Male sexism in the blogsphere

I though it worthwhile hauling out these two comments from women as a separate post.
They were in response to a plea I made for female comment to my post Abortion at home about the Women on Web site for on line abortion material.

It’s hard to identify gender if you use pseudonyms. So I invited women to identify themselves as such if necessary anonymously. to test the provenance of comment on the subject of abortion, where gender is of course very relevant.

These comments speak for themselves. Fair comment? Are they typical? If fair and reasonable and they ring utterly true to me, they expose a big, big problem
of male behaviour.

I’m female, have never used a pseudonym on Slugger, but rarely participate simply because any thread I’ve ever read here that has been about ‘women’s issues’ has been completely taken over by men who are deeply misogynistic and have absolutely no intention of engaging in any real debate or of being willing to stand back and actually let women be heard.

Several years ago I wrote an abortion article which was posted on Slugger and I received a significant amount of abuse in the comments as well as on my blog, and ‘dead baby’ pictures and threats to my personal email address. I find it to be a scarily accurate reflection of Northern Irish men in general…although it is somewhat more liberal these days.

Thanks for this post though – at least Women on Web are an organisation I can donate to without feeling like my money will be wasted.
Posted by joanne on Jul 11, 2008 @ 06:07 PM
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Okay, I admit it. I’m a woman. But part of the reason I am reluctant to ‘fess up is because I have had a certain amount of bile in the past over it as well as condescending tones in many posts. The blogosphere is not gender-neutral. I think you’ll find that everywhere, not just in our little corner of the world.

There seems to be an assumption that because contraception exists, everyone knows where to get it, how to use it, etc. It’s not true for benefits, money advice or anything else. The prudish tendency to pretend no one has sex here means that people are not very savvy about how to be careful. Look at the number of A&E;units in Northern Ireland which refuse to give the morning after pill. That’s taking responsibility and yet, refusal to give this drug means that more women may be forced to seek an abortion if they become pregnant.
Posted by Animus on Jul 11, 2008 @ 06:25 PM

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