Hello, newbie anti-feminists! October 11, 2007 Jill There seems to be a major influx of you guys lately. Just out of curiosity, how did you find us? Did we get a link at a fabulous right-wing blog that I haven’t discovered yet?
Can you look at your traffic data and see where they are coming from? (I think you’ll need more detailed info than what SiteMeter is giving you. They don’t recognize many of the referrers. Perhas Google Analytics?). If so, then you can set up a block from that referrer (maybe just termporary). You can do it yourself or use the WordPress WP-ban plugin. Have the block page filled with ads and a little content like “You’ve reached a special page of the Feministe blog. Enjoy these ads!” That will reduce some of the nuttos and make you a little money on the side from them. The link in my name here will go to an article I wrote at my blog about what I did to help get rid of nasty visitors.
Anti-feminists? We preferred to be called “normal people.” Enjoy being single, childless, desperate and sleeping with your cats in 10 years. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avb2prZvsnY&mode=related&search=
There’s blood in the water. The twelve year-old boy was so covered in sharks that the smaller sharks had to attack something else.
They seem to come in waves. Back when Lauren was still here, there was a group who stayed around for a while, engaged in arguments, etc.
# melissa p Says: October 11th, 2007 at 11:35 am I was alerted to your site by a post on AmericaBlog. John says your his new favorite site. AJ says, actually. But kudos for making your way over! Though I should note that I’m pretty sure we at AmericaBlog didn’t send over the neanderthals : )
Well I found you a while back thru feministing, which I found while trying to get some feminist perspective on the Duke Lax rape/hoax. But I’ve been interested in feminism for a long time now (since childhood actually), having observed its evolution from classic liberalism to more statism and now as it embraces multiculturalism. interestingly, i scored off the chatts (like 100%) in that recent poll that went around measuring how much a feminist one is. i couldn’t believe it myself, almost spit out my hooters burger. so i’d call myself a feminist, but i disagree with virtually everything Jill writes and i get called mostly “asshole” here…so if i joined the club i’d feel kinda like a black klansman.
I came here via Feministing, which I learned about via a post in a community on LiveJournal. As for the influx, maybe it’s just one or two really bored idiots who like to troll blogs?
I was an antifeminist when I first came to the US, in about 1994. One feminist theory grad seminar later, I had added Feminist Theory to my degree program. Go figure đ
Apparently Feministing.org is up for a blog award, which has the anti-feminists in an uproar; they’ve created a parody site, “Feministing.com,” in response, and perhaps some of the traffic has led them over here as well. (There’s a post to this effect on Feministing.org.) How tiresome.
I think it was your mockery of “Islamo-Fascism” that did it. After all, these are people who are still running around looking for the mythical “Islamo-Fascists” who were responsible for 9/11 instead of looking for, you know, the guy who planned, financed and bragged about it. Talk about searching for your keys under the lamppost — these guys are searching everywhere but under the lamppost while the rest of us are going, “But I can see them! They’re right there! Why won’t you just go and pick them up!”
Cluft – it’s the other way around. feministing.com is the real site, feministing.org is the (extraordinarily poorly-done) “satire” site.
It seems that everyone is posting on how they found Feministe. I actually found your blog via Lenin’s Tomb, a Marxist-Leninist website and Amanda Marcotte’s Pandagon. I decided to check out what Feminism was all about, and I decided to join the club. As for the anti-feminists, they are merely neo-con trolls that were shocked by your 9/11 and War on Terror posts. Just ignore them. If they really believed half the stuff they said, they would have formed militias by now, but they will probably push for a war with Iran. I really hope not since we would be bombing the same people who held a candlelight vigil on 9/11.
Out of curiosity – how do you deal with their comments? We’re having them big time over at our German feminist blog.
I made my way over here after reading Jill on the Huffington Post. I disagreed with her thesis regarding beauty pageants (for reasons I am too busy/lazy to get into now), I enjoyed aspects of the article and, after noticing she is a fellow law student, made my way over to this little blog. Since then, I’ve been reading the posts here with some frequency. Sometimes I agree with statements made as they are written. Sometimes I disagree, and usually I find myself unsure of what I think of a particular post but I find myself enjoying the discussion and fresh perspective. Am I an “anti-feminist?” I don’t know. I’ve never thought of myself that way. To the extent I qualify, you can blame Arianna Huffington for my presence and blame the conservative blogs for something else.
