the ch!cktionary

24 Feb 2010
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The Five Types Of Haters Female Bloggers Encounter (And What To Do About Them)

Following up on my post about the disproportionate amount of hate directed at women who blog, here’s a guide to the five types of sexist comments that you’ll typically encounter as a female blogger. (Complete with real comments as examples!)

1. The Body Snarking Commenter. Examples:

Your face is so ugly that your cat is more attractive than you. [link]

I see in the pictures a rather ugly moon-faced girl who has given her size a weight problem. [link]

You are really, really fat… I mean, just look at your face in the mirror, jeez. [link]

There is a little-noticed undercurrent of misogyny that still attacks women who don’t conform to a norm, such as a beauty ideal. Ask any moderately popular female blogger; sooner or later, she’ll get a nasty comment about her appearance. Women who don’t pass the fuckability test are fair game for critique. If you are too short/chubby/flat-chested/oily-faced/unfashionable/otherwise inadequate, then someone’s going to tell you to shut the fuck up. Such low blows, however, are rarely directed at men. Though women are treated as undeserving of respect unless they conform to XYZ standard, men aren’t held to the same expectations. Don’t believe that women face particular discrimination because they’re women? Think for a second about the type of insults lobbed at guys: pussy, fag, queer, bitch. The worst way to insult a man is to imply that he possesses qualities of a woman.

2. The Resentful Commenter. Examples:

Lena is an idiot. She thinks because she went to Harvard and majored in sociology, she smarter than everyone. Fucking stupid. [link]

Ugh! You are so full of yourself! Diarrhea of the mouth! I’m un-following this stuck-up Harvard whore. [link]

You are not entitled to endless european travel, ice cream, and sex, let alone happiness. [link]

This sort of criticism is akin to calling a Black person “uppity” just because they dare to act like they’re as intelligent as Whites. Though name-dropping an Ivy League school is sure to bring these commenters out of the woodwork, they also appear voluntary when a woman reveals that her vocabulary shockingly consists of more than 200 words. These folks can’t stand the thought of a woman with a better degree, career, or life in general. Remember when Hillary was characterized during the primaries as an overly ambitious shrew? If she were a male politician, she’d be described as “driven”.

3. The Vengeful Commenter. Examples:

Your name will always be associated with being a whore and a degenerate. That will live on forever. You are damaged goods. Not employable. Blacklisted from every reputable company in the world. [link]

Enjoy getting fired after three months in every job when your employer finds out about this. [link]

You have no job opportunities because of your whorish ways that ruined your life forever. [link]

Closely related to the Resentful Commenter, this type of person writes fortune-cookie-style omens informing you that your future is doomed. Oftentimes, they show up just to remind you that failure is imminent. Thanks for the memo, guys!

4. The Racist Commenter. Examples:

You asian girls are such cockblockers and such haters sometimes. [link]

I want a 2 item combo. I want fried rice and double orange chicken. Thank you. [link]

Too many ugly pieces of Asian human garbage like YOU think you are American and claim to have been born here. [link]

At this point, this is getting pretty self-explanatory. This particular type of commenter also trolls blogs written by men, but on women’s blogs, they get to creatively incorporate sexual stereotypes. Think: sideways pussy and “me love you long time”. Let’s move on.

5. The Sociopathic Commenter. Examples:

Tape a plastic bag on your head kill yourself live on a webcam. Just make sure we can see your pussy getting wet while you die. [link]

suck my dick slut. its impossible for you to be raped because that implies your unwilling. [link]

I am gonna find you, if it is the last thing I do … you are the one in front of me that I need to fucking anihilate … Your own writting will be the path to your graveyard. [link]

And then there are some people who are just plain scary.

