Vox, By Amanda Taub, September 23
In her famous 1996 commencement address, writer Nora Ephron warned the new graduates of Wellesley college that they were entering a world that was hostile to women’s achievements and begged them to “take it personally.”
“Understand,” she said, “every attack on Hillary Clinton for not knowing her place is an attack on you.” We must all take such attacks personally, she argued: “Underneath almost all those attacks are the words: Get back, get back to where you once belonged.”
On September 21, actress and UN Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson stood up at the UN Headquarters in New York City and delivered a powerful speech condemning the harm that gender discrimination causes to both men and women, and inviting men to become active participants in the global struggle for equality. The next day, anonymous individuals set up a website targeting Watson with sexual threats, counting down the five days until, presumably, her private nude images will be made public. Users on the 4chan message board took credit for creating the site, which featured the 4chan logo. The threats against Watson are an attack on me — and I take them personally. We all need to.
The site threatening Watson was greeted with glee on 4chan and Reddit, where commenters explicitly stated their hope that the threats would force her to abandon her feminist campaigning. “If only her nudes got leaked and she had the load on her face. Her feminism kick would be over,” a commenter wrote. “If this is true her recent feminism rally is going to be shutdown hard,” wrote another. “Feminism,” one 4chan user opined, “is a growing cancer.”
Via Hullabaloo: Who are these creeps?
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