Fear as a Way of Life: Why Women In Comics Don’t ‘Just Report’ Sexual Harassment

[el_bryanto]

This is an article by Juliet Kahn at Comics Alliance about societal control in the Comics Industry that is very easily applicable in a lot of other areas as well.

Men in general, but especially nerdy men, are used to having their whims satisfied as swiftly, entirely, and luridly as possible. It comes as no surprise, then, that their anger knows no lines. A woman’s family, friends, career, and sanity are all fair game. If they’re angry, and she’s a woman, they must be in the right.

As women decide not to take this treatment any longer, they leave a tide of confused men in their wake, wondering at their passion and swelling ranks. They (confident of their cool, masculine, logical objectivity) don’t see all this so-called harassment. And it doesn’t seem like it really gets that bad. It seems entirely possible to them that the more violent threats are faked by the women themselves. They (impartial observers that they are) know that, well, women really do crave attention, and get sort of carried away with their feelings. Games and comics have no place for them, really! That’s just the market—the perfectly rational, not-at-all-affected-by-fluctuating-cultural-mores market! If women are going to put controversial opinions out there then they should be ready to handle blowback! I mean, they, as guys, get yelled at all the time on Xbox Live! These men roll their eyes. Guess women just can’t handle real gender equality.

I’m indulging fear right now. There are names I could be plastering everywhere, men I could be calling out, reports I could be making. But I’m afraid. I’m afraid of the power these men wield and those who might rush to their aid. I’m afraid of how it might affect my family and friends. I’m afraid of how it might affect my career. I’m afraid of how it might affect me. And I’m afraid of how utterly reasonable every single one of my fears are.

And somewhere, a man is asking: Why don’t women speak up about harassment?

Well worth considering, and if you are a guy, asking yourself if you contribute to this culture of repression.

Bryant

[Nye Bevan]

1. Is there a lot of sexual harrassment in the Marvel universe?

Perhaps this would not be considered a compelling storyline?

[el_bryanto]

3. I suppose there would be

But the denizens of the Marvel Universal are fictional. I guess I'm more concerned with sexual harassment that involves flesh and blood women.

Bryant

[Orsino]

4. Hulk smash patriarchy!

It would be nice to see superheroics applied to misogyny in the comics pages. That's a route to change.

[Recursion]

7. Well, the new Ms. Marvel seems like a possibility

She's a teenage Muslim girl from New Jersey. It anybody's going to smash the patriarchy, it's going to be someone like that.

[Orsino]

8. The occasional butt-kicking female hero doesn't seem to cut it.

The fan-child, to coin a term, hasn't been moved much by these characters. I guess what I was thinking of would be an overarching story, in which male and female heroes join forces to fight inequality in general.

Such a thing could get preachy pretty easily.

[Recursion]

9. Fair point

I was just giving the character her due.

[el_bryanto]

10. It would be tricky to do

It could be preachy - and of course you also have the issue of superheros basically being able to force people to do as they like.

That said - i think the success of Ms. Marvel is a good sign - Marvel in general is putting out a lot of female led books, and several of them are finding an audience, which is great to see.

Bryant

[hfojvt]

34. Way way back in the 1960s

there was this character Valkyrie (who later re-appeard as one of the Defenders) and she got all the female Avengers to attack all the male Avengers before she was unmasked as an old enemy of the Avengers and defeated. The story was re-printed in the "Giant sized" series which came out in the mid 1970s.

That's the only story I can remember which sort of touched on "women's lib" although there were letters from readers which complained that "Valkyrie never actually is shown doing anything except waving around her sword" and also complained that she carried a sword which is a rather gory weapon (I mean who wants to see arms lopped off and such? but then again, the Human Torch could burn an enemy, although he never did, usually just capturing people by circling them with flame or some such.)

[BlancheSplanchnik]

5. there are tons of posts right here at DU from women who confirm similar experiences

Of threat and harassment by angry males, and they are disbelieved by other angry males.

The comment by the OPoster, that the article's point applies in a multitude of other areas, is very true.

I see you jumping in attempting to deny, derail or minimize the reality for women, that we face threatening pressure and anger from men as a given.

Women frequently talk here about the fact that as the article is entitled, Fear is a Way of Life...and I see you jump in like this time and again, pretending that you are so superior and rational, and RIGHT, because....women are wrong, as Julie Kahn states,

Men in general, but especially nerdy men, are used to having their whims satisfied as swiftly, entirely, and luridly as possible. It comes as no surprise, then, that their anger knows no lines. A woman’s family, friends, career, and sanity are all fair game. If they’re angry, and she’s a woman, they must be in the right.

