Trolling the feminists

A woman (Ms Criado Perez) has run a campaign for women to be featured on Bank of England bank notes.

She was, subsequently, subjected to all manner of abuse and threats. Including threats of rape.

This has become something of a news story here in the UK.

The original issue, whether a place on the back of a bank note should be reserved for a woman, leaves me in the same baffled state that the gay marriage debate did. I really don't see the deal. Jane Austen is a worthy enough figure, but as other writers who have been on bank notes go (Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare) she really looks like the poor relation. The reason women don't often appear on bank notes is that people on bank notes are significant historical figures. Women just did not have the same opportunity to do great things as men did in centuries gone by. It should serve as a salutary lesson in the injustice of the past that we do not have too many great women candidates.

Putting some women on anyhow kind of sweeps that under the carpet in my view.

But really, I find it difficult to give a damn either way. If it really is that important to some people, let them have it. I would like to take the woman off the front, but don't too much care who is on the back of a bank note.

Of all the injustice in the world, is this issue really worth the fight for Ms Criado Perez?

Then there is the secondary issue, which has far outgrown the original debate. It is a significant level of really unpleasant abuse hurled at Ms Criado Perez. Seemingly, these people along with their target, really do care about who is on the bank notes.

Or maybe not.

Ms Criado Perez and feminists in general seem to think this is all about 'shutting them up'. That that is the motivation of people who target them.

There are young males who spend too much time on line abusing other people. I can't know for sure, but it really does seem true that there is at least an informal group of young males who particularly like to abuse women on line. They probably think it is funny, or banter. They probably do it on line because the anonymity means they can generally get away with it.

But is it really about 'shutting women up'? So far as I can tell feminist thought (insofar as it is a single unified idea) on the issue is that society in general disapproves of women having a voice, and that much every day sexism is aimed at 'shutting them up' so that only men are heard.

I do not think that feminists are particularly well qualified to diagnose the motives of the abusers. I expect the abusers would be disappointed if they all shut up. I think they would miss the 'banter'.  They may even be silly enough to assume their targets also enjoy the exchange. That 'they love it really'.

I think feminists conflate the actions of these abusers with the every day desire men often express, and much more often feel, for women to shut up.

Most men I know would see things differently. They might like the women in their lives to shut up not so much so only they are heard, but so that they might have some time hearing nothing at all. That is something that women seem totally unable to grasp.