Rochus, we have our settings adjusted so that all new posters must be approved. Very often, you get one-hit wonders like the three or four who are in our moderation queue right now, raving about lonely feminists sleeping with cats. Abusive comments just hang out there for a while until we’ve all had a good laugh at their expense, then they move into the spam filter. Akismet is a pretty good spam filter, since it learns (though not perfectly; I often have to fish out regular posters from there). If the one-hit wonders turn into repeat customers, they go right into the spam filter. We also have moderation lists and blacklists. We do get some persistent little buggers, and occasionally we will post the content of their comments for general mockery. But no, I don’t feel any obligation to let abusive comments through.
greennotGreen Says: Thereâs blood in the water. The twelve year-old boy was so covered in sharks that the smaller sharks had to attack something else. I think that’s exatly right. Over at my place, I’m having a bunch of Compulsive Centrist Disorderists, and flat-out rightwingers showing up over the last couple of days. I think the pounding they’re getting over the S-CHIP thing is driving them crazy, and they’re more motivated than usual to lash out at whomever they can by leaving jackass comments: the mysogynist crap is largely because they’re too stupid to be creative.
Yeah I have no idea what’s going on. All I know is we have about half a dozen comments in our spam queue right now, all of which are from anit-feminist trolls LOLing and rambling incoherently. Yet I can’t find any links through sitemeter, bloglines or technorati that point in the direction of a right-wing blog. It remains a mystery…
You donât include me in this lot, do you Jill? I mean, we gots history. Of course not darling. You’re not a newbie đ
Yeah I have no idea whatâs going on. All I know is we have about half a dozen comments in our spam queue right now, all of which are from anit-feminist trolls LOLing and rambling incoherently. Yet I canât find any links through sitemeter, bloglines or technorati that point in the direction of a right-wing blog. It remains a mystery⌠Hmm, LOLing, rambling incoherency and links are nonexistent? Any mention of ‘Anonymous?’ It might be 4chan trolls again.
Jill wrote: “There seems to be a major influx of you guys lately.” Maybe all the Jesus Camps are off on fall break and have a lot of free time…
I’ve been getting them too, way more than usual. I let them post once and then tell them to piss off and ban them, unless they are obscene, in which case I ban them outright. They are easy to track down. Just go to Whois, type in the IP number, and up their location comes on a handy map. I don’t let them take control of my blog, because I have seen trolls ruin feminist blogs.
I think it is because feministing is up for a weby award and there seems to be a comment battle about the evils of feminists. I found you guys through feministing, but I am not a newbie and certainly not an anti-feminist.
Tim – I’ll take my cat over the asshole who took my money, wrecked my career, slept with his foster daughter in my house, stole my possessions, and gave me an STD. Love and kisses – Ellid
We’re even getting a few people who’ve been away for a while but have come back to whine about how their ex-wives are ripping them off.
Heh. I’m afraid anyone complaining about how their ex-wives are ripping them off had better show me a copy of their divorce decree. My ex-husband did the money-leech dance about me getting my /own/ money back, and that without interest… Gee, think there’s a gestalt there? Anyways, I always marvel at the sheer lack of perspective of people who think Jill and Feministe are the bleeding edge of wild paranoid misandry. I’m here because Jill has a tendency towards clear prose, good evidence and rationality. There are people in the feminist blogosphere who *I* think are misandrist, and I’m a dirty liberal feminist. I can barely imagine the Timmies’ reaction to those….
Oh, and hey, don’t use misandry. It’s their word, one that allows freepers and trolls to stereotype feminists as man haters. Frames. Frames. Read your Lakoff.
how did you find us I honestly can’t remember… Anyway, I’m not anti-feminist, just anti-political correctness / runaway, knee-jerk leftism. Feminism doesn’t have to equal Democratic Party / socialism, ya know! Just because you’re pro-choice and pro-social security doesn’t mean you have to support gun control and multiculturalism. Indeed, true feminism, as in ‘a philosophy that genuinely empowers women’ would be a carefully balanced mix of ‘left’ and ‘right’ viewpoints. But above all it would be fiercely pro-technology, because only technology can correct nature’s many imperfections, and truly set us free.
