Bloodless Coup

I know it doesn't fit with the preferred political thinking, but I think Amanda etc are hated more for being unreasonable hotheaded blowhards than for anything else.

Right. And every unreasonable hotheaded blowhard gets rape threats.

The guys get their own threats. Andrew Sullivan certainly does; he publishes the choice ones regularly. And don't make this a left-right thing, either -- you think Malkin or Coulter doesn't get this kind of shit?

How does the fact that Malkin and Coulter get similar threats disprove a culture of misogyny in which women who speak up get shit? And, not that I'm a conosseiur or anything, the threats/comments to women bloggers often go straight to sexual violence.

People -- women or otherwise -- who are rude and defaming and obnoxious often get anonymous threats and crap from brave little wankers. Been there, done that, currently lacking a vagina.

You have, to be blunt, failed to prove your pet storyline.

You mean the one about atheism?

What (straight) male bloggers are the subject of rape threats? It strikes me that there's a bit a difference between threats to punch someone in the face, and a threat to rape them.

And I'd say of the two main atheist bloggers that I read - and both of them regularly are rude defaming and obnoxious to particular religious figures as well as to religion in general - the male gets threats about going to hell, and asshattery, but no rape threats.

coming from a christian, i think going to hell (bearing in mind that the rape threats on blog threads are just as hollow) is a threat equal to rape. if you don't believe in hell, of course, the former sounds a lot gentler, but if the question is intent . . . .

more generally, when people threaten people they jump to the threat that they think will most resonate, and rape's a lot more effective for women than men, as this thread demonstrates.

i've said it elsewhere on this blog that i lean toward jacflash's view re amanda, and i don't read SS enough to know one way or another. not a value judgment about amanda -- just the suggestion that there's plenty that can explain the rancor she's incurred that doesn't involve her having a vagina.

the nature of the threats, it's also worth pointing out, doesn't conclusively demonstrate the source of the anger that prompts the threats, and those are distinct questions. while it might be suggestive that the threats are of a gendered nature, it's not conclusive that what animates them is gendered.

in thread-related news, for some reason i find this atheist = all things bad equivalence disheartening, if less than surprising.

Yeah, even teh gay are better than atheists. That's saying something in today 'Murica.

I don't know Moon - on a day to day basis men might be less likely to fear being raped, but when confronted with a threat of it, well I think that's still heavily disturbing stuff. And I really don't think "go to hell" is even remotely in the same league - unless it's accompanied by an "I'm going to kill you".

no question, the thought of being raped is pretty awful whatever your gender. the prospect of what happens to smaller men in prison probably does more to deter me being bad than the thought of confinement itself. ;-)

that said, i think death threats are in the same category as rape threats, and surely male pundits with controversial and outspoken views get more than a few of those.

Something that occurred to me about this:

coming from a christian, i think going to hell is a threat equal to rape

I'm going to disagree. The point of the threat is to scare the target. The atheist is not frightened by threats of hellfire.

if that's really what this is about -- i.e., the point of the threat is to upset the recipient -- than this whole thing's a tempest in a teapot. after all, about the most effete, unscary people in the world are blog trolls.