Cybersexism

and human and

you um so

our view is a little bit of inside information from actually saw the board members this morning they gave about coming but all the people who work at the Republic of program for the coordination team were all women and we really pay attention to the balance the speakers that we have trying to get this gender balance between male and women speakers at least 50 50 every year but no matter how hard we try whenever we actually count up everybody and we've got the whole program together and it always ends up being more guys and girls maybe on next the the lorry penny can give us another explanation why that is even better tell us how we can change it so next up is Lori pennies she's she's young and she's awesome she has over 6 2 thousand followers on Twitter she's economist and a blogger and she's going to talk to us about cybersex them give it up for Lord

I

that can hold gosh system alarm loving the Madonna headset brilliant so I've got about 20 minutes to

convince you guys of 3 basic things and which are because a basic principles of the of the tool of of the of the talk I haven't cybersex sexism right that's the 1st thing is that misogyny and sexist abuse on the Internet are real they're just as real as a surging insects abused experienced offline other you can make that distinction anyway in this modern

world the 2nd thing is that there's a backlash on and a backlash which runs along the principles of transparency freedom of speech quality which the Internet should have at

its heart and indeed had at its heart in the beginning of the 3rd principle is let me say this a problem as the Internet but the solution is the internet right so OK so sexism binary penny it's a great great honor to be here at API 13 I'm really really happy to evict invited and I'm a a bit nervous the and this is the story of how the Internet became a universe of infinite possibilities from which women are excluded from the building and influencing this is a story of why you can open your browser and stare into a borderless terrain of find the free exchange of information and creativity in which women and girls know the but that to participate fully is to risk violence and sexual harassment we have a brave

new world which actually in some ways looks a lot like the cruel Old World but it doesn't have to be that way women and girls and everybody who believes that

the future of human society should include women and girls are conspiring to take back the net for all of us so I get contact it's and quite the 3 or more e-mails this every week by young women and girls who want to write online and build lives journalists and bloggers and Internet activists but are afraid of the possible backlash and that's that's what kind of message I get right the other kind of message I get every day goes something like this it was the there's nothing wrong with had a

couple of hours of current taking the rotting and bearing in a shallow grave wouldn't sort

out I get these kind of messages are I'm sorry that shocks UH shocks me to work at it doesn't shut me anymore move past the phrase the phase where that shocks me is just an everyday round setting bullshit alright but the dilemma I have when I get the 1st kind of message from young women are asking me you know how how we go about building careers and lives for ourselves online is what do I say do I say actually it's terrifying actually it's horrible I've had to call the police of how people following my family around trying to blackmail me with naked

pictures and this is an everyday routine experience for quite an I wouldn't say all I'm sure there the people who have different

experiences but by a great many women if you have the temerity to speak

out in public on the t about issues of gender violence and or do I like to do it is like to them and say it's going to be fine just it anyway because actually the only

way we build a better Internet for all of us is by overcoming that fear and doing it anyway I'm not advocating atom advocating spite as a way of fresh and so as a way of combating that spike is in a way it says

and to build you know I have an Hellenistic writing career holistic blogosphere let's say but it does keep you getting out of bed in the morning and getting on the computers

so the bosses that win alright so spike don't look at but if we get it's back up and then but that impulse

to tell people that is all right not to complain not to be the 1 who speaks out and we need use and you know it

is not crying hysterical woman that is what keeps a silent as misogyny of this kind becomes normalized and 1 going to do now is just move on right I'm not gonna talk and talk about the kinds of sexist misogynist racist abuse that women get on the Internet already just how many people out there are women who have profiles online today

yeah as I I love the weather your

slowly putting up your hands it's a so right yeah but quite a lot so you you guys

know alright and the rest of you can guess and going trust you guys to believe me I'm going to trust you to believe each other because you know we get we're going to have to move on in this debate from just persuading the rest of the Internet this stuff exists happens every day and it really costs lives like 15 around Amanda college who killed herself after repeated online

