Elayne Riggs' Journal (for Leah)

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Estrogen Month - Update*

Laura G here again. My apologies to anyone who expected Elayne's lucid posting, she left me the keys to the blog and I felt that this bit of news was far too Estrogen-Month-notable to not post about.

A female blogger was recently threatened anonymously on-line, which in and of itself was noteworthy and enough to make the average blogger see red. But now BBC News has reported on the threats. Think for a brief moment about what that means. A major news organization is reporting about threats made to a female blogger. True, the article isn't substantial, and doesn't say anything that most of us didn't already know, but hopefully it is exposing the reality of the 'net to people who otherwise would not have noticed.

Some choice quotes from the article:
"The police are investigating while the blogosphere has launched its own enquiry.

One of the issues raised is the question of how women bloggers are treated online."

...

"Much of the blogosphere has rallied round in support of Ms Sierra.

Robert Scoble, author of popular technology blog Scobleizer, condemned the campaign against her.

"It's this culture of attacking women that has especially got to stop. I really don't care if you attack me. I take those attacks in my stride. But, whenever I post a video of a female technologist there invariably are snide remarks about body parts and other things that simply wouldn't happen if the interviewee were a man," he said

In response, he has decided to temporarily stop blogging and has turned off functionality that allows people to post anonymously."
Dare we hope that greater awareness that there is a problem will help to get rid of the problem?

*Substitute Estrogen Gal Post

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