The story of a feminist take-over of a Facebook page

Update: Facebook is now blocking the link whineydudes.blogspot.com as “spam”. Also I broke a record today. I have over a thousand page views on the blog in just a few hours. The previous record was just above 700.

Update 2: Facebook doesn’t seem to be blocking links from Whiney Dudes anymore. I don’t know when they lifted it or if it was an automatic block based on the number of times it was posted in a short period, but it works again.

Most feminists already now that men lie. Just because women don’t feature much in the history books does not mean our contributions to the world don’t exist. Men have embellished their accomplishments, conveniently ignored women’s work or have claimed credit for things they haven’t done. As a result our representation in malestream media is either minor or mischaracterised. The images and footage of women are one dimensional and distorted. It is extremely rare to see a woman portrayed in mass-media as she actually is.

We have no voice and no control in this media either. When we try to speak up and speak out against these gross misrepresentations we get harassed, threatened and sometimes even assaulted. This happens everywhere, including on Facebook.

Facebook is moderated by an unknown number of people hired either directly by Facebook or outsources to other organisations. It would not be that far a leap to suggest that the vast majority of these moderators are men who are Facebook users themselves and that they do not like women, as evidenced, among others, by the following story of the experiences of me and my friends.

A few days ago the sole admin of a pornographic Facebook page called Bra-Busters asked one of my friends if she would like to be an admin of the page. He was looking for new content and had hopes that she could provide it. She agreed to this and was made an admin. Her first act as admin was to remove his admin status from the page. She subsequently invited us to co-admin with her, to which we happily agreed. This is where the trouble began.

I joined in a little later than the others and offered to take down the original content. Up until that point they had simply pushed down most of the pornographic pictures that had been posted on the site. Below is a small and less malignant sample of what the page used to contain right up the moment we started posting our own content:

I won’t post the rest of it or the comments that had been posted to the pictures, but needless to say is that the words “slut”, “whore and “bitch” had been used frequently. I spent about an hour deleting all the old posts and afterwards I felt a little sick. Not only was the objectification of the women posted, who seemed often not even aware they were being fotographed, obvious, but there was also evidence of extreme hatred for these women as well. The men loved to look a the pictures, but there was neither respect nor admiration for any of these women.

Up until the point of the take-over the page had almost 4000 likes. When we began replacing the porn with feminist imagery and messages these fans became aware of the fact that the nature of the page had changed significantly and they felt the need to revisit the page and make their sentiments known in no uncertain terms:

well fack you bra busters!! and fack you bra busters new editor bitch!! you took a small very enjoyable part of my day and have managed to piss me off by ridiculing me, go scissor your buth biker slut girlfriend.

As a joke we began to download the profile pictures of these guys and caption them with textballoon and their own words we had copied from the messages they were leaving on the page. A few examples:

This enraged them even further and they demanded that we take down the pictures. They even enlisted some of the women they knew on Facebook to get the pictures taken down. These women often had no idea what it was about and some of them were horrified when they found out what they had been asked to get in the middle of.

I apologize to you as I don’t want to be his messenger. I was told that he was unable to report the photo himself, but apparently he’s able and therefore I wish I never got into the middle of this. Whatever people were on that page now makes me sick. Thank you for sticking up for women

We refused to comply with their demands. The next day I found out the images of these dudes had been reported as “pornography”. Facebook had removed the reported images and given me and another admin a ban from posting anything on Facebook for 24 hours. As of writing this, the ban is still in place for me.

The ban and Facebook’s prior refusals to remove actual pornographic materials from Facebook that me and my friends often reported awoke us to the fact that Facebook was extremely selective in upholding it’s own “community standards“. I have never heard back from facebook about anything I have ever reported, but the moderators managed to get to us in less than 48 hours on bogus claims. Facebook’s reporting system does even make it possible to report child pornography. The closest you can get is “sexually explicit content”, which was used against us most effectively by former fans of the page.