harassment bullying sexual stalking this isn't just women with big public profiles assist teenagers game as anybody who has the he embarrassed to come out in public and identify as a

woman in the public space the Internet because the Internet is public space and the violence of the bullying shaming

guilt but women are subjected to on line is a way of saying that

women shouldn't be part of that public space right so a backlash is underway to right a backlash against online sexism online bullying and some people claim that this backlash things like the everyday sexism project things like in a c and nice guys of OkCupid yes things like that are not totally OK with that but that made people so angry things like any 2 such PC and if who and started up at the troops was women program and was subjected to the most appalling violence threats trolling people set up a game called lets you know how to beat that speed up because it is that he in just the daring to say that this special world of video games might be a bit sexist and so some people claim that this kind of

backlashes censorship right with censoring men at we and some some website and it's kind of promising and public publicizing sadistic misogyny is

merely freedom of speech right that's exercising their right to freedom of speech of anybody rather lonely hard on this a great jokes and that kind of whingeing that kind of outcry isn't just disingenuous it is terrifically offensive to anybody who has any idea of what online censorship actually looks like and what the fight against online censorship actually involves and I think what I love you know I'm talking about here OK as I right ads and as I speak there is a real fight going on to keep the Internet as free as possible from government interference a fight to free speech information from the tyranny of state and corporate control and the interest fall of people who would risk their freedom risk their lives and sometimes not spend lives in that fight and the claim that there is any equivalence between the coordinated attack connective charity digital freedom going on across the world and the uninterrupted misogyny of common thread mouth breathing is compare it is hypocritical and wrong and ugly and disgusting the thanks of but not

only that it's intellectually choose right these people talk of their right to free it expression was doing everything in their power to shot women pop the hurt humiliate and silence women anyone who has a voice or platform screeching abuse Italy back down or shut up they speak censorship they say nothing of the silencing in which they are engaged I didn't hold with apparent sincerity that using the block but none at that event and body pose threats of violence against me at is that the attack on freedom of speech picked so there's apparently no distinction between the right to express your views and the right to have an any will online listen to you and pay attention to you and so n according to the logical envisaging a woman's right to self-expression is less

important than a man's right to punish her for that self expression at the journalist Ali who's actually do it because quite a lot of did get it compared space to what would happen if a woman's didn't Speakers Corner in Hyde Park in London

and started to speak about harassment and misogyny and suddenly a huge crowd of guys 100 studied surrounding high yelling at her sexist insults or bitch shut up you know

maybe your mouse should be better employed such why did that I get quite a lot

actually in argument maybe you will be able the right if you know i put my dicking about what actually logistically not at here but in his city not

trying to do but only it said so what are the right and what he says is

that in that situation woman standing ones that in hyp O'Connor lots of lots of guys standing up yelling at her there is a freedom of speech issue going on there but it's not necessarily the 1 that you think found in 2011 I

wrote that a woman's opinion is that instead of the Internet the idea is that if we of in any way opinionated or outspoken present in the

public space of the Internet and then that gives anybody the right to attack us so humiliate as or heard as in any way they see fit unknowns those threats don't just come from guys online right those threats are made more effective by the the government public officials for papers

hand-wringing articles warning young girls to stay off the internet if they don't wanna be groomed or section lies within that means or harassed and that that sense license to reflect this of magical process whereby the preteens go online and catch a glimpse of some boobs on a pop up and then the transformed into sexualized Sybase luck and they can never be retained for Jesus and but is it this is

why I think is that this message is really

similar to the lectures you imagine young girls getting hundreds of years ago century ago before contraception legal abortion their relative relaxation of religious proprietary the message is that your settings will never be forgotten 1 it online don't take it apart from the internet don't go online and say whatever you want because once state is going to be enough to disgrace you for ever never let your guard down or you will be ruined doctors pictures but words late-night search histories it's all going to follow you if ever right and so the technology is new but the language of shame and sin around women's use of the Internet is very very old right now the answer seems to be the same as it always has been whenever there's a moral panic about women in public space which is 7 just stay away you don't go into these new exciting worlds wait for the men to get there 1st to make it safe for you and if that doesn't happen when a just stay home and read a magazine right so this hurts

