Thread by @wiczipedia

Good morning! Lots of men among my followers were giving me suggestions about how to deal with online misogynists in responses to this thread yesterday.

Here are a few reasons why it's not particularly helpful or constructive.

https://twitter.com/wiczipedia/status/1353021