions:

How often do you hear these excuses reported, repeated or amplified in news reports? Too often but do you have a record, an actual count? If not, trying playing abuse apologist bingo while you watch your regular news program.

When you hear one of these apologies for abusers, mark that square. After your program is over, record:

Date:__________ Time: __________ Station: __________

Send to your local news station with or without your name and email.

PS: For safety reasons, a close friend recommends you not use this as a drinking game.

My efforts can certainly be improved upon and if enough stations get enough Abuse Apologist News Bingo cards, who knows, maybe NRP won’t describe reports about Kavanaugh as being from thirty years ago in every broadcast. As though that has any meaning.

PS: Ping me for the source file, my ISP won’t accept word processing documents.

August 29, 2018

How-To Read Kathy Griffin’s Thread on Sexism in the Workplace (For Men Only)

Filed under: Feminism,sexism — Patrick Durusau @ 4:29 pm

While describing sexism in the context of comedy, Kathy Griffin also points out the same could be said for any job or workplace.

Titled “(For Men Only)” because I have suggestions for how men should read Kathy Griffin’s thread. (I have no idea how women will or should read it.)

First, men should read this thread (A – Z) aloud to other men. Silently skimming it and nodding along may provide some benefit, but not much.

Second, read slowly and offer comments and discussion after every tweet. Reflecting back on women in your workplaces, are there instances that resonate with Griffin’s comments? What if anything did you do then? What if anything would you do differently now?

Third, telecommuting is no excuse for not doing #1 and #2. Find yourself a discussion partner to work through this thread.

I make these suggestions because changing ourselves (men) and hence workplace environments, requires effort. Saying we are different, getting a certificate we have been trained, assuring each other we are different, or that we aren’t as bad as Louis CK, doesn’t count.

Effort requires that we think about ourselves, our history with women, what a better future for women requires of us and steps we can take towards putting our new awareness into action.

Only we, by listening to women (#1), can work with women to create a better world for our mothers, sisters, wives, daughters,… for us all.

July 22, 2018

Universal Feminine Hygiene

Filed under: Feminism,Government,Politics — Patrick Durusau @ 6:30 pm

It’s Not Just the Tampon Tax: Why Periods Are Political by By Karen Zraick reminded me to post a “progressive” proposal on feminine hygiene products.

Removing taxes on feminine hygiene products is a step in the right direction but why not go all the way and make those products universally available, at no cost?

The existing distribution chain for feminine hygiene products needs only a few minor tweaks to make that possible. Here’s my solution in three steps:

  1. Retailers provide feminine hygiene products to any customer, free of charge.
  2. Customers are free to choose any brand or type of feminine hygiene product.
  3. Retailers have a tax credit equal to feminine hygiene products distributed, at their retail “price.”

Charging customers for feminine hygiene products, directly or indirectly becomes illegal and states/localities are forbidden from limiting or regulating such sales in anyway.

A direct benefit to all women that preserves their freedom of choice of products. It re-uses existing distribution systems, without any additional forms or paperwork.

Share this with progressives seeking public office.

June 13, 2018

A White Male Reads: “Why can’t we hate men?”

Filed under: Feminism — Patrick Durusau @ 4:18 pm

Why can’t we hate men? by Suzanna Danuta Walters (Washington Post, June 8, 2018), has gotten a surprising number of comments that have little, if any, relationship to what she wrote.

What follows is a reading that other white males may or may not find persuasive.

Open up the Walters’ text and align it with this post in your browser. All set?

Paragraph 1: “It’s not that Eric Schneiderman …” Using “edge” imagery, the author establishes the position in this post, isn’t a new one. It’s one of long and mature consideration.

Paragraph 2: “Seen in this indisputably true context,…” Walters confesses hating all men is a tempting proposition. One she herself has struggled with.

Paragraph 3: “But, of course, the criticisms of this blanket condemnation of men…” Despite the temptation to hate all men, Walters recognizes the proper target is: “…male power as institutional, not narrowly personal or individual or biologically based in male bodies.”

Anyone who claims Walters says “hate all men,” hasn’t read up to and including the third paragraph of her essay.

Paragraph 4: “But this recognition of the complexity of male domination…” A transition to reciting universal facts about women. Facts which are true, despite “…the complexity of male domination.”

Paragraph 5 and 6: “Pretty much everywhere in the world, this is true: Women experience sexual violence, and the threat of that violence permeates our choices big and small.” Does anyone dispute these facts about the lives of women? (If you do, you can stop reading here. What follows will make little sense to you.)

Paragraph 7: “So, in this moment, here in the land of legislatively legitimated toxic masculinity, is it really so illogical to hate men?” Returning to “hating all men,” Walters says despite widespread reporting of male abuse of women, she isn’t seeing significant change. (I don’t see it either. Do you?) Women being abused by men and men taking few steps to stop that abuse, adds up to a pretty logical reason to hate all men. (Walters does not make that call here or elsewhere.)

Paragraph 8: “The world has little place for feminist anger…” You don’t grab female co-workers by the genitals, don’t extort sexual favors, aren’t an incel troll. Feminists are angry over your lack of effort to create a better environment for women.