WHY SHUTTING UP ISN’T THE ANSWER

Now that you know humanity sucks, what next? The above overview of online haterade is pretty depressing, but I think it highlights an important reality that requires our attention: sexism and misogyny are far from dead. Consider what a somewhat apologetic “hater” says:

Lena,

I’m not a fan of yours, and I’ve posted nasty comments on your blog before. Now I regret having doing so, not having been aware of the extent of your pain … What you’ve experienced is human nature. It’s not pretty. There’s a lot of ambient, bitter hatred for female promiscuity (or the perception thereof) and your blog made you a lightning rod for it. The ambient hatred will never go away, and while it may not be virtuous, it’s a bad idea to provoke it by making a blog about your personal sex life. [link]

Though this commenter’s remorse made me feel slightly better, I disagree with the belief that it is “a bad idea to provoke” gender-based hatred by writing about sex (or any controversial topic, for that matter). While a female blogger, by virtue of her gender, is likely to attract more vitriol, remaining silent for fear of criticism only perpetuates the idea that you’re either a good girl or a difficult woman. And who wants to be the latter, right? Having experienced extremely cruel criticism myself, I know first-hand how much easier it is to simply self-censor or to click “delete” when you see a vicious comment. Yet it never ceases to amaze me how many people believe gender inequality no longer exists. Is it any surprise? Far too few women talk about this stuff! Rather than turning a blind eye to gender-based attacks, we should draw readers’ attention to them and actively agitate against this type of silencing.

Women, especially those with their own forums, must insist on the same respect given so easily to men. These small yet ubiquitous acts of shaming only become more effective if we try to swallow and ignore them. Since I’ve started posting some particularly atrocious offenses, I’ve seen more and more of my readers fight back against the misogyny they witness. Conversations, which might have never otherwise occurred, are sparked by a single troll’s comment. If women’s opinions and viewpoints are to be taken seriously, then they have to be considered on their own merit and not tainted by sexist expectations of how we ought to act. When we put our names to our writing, we must be able to trust that judgment of our work will be based on the quality of our arguments, not on our socially acceptable dress size or our agreeable nature or our willingness to go out with a stranger from the Internet. I will probably always encounter the occasional sexist remark and so will many of you, but rather than viewing it as disheartening, use it as an opportunity to emphasize that the struggle for gender equality is far from over.

19 Feb 2010
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Stormfront, White Supremacist Site, Doesn't Like My Slutty Asian Ass

Ever wonder how neo-Nazis mobilize support for a Brave New Aryan World? Wonder no more!

For reasons that escape me, there’s a libelous thread on Stormfront, perhaps the largest and most infamous of White nationalist forums, about my distaste for American conservatism and my shamelessly slutty ways. Apparently, in 2010, trolling is the new lynching, since we can’t simply beat the shit of those pesky brown folks anymore. A sampling of my favorite quotes:

Just think: Some White student was turned down for acceptance at Harvard, so that this trash could fill a slot in Harvard’s minority quota.

Notice the pictures of her. She could pass for a negro. I am convinced that asians are just a branch of negros.

I’m sure China is waiting with open arms for this degenerate whore.

She is earning her Harvard degree on her back. I seriously doubt she has learned a single marketable skill but operating a brothel. Since all our money is being funneled to Red China and there is a swelling bachelor population thanks to their one-child rule, she could probably clean up.

I besmirch some pot-bellied dog eater and their supporters crawl out like cockroaches. I just think there are a lot of self-hating slants out there trolling about.

I’ve even been the lucky recipient of several racist comments on my blog. For example:

USA Land of Whoring: Please stay where you are and continue being your banana degenerate self, sucking white ass…and cock in your case. Just plain disgusting.

And even better:

Bob: As little as three years ago I would have taken great offense to your remarks about America. But now I know you are correct. Jewish-controlled American culture is poison, especially to women. You are wise to not want her back.

Wow, the Jews own everything, what a novel argument!

Related: Hating On Women Bloggers

15 Feb 2010
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Hating On Women Bloggers

This is an oldie (but a goodie) from See Emily Blog, who writes in this entry about the vitriol directed at women bloggers, such as mommy blogger Heather Armstrong and me. (Confession: it blows my mind that someone would mention Sex and the Ivy in the same breath as Dooce.)

Emily sums up the haterade on my blog like this:

I constantly see some flat out disgusting and insulting comments thrown her way, even though she rarely writes about her sex life anymore, and if she does, there’s very little detail … A lot of Chen’s posts have some type of comment about how she needs psychological counseling to face the childhood demons that turned her into such a whore and ruined her life.

