I’m pleased to see the widespread media coverage and condemnation of violently misogynistic social media, including the death and rape threats to Caroline Criado-Perez and Stella Creasy, both women that I respect and who are working to make changes for women. I’m pleased to see that so far two arrests (of men) have been made in relation to these threats.
I’m pleased to see how many women and men have spoken out in support of Caroline and Stella and against the cowardly bullies who seek to silence and intimidate them and many other women who dare to raise their voices.
I’m hopeful that we might be reaching a point when misogynistic abuse is no longer accepted as an inevitable consequence of women’s use of social media.
Ironically though, I haven’t seen one headline about actual rapes.
- Maybe I missed the headline telling us that 350 rapes were reported to London’s Metropolitan Police last month (June 2013). A 40% increase on June 2012.
Ironically, I haven’t seen much coverage of actual murders of women through male violence.
- Maybe I’ve missed the headlines about the 13 UK women killed through suspected male violence this month alone.
Maybe I’ve missed the media coverage that looks at death and rape threats in the context of femicide and sexual violence against women.
I’m fed up that connections are not being made. Male violence against women and girls is not just about threats through social media. It is a reality of life across the world. What is it going to take before we all say that male violence against women and girls needs to end?
Karen Ingala Smith 
Whilst some men and many women have spoken out condemning those innumerable males who are using social networking sites to subject women to male threats of violence; ‘the elephant in the room’ remains as usual invisible. The dominant view being perpetuated by malestream media is that these women-hating males are supposedly ‘trolls; losers; infantilised adult men’ all of which neatly erases the fact these males are enacting their male power whereby they are retaliating against women they perceive as ‘threatening their sacrosanct (sic) male right to dominate and silence women because their sex is female. As usual women being subjected to such virulent male hatred are being told ‘you should ignore these ‘trolls’ (because it is essential we mustn’t name them as men/males since that would put spotlight on male behaviour) or are being told ‘it isn’t an important issue because these are just ‘trolls’ (sex unspecified of course) who are simply uttering empty threats? Really? Perhaps whenever males subject non-white males to racial insults these too are merely ’empty insults devoid of any real power or intent. But this is not the case because our legal Male Supremacist System does take such racial insults seriously and yes the male perpetrators are prosecuted but men sending messages threatening women with sadistic male sexual violence is not important because the victims are not male.
Fragmentation is the rule within our malestream media and Male Supremacist System whereby there is a systemic male refusal to ‘join up the dots’ and publicly state male hatred/male contempt for women and girls is not ‘another isolated incident;’ but is pandemic and is being condoned and applauded by innumerable men. Furthermore men as we have seen, do swiftly retaliate against any woman they perceive as challenging their male power because women supposedly have no right to challenge men and their male myopic view of the world.
Males are using social media to reinforce their male domination and male control over all women and yes there are real consequences for women who challenge male power. Only yesterday in London a male decided he had right to murder one woman and had attempted to murder another woman. However, malestream media reports was only concerned with the ‘distress’ this had caused neighbours not the fact another male was enacting his pseudo male right to commit femicide! Fragmentation in action once again because malestream media must not ‘join up the dots’ concerning pandemic male violence against women and girls.