From the Archive: #DearJohn - another hashtag of note

"From the Archive" is a series of posts that I wrote on past, no-longer-updated blogs that I feel are good enough to need a new home.

This post was originally written in January 2011.



This time, it's not horrifying the way #rulesforgirls was.

The #DearJohn hashtag started in response to the HR3 bill - which is on the surface about federally-funded abortion but more importantly would re-define rape to include ONLY instances of force. Rapes that involve coercion or drugs, as well as statutory rape and incest on anyone over 18, would not be covered if they resulted in a pregnancy that the woman wanted to terminate.



Basically, it's a giant clusterf@#$ that serves only to endanger women and empower rapists.

So some awesome feministas have taken to Twitter, much like they did with the #mooreandme tag, to address tweets to Speaker of the House John Boehner, explaining to the self-righteous, overly-spray-tanned disaster of a speaker that HR3 is disgusting, appalling and unacceptable. They are also directed at different members of Congress to urge them to vote AGAINST this terrible bill.

The original call to action (with hashtag) appeared on Tiger Beatdown. They also linked to a site where you can find your representative and write to them.



I don't know if a Twitter campaign can truly change policy. I'd like to think it can - it certainly shows that the people are unhappy with this bill, and theoretically it's the people that Congress was elected to represent. I'd like to think at least some Representatives see what their constituents think and act accordingly. It's also somewhat heart-warming to see people use social media this way. In between idiocy and terrible grammar, people are speaking out about something important.

From the Archive: My rule for girls is not to listen to sexist hashtags

"From the Archive" is a series of posts that I wrote on past, no-longer-updated blogs that I feel are good enough to need a new home.

This post was originally written in January 2011.

OK, it's going to seem like a major idea rip-off, because Jezebel now has a post up on this very idea. But I have been rolling it around in my head, trying to think of something coherent to say that wasn't just a string of curse words. But I'll keep it brief, because now it's been covered.

The #rulesforgirls tag on Twitter is disgusting. Appalling. Horrifying. Etc.

And for awhile there, it was trending.

So it's a collection of "tips" for the ladies. That in and of itself is a bad idea - why do women need a whole separate set of rules to follow? I'm not sure if what's worse - the tweets that are deliberately malicious "jokes" or the ones that appear to be sincere.

There's a lot of "fat chicks shouldn't wear leggings/get tattoos/exist in public and be happy" and of course rules on properly conducting yourself regarding the sexytimes, but there are also lots of sad gender role upholding. For example, "cook for him in stilettos" and "don't behave like a dude." (I'm not entirely sure what that even means.)

And it looks like now there's a #rulesformen tag trending. Guess what? It's still pretty anti-woman sounding. It tells men what kind of women to avoid and what to have women do or not do for them. So, no matter who the tags are aimed at, they're still all about what women can do for men.

And don't get me started on why men are men but women are girls. Plus, Twitter grammar makes my soul die a little.

Facebook's Sex Trafficking Problem: A Follow-Up

So, the Sonagachi Facebook page has finally been removed. This is a good thing, and I'm proud to be part of the group of people who worked to have it done.

But I'm also incredibly disappointed in Facebook. Why did it take this much work to remove a page that was blatantly graphic and in promotion of human trafficking? Why was this example of violence against women not immediately recognized as a violation of their terms of service?

In light of WAM's successful campaign to get Facebook to agree to give gender-based hate speech the same treatment as homophobic, anti-Semitic, racist, Islamophobic, etc, hate speech, it seems especially appalling that it took as much effort as it did to have this removed.

Here is a brief overview of the process of reporting this page:

June 4
-My friend Liz discovered the page while doing research into the Sonagachi district for a blog post she is writing.
-She shared the page with a Facebook group that we are both members of, asking anyone who could stomach looking at the page to please report it.
-Many of us reported it as sexually graphic content.
-After a short period of time, those of us who reported it began receiving the emails saying it would not be removed (I included the language in my post last night). Many of us filled out the feedback form with some strongly-worded disagreement.
-Some of us reported it a second time, only to receive the same email, and fill out the feedback again.
-Liz wrote about the process on her own blog. Another friend, Slay Belle, wrote about it for the Powder Room section of Jezebel.
-We share these posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, sometimes tweeting at well-known feminist activists and groups who might also promote the issue.
-Emails were sent to WAM

June 5
-The Jezebel post was promoted to the first page of the site.
-More people tweeted at Nick Kristof, Anderson Cooper, and other individuals they thought might be interested in the story.
-Women's Media Center shared Liz's blog post
-Liz's post was also published on Persephone Magazine
-The Daily Dot picked up the story
-Another member of the same original Facebook group created a Change.org petition (which has been refocused to be a more general plea for the site to take trafficking pages more seriously)
-The Sonagachi fan page was removed

I repeat my question: why did it take almost a full day, dozens of reports, a social media barrage, and blog attention to get this page removed? Why was it not enough that it was full of graphic imagery and victimization of women, many of whom appear underage?

Why, despite their recent promises, does Facebook still not care about women?

Remembering and Forgetting Online

For one of my classes I'm reading a book by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger called Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age. It covers many different aspects of forgetting and remembering, and how a switch to digital media has altered the way humans do that, but one thing that struck me is the age-old (or digital-age-old) debate about how social networking can affect our professional lives.

Early in the book we are introduced to a woman who was denied a teaching license because she had a picture of herself on her MySpace page wearing a pirate hat and holding a drink. There are plenty of people out there who would say, well, then she shouldn't be posting pictures like that online. Anyone can see them and you deserve what you get and so on. It's the same argument that comes about when you hear of someone being fired for complaining about their job on their own Facebook page.

I hate that argument. A lot. See, if this woman was in the process of obtaining a teaching license, she had to at least be old enough to be through college. Unless she's a Dougie Howser-style genius, she's probably in her mid-twenties. Certainly of legal drinking age. Now, a review of the book mentions that there may have been other factors in her denial for a license than just the photo, however, it shouldn't have been a factor at all. Personal activity, unless illegal or wildly unethical (no, drinking does not count as unethical, nor does profanity or consensual adult sex), ought not to be held against people who are otherwise qualified.

Many of our interactions happen online. I'll be posting tomorrow about internet-based friendships. So, naturally, that's where our conversations about work or our photos from parties will end up. Before, yes, they may have stayed confined to a phone conversation or personal scrapbook, but people were still behaving the same way. Just because these things are easier to find doesn't mean it's alright to use them against people.

The job market is awful right now. It's really bad. I don't have to tell anyone that. Employers are at such an advantage that they can put applicants through intense, rigorous, borderline ridiculous screening processes for pretty low-level positions. As it already is, we have to be nearly perfect to even get our resumes considered for anything other than the circular file. Companies should not be adding to this by scrutinizing what we post as normal daily activities. It places an unprecedented and undue burden of perfection on people. But people aren't perfect. We never have been. We aren't doing anything different than we did in the analog age; we just have a new way of documenting it. Holding things against us that would easily have been ignorable before just creates a standard no one can live up to.

Let people have their privacy. Just because a profile is there doesn't mean it needs to be seen by everyone. We have a right to a personal, non-professional life. Assuming legality and ethics, the two need not inhibit each other.