Which is funny, because the reason I started therapy during my sophomore year of college was because the fallout from my blog made me very, very depressed. Not prompted by childhood demons, but rather the cruelty of, well, the world. I’ve since grown the fuck up and realized that assholes are nothing to be sad about.

I can’t tell you how shitty I used to feel when I was 19 and fielding vicious comments on a daily basis, but I grew a thicker skin and got used to it. It only ever really bothered me when people close to me became collateral damage via association. But even though some of my detractors have gone after my roommates and my family, they never managed to figure out the identity of anyone I hooked up with or dated … until Patrick. Part of the reason why I no longer write as explicitly as I used to about my sex life on Sex and the Ivy, is because I’m in a relationship which has become impossible to hide. It’s pretty telling that I ever even tried to hide it and even more telling that I failed, despite my best efforts, to keep Patrick’s identity a secret.

Armstrong turned the tables by starting an ad-plastered site that republished all the hateful comments directed at her. I’m tempted to do the same for sheer entertainment value (though probably not for profit, given my significantly lower traffic). Thoughts?

Stay tuned: the next time I take a break from my thesis (uh, don’t cross your fingers), I’ll write up a handy guide to the four or five types of haterade you might expect to encounter if you’re a woman blogger.

22 Sep 2009
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On Privilege & the Ivy League

what a spoiled little life you lead. how DO you pay for all your globe trotting and partying? you must have rich parents or a sugar daddy. or maybe you moonlight in addition to your ‘writing career’? anyway, enjoy your life of privilege while it lasts. someday you may find yourself scrubbing floors or pots and pans or caring for the sick or elderly. life is not a beach, as the saying goes. -comment by joe

The bottom line you Ivy league snob, is that you throw all of your globetrotting in the face of the 99% of readers who are less fortunate than your spoiled ass. Most college students are eating ramen noodles 5 nights a week, and living in a piece of shit apartment with second hand furninture you ungrateful twit. Maybe you should get some common sense. I can’t wait until you graduate and are unemployed. Maybe then you will learn some humility. –comment by Satsuya

I never cease to be amazed by the amount of vitriol spewed my way. Most of it is along the lines of “whore whore slut”, but occasionally, my blog also attracts bitter members of the underclass*. For example, I was heavily criticized last year when I chronicled the time I spent in Europe. Most of that summer was spent squatting in a dorm room where I shared a bed with my best friend (I was literally squatting, as in, I was not allowed to be there and did not pay rent, nor was my presence accounted for in any official way), and most of those nights, she slept on the floor in a sleeping bag. Glamorous it was not.

But some of my more ignorant critics nonetheless view any traveling as jetsetting and Europe/anywhere outside of North America as some shiny place inaccessible to all but the wealthy. That’s just patently untrue. I don’t deny that Harvard offers certain advantages, such as well-connected friends who can offer free lodging or entertainment (see: my entire Ibiza trip). I know plenty of college students who eat ramen, live in small apartments, and are on full financial aid (like me) who also find affordable ways to travel and have fun, often on their school’s dime. Going abroad doesn’t automatically make a person overprivileged or mean that they come from money (or even if they do, it doesn’t mean they don’t pay for it on their own) just as going to an Ivy League school doesn’t automatically make me a snob. (And besides, what would be wrong with parents paying for vacations? I’d want to do that for my kids!)

Do I think I have it better than most college students? Yes and no. I probably have it better than most college students whose mothers are hotel maids. But that’s only because the children of hotel maids don’t usually attend Harvard, an institution as valuable for its social network as it is for its education. If I’d gone to UC Berkeley, I probably wouldn’t receive invitations to the South of France, but maybe I would’ve been invited to Napa instead. That being said, it’s not as if every Harvard student has a recognizable last name and comes from a family who owns second or third homes (most don’t). Those who do are usually humble about it, or at least, they’ve been taught to not talk about it.

Maybe instead of calling me spoiled, ungrateful, and lacking common sense, these commenters should be asking themselves why they’re so resentful. When I first got to Harvard, I very much felt like an odd girl out because of my background and I’ve always been acutely aware of the school’s air of privilege. I’m sure I know better than these guys what it’s like to be poor in the face of extreme wealth. But while I don’t doubt that there are plenty of douchebag Harvard alums stealing your jobs and girlfriends, I’m not one of them and it’s incredibly ignorant to assume that’s what every Ivy Leaguer is like.

