ColumnAny woman who goes online knows that in order to survive, you have to never read the comments, and know that at any moment, some bonehead could call you stupid, sexy, or a bitch based on anything you write, tweet, or snap.

This story isn’t new. But no matter how many reports concerning online bullying are penned, or the number of women who speak out about being harassed online, the story doesn’t change. In fact, it just seems to get worse. A few recent examples of this annoyingly old sexist story concern a depressing article written by a “journalist” about Sky Ferreira, and a series of hate tweets directed toward a woman.

This boob’s profile

Art Tavana wrote an article that appeared on the LA Weekly’s site on Friday, June 17. The piece was billed as “edgy”—something most weekly rags do quite well. But in the article’s first paragraph, Tavana’s attempt to be “edgy” and provocative falls flat, flopping into totally disgusting, sexist territory.

Tavana compares the work—and breasts—of Sky Ferreira and Madonna repeatedly. Sure, it’s fine to compare Ferreira’s work to Madonna’s music—they are both pop stars—but when a writer uses multiple words to figuratively drool over Ferreira’s form, one wonders what the hell this guy was thinking. Here are a few of the things Tavana wrote:

“Both Sky and Madonna have similar breasts in both cup size and ability to cause a shitstorm.”

When describing Ferreira’s 2013 album cover: “A third unnamed group that included me couldn’t help but reminisce about Madonna’s defiantly atomic boobs — the two knockers that altered the course of human history.”

“In the now-infamous photo, taken by Argentine filmmaker Gaspar Noé, Ferreira looks like a dirtier Madonna: square jaw, strong eyebrows, lulled green eyes, crucifix, bleached blond hair, translucently pale skin and killer tits.”

“She looks like a more cherubic Sharon Stone, icy but also sweet, like a freshly licked lollipop.”

While it’s yucky that this writer thought it was totally cool to write all this stuff about Ferreira’s body, let’s not forget this piece also got the approval of the Weekly’s editors.

The editor of the article has since apologized for letting the piece run as it did, but the apology doesn’t really matter. Sure, apologies are great, but why the hell do people—specifically men—think it’s okay to write about female artists like this? Would they describe some frontman’s dick multiple times in a piece? I really don’t think so.

And I’ve never read a piece about a male pop star that just talks about his sex appeal—it always mentions his influences and music style, etc. This piece was basically just about the artist’s  looks—the writer barely mentioned her work or musical talent.

Those hate tweets

A conservative website wrote a piece about Laila Alawa, a 24-year-old entrepreneur, about a week ago. In the piece, the writer used some of Alawa’s tweets to claim she said “9-11 changed the world for good.”

Well, I think we all can agree that, yes: 9-11 did change the world for good—as in permanently–the world will never be the same. Sadly, the conservative site twisted Alawa’s words to make it seem like she said the event changed the world for the better. And to make the piece more splashy, the article also mentioned that Alawa was a homeland security advisor. Well, kind of…

“The story came after the Department of Homeland Security released a report titled Countering Violent Extremism,” CNN reports.

“Alawa was part of a subcommittee that helped brainstorm solutions for the report. She told CNNMoney that the subcommittee met about three times over a six month period and that she spent about 40 hours on it in total. Her name wasn’t on the report itself, but her involvement can be found on other documentation online.”

You can imagine how people who frequent this type of conservative site reacted to the piece. Readers bombarded Alawa with hate tweets, such as:

“I hope you die slowly in a pool of pigs blood.”

“Can I use that towel on your head to wipe my a**”

Since the conservative piece ran, Alawa has been scared for her safety.

“This has been really difficult,” Alawa says.

“[The police] didn’t understand what ‘doxxing’ meant.” CNN adds that doxxing is “a type of harassment where trolls use public platforms to dig up personal information and threaten someone’s safety.”

Since the attacks, Alawa has also been scared that her company, The Tempest, a site that “gives voice to millennial women of all ethnic backgrounds,” will suffer because of the inaccurate piece, and the online attacks.

Well, Alawa, we stand by you and the work you do. The world needs more intelligent entrepreneurs who are dedicated to stopping racism and lifting up people of all ethnicities.