Out of curiosity – how do you deal with their comments? Weâre having them big time over at our German feminist blog. Zuzu already addressed this, but our general comment policy is “Our blog, our discretion.” We each moderate comments on our own posts, and we each have different standards for what we let through. Zuzu is good about getting out the ban-stick when people get out of control. I tend to let most comments through unless they’re clearly just trying to be offensive and aren’t actually expressing any real interest in productive conversation. If comments are threatening or flat-out rude, I don’t usually let them through. Like Zuzu said, we pay for this space, and we put all kinds of time and energy into maintaining it. The internets is a big place, and I don’t feel like I need to provide a forum for anti-feminists to attack the rest of us. If they want to bitch about meanie feminists, they can create their own blogs. I’ve also seen some great blogs get overrun with anti-feminist commenters, to the point where I don’t feel comfortable commenting there anymore. At the same time, I’ve also seen some great blogs turn into complete echo chambers, where any dissent or questioning is deleted. We try our best to strike a balance here. We don’t always succeed, largely because I tend to err on the side of letting offensive comments through. So I think it’s best to try to come up with a coherent policy, and to not feel obligated to provide someone a platform when they’re being a dick.
Iâve also seen some great blogs get overrun with anti-feminist commenters, to the point where I donât feel comfortable commenting there anymore. At the same time, Iâve also seen some great blogs turn into complete echo chambers, where any dissent or questioning is deleted. We try our best to strike a balance here. We donât always succeed, largely because I tend to err on the side of letting offensive comments through. And you (and Zuzu) do one hell of a job, Jill. One of the reasons I read Feministe is because you are one of the most consistently engaging, challenging, and well-reasoned blogs I’ve found. You do an excellent job of taking the time to respond to comments on your posts (which must be rough, considering the volume of posts you manage), and your moderation tends towards increasing discussion rather than supporting a POV. Keep up the good work, the news is great and I still have some learning ahead of me.
Feminism doesnât have to equal Democratic Party, ya know! Just because youâre pro-choice and pro-social security doesnât mean you have to support gun control Indeed you are correct. I am both pro-choice and pro-gun. There are plenty of feminists who believe in the 2nd Amendment. I am sure you have heard of the Second Amendment Sisters. Besides, I am also pro-gay and there’s a gay rights and gun rights organization called the Pink Pistols.
Just because youâre pro-choice and pro-social security doesnât mean you have to support gun control and multiculturalism. Isn’t it kind of odd for someone with a Chinese name to say you don’t support “multiculturalism”?
3 yrs here and it was the festival.. WoW been along time eh.. I am not a troll, least I hope not.. ((checks her green cheeks with the wart)) well I might be, but not the kind you’re looking for! Hehhe **jedi mind trick** I read a lot of various blogs, but all of them match my view point. I don’t read Feministing anymore because more then 1 of my comments were always deleted.. Didn’t understand that, so I stopped reading. (being a newbie and all 3 yrs ago, yeah you tend to make mistakes and since I still can’t post there with out someone deleting my comments, I rather not deal with it) BTW has anyone heard from Twisty?! I am getting worried, she hasn’t answered my email to her and I have no idea if anything is wrong.
Isnât it kind of odd for someone with a Chinese name to say you donât support âmulticulturalismâ? Assuming Yao C is actually Chinese, he may have fallen for the American historical “myth of the melting pot” where one can easily integrate into US society by forsaking all your old cultural traditions and adopt and conform to the prevailing “American culture”. Though I was fortunate to have family and open-minded older neighbors and school teachers, too many of my Asian-American high school classmates had parents who refused to teach them anything about their familial language and culture.
Introduced by my good friend Danielle of TruthSeekers Nah – ya wouldna reckanize me onna street : ) Glad to see y’all kickin !
At the danger of making it sound like an echo chamber (or maybe a lovefest?), I have to agree with those who said that you strike a good moderation policy. I don’t believe in the right to spew hate on other peoples’ blogs, yet I appreciate the diversity of opinion here. Can’t remember how I found this place – maybe through Alas, A Blog? Was a long time ago though, back in Lauren’s days (and before Jill joined). This blog is one of the reasons I’ve become more outspoken pro-feminist in recent years.