One of the modern phenomena that I find amusing is the common feminist assertion, often parroted in the mainstream media, that the internet is a hostile place for women. These claims are usually supported by perfectly legitimate examples of men writing terrible letters or blog comments to feminist or female writers and bloggers. What I don’t understand is why they think it does not also go in the opposite direction.
If we are going to look at the letters that feminist writers get from hostile men, before asserting that there is sexism here or generalizing, we should also look at some of the mail that men’s advocates such as myself get from hostile women. Not surprisingly, this is rarely done. However, I can assure you that there is little difference in the venom spewed by men at feminists and the venom spewed by women at men’s advocates. (To be clear, most of the letters I get from women are very positive and supportive, and I am not referring to these women in this blog post.)
There are, of course, differences in style between hostile men and hostile women. A hostile man will threaten violence. A hostile woman will threaten to spread the rumor that you are molesting your daughter. A hostile man will threaten violence. A hostile woman will threaten to go to the court in your area and carefully examine your divorce papers, so that she can publicly trumpet whatever terrible things your ex-wife said about you. These women are always very disappointed to find out that, thankfully, I do not have an ex-wife.
Anyway, below is another example of the nice, sweet letters/blog comments that men’s advocates such as myself get from women who oppose their views. It was posted on the blog www.feministing.com . It reads:
“Sacks is an assface who thinks women are either 1) f*ckholes or 2) baby incubators. Get your f*ckhole on the pill or it’ll turn into a baby incubator. If he wants to spend his life trying to make life worse for over half of the world’s population, then I REALLY want to believe in hell, because if there IS a hell, there’s a special place reserved for people like Sacks.”
Nice lady, huh?


