Interesting Links for 13-02-2016

[andrewducker]

• The Independent becomes the first national newspaper to go digital-only. (Which one next, do you think?)
  • media viaBenWerdmuller independent newspapers
• This is What Happens When a Woman Supports Bernie Sanders Online (Or, frankly, does anything else)
  • politics abuse Twitter women misogyny
• What’s the Point of Adopting a 17-year-old Kid?
  • adoption

Comments

[nancylebov]

I've been online since the nineties. I use my obviously female name. I must have been doing *something*. I've run into some abuse, but really rather little, certainly nothing like a twitter storm.

My impression is that we need some quantification, or else women will be scared off more than they should be.

[alitheapipkin]

Well, I think it's pretty clear that being in the public eye makes you far more of a target. I mean, I've been online since the late 90s using an obliviously female pseudonym and abuse has mostly passed me by too but I'm not a public figure and I'm very careful what I engage with on twitter because I've certainly witnessed plenty of abuse there. Daring to discuss politics doesn't help either - I've been insulted in political discussion groups for daring to challenge someone while the offender in question was perfectly willing to engage with another man who expressed more or less exactly the same opinion as me.

[mair_aw]

fwiw I've seen you commenting here (and maybe other places) for years and I always vaguely assumed male; it never occurred to me that nancy might be your actual name.

I've never been in a fb/twitter storm either but maybe I'm just not famous enough.

[threegoldfish]

My brain always wants to parse that username as "Nan Cycle Boy" so perhaps that plays a role.

[nancylebov]

nancylebov is my name on livejournal and dreamwidth.

I used that rather than my actual name-- Nancy Lebovitz-- because a lot of people can't reliably remember, spell, or pronounce my last name.

I use my full name elsewhere-- NancyLebovitz or Nancy Lebovitz depending on whether the site accepts spaces. I'm also occasionally Nancy Lebovit because of some difficulty with a site I don't remember.

I realize I'm taking some risks, though probably my temperament and politics make full-on attacks less likely.