Fear and abuse

Today Kathy Sierra of “Creating passionate users”, one of my favourite blogs, showed up in my feed with a post I wish never had to be written.

I don’t want to be part of a society where women are systematically oppressed in their homes, at work or online.

But I am.

Mens violence against women is a huge problem, and what we’re seeing here is part of that problem. Sexual objectification, defamation and threats are all ingredients in this story.

I do not want to be part of a culture–the Blogosphere–where this is considered acceptable. Where the price for being a blogger is kevlar-coated skin and daughters who are tough enough to not have their “widdy biddy sensibilities offended” when they see their own mother Photoshopped into nothing more than an objectified sexual orifice, possibly suffocated as part of some sexual fetish. (And of course all coming on the heels of more explicit threats)

(from Kathy Sierra)

I wish Kathy keeps blogging, that this won’t shut her up. I’m afraid she’ll quit though, and I don’t blame her.

Robert Scoble is taking a week off because of this. Though I understand his reasoning I don’t agree that going silent is the right way to change all this. Instead, I wish that the sick people that does these things hears it from all of us in the blogosphere that no man, no woman, nobody will be on their side in the end.

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