women but it also hurts society and it hurts the net because people need to let me people learn to code by playing encoded space right we learn the internet

by being on the internet by growing that by trial and error and risk-taking in of the feature is digital if tech skills and easy facility with the Internet ought to be as essential as they appear the building any kind of work in the 21st century then what is it that we saying 2 girls and their parents will only say that cyberspace is a dangerous place the women with saying exactly what we said 2 young women for centuries which is would love to have you here but on you might get right Doha or shouted out so you better stay home and paint you nails and and then I wanna speak In this way to to dies particularly you guys because I went out and proud decay and I think it's time for us to reclaim what being a deep means which is not just sitting in your parents basement in a failed start up the hating women right lots more to it than that have had I believe that you being a geek is about getting your revenge on women and the people who believe you and him humiliated you at school it's not about hanging out in trading sexist slurs because that's the way you get status in this new world being the deep is about being curious and clever and

wanting to take the outer casing of the world to see how it works being is about making things and fixing things and taking things

apart to see how they work sometimes lines of code and sometimes systems for understanding gender and society and economics it's

about being excited about also things like stories in games in comics about believing fundamentally the being smart

is more important than brute force that's what it did mean being at the means to me and that was what the people some of people fundamentally but we seem to forget that when it comes to women when it comes to willingly seems

to forget the principles of transparency accountability free speech that are meant to be a fundamental protocol of how the Internet works and the so the guys go up believing that they are all the hearer will ought to be the hero in their own story and at the moment a lot of girls will go up having to learn not to see themselves as a supporting character in somebody else's story but fortunately the brilliant thing about the Internet is that it lets you choose your own adventure at systems can be rewritten protocols can be updated and what I believe is that it's long past time for us to update the protocol of how we do gender and understand gender and power on the internet not just the women but for anybody who wants to live in a bad at less ambitious more exciting world and gender which is why I think it's time for school tend to take back the next the little about how to find

a lot of things that you would

like to know the questions was or wasn't wasn't as well I tend to condense the whole book into thinking it's a book on before can yes I see you that I would you be so kind come a little bit closer so people some thank you OK you've known yes I 1st thank you

very much for your talk and I really must enjoyed it so and the question of beginning of the talk was like there are not many women at conferences so of the last few years as Republican avatech conferences we always have this question on that woman there how to make a save space for them and that's more what's a feminist told them didn't really save space for women don't allow a text so far this question what would be your advice how to make a safe conference so far I think so the question about how to

make tech conference is better safer

spaces and I think this is a massively in the press over the last year because we've had things like uh the the brief babes the bit bit issue and people speaking at tech conference is about sexist remarks on stage rape and harassment acts conferences and these things get passed around right these things are being talked about now in a way they weren't before and I think 1 way he said that make make women feel more comfortable in a space isn't just ask what we can do to make women feel more comfortable is to ask what we can do to stop men behaving like detects and thinking that there it this is their space that we're advising women to protect women make them feel safe on the edges rather than taking the view that this is women space to this is women's space as much as it is manned space only should be invited into every part of the process and if you don't have in every part of the process then you're doing something wrong you would if you attach conferences 90 % due to the attack conferences rapid that should be yet

question so I the challenge to you I think the guys I was wondering if you could this talk a bit more about that maybe the give water to sort of

actionable items or advice was more you guys of and well all right so I think it's

