Sorry Rapscallion, you shot yourself in the foot by trying to compare workplace bullying with anonymous internet bullying- again, show me a healthy person with everything working out in their lives, until one dark day an anonymous villain took your photo and said "slut" on it on a remote corner of a site with thousands upon thousands of pages....

I personally find the notion that copying someone's photo and calling her a slut on a different page could be a punishable offense of bullying or slander to be overkill.

Houellebecq, too right about the nazis- we will fight them on the twitter pages, we will fight them on the Kalymdor plains in Warcraft....

What amazes me is that the implications of legal or government action against websites or web users for mere speech is totally lost on some people- who ironically, use the internet to communicate (and not with much ettiquite I might add). A possible consequence is that many corrupt politicians or businessmen or religious organizations could actually sue people for any accusations that might actually link to a real scandal but they could keep enough incriminating details hidden from a court (or the person simply couldn't afford the legal expenses).

Personally, I'm more comfortable with the most important medium of information and communication on the planet be kept free to criticize whatever or whoever one wants, and undisturbed by outside bodies, than allow outside organizations to interfere with it with full authority. I tend to smell the religious defamation laws and the netfilter in these proposals. In short, a serious information medium, and not just an entertainment playground for thin-skinned wowsers.

Pynchme

<"Women have always been scapegoated for society's moral behaviour.">

Just because some people criticise their choices doesn't, of itself, prove that they are being expected to wear all of the blame. You would also need to prove that men aren't getting criticised, which you will find rather difficult.

"You talked about men leaving nice girls to play the field. Where does the pressure or desire to play the field come from?"

I think that it is biologically programmed. This doesn't imply that we cannot overcome these urges.

"Nobody has trouble acknowledging that women make stupid and selfish choices; it just so happens though that men's choices are legitimated in major social institutions and in societal expectations."

Men are told to face up to consequences of our choices like a "real man". The biggest obstacle in this is that people dislike being asked to help those who will-not help themselves. Hence, any criticism of men on OLO is guaranteed to provoke a barrage of "what about you women" type responses. These will then be interpreted as expecting her to take all blame. I agree that this would be unfair, but....just because some people criticise their choices doesn't, of itself, prove that they are being expected to wear all of the blame.

Despite all of the progress that society has made, there is still an undertone of paternalism. Women need to be protected from criticism. Men can be expected to solve all of their problems.

I don't like bullying in any shape or form.
However, I don't believe it is mainly men who have the monopoly on girl hatred. Other girls can be even more cruel to each other than the boys.

While we have sites like this 'slut page' on the internet, and other sites that have girls comparing male lover's penis size and sexual prowess online, there will always be bullies of both genders around.

Both genders are equally cruel to each other really.

King Hazza "show me a healthy person with everything working out in their lives, until one dark day an anonymous villain took your photo and said "slut" on it on a remote corner of a site with thousands upon thousands of pages...." that's a massive misrepresentation of what's being discussed. I suspect that you know that already.

How likely is it that the anonymous person won't ensure that people who know the victim find out about the site? How likely no future prospective partner will run an internet search on the name of the person they are just starting to get to know? How likely that a prospective employer won't run a similar search and find tasteless comments which in some comments will color their views?

A lot of work has gone into ensuring that those remote corners of sites with thousands upon thousands of pages can be found with the most basic of search skills.

Suzie excellent post.

R0bert

Robert- the point is somebody will have to search for them- actually LOOK for them- in the same way someone would have to actually go to the graffitied section under the bridge that is out of their way- likely to specifically look for the derogatory message.

An employer? Rejecting employing somebody because someone ELSE online slagged off about them? Are you serious? It would be like you hearing someone slagging off another person in the pub. You would have to actually ask someone to prove/clarify it before you believed it.

Now, if these people actually tried to illustrate a potentially believable scenario (that did NOT happen) defaming someone online, then yes- THEN you would have a defamation case. But some site where people slag others off and use derogatory remarks is hardly on the same level.

It would be like me saying John Howard is a baby-eater.
Yes, just like that.
How many people are going to find this comment and gasp "Oh no, I never thought he would do such a thing."

Therein lies the difference between slagging and defaming- a lot of nonsense would have to be written to try to frame Howard as a baby-eating cannibal.

But it also connects to the slippery slope of conspiracy sites that make elaborate conspiracies about world domination or Israeli plots etc. Should we censor those or just let them run and dismiss it with counter-evidence.

Censoring remarks on the net is harder than it looks- which is why the US doesn't casually censor Bill O'Reilly's arguably actually dangerous statements- because it overrides potentially liberties too much just to stop one man from spreading disinformation.

Now, I think my point about 'otherwise healthy' should be obvious. If no healthy person has ever succumbed to internet bullying, then OBVIOUSLY they had other troubles and the problem was therefore the failure for any corrections to be addressed to that. The alternative is to leave the problem and have the internet censored, just so their OTHER problem simply doesn't have anything added to it.

It is becoming more clear now?

pynchme,

'... I feel obliged to put out information re: female experience. Which isn't the same as saying that some women aren't bitches, just that not all are.'

Which is all I'm doing. The all men are bastards propaganda is everywhere.

I liked your harmless comics as misogyny crap. If a woman comedienne laughs at guys dicks or something it's just a joke (rightly). Any reference to anything derogatory about women, even in cartoons is just but another example of the innate misogyny of men in your world.

You keep riling against men's fantasies and I'll get a group together to ban vibrators that reduce men to just a penis!

'Women have always..'
Done the dishes, put the toilet seat down, blah blah blah. It's all we ever hear.

'Who in society is calling him to account? '
Um, how about.. the government.

'Nobody has trouble acknowledging that women make stupid and selfish choices'
No, but it's never called misandry is it now.

'honour killings of their own daughters'
Case in point. No women would ever kill her own daughter. A man must have made her!

'societal expectations'
Say it again. I love that stuff! Ramp it up love!

'help keep you all in line'
You really don't know much about men do you?

'and women reading it seemed indifferent, what would you think?'
So, that people skim over poverty in Africa and starving children is evidence they hate children and poor people?

'exploited, abused, killed and loathed by women.'
Oh, misogyny is only by men? So men being killed by men isn't ever misogyny?
I suppose you think if women ran the world there would be no war? And if women had been in power, any hardship encountered by men would be misandry. That clears it up. Thanks.

'less power relative to OTHER men might detach themselves from an exploitative system. '
Men understand in life there is always and has to be a pecking order. Some winners some losers. That's why the feminist talking stick everyone gets a prize stuff never works.