Obviously I realised my latest Comment is Free piece would spark some debate, but I wasn’t expecting this much.
I thought the Jezebel piece was quite interesting, but then I read the comments:
“Dear Cath Elliot,
There are many paths, you dumb cunt.”
Hmmmm. And I’m the one allegedly doing feminists a disservice……….
Too Much To Say For Myself 
Personal attacks are never warranted, and I know how it feels to get comments like that. Try not to let those kind of comments get under your skin.
Ah but personal attacks are never ‘personal attacks’ when it is used by males because they are exercising their so-called male privilege. Yet these self-same individuals immediately cry ‘foul’ whenever males are held accountable for their actions. Male double standard again.
Thanks Dollface. To be honest I don’t let those comments get to me any more, certainly not as much as I used to when I first started writing anyway. It just baffles me that a site purporting to have a fem bias then allows misogynistic comments like that to stand. What’s with that?
jennifer – Because of the anonymity of the net I can’t be 100% certain, but the person who made that comment is posting as a woman.
I don’t think it’s correct to say one can’t be a Christian and a feminist, if by ‘Christian’ one means someone who follows the examples of Christ – most of which have been left out of mainstream ‘Christianity’.
I was brought up as a Baptist Christian, and experienced some horrific sexism within the church. I used to play piano for the congregation, and after one service a woman took me aside in the toilets and told me to take my earrings out, wash my ears with soap, and pray for forgiveness. Apparently the devil had taken hold of me because I was wearing crosses with loops at the top. A friend of mine (we were both 15) was asked to stand up during a service to be prayed for because she was pregnant. The father was there and was not asked to stand up. I was also told not to wear my skirts so short.
Jesus said nowt about what women should or should not wear, nothing about homosexuality or sex before marriage (I’m not even sure he said anything positive about marriage) and had several female followers (who were in fact ‘apostles’). Mary Magdelene was an apostle, but is thought of as a fallen woman who Jesus, in his perfection, forgave. There is no evidence of Jesus calling Mary – or any other woman – ‘fallen’. He did disrupt a group of men who were about to stone a woman, telling them that it was they who had done wrong and to bugger off (I paraphrase).
I would write more on this but I’m about to have my dinner! There are plenty of feminist theologians about, reinterpreting the bastardization of Jesus’s teaching that is commonly known as the Christian Faith.
The thing that worries me most about misogynyist comments online, is that I’m never sure it’s not a man I might know or like a man I might know. The internet is a place where ‘nice men’ can be themselves.
Yukky thought. Am going to eat now.
“ It just baffles me that a site purporting to have a fem bias then allows misogynistic comments like that to stand. What’s with that?”
I have often wondered this myself. Surely they’re not blind to it?
You’re right Cath because it is the internet individuals can claim to be anything even a ‘dog.’
A theory – although this site claims to have a feminist bias it still suffers from believing such misogynistic insults are not ‘misogynstic.’ It is a disease many so-called progressive individuals suffer from. Racism is wrong but misogyny is apparently just ‘humour’ or ‘irony.’ But then dominant groups are the ones who believe they are entitled to define what is and is not misogynstic rather than the group which is continually being subjected to never-ending misogyny.
Jennifer – “You’re right Cath because it is the internet individuals can claim to be anything even a ‘dog.’”
Unfortunately that’s so true. I actually got completely taken in once by someone I ‘met’ online who I assumed to be both a woman and a feminist. When “she” posted her email address I made the mistake of emailing her. I’m sure you can guess how the rest of this story ends……..
Still, lesson learned and no harm done. This time. Thankfully.