Twitter Talks About the Damage of This Horrible Trend Against Women with #MoreThanMean
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Two female journalists are saying enough is enough. Trolling and harassment against women on the internet happens everyday and sports journalists Sarah Spain and Julie DiCaro want people to know how pervasive and damaging it can be.
The women created a hashtag #MoreThanMean to start a discussion about online harassment and partnered with Just Not Sports to make a video called "#MoreThanMean - Women in Sports 'Face' Harassment" with men reading some real-life horrible tweets they've received. The tweets aren't pretty.
To be clear, the men reading the tweets are not the same men who wrote them. Throughout the video they struggle to get the disgusting words and comments about the women out of their mouths.
"One of the players should beat you to death with their hockey stick like the whore you are."
"I hope your boyfriend beats you."
There are many more disgusting and violent tweets, including references to rape. People on Twitter used #MoreThanMean to support Spain and DiCaro and also to tell their own stories of about online harassment.
And then, because they can't be left out, some trolls used it, too. Yet another bullshit campaign that makes women look weak and pathetic, and men the root of all things wrong with the world.
Spain and DiCaro join the ranks of The Guardian in facing online harassment head on. The Guardian published a study of thousands of comments and found that female, Black, and gay writers receive the most internet abuse in their site comments.
"As part of a series on the rising global phenomenon of online harassment, the Guardian commissioned research into the 70m comments left on its site since 2006 and discovered that of the 10 most abused writers eight are women, and the two men are black."
ATTN: reached out to Spain and DiCaro and will update this article with their responses when we get them.