Now, we know these won’t be the last instances of online harassment toward women. But it is encouraging that more people online, including women and men, are becoming fed up with the Internet’s propensity to let sexist and racist pigs spew stupidity.

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Image of Sky Ferreira via Shutterstock, Jaguar PS

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ColumnSo, you’re a professional woman and you want to have a meaningful and professional experience online. Good for you! Just be prepared to deal with a lot of inappropriate come-ons and sexism.

It’s hard enough to “act” professional online and in real life as it is, so, when a man decides to contact you about your looks rather than your qualifications, you tend to get pretty angry. And the shitty truth is that women have always had a relatively rough time online. (Since joining social media years ago, I’ve encountered more than a few handfuls of men who feign professional interest in my work only to end up hitting on me at a later date.)

Apparently, this is pretty common. Just recently, Charlotte Proudman, an English barrister and LinkedIn member, received a pretty gross message from an older male lawyer. In the message, the lawyer (more specifically, a senior partner), wrote her a message that complimented Proudman on her “stunning picture.”

According to The Atlantic, Proudman responded by posting the partner’s original message and her sharp response online for all to see. While we all can agree that a salty response from Proudman was required, many people are getting caught up in her choice to “publicly shame” the lawyer. Yeah, her decision to make this guy’s name public may not have been the best idea, but I’m happy she shared her experience for more than a few reasons:

1. Proudman made this all-too-common issue well known. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve told friends, family, and boyfriends about the “co-worker who jokingly said he’d rape me,” or the guy at the office who thought it was OK to tell me my new profile picture was “sexy.”

Everyone believed me, but couldn’t believe that men would act this way in a professional setting. And then there were the people who thought that (1) I should be happy people think I’m pretty, or (2) I must have been doing something flirtatious that made these men think it was OK to talk to me this way… Eye roll.

Obviously, I’m not the only woman who has faced this kind of treatment and I certainly won’t be the last.

2. This particular issue also shows that no matter how smart women are, or how good women are at their jobs, they will always be judged by how they look. This point was proved just this past week when a male reporter asked Serena Williams why she wasn’t smiling and carrying on after her win. Williams’ answer was honest, and in my opinion, a bit too polite. Jezebel reports her smart response as follows:

“It’s 11:30. To be perfectly honest with you, I don’t want to be here. I just want to be in bed right now and I have to wake up early to practice and I don’t want to answer any of these questions. And you keep asking me the same questions. It’s not really … you’re not making it super enjoyable.”

This is yet another one of those situations that I, and all my female friends, have been in. So many people (men and women alike) think that it’s perfectly acceptable to pick apart my face’s position at all times of the day. And since I’m naturally a serious looking person, I am always pegged as a bitch or “mean woman” at work.

Now, I doubt this issue is going away anytime soon. The day that women aren’t critiqued on their appearance or on their face’s position is probably going to be the same day that the world ends. But we can all hope that change will at least begin to come in increments.

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If you’re a woman, you’ve most likely experienced some form of harassment on social media. Twitter harassment is one of the more common examples–it seems that site is just teeming with trolls.

So, what’s so unique about Twitter harassment? It’s often times very gendered and extremely harsh. One group that’s working to help end this cruel and upsetting form of harassment is Women, Action & the Media (WAM!). WAM! works to fight for “gender equity in media access, representation,” and “employment in ownership.” One of the group’s successful campaigns targeted mean, gender-based content on Facebook. Along with the Everyday Sexism Project, the group persuaded Facebook to change its “policy regarding gender-based ‘cruel and insensitive content’.”

The group revealed its Twitter harassment campaign on November 6th. The project aims to create an effective way for Twitter users to report harassment. When realized, Twitter users will be able to fill out a form that allows them to detail the harassment. It will also track Twitter’s response to the reported harassment.

The pilot program will escalate “validated reports to Twitter and track Twitter’s response to different kinds of gendered harassment.” When the pilot test is over, WAM! will collect the data and work with Twitter to “better understand gendered harassment functions on their platform,” reports Jezebel.

In a WAM! press release, the group reports that a PEW study found that 25 percent of young women have been sexually harassed online, and 26 percent have been stalked.

As an active Twitter user and a female, I think this is a great move. I hope the program yields successful results and that gendered Twitter harassment will soon become a thing of the past.

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