The Reddit community has a very exhaustively self-documented problematic attitude towards women. The hashtag mentioned here is populated by people who are angry at Ellen Pao existing as the CEO of Reddit, and it takes very little effort to find highly upvoted and richly gilded content submitted by average users lambasting and chiding her for her unsuccessful sexual discrimination lawsuit, as though this is something directly relevant to them as users of a link aggregator site. The manner of expressing this dissatisfaction is by directing misogynistic and racist insults towards her. These people aren't outliers. They, their gilders, and upvoters are numerous enough to make it all the way to the top page.
To be honest, I rarely see things posted that insult women, but often see criticism of 3rd wave feminism. It depends where you happen to be browsing. You may be correct though, and it if you are then it's definitely a problem, but every online community will have a "hivemind" problem. Take Tumblr as another example, where calling for the death of white/straight/any group of people is a fairly common occurrence. It's the same problem that Reddit has, but I don't see a solution. Am I saying a solution isn't needed? No. This behaviour you're seeing isn't a result of people "hating women". I am a man studying in a technological, male-dominated field and I can assure you that myself and my friends don't go around discussing how much we hate women. The issue isn't that black and white, it's a combination of factors. First of all, anonymity means almost zero accountability. As a result people are simply more crude. We saw that happen here on Hubski with the community throwaway experiment. Also, whenever people feel like they are fighting against someone, they will bring up anything to de-legitimize and insult them. The sexual discrimination lawsuit is a good example. It's not really related to the current issue, but it's something people can bring up. As far as I can tell it's the same type of phenomenon that occurs with political caricatures. That caricature from 1805 as an example shows a very small, impish Napoleon. Does height have anything to do with Napoleon's military prowess? No. Is it mean? Yes. But when people find themselves in a situation where they feel they can place blame on individuals, they will insult those individuals in any way possible. This, combined with zero accountability can be a dangerous combination which we see happen on Reddit.
I don't see much actual criticism of feminism so much as I see trophy posting when A Woman Did Something Wrong; as though proving that there are nasty women invalidates the need for feminism. I can't say I've seen the tumblr death chanting you mentioned. Misogyny isn't "hating women" it is "treating them with contempt". After all most people who treat women badly do marry them or are have familial love for their mother, siblings, daughters and so on. People who treat women badly often think of women as people who are either naturally dishonest or inherently and childishly bad at things and thus cannot be trusted with big important decisions such as running companies or about things like whether they are ready to have kids or say no in bed. They think that women can be redeemed by being more submissive and accepting of "their place", with bonus points if they're also willing to provide assurance and gratification. And while you and your friends probably don't go around saying "Gee, we hate women, women are the worst!", I have been the only woman in technological male-dominated workplaces where I was surrounded by casual conversation that was unapologetically contemptuous about wives, girlfriends, mother-in-laws and about how marriage is a prison and they are in some kind of servitude because they have children that need attention and their partners want to share domestic tasks. If you've not encountered this, then I am amazed and also thankful you did not initiate it. It's utterly exhausting to sit through, and each comment stings with a hint of "How can I trust my $male_person loves me? Does he talk about me like this?". Does it go the other way? Sure, I've also been in workplaces where the women griped about how they go home from their full time job and it's a battle with domestic sharing because husband refuses to help after his long day at work. It's not quite equivalent, but yes, women do also have contempt for men some times. As for how anonymity makes things worse. Yes, yes it does. This is a problem which Penny Arcade illustrated fantastically back in the day before the whole dickwolves incident where they then proved that they themselves don't care if they're anonymous or not because they think the majority sides with them. See also the facebook comments on all kinds of sites where comments are a pit of debauchery. People engage in things like sexist and racist rhetoric quite freely, regardless of anonymity, when they believe that a reasonable portion of their audience agrees with them. And yes, people will use all kinds of irrelevant political caricatures. But believe it or not, a caricature that for example highlights the race of person, is still racist. Racism isn't absolved by it being motivated by wanting to blame people. Blaming Ellen for everything irrelevant because she filed a sexual discrimination lawsuit (discrimination cases have a 15% success rate apparently) is still punishing her for filing the lawsuit. At this point, I'm not sure what you think you're proving.
I don't think I'm proving anything. We're discussing something. I put forward my thoughts, you put forward yours, we think about them, things are good. My intention isn't to prove it's to discuss. I'm not so arrogant as to think for a second that I would be able to "prove" anything to you. All I was saying is that saying vile things about people "above" you is an unfortunate side effect of being human. My thoughts on racism are as follows: unless it is evident that someone harbors a hatred/contempt for a race of people, they are not racist. Words are not racist, people are. In any case, your last comment was interesting, so thanks for your thoughts. However, some parts (especially the last part) tells me that we are far too polarized in our opinions and carrying on in a civil, polite manner will be a struggle. Besides, this is the second day in a row where this thread is pretty much the first thing I saw getting up in the morning.At this point, I'm not sure what you think you're proving.
A lot of redditers are of the opinion that Pao angled her way into the reddit CEO position to give herself an advantage in her case, which is why they think it's relevant. The average reddit user has been desensitized to vicious rhetoric due to the internet, and insults have shifted to the extreme in order to retain effectiveness. This doesn't make them racist or misogynistic, it just makes them assholes.
Words have no inherent moral value. They can't be racist or misogynistic. The people posting them may very well be racist or misogynistic- or they may just be trying to emotionally damage someone that is otherwise untouchable.
Ok.