On a brighter note, something good has come out of this after all. The captioned pictures of the guys who left derogatory comments on the page were a huge hit and we keep getting requests for more. Because facebook may delete these pictures we have been sure to make copies and they are now uploaded on this blog:

Whiney Dudes

The page called Rapebook and the subsequent blog have also chronicled Facebook’s selective moderation. Even this has not been the first instance of Facebook’s lack of content control or disrecpect to it’s clients. Facebook does its’ very best to foster a culture of hostility and bigotry and below are articles that outline Facebook’s soddy moderating history:

* Facebook’s Refusal to Shut Down Video of Woman’s Murder Disgusts Public

* An Open Letter to Facebook

* My Placenta vs. Jay-Z

* Inside Facebook’s Outsourced Anti-Porn and Gore Brigade, Where ‘Camel Toes’ are More Offensive Than ‘Crushed Heads’

* Facebook faces new privacy criticism, moderators can see info

* Network of ‘Moderators’ Decide What Photos Can Be Posted on Facebook,   Google, Other Social Media

* Facebook Uses an Army of Third World Moderators to Wade Through Flagged Content

* The dark side of Facebook

On being made a rape-victim

It happens increasingly more often, that not only do women not get justice when they report sexualised violence and threats, they also get sued for having the audacity to report the violation of their human rights. Men who accuse women of being “false” rape-accusers are often believed, but women who accuse a man of violating their rights are automatically assumed to be lying. Worse even, an immediate investigation into her entire life ensues. Everything she has ever done or said since the moment she was born is under close scrutiny, while the history of the accused in left untouched and is even off-limits to media and lawyer probing, but the women get one of the closest background-checks by an army of reporters and lawyers.

“Who is she? ” “Where was she born?” “Who were her parents and where did they come from?” “What is her name?” while we often keep the names of the accused a secret unless he is already well known. “What does she look like?” “Is she pretty?” “Has she ever had sex before?” “Was there ever a man who wanted to have sex with her?” “What does she do for a living and how much money does she make?” “Is she involved in politics?” “Has she ever had an abortion?”

In short, the race is on to find evidence of a lack of moral character. They will keep digging till they found something and what they can’t find, they make up. Her phone gets tapped, her e-mail account broken into and she is followed around day and night. She becomes an instant celebrity if the man accused is high-profile enough and it always ends badly for her. The women who reported Assange, without even accusing him of rape, are in hiding.

There could even be half a dozen women accusing him of rape and intimidation and he will still get off. But everyone feels really sorry for him and literally want to kill the women who showed a little backbone. Last year alone is littered with examples of this and it only gets worse.

The average statistics in western nations indicate that 20% of all rapes are even reported and less than 1% of them result in a prison sentence. Less than 2% of rapes are deemed  ”unfounded” and that number is only based on a lack of evidence that a certain acts took place. If a victim of a rape waits too long  or showers before going to the hospital for a humiliating examination of her genitals, there is already a chance of her report ending up in that 2% range. these statistics vary little from year to year and country to country and are depressing indeed.

Still there are a great number of rapists in jail. Can you complete the math? To summarize this means that rape happens every second of every day to an estimate of 1 in 4 women in western nations alone and the vast majority of the rapists get off scott-free.

Rape is so normal in our culture that people hardly recognize rape even when it happens to them. People expect a rapist to be a stranger who jumps out of the  bushes in the middle of the night in a deserted area. Who will first kill a woman’s chaperone and then proceed to beat the woman till she is (nearly)  unconscious and finally rape her and then leave her and the chaperone behind severely bleeding and heavily injured if not both dead. This is what most people believe rape is and it doesn’t help that the media shows mostly the portrayal of a rape.

Most people don’t expect to be raped by a parent or husband or boyfriend. A friend they have known and trusted for years who suddenly decides not to take no for an answer. A co-worker or boss who decides to use some pressure to force a sexual encounter. People also don’t feel the way they expect to feel. They expect to feel fear and justifiable anger towards the person who raped them. Instead what many experience is shock, surprise, shame and confusion and self-doubt. They initially search for answers by examining their own behavior and feel reluctant to being regarded as a victim. Because that implies a powerlessness and weakness and who wants to feel or be weak? On the other hand, if they did have power enough to stop their rapist doesn’t that mean they are to blame? Does that mean they weren’t raped?

I never understood why slut-walkers were so keen on claiming the word “slut”, but completely reluctant to reclaim the word “victim”, because that is what we are when we talk about being raped, how we have been made a victim and that we are somehow to blame for and supposed to be ashamed of being a victim. That victims have no agency or power and what we couldn’t stop others from doing to us becomes our whole identity.

