Someone uploaded fake porn pictures of her to a forum and then persistently sent the URL to her employers and acquaintances.
This was a targeted attack on her reputation, or perhaps malicious stalking, but how on earth does sexism factor into this?
The porn pictures were merely a vehicle. If the attack had been carried out against a man they would probably have used accusations of child pornography or such.
The parent's point is that she is a target because she is a woman, and society gives such people more tools to abuse women than to abuse men. This makes it a sexist act.
There are significantly more males in this industry with significantly more popularity. Yet no evidence is presented that these figures also have received this level of harassment.
When the OP says that "[women in technology] are scared" it is because they feel that they are in an environment that targets them for harassment and abuse. At this point, we hear arguments like "this could have happened to a guy just as easily" but the fact is that it doesn't. In a world where such events happen with equal frequency across genders then yes, this might be a silly discussion, but we do not live in such a world.
Engineers tend to find it disconcerting that an action's goodness or badness depends on its context. After all, shouldn't we be able to tell just by looking at the inherent properties of the action? What if we can't read the context correctly? Well, the answer is that we frequently do, and the result is these inane argument over whether posting fake porn pictures of a woman is a sexist act.
The fact of the matter is that women in tech are targeted because they are women. They are overwhelmingly more frequently attacked than their male counterparts, and if you think this is silly, then I suggest you go make friends with some women in tech. This attack is another outgrowth of that pervasive sexism, and the fact that it uses a medium that is traditionally associated with denigrating women [1] just makes it even more sexist.
[1] Yes, there is some non-misogynistic porn out there, but it is the exception rather than the rule.
How do we know she was targeted because she's a woman?
This whole jumping to conclusions is just a bit much for me.
Couldn't she just as well be targeted because she rejected some nerd who had a crush on her? Or even by another woman who is jealous of her?
That obviously doesn't make the actions any better, but seems a more plausible motivation to me than "a random guy running a smear-campaign against a random woman, only because she's a woman".
Please, please, please take the blinders off. This is unambiguously a misogynist attack that follows a painfully well-established pattern of targeting and harassing women online - a pattern that nearly every single woman who has a significant online presence experiences.
Please, please do some reading on this - it's not hard to find reports and analyses of online woman abuse, and it's not hard to recognize the recurring themes and motifs, which prominently include image-based harassment.
Please take your blinders of. This attack follows the well-established pattern of targeting and harassing anyone online -- a pattern that nearly everyone with a significant online presence experiences.
That the perpetrator uses the most effective means available doesn't make the attacks misogynist, just because the target is a woman and the means is sex. That's like saying that choosing a knife to stab someone to death is obvious knife-ist behavior by the perpetrator. It's the misogynism of society and culture as a whole that is responsible for this; whether the perpetrator is misogynistic in excess of the culturally given amount is a question that we cannot answer based on the evidence.
Not really. That this doesn't happen to men with the same frequency or degree of severity is enough of a smoking gun to suggest that this is indeed the case.
How do you know that it doesn't happen to men with the same frequency or degree of severity? The internet is littered with reports of/by men being stalked, harassed and slandered.
Smoking gun is "...a reference to an object or fact that serves as conclusive evidence of a crime or similar act."
I'm suggesting that these sort of attacks on men are extremely limited is enough evidence to suggest the perpetrator is likely to be sexist and/or a mysoginist, which is pretty much the definition of a smoking gun as illustrated.
Think about where the term literally stems from. A smoking gun may tell who did something and what he did. I have trouble imagining a gun (smoking or not) explain why he did it.
fact that serves as conclusive evidence of a crime or similar act...
The fact that I'm asserting is that men do not suffer these kinds of attacks suggest the individual was motivated by sexism. I can't say anymore other than to say that you are wrong. I don't think it means what you clearly think it means. Sorry, no snark intended.
> Sexual harassment, rape and other forms of sexual violence can be a part of more extreme, expressive, and emotionally impactive forms of sexism.[10]
what happened to her was obviously sexual harassment and extremely misogynistic, so at least according to wikipedia "sexism" is an appropriate word.
> The porn pictures were merely a vehicle. If the attack had been carried out against a man they would probably have used accusations of child pornography or such.
I don't think that's really how that works. This particular kind of attempted shaming / harassment is intimately tied in with notions of gender roles, patriarchal social norms, etc. I think if you're suggesting that attacking a man with accusations of child pornography is also sexist you might be right.
Excuse me, have you even read the article?
Someone uploaded fake porn pictures of her to a forum and then persistently sent the URL to her employers and acquaintances.
This was a targeted attack on her reputation, or perhaps malicious stalking, but how on earth does sexism factor into this?
The porn pictures were merely a vehicle. If the attack had been carried out against a man they would probably have used accusations of child pornography or such.