To put that in another context, not being a slaver isn’t the same thing as opposing slavery. A majority of the families where slavery was legal, were passive beneficiaries of slavery:

(edited to remove date of secession but otherwise the same as found at: The Extent of Slave Ownership in the United States in 1860.)

The state with the lowest number of passive beneficiaries of slavery was Mississippi, with passive beneficiaries representing 51% of the population.

Compare that with the number of passive beneficiaries of patriarchy:

There is no state with less than 48% of its population as passive beneficiaries of patriarchy.

There are men in those populations who are actively campaigning on behalf of women. But if you’re not one of them, then feminists have a right to be angry in general and angry with you in particular.

Paragraph 9: “So men, if you really are #WithUs and would like us to not hate you for all the millennia of woe you have produced and benefited from, start with this:” Walters never says “hate all men.”

There are factual and logical reasons why women could hate all men, but Walters turns aside from the sterility of hate to suggest ways men can make the lives of women different. Different in a positive way.

I read Walters as saying action-less sympathy for women, while enjoying the benefits of patriarchy, is adding insult on top of injury.

Helping to create a different life experience for women requires more than doing no harm. Are you ready to spend your time, resources and energy doing good for women? Ask, respectfully, women in your life what they see as important, read feminist literature and forums, listen before speaking. Spread the word about feminism even when women and/or feminists aren’t present. A better world for women is a better world for us all.

April 29, 2018

The Feminist Data Set Project

Filed under: Data Science,Feminism — Patrick Durusau @ 7:15 pm

This Designer Is Fighting Back Against Bad Data–With Feminism by Katharine Schwab.

From the post:

…
“Intersectionality,” declares one in all caps. “Men Explain Things to Me– Solnit,” another one reads, referencing a 2008 essay by the writer Rebecca Solnit. “Is there a feminist programming language?” asks another. “Buffy 4eva,” reads an orange Post-it Note, next to a blue note that proclaims, “Transwomen are women.”

These are all ideas for the themes and pieces of content that will inform the “Feminist Data Set”: a project to collect data about intersectional feminism in a feminist way. Most data is scraped from existing networks and websites or collected by surveilling people as they move through digital and physical space–as such, it reflects the biases these existing systems have. The Feminist Data Set, on the other hand, aspires to a more equitable goal: collaborative, ethical data collection.

…

Step one? Sinders asks everyone in the room to spend five minutes brainstorming ideologies (like femininity, virtue, and implicit bias) and specific pieces of content (like old maid, cyberfeminism, and Mary Shelley) for the data set on sticky notes. Then, the entire group organizes them into categories, from high-level ideological frameworks down to individual pieces of content. The exercise is a chance for a particular artistic community to have a say over what feminist data is, while participating in an open-source project that they’ll one day be able to use for their own purposes. Right now, the data set includes a gender-neutral dictionary, essays by Donna Haraway, and journalist Clare Evans’s new book, Broad Band, a female-centric history of computing.
…

If you know the work of Caroline Sinders, @carolinesinders, you are already following her. If you don’t, get to Twitter and follow her!

There are any number of aspects of Sinders’ work that are important but the “Feminist Data Set” foregrounds one that is often overlooked.

As you start to speak, the mere shifting your weight to enter a conversation, you are making decisions that will shape the data set that results from a group discussion.

No ill will or evil intent on your part, or anyone else’s, but the context that shapes our contributions, the other voices, prior suggestions, all shape the resulting view of “data.” Moreover, that shaping is unavoidable.

I see Sinder’s as pulling to the foreground what is often taken as “that’s the way it is.” No indeed, data is never the way it is. Data and data sets are the product of social agreements between people, people no more or less skilled than you.

This looks like deeply promising work and I look forward to hearing more about its progress.

December 5, 2017

Name a bitch badder than Taylor Swift

Filed under: Feminism,R,Twitter — Patrick Durusau @ 4:27 pm

It all began innocently enough, a tweet with this image and title by Nutella.

Maëlle Salmon reports in Names of b…..s badder than Taylor Swift, a class in women’s studies? that her first pass on tweets quoting Nutella’s tweet, netted 15,653 tweets! (Salmon posted on 05 December 2017 so a later tweet count will be higher.)

Salmon uses rtweet to obtain the tweets, cleanNLP to extract entities, and then enhances those entities with Wikidata.

There’s a lot going on in this one post!

Enjoy the post and remember to follow Maëlle Salmon on Twitter!

Other value-adds for this data set?

October 19, 2017

Gender Discrimination and Pew – The Obvious and Fake News

Filed under: Fake News,Feminism,Journalism,News — Patrick Durusau @ 9:07 pm

Women are more concerned than men about gender discrimination in tech industry by Kim Parker and Cary Funk.

From the post:

Women in the U.S. are substantially more likely than men to say gender discrimination is a major problem in the technology industry, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in July and August.

The survey comes amid public debate about underrepresentation and treatment of women – as well as racial and ethnic minorities – in the industry. Critics of Silicon Valley have cited high-profile cases as evidence that the industry has fostered a hostile workplace culture. For their part, tech companies point to their commitment to increasing workforce diversity, even as some employees claim the industry is increasingly hostile to white males.
…

Was Pew repeating old news?