Taking advantage of traffic Captain Moron is sending my way

It has happened again folks. I have been troll-link-bombed. Today I broke my own record of site hits (the current count stands at 440), all thanks to this little website called Captain Moron (not the actualy name). The site is primarily focussed on complaining about people they don’t agree with having the gall to post anything at all on the internet.

But I must say I have much more respect for this new group of trolls, than I did for the last batch, which prompted me to write my comment policy and my troll post. At least this new batch took the trouble of reading my short version of the comment policy at the top right of the screen. So far it is only a troll-link-bomb, but not a troll-comment-bomb.

I am taking advantage of my 400 hits a day, and rising, to draw attention to some older posts that people were particularly interested in, starting with my post about gynecology. As I point out in that post, I never go to a gynecologist, unless I am having a problem and women might be interested to know that pelvic exams and pap-smears are often over-used and unneccessary. I recommend reading the comment section as well. There is a lot of information available about reproductive health-care for women in the comments and a lot of great links too. I thank all of the comment contributors. It’s been a good discussion.

Women’s weight is also often fussed about and this post has also created a nice discussion. Basically you don’t have to feel like shit if you aren’t thin. You don’t have to feel bad mentally or physically, because being strong and feeling good about yourself has nothing to do with your weight and what other people think of it, your lifestyle is far more important. Dances with Fat has some great resources that show what’s really up with the “weight debate” and how much money and bullshit is really at the source of all the bullying.

Do you like sex? So do I, but on my own terms. Here is a post about “foreplay” and to continue this topic, I don’t like the word “virginity” either and here is why. The final post I wish to draw attention to on this topic is abortion. The only tragedy of abortion is not being able to get one or being ostracised for getting one.

Oh, yes! The new batch of trolls made all the same mistakes as the last one. They failed to see the point of social justice (read: feminism) and a long time ago I also created a lovely post for that too. It’s about how if you make any mistakes you seem to lose the right to fight for equality. Another frequent complaint about women is that we don ‘t know how to drive. Being an excellent driver myself, I call bullshit, especially with all the horrible accidents that are caused by irresponsible male drivers.

I also don’t agree with how the patriarchy expects women to dress these days (or in the past) and how muslim women are often treated by both men from their own cultures as well as men from wetsern cultures. You can’t tell if someone is empowered by looked a their clothes.

So there you have it folks. This is basically a link round-up. In part this is an experiment to see how usefull a link-bomb can be. Most of the current hits go directly to the main page of my blog, so this will be the first post they see. Let’s see what kind of an effect it will have.

I will keep you posted. ;)

The Priorities of the Patriarchy

Edited: To honor all new visitors from the Captain Moron site I have created a special post just for you.

Due to an almost 200% price-hike in tuition for me next year there is a good chance I’ll be forced to drop out of college. That’s another way to control women, make sure they got less and less money. Robbing people of a chance to get an education and become self-sufficient will keep the Patriarchy as firmly in place as ever, so I figured I might as way catch up on my blogging, since I have been neglecting my blog for the past two years in favor of my probably soon to be failed attempt at getting a degree.

In this post I want to discuss Pirate Bay. Pirate Bay, for those of you  unfamiliar with the phenomenon of torrenting, offers torrent files that can be opened in a peer-to-peer downloading program. In short, you are downloading stuff from a whole bunch of users who are all connected via the .torrent file. These files can be legal, if you have bought a license to what your are downloading or if the media you download is freeware. However, it is no secret that what most people download is not the stuff they bought. Often this is thought off in terms of “stealing”, though the downloading is not the illegal part in many cases, but allowing people to download is. Sounds familiar? Legislation to “prevent” rape often also places blame with the wrong person.

In my country several internet service providers (ISP’s) are now forced to block access to the website Pirate Bay, who offers these torrent files. You can’t actually download any media (pirated or otherwise) from this website or it’s servers, however the law enforcers the world over are hunting the creators of this websites like crazy. One of the co-founders of the site has been convicted to a year incarceration and a fine of 1.1 million Dollar (I assume that means US Dollar, but the source was unclear).

