Since the Nevada state convention — something I think we can all agree was the result of a thoroughly broken, needlessly confusing system — I’ve witnessed something here I frankly find frightening and infuriating.
I have no desire to re-litigate the convention itself. I agree both that the behavior of some attendees, the ones who shouted misogynistic slurs and profanity, is unacceptable AND that the way that process was set up was rife for misunderstanding and mistakes.
What worries me instead is what has happened since. Specifically, the posting of Roberta Lange’s personal information, the barrage of threats and harassment then aimed at her, and the response of far too many supposed progressives, of far too many here on Daily Kos itself. And while the current situation has brought it out primarily from the supporters of one candidate at this particular moment, I do not doubt — and none of us should — that similar sentiments are held by some among the other candidate’s support. We need to root it out any time we see it, wherever we see it.
And this is where I see it, here and now.
I have seen diaries and comments that attempt to downplay the seriousness of this problem. That claim that the anger over Ms. Lange’s treatment since the convention, the indignation that this would done by Democrats, by progressives, to any woman, is overwrought.
I’ve seen diaries and comments that try to parse the difference between “should” and “would” to decide whether something is really a death threat. That because some of the people who made those threatening calls, who participated in the harassment, aren’t actually dangerous, then there was no convincing reason to feel fear. That says that because these people are pathetic, or cowardly, or just “carried away by anger” — as if that in anyway make their actions less vile — someone being afraid is merely hysteria.
These arguments all tacitly accept that, instead of accepting a woman’s claim that she was threatened and harassed, we are the ones who can decide whether or not her reaction is valid. That we are the ones who determine what counts as legitimate harassment.
This is not the reaction, is not the behavior, that should come from progressives. It’s what I would expect from the likes of gamergate or MRAs, and the people who enable them. Their well worn tactic of minimizing the ugliness of their actions, by proclaiming that their victims are overreacting. That no one really means it, and that all it takes is to look at who is saying these things to know that. As if it’s the victim’s responsibility to investigate her harassers to see if they are “serious.” As if reacting with entirely appropriate concern to being attacked is an imposition on the attackers. As if the fact that it only takes one person who is in earnest to put someone in immediate danger. As if even the cowardly harassers don’t cause emotional distress and exhaustion for having to deal with them.
It smacks of the sexist gas-lighting of women’s concerns that happens every day. The way that when a woman expresses concern about someone she finds creepy, her worries are delegitimized by proclaiming this person as merely awkward, that she is being too judgmental, being unreasonable, and needs to give them a chance.
Of course, as always with sexism, there’s the catch 22. That if a woman ignores her worries and gives this person a second chance, and it turns out they really are dangerous, and something awful happens… then it’s her fault for not being more careful. Her fault for putting herself in the position that something could happen. For not protecting herself. For not taking precautions.
That too I’ve seen here. Victim blaming of the worst sort, that of course this is deplorable, but isn’t Ms. Lange just a teeny bit to blame for it? Because of how awful she was at the convention? The kind of excuses that come up constantly when a woman is victimized. Pretending that there was anything she could done that would make this sort of behavior acceptable or excusable.
There wasn’t. It isn’t. And if the progressive movement stands for anything, it should stand first and last against this.
All of this hand-wringing and special pleading that the response to such blatant harassment is “overwrought,” “manufactured,” or “hysteria.”
It’s bullshit.
And it needs to stop.