I see you do this again and again. Always feigning innocence, as if you weren't being disingenuous, as if you weren't out to attack our credibility.

[LanternWaste]

12. My grandmother told me that the simpleton will often fool himself much more often...

"always feigning innocence, as if you weren't being disingenuous, as if you weren't out to attack our credibility..."

My grandmother had a habit of telling me that the simpleton will often fool himself much more often than he fools others. Her disposition was to allow the simpleton to feed himself enough rope on his own, then enjoy watching him eventually hang himself with it.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

16. your grandmother sounds pretty cool!

I do like to point them out, so they get the attention they deserve.

[AndyTiedye]

46. We Have Seen Similar Accounts from All Sorts of Places

I do not doubt any of this except the claim that "nerdy men" are more prone to this than other men.

The most recent sexual harassment stories we have heard in the media involved NFL football players, who are about as far from being nerds as one can get.

In the workplace, it often comes down to an abuse of power that they have as a result of their job position, and the article bears this out.

Perhaps the reason that most of the unwanted attention she gets is from nerdy men is that she is by her own account a nerdy woman.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

52. I think you're over focusing on one very small part of the whole.

The Nerd aspect. She's focusing on the "nerdy", Gaming community, because THAT is her world. She's in that world, clearly seeing the dynamics play out (at her expense).

I see the issue applying to Male Groups of all kinds. There's even a name for it..I don't have time right now, but I'd google "aggression in male bonding groups" or something like that.

[seabeyond]

2. excellent post el bryanto. and when do speak out??? nt

[Recursion]

6. Great point (nt)

[daredtowork]

11. The Methods to Shut Women Up are Routine

For women the worst thing is they are so easy to recognize. You can see it coming a mile away. But pointing it out doesn't matter because everything around you is structured to enable men to shut women up when they try to talk about misogyny.

I can boil it down to 3 basic steps. You see this same approach used anywhere "men in packs" can be mobilized: Wikipedia, Reddit, various forums.

Scenario: woman makes a comment men want to shut down - probably about misogyny.

1) Men adopt an intellectually-superior pseudo-rational posture. They say their views are objective/neutral/scientific and then demand women meet the standards they set out in order to disprove the male POV which has been posited as supreme. The woman is expected to buckle under and self-censor from sheer awe at male argumentative prowess.

2) If the woman doesn't bow to cheap rhetorical tricks, the man then invites friends and attempts to bully with numbers. If it's an editing site, an "editing war" ensues. If it's a voting site, the goal is to vote down the woman so her comment gets hidden. On a forum, the goal might just to be to overwhelm the woman with so many negative comments that she will feel unpopular, so therefore she must be wrong.

3) If the woman still hasn't been subjugated by the first two tactics, men seek to game the system. They look for exploits and obscure rules that they themselves don't follow. They trick other people into enforcing the rules for them. This used to be an egregious problem on Wikipedia where there are a LOT of obscure rules, and the game was to trick an admin to lock the article on your last edit.

Why are the above problems misogyny? Can't women do these things, too? Women aren't perfect. Women can certainly do mean, sneaky, and manipulative things.

I would argue, though, that it is mostly men that coordinate the above efforts as "pack" activities and view exploiting the system as a legitimate way to "win". I have never seen any of the above done by groups of women. I have a further argument about where men get acculturated to these practices, but I'm not allowed to make it here since these very practices have already been used against me.

As I said, EVERYTHING is structured to disallow women to do anything about it.

And, yes, it is very frustrating to be called "paranoid" and "defensive" when you're actually a very level-headed person and know exactly what's going on.

[snooper2]

13. did you used to be here before?

[daredtowork]

15. ^Here is an example

I bet this dude is looking into some sock puppet rule or duplicate/resurrected account rule or something similar as we speak.

You've got nothing on that one, dude. Try again.

[Luminous Animal]

25. Yep.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

17. ^^^

Well said.

[starroute]

14. And there are comic fans like my son who are doing their best to fight this crap

Not all nerdy men are jerks. My son and his friends have been doing everything they can to encourage strong female characters and female creators in the comics industry, but that may not be enough. I don't have the details yet, but he was at a comics convention over the weekend where he attended a panel on Feminism and Fandom, and I think that's got him thinking about what more he could be doing.

[Matariki]

18. nerdy men are "used to having their whims satisfied as swiftly, entirely, and luridly as possible"?

who knew.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

19. I, for one, did not know that.

[Codeine]

21. As perhaps the nerdiest man on DU I can assure you

that I, at least, am not used to having any such thing occur.