really really important to understand that deep lysogeny in particular comes from a place of deep pain often and this is not to belittle or patronize I think what play a of the guys don't understand about deep women is that we would say you right we experience so that bullshit and at school we know as better than anybody else what it's like to be harassed and bullied and told your useless and stupid and yeah just 1 said build something better fuel cells we understand what school was like right but the women we where we also had to deal with sexist harassment on top of all of that and when all in all I advocate compassion I also have a lot of them a of sympathy the people who advocate blind range and bearing things right that's also a OK but I think if we're going to build a better not then the guys and the girls and everybody else in the planes there needs to be talking need to be talking to each other about about what sexuality means about what it means to build a community without where bullying and harassment and sexual 1 upmanship between dies on not the way to get status right and I think the tags need to understand that women are part of that community and always have been women onto yeah threatening their special outsider status it's a it's about understanding that women aren't the enemy they're not the other than not conquest and not you know the thing you get at the end of your personal story at the end of the video and we're not trophies we have people and a lot of us standards to you and it's ah space as well yeah the questions a go on you have handle unity right panel as has been ideas of get your hands on that but a by this the the the as I don't want to answer the initiators once they have a big company founded thank you for your or I think you give the lives of a lot of energy to do that and if we eventually what do you and writing what rights and it's a big role model for the class and get along with the interventions I think that just that need to be set at the end of the very much I believe if you think how long OK so final for questions here challenging you guys all comments or anything just have us and like yeah he said I should be taking questions I got some interesting questions on this because I do actually there's there's a 3rd type of e-mail I sometimes get along apart from the you know women wanting to build stuff and men having can interesting descriptions of how they would like to write me up there also on a a special species of e-mail I get from normally college-age slopes and it goes something like dear Lori I think I'm a feminist which you give it a rest it isn't it but it's it's like in the in the in the style of I think I have a raft October what it means is all yes I cannot school it's fine but I do I really am I think there right there is a lot of hope I have a lot of hope open for phonetics and the Middle East in in general but I think the answer does come from from the culture the answer comes from a from transparency from a commitment to freedom of speech quality even if you're not coming from a background of feminism you don't care about women you care about that OK we have 2 more questions now appear in the final take these 2 level continents turn from a hollow on say the log of 4 but with this and I am a feminist and I make no apologies for it but I like to thank you for a brilliant presentation but I think 1 of the things that men and women need to recognizes this gender differenciation doesn't really only done with women damages mammals all of it some of the finest of emotions people have a sensitivity of caring of giving of being more open to things which have been considered feminine traits the men would enormously gained from I think it is about time and embrace the embrace those emotions without OK thank you

and I I think he's image mutual and I had 1 additional question on a lot of the interview with you I'm not sure it was it was something that she still there is a problem which when I mean but but this is very much about feminism protests and especially how to some sort of the capitalist immaterialist since the 1st creates very much in the body both of feminism or of women altogether and I'm interested because the points you make use of providing way out and empathy is always sort of soft values and how do we get out of this sort of materialist catalysts vector this is all in the if the women in theory or in is interesting point of view very and valuable to me also like to comment here is I think it's just good to have this discussion and support from women for each other but it's added get out of this this frame that you're referencing and thanks alright so what

do you think you're asking 8 is how do you build a kind of women's resistance and then and and resistance said online and offline misogyny that doesn't involve just sort of T. monetize lifestyle feminism well people call lifestyle feminism

empowerment feminism I think actually the internet is the onset and some of it how many

people here Indiana's talk just before the square loss yet brilliant brilliant talk and then what I mean so many examples she gave as in the examples I gave earlier in the everyday sexism projects in sharing abortion stories on the Internet sites were willing to talk honestly and openly and for the 1st time about what women's experiences a really like and how women and men really that's the opposite of glamorous right that's the opposite of the sort of slick lifestyle feminism that we've come to expect nothing 1 of the reasons why I feel comfortable and and and of empowered to do the kind of feminist work I do and say that actually things aren't OK think things that he's not just enough to buy a pair of beautiful shoes and get a flat in New York even if you can and that's what feminism looks like 2 is that the Internet is giving the light so that the Internet allows us to share stories and create a rich quick create a space where our experiences of pain and hair are valid and we can back each other up right and I think there's something inherently anarchist about that which is why and it goes along with the principles of transparency free speech the and and that that are the foundation of of of the idle ideology at the next time I think that the Internet is getting the light of rubbish liberal feminist and basically that's brilliant thing awesome everybody please give it up theory

and that I to for

such