That’s self-contradictory. You say Newman is wrong in claiming women don’t blog because of ‘Internet pugnacity’ and claim instead that ‘women are involved in blogging, more of them than men’ – but then go on to say ‘in party political blogging [the subject of this article] this is reversed’.

What does that mean if not that men are more involved in political blogging than women? And how do you reconcile this ‘reversed’ situation with ‘most of us [women] are big enough and tough enough to handle it, and handle it we do, quietly, exhaustively, relentlessly…’

The subject matter of this article is political blogging. Newman wasn’t even that specfic in his quote; he just says ‘blogging’, which makes him even more inaccurate. There is a difference between political blogging and, I emphasise this time, party political blogging.

The parties and their infrastructures are massively dominated by men. Newman’s comment reflects a reality about the main political parties, not a reality about blogging at all.

There are not more men involved in political blogging. There are more men involved in partisan political blogging. There are lots of women who blog politically; most of them, crucially, also blog other things, which is one reason men don’t class them as “political” blogs. Sara Bedford, for example, posts recipes as well as local and national politics.

The point here is that the insider system, i.e. the party political bloggers, are mostly men and they seem to think that this is because women don’t want to blog about party politics or are physiologically unable to do so. Both of these contentions are inaccurate. The reason party blogging is dominated by men is that the parties and the Westminster Bubble are also dominated by men.

In order to receive a caution, you have to accept that the police did what they accused you of. You can’t get off with a caution if you contest your guilt.

Therefore Liddle either did wallop his girlfriend, or was falsely accused of that crime and then untruthfully told the police that he had done it, and was sorry.

Aargh! Assault =/= ‘walloping his girlfriend’. Assault, as a criminal offence, does not involve any actual violence – only imposing the fear of violence onto somebody. That’s the point. He may or may not have hit his girlfriend. Accepting a caution for assault does not prove it either way. Stating that he has beaten her up, and relying on that caution as evidence, is libellous, because the latter does not prove the former.

That’s self-contradictory. You say Newman is wrong in claiming women don’t blog because of ‘Internet pugnacity’ and claim instead that ‘women are involved in blogging, more of them than men’ – but then go on to say ‘in party political blogging [the subject of this article] this is reversed’.

What does that mean if not that men are more involved in political blogging than women? And how do you reconcile this ‘reversed’ situation with ‘most of us [women] are big enough and tough enough to handle it, and handle it we do, quietly, exhaustively, relentlessly…’

You obviously can’t tell the difference between describing a situation as it is with describing how it ought to be – particularly risible since you not only go on to agree with Newman but extend his argument

Hrrm; I think you’re misreading here. Newman gives Internet pugnacity as a reason why women aren’t involved in blogging. Since he is factually incorrect in contention (women are involved in blogging, more of them than men; in party political blogging this is reversed). His statement of a cause for a non-existant situation is intrinsically flawed.

Laurie confirms that his assessment of the situation (the Internet is pugnacious) is accurate; she goes on to further the assertion, saying that the blogosphere has a lot of dick-size wars. (I’m paraphrasing her point, but I suspect she won’t mind, since I’ve understood it). What you seem to have missed is but when that hostility occurs, as it has for women since the Internet began, most of us are big enough and tough enough to handle it, and handle it we do, quietly, exhaustively, relentlessly…

The main bone of contention is that Newman et al. are failing to notice inconvenient women bloggers, presumably by way of the “no true Scotsman” fallacy; in this instance, “no really involved blogger”.

I’m not the one claiming Rod Liddle is making legal threats and attempting to curtail free speach on this blog (when he clearly isn’t) whist at the same time deleating posts which refer to the obsession with him.

Ah, the joys of the Internet – people with the temerity to disagree.

The former can be remedied in about 2 minutes. Set up your own website. Post whatever you want on it. Bingo – no free speech violation

The latter will take up a little bit more of your time, and effort, and money.

Believe me – I’ve been there!

“We believe in free speech but not your right to abuse our space.”

In your “Rod Liddle makes legal threats against us” conversation last week you accuse him of trying to supress free speach – only to delete my comment (formerly comment 44 on this topic) a few days later.

Did my pointing out your returning to the subject of Rod Liddle – even on this unconnected topic by Laurie – merit you removing my earlier comment? Was I being abusive or just being an irritant – albeit neither silly, sarcastic or abusive?

As a fine upholder of our liberty you must try harder.

Oh come on!

In order to receive a caution, you have to accept that the police did what they accused you of. You can’t get off with a caution if you contest your guilt.

Therefore Liddle either did wallop his girlfriend, or was falsely accused of that crime and then untruthfully told the police that he had done it, and was sorry.

Liddle says it is the latter – but frankly, I think it is acceptable for Sunny to say that he doesn’t believe that.

I’m happy to accept that – though my comment was a layman’s use of the language and not the legal one. In any case, I accepted that and changed the wording on the ad. His point is that talking about that issue is wrong – I dsagree. Liddle has made many misogynist comments since then and it does, to me and others, say something about him.

The problem is that people do tend to dismiss genuine misogyny quite easily. Andy would never say the same about someone who’s made Islamophobic comments for example, but when it relates to this issue, suddenly it is out of bounds. Bollocks it is.

I was going to phone the police when my boyfriend beat me up, but thanks to all the male lefties on this blog I realise it is all very complicated and sometimes the involvement of the police only makes things worse.

Also apparently only Marquess of Queensbury Rules apply to Rod Liddle. His post about Harriet Harman didn’t need ot follow those rules because it was about a woman.

Thanks guys! I’ve got that all straight now.

Comment by The Second Sex — 8 February, 2010 @ 10:36 pm

I don’t take responsibility for the idiocy of many on the hard-left but I’d like to think the centre-left is different when it comes to attitudes towards women. Or maybe I’m being too optimistic.

Though there is a larger issue of which this is a part, and that is the perceived anonymity that posters, particularly those who comment on existing content, believe they have. We do not interact online the same way we do in real life and that is largely because we are free to interact anonymously. This allows people to be as rude as they like to whomever they like without consequence. Until people come to the medium without that baggage they will continue to act as they do.

Concomitant to that, commenting is often a polarised medium, by it’s very definition. People who agree with the point made are limited to agreeing “yes I agree with the post” or “this is a good post”. Whereas most of the traffic is coming from people who disagree – often sent to the thread by a post somewhere else saying “look at point X they are making, its unbelievable” which is further encouragement to turn up and vent in the comments.

Both of those factor encourage this negative behaviour. I’m not excusing it in any way, just saying that the polarised, ill-thought, inarticulate comments are part of the medium. Course the whole rape threats/fantasy and general misogyny is not acceptable in any way, at all, and very confusing to right-thinking people.

If we’re honest most of us do it.

(He recently lost a libel action against a couple of newspapers who wrote about his support for military jihad, as well)

Not so strange Adam when Laurie is writing a blog post about her emotional response to a statement that dismisses her. She wasn’t giving an account of the panel.

Why does anyone take anything he says anout anything at all seriously?

What were his “cutting edge” insights at “Progressive” London?

But I bet he didn’t………

If I were Hundal, I’d be issuing an apology sharpish. But then self-obsessed, right-wing, mouthy commentators – be they Hundal or Liddle – rarely have much sense.

I notice that his readers don’t know the difference between assault and battery either.

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=5240

I’m in the comments, defending Sunny, for a change