Well, Vogue: New Study Finds Gender Discrimination in the Tech Industry Is Still Sky-High (2016), Forbes: The Lack Of Diversity In Tech Is A Cultural Issue (2015), Gender Discrimination and Sexism in the Technology Industry (2014), Women Matter (2013), to cite only a few of the literally thousands of studies and surveys, onto which to stack the repetitive Pew report.

Why waste Pew funds to repeat what was commonly known and demonstrated by published research?

One not very generous explanation is the survey provided an opportunity to repeat “fake news.” You know, news that gets repeated so often that you don’t remember its source but it has credibility because you hear it so often?

“Fake news,” is the correct category for:

…even as some employees claim the industry is increasingly hostile to white males.
…

Repeating that claim in a Pew publication legitimates the equivalent of cries coming from an asylum.

One quick quote from Forbes, hardly a bastion of forward social thinking dispels the “hostile to white male” fantasy, The Lack Of Diversity In Tech Is A Cultural Issue:

…
It has been a commonly held belief that the gender gap in tech is primarily a pipeline issue; that there are simply not enough girls studying math and science. Recently updated information indicates an equal number of high school girls and boys participating in STEM electives, and at Stanford and Berkeley, 50% of the introductory computer science students are women. That may be the case, but the U.S. Census Bureau reported last year that twice as many men as women with the same qualifications were working in STEM fields.

A USA Today study discloses that top universities graduate black and Hispanic computer science and computer engineering students at twice the rate that leading technology companies hire them. Although these companies state they don’t have a qualified pool of applicants, the evidence does not support that claim.
…

When 2/3 of the workers in a field are male, it’s strains the imagination to credit claims of “hostility.”

I have no fact based explanation for the reports of “hostility” to white males.

Speculations abound, perhaps they are so obnoxious that even other males can’t stand them? Perhaps they are using “hostility” as a cover for incompetence? Who knows?

What is known is that money is needed to address sexism in the workplace (not repeating the research of others) and fake news such as “hostile to white males” should not be repeated by reputable sources, like Pew.

September 30, 2017

Female Journalists Fight Online Harrassment [An Anti-Censorship Response]

Filed under: Censorship,Feminism,Free Speech,Journalism,News,Reporting — Patrick Durusau @ 2:24 pm

(Before you tweet, pro or con, I take everything Ricchiari reports as true and harassment of women as an issue that must be addressed.)

Female Journalists Fight Online Harrassment by Sherry Ricchiardi.

From the post:

Online tormentors have called Swedish broadcaster Alexandra Pascalidou a “dirty whore,” a “Greek parasite” (a reference to her ethnic heritage), a “stupid psycho,” “ugly liar” and “biased hater.” They have threatened her with gang rape and sexual torture in hideous detail.

But Pascalidou has chosen to fight back by speaking out publicly, as often as she can, against the online harassment faced by female journalists. In November 2016, she testified before a European commission about the impact of gender-based trolling. “(The perpetrators’) goal is our silence,” she told the commission. “It’s censorship hidden behind the veil of freedom of speech. Their freedom becomes our prison.”

In April 2017, Pascalidou appeared on a panel at the International Journalism Festival in Italy, discussing how to handle sexist attacks online. She described the vitriol and threats as “low-intense, constant warfare.”

“Some say switch it off, it’s just online,” she told The Sydney Morning Herald. “It doesn’t count. But it does count, and it’s having a real impact on our lives. Hate hurts. And it often fuels action IRL (in real life).”

Other media watchdogs have taken notice. International News Safety Institute director Hannah Storm has called online harassment “the scourge of the moment in our profession” and a “major threat to the safety and security of women journalists.”

“When women journalists are the target, online harassment quickly descends into sexualized hate or threats more often than with men,” she added. “Women are more likely to be subjected to graphic sexual and physical violence.”
…

You will be hard pressed to find a more radical supporter of free speech than myself. I don’t accept the need for censorship of any content, for any reason, by any public or private entity.

Having said that, users should be enabled to robustly filter speech they encounter, so as to avoid harassment, threats, etc. But they are filtering their information streams and not mine. There’s a difference.

Online harassment is consistent with the treatment of women IRL (in real life). Cultural details will vary but the all encompassing abuse described in Woman at point zero by Nawāl Saʻdāwī can be found in any culture.

The big answer is to change the treatment of women in society, which in turn will reduce online harassment. But big answers don’t provide relief to women who are suffering online now. Ricchiardi lists a number of medium answers, the success of which will vary from one newsroom to another.

I have a small answer that isn’t seeking a global, boil-the-ocean answer.

Follow female journalists on Twitter and other social media. Don’t be silent in the face of public harassment.

You can consider one or more of the journalists from Leading women journalists – A public list by Ellie Van Houtte.

Personally I’m looking for local or not-yet-leading female journalists to follow. A different perspective on the news than my usual feed plus an opportunity to be supportive in a hostile environment.

Being supportive requires no censorship and supplies aid where it is needed the most.

Yes?

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