The author received private messages saying that someone jerked off to a picture of her at a conference and also photoshopped pictures of her full of blood.
Those sorts of messages -- even in isolation -- have real-world, often physical, consequences. This attitude that sexual harassment is only harmful if it's a physical assault needs to go back to the 1950's where it belongs.
>Those sorts of messages -- even in isolation -- have real-world, often physical, consequences.
No, in the vast majority of cases they don't. Trolls gonna troll, sorry. I'll bet we can count on one hand the number of times Internet death threats have led to actual deaths.
There's a reason authorities don't investigate or prosecute stuff like this.
>This attitude that sexual harassment is only harmful if it's a physical assault
Sorry, what? How is a death threat sexual harassment?
I don't know how to respond to your assertion that receiving violent messages on a regular basis is only harmful if there's a credible threat of follow-through.
It's simply not normal to have to read email threatening you or making sexually harassing statements. No one should have to put up with that. The fact that you seem to think that this is normal is deeply concerning to me. If you regularly receive harassing messages, that's not okay and I'm really sorry. I'm really glad that you're apparently able to handle that without lots of mental anguish, but it's not something we as a society should shrug off.
> How is a death threat sexual harassment?
Please read the linked post. If you can't find the instance of sexual harassment in the author's blog post... god help you.
You're trying to move the goalpost here, and folks are right to not let you do it.
If you think abusive behavior is OK, show some courage of your convictions and just say it outright. Don't sit here playing word games that make you look like a coward.
I don't think abusive behavior is OK, I just don't think Internet PMs or e-mails even register above 1 on the 10-point scale of things that are abusive. Sexual assault at a conference is reprehensible and must be dealt with; abusive private messages are an uncomfortable consequence of participating in an anonymous distributed network.
Those sorts of messages -- even in isolation -- have real-world, often physical, consequences. This attitude that sexual harassment is only harmful if it's a physical assault needs to go back to the 1950's where it belongs.