And I'm perfectly fine with that.

[el_bryanto]

22. I think this refers to entertainment needs -

Comic books and games reflect their whims pretty thoroughly.

Bryant

[Art_from_Ark]

23. So the Pee Wee Hermans, Jerry Lewises, and Mr. Beans of this world

are "used to having their whims satisfied as swiftly, entirely, and luridly as possible". As Gomer Pyle would say, "Go-o-o-o-o-olllly!"

[el_bryanto]

29. Did it occur to you to try an understand what the author meant? nt

[Luminous Animal]

36. Apparently not. Clicking on the link and reading the entire thing is tooooo haaaaaard.

Thank you for the OP.

[Art_from_Ark]

48. Yes, I tried to understand what the author was trying to say

But "nerdy men" is not the proper term. The author seems to be trying to describe "alpha males", who are the exact opposite of "nerdy men".

[el_bryanto]

50. Apparently you didn't try very hard

Within the realms that nerds and geeks have had power, many of them do act like alpha males. And they've acted horribly towards women.

Bryant

[Orrex]

51. I have a thought about this, from my own experience

I've participated in a number of group-organized events over the years, ranging from the "Society for Creative Anachronism" to local community organizations, to convention/event coordination, to in-office groups in charge of selecting a sympathy gift for a deceased coworker. What I've observed there is also true of the PTA, softball leagues, planning committees, and here on DU (many times over, in fact).

Even in sub-groups nominally claiming to be free of the preconceptions of society-at-large, once the sub-group becomes an entity unto itself and is free to set its own rules, the members of the group immediately start re-stratifying along the same lines as the larger society that the members claim to reject. As in society-at-large, the stratification is driven by those few who claim authority to do so and who stand to benefit from choosing the pecking order. And, once entrenched, the ones in power will work protect their position above all else.

Regarding the "nerdy men" in the venues described by the article, I have no doubt that the misogyny and abuse occur exactly as described because I've seen it happen online for decades. It's an arena in which they feel empowered, and they use that power to further their own interests while subjugating those they identify as challenges to their authority.

This doesn't mean that any particular individual in a sub-group must necessarily turn into (or self-reveal as) an authoritarian asshole, but rather that microcosms of society tend overwhelmingly to reflect society as a whole.

Much like the observation made by Christian Slater's character in Heathers during the film's climactic scene.

As above, so below.

[NaturalHigh]

24. Yeah, I quit reading after that.

[Luminous Animal]

27. Really. Because that came almost at the end of the article.

[NaturalHigh]

31. Really. It's in the first paragraph of the article excerpt above.

See OP for further details.

[Luminous Animal]

35. It's a bad habit of mine to actually read the entire article before passing judgment.

Something something about informed comment that my teachers and parents taught me or something.

[NaturalHigh]

37. As I said, I stopped reading after that comment.

Thank you for your kind concern though.

[Luminous Animal]

38. Did you say something? I had my fingers in my ears. Lalalalalala.

[NaturalHigh]

39. You should get that checked.

[The Straight Story]

49. Kind of like 50 shades of Gray. Some folks said they didn't need to read the book, just excerpts.

Probably best to read the whole article.

[justiceischeap]

28. It needs to be taken in context

of the genre the author is writing about and her social peers (the author is 23, I looked her up). Nerd does not mean the same thing to that generation as say a generation that grew up with the Revenge of the Nerds movies.

[hfojvt]

30. ESPECIALLY nerdy men

we are, like, the worst.

[el_bryanto]

41. Well nerdy sexist and/or misogynist men at least. nt

[seabeyond]

45. you have not heard the same conversation in the sports culture? or frat boy culture? or richie rich

culture?

[redgreenandblue]

32. Yeah. In that case, I'd like a cheeseburger.

With fries please

[NaturalHigh]

33. Cheeseburger and fries?

If this is true, I'm getting filet mignon. Now! Right now!

[Eleanors38]

42. On a linear scale, a jock must be swimming in sex.

[JVS]

43. Yeah, that set off the bullshit meter.

[FSogol]

44. Geez, I need a beer, but I guess, I'm just not nerdy enough to have all my wishes fulfilled.

LURIDLY!

[UtahLib]

20. K&R great post. nt

[Capt. Obvious]

26. As a wise man once said

With great power come great responsibility.

[Luminous Animal]

40. K&R

[Starry Messenger]

47. K&R