The fact that these commenters think it’s impossible for a Harvard student to come from a lower middle class background (i.e. less than $30,000/year for a family of three) just demonstrates how little they know about socioeconomic diversity here. Besides its diversity recruitment efforts, the school also attempts to make money a non-issue one students are on campus by randomizing the housing lottery (so that everyone has a shot at the most desirable dorms) and offering a single all-you-can-eat dining plan (so that everyone can eat as much as they want without having to worry about paying more for it). So sure, you could say that most students who came from a similar background to mine are probably “less fortunate” but that’s because most schools don’t make it a priority to create the illusion of class equality.

I’m perfectly aware that Harvard offers certain privileges, but I’m not going to apologize for taking advantage of them.

* I jest.

29 Jul 2009
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Nothing like waking up to hate mail. This one is in reference to the not-yellow-enough avatar that my little sister designed for LenaChen.com.

While we’re on the subject of inaccurate portrayals of Asians in graphic design, is anyone else surprised that this guy didn’t first point out that the avatar does not have the slanted eyes characteristic of chinky people?

(I didn’t bother to blur out the above email address because I figured it was an anonymous account. If I’m wrong, then “crackerfaggot die!”, please feel free to email me and I’ll take it down.)

18 Jul 2009
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Explaining The Haterade

Interesting discussions in the comments section of my latest post about the root of the online vitriol I experienced while writing Sex and the Ivy. Some thoughts about why I became a target:

You make a good point which has been a recurring theme in the rhetoric of my detractors. Most people don’t think my love or sex life is worth of any sort of attention or press, and I would concur that it’s not more interesting than any other college girl’s. The fact that SATI, for one reason or another (because of the Harvard name perhaps), got plenty of traffic really bothered those who thought I was just another famewhore slutting it up Tila Tequila-style when in actuality, I was primarily grateful for my ability to churn out so much writing, an ability I had considered dead and gone after my freshman year of college. It was never about fame because I wouldn’t have written the blog if I believed what I was writing was crap. I have too much pride for that. (And that’s also why I’ve yet to write a book, because I just don’t think what I CAN produce right now is good enough.)

And another explanation I’ve come up with for all the vitriol: I think people like taking Ivy League kids down a notch, and I can understand that given all the entitlement I witnessed at Harvard. Most of my biggest detractors assumed I came from a similarly privileged background, when my parents are actually immigrants who struggled and still struggle to support large families. The funny thing is that a lot of this criticism was of me leading a seemingly glamorous/wealthy existence when in actuality, I had to work my ass off every term to have the same lifestyle as my college friends. And of course, when I wrote about partying, shopping, going out, people assumed my money was coming from my parents.

Originally posted as a comment by lena on Sex and the Ivy using Disqus.

24 Jun 2009
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Paganism Is The New Atheism

The reality is pretty simple and yet, you Harvard-educated morons can’t seem to grasp such a simple concept. Can you please name any president in the history of the United States, any congressman or woman, any supreme court justice, or anybody else in the position to influence policy and decisions such as allowing same-sex marriage, that subscribe to no religion?!!?!? Maybe that is why they ascend to the positions of influence that they do, and the pagans who believe in nothing will not.

Your opinion is irrelevant and will continue to be so. Keep believing that your opinion is correct. It won’t make a bit of difference in enforcing real change. The people who are in a position of influenece and the vast majority of citizens of the United States who matter aren’t pagans like the liberal lunatics where you live.

Originally posted as a comment by Michelle on The Chicktionary using Disqus.

There are two possibilities:

This girl is a troll.
This girl is actually this ignorant.

For her own sake, I hope it’s the former. (Though I do delight in being called a “pagan.”)

I’ve noticed that my atheism has become more militant in the past year, no doubt in part due to the influence of Kennedy and Patrick. It’s unimaginable to me that I used to describe myself as agnostic. Now I can say with certainty that it’s neither possible to perform a virgin birth nor survive after being swallowed by a whale.

