🚀 go-pugleaf

zjohnsto@scu.edu.au (Zebee Johnstone) writes:

>...  My anecdotal evidence indicates that harassment is
>more likely to be for ideas and style, not gender.  Plenty of
>men get harassed too.

Well put. Unfortunately it is all too common and easy for someone who 
posts in a style that plainly shows bias to react to the resulting 
criticism and flames defensively. The usual defense is "I'm being 
attacked for being female/gay/black/jewish/(insert favorite minority)."

It is ever so much harder to admit to oneself that the reason one 
receives negative comments is that one posts foolishly, or offensively.
Some people see "oppression" everywhere, and their mindset invites even 
more negative responses than they would garner purely on the basis of 
what they post. 

Others are so reflexively defensive of certain groups that their posts are
highly predictable. Farthing, for example, cannot let any post expressing
criticism of women go by without rebuttal, unless its author is in his
killfile. Men, on the other hand, are usually the villains in his posts.
Other posters are angry at women, and post whenever they can find something
negative to say about them. 

And then there are the trolls.

Felicitations,
              M.