Yet, the conviction for rape and assault of women remains less than 1% the world over. Perpetrators can attack and rape women to their hearts’ contend. The damage they do lasts a lifetime and is way more than just lost income. Yet, when the big-ass media corporations hoot and holler about lost revenue every government jumps to their feet with their pitch-forks and torches to assist those poor, poor media moguls who are having trouble shoving their useless, mediocre, misogynist, male-centric media down all our throats. Here’s a newsflash for you assholes: This feminist doesn’t want your crappy media, even if you paid me to consume it.

Hypocritically they claim the illegal downloading hurts artists and performers, but without such downloads being available would the big suits pay them even so much as one cent more? Would they? Would they give more opportunities to female actors and directors to make something other than misogynist crap? I highly doubt it, but there you have it. This is what the “crime-fighting-heroes” of the patriarchy spend most of their time doing; going after people who could, maybe, potentially hurt their control over the world. We can’t have any of that now can we. Women being hurt? Who cares? Women dying and getting murdered and raped? Small price to pay for “refocusing legal priorities”.

Basic Safety Training

As part of my college program and training required by international maritime law, I had my basic safety training this week. This entails survival training and fire fighter training. I have learned a lot and there is nothing like becoming competent with the gear to boost your self-esteem. After a successful day learning how to extinguish different types of fires and running an obstacle course in the dark, while breathing through a mask with compressed air, I felt pretty good about myself. Today we went one step further and entered a burning structure, once through a door and a second time through a hatch in the roof. We removed a victim (read: a stuffed fire-fighting suit that supposed to represent a human-like doll) and we practiced extinguished fires from inside an enclosed space. The day ended with some survival training, for which we had to wear survival suits and life vests and jump in the water from two meters high. I was a little wigged out about the jumping part and the water was damn cold, but it was a fun and useful training.

I trained with a group different from my classmates, they don’t go to my school and with the exception of myself and one other guy, they were all white guys. During some of the training a few were a bit unfocussed and more interested in goofing around than paying attention to the instructors. One of the instructors got a bit weary of their general behavior and started applying some bigotry in an effort to scare them into paying better attention. One of the trainees was standing in the wrong place (behind another guy, rather than next to him) and the instructor said to him “Don’t stand over there. What are you, a homo?” He also got them to focus their attention on me during a water huddle (huddling in the water with a group of people is what you do to better conserve body-temperatures and also to prevent people from floating away). The instructor said “You finally have permission to cuddle with a girl, so do it”. This caused one guy to join the huddle so enthusiastically that he nearly dragged me under. Throughout the day I was also regaled with the stories about the breasts of various women, in other words: Dumb boob jokes.

After the training ended we gathered in the cafeteria and the instructor expressed his concern about the general attitudes of some of the trainees. The trainees in question were unsure what he meant and I joked at them by saying “he feels sorry for you”. Well, clearly I had now crossed the line. The guy later took me aside and said that I should not have said that and that in their place he would have been furious. “They are simple guys,” he told me, “with a simple education (a two year maritime program, rather than a four year college).” I was told that they can’t handle such an insult and it was further implied they were fragile. I had seen them joke around and goof off all day, so clearly they had understood the concept of humor, and I thought those complaints were a bit rich coming from an instructor, who less than two hours before, had called one of the trainees “gay” and not as an inappropriate inquiry into that guy’s personal life, but as an obvious insult. I told him that they make comments all day that could also make me “jump out of my skin”, if I should so choose, and that I was sure they had understood my remark to them to be a joke. The instructor however insisted that I need to be more careful not to hurt their feelings and that he was sure they would not have understood that it was all suppose to be in good fun. I repeated that it was merely a joke, shrugged my shoulder and dropped the matter.

I was not the least bit impressed by the instructor’s beratement and I thought him a total hypocrite. However, it kept playing around in my mind, because I had not seen it coming, particularly not from that guy. He clearly has no problems whatsoever taken down his own trainees a peg, but as soon as he thinks someone else is (he thought I called them stupid, but my comment about pitying them referred to their unfocussed behavior during the training and how they would end up if they acted like that during a real emergency, which was the whole purpose of the training in the first place) there is a problem. I am not certain about the true reason he was upset with me, but I thought it was weird.