4 Jun 2009
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In Which I Embrace My Ivy Snobbery

After trying to keep my cool during a back-and-forth with a dense commenter on my most recent CollegeCandy article, I broke a cardinal rule:

Only use the H-bomb as a last line of defense.

I know, I know. It’s so unfair. Once you drop the H-bomb, it’s game over. Because really, who’s going to argue with someone who proved themselves at 18 by landing Harvard admission despite a 9.1% acceptance rate? (And I was an early applicant, too.) It’s entirely unfair to the other party.

Oops. We were arguing about the value of finance jobs. I made fun of them and said the hours were too long for me to date someone in the industry. She got incredibly defensive, derided my job as a freelance writer, and suggested that my education was a waste of money since I should’ve just gone to community college for writing. Being a swine flu victim and all, my patience was tested. Here are the results:

“Judging from your ridiculous assumptions about what Harvard kids are like, I’m almost certain you’re not a Harvard student. However, you’re surprisingly defensive about these coveted cubicle monkeys we call bankers. I can only assume that you’re the neglected girlfriend of some overworked finance guy who you barely see, but idolize from afar. Because he went to some elite school (definitely not Harvard, maybe Penn) and uses words like “problematic”, you believe he’s a genius. Like, a real one. Unfortunately, your relationship is collapsing along with the market, and those lonely evenings are becoming more unbearable and harder to justify. And so, you’re taking this column personally. Not as a banker, but as a girlfriend of a banker. That’s a special brand of pathetic.

I know you’d love an opportunity to point at an example of a disappointment at Harvard since it might make your existence a little less meaningless, but honey, even I WERE a disappointment, I still went to Harvard. The entire point of the school is that you could do absolutely nothing afterward and still be vastly superior to everyone else. See this YouTube clip.

19 Feb 2009
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I cannot deal with the stupidity of this comment, written in response to (I assume) this post.

It is mind-boggling that people like this exist in the world. One does not randomly devote themselves to a cause because it is trendy or for the sake of caring superficially about something. So to ask me to switch it up since “gay rights rights is so one dimensional” is nothing short of idiocy. The reason I’m down with the queers is not because I happened to pick their number out of the Hat of the Oppressed while trying to appease my liberal guilt.

Also, “the scope of your causes is so narrow and so shit”? Um, pretty much any social justice issue is going to be pretty fucking narrow considering the constituency involved. Queers are marginalized precisely because they’re a minority, which I suppose makes this a “narrow” cause, but no less worthy than any other.

5 Feb 2009
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juicy campus shutting down

jenwondering:

JuicyCampus founder Matt Ivester announced two days ago that the site is being shut down; today will be its last day in operation. For those of you who haven’t heard of this site, it’s a gossip forum that focuses on college campuses. The site is completely anonymous (no names, registration, emails, verification), which leads to overwhelming doses of bitchiness and douchebaggery.

I have a mixed relationship with JC. While on one hand I enjoy occasionally explore it to kill time, on the whole I think it’s rather disgusting. UCSD isn’t a huge hotbed of gossip and scandal, so while I’ve recognized names occasionally on the site, it doesn’t happen often.

My roommate EC, however, has a friend who has been attacked extensively on JC. Sydney has been touted as a slut and worse, and there are pages upon pages on her and her reputedly promiscuous behavior. While browsing through the replies, I noticed two things: 1) people are ridiculous when they are anonymous, and 2) society still sets a double standard for women, and brand those who enjoy sex openly as unclean pariahs. While I’m not surprised by either of these revelations, I’m still a little shocked when it’s regarding someone so personal—a girl whom I’ve spoken to over webcam. When it hits that close to home, it’s hard to stand by and feel nothing.

To be honest, I’m glad the site is shutting down. While I know others of its kind will regenerate and multiply on the web, at least every crass thing said about Sydney will be deleted. Whatever the entertainment value, it’s still not worth it. And obviously, we still haven’t matured enough to end this kind of exploitation.

Last spring, this website and AutoAdmit (which I refuse to link to) outted Patrick as the guy I was seeing and made accusations about unethical conduct blah blah blah. Well, six months later, my relationship is still intact but Matt Ivester’s bank account is not. Guess this guy’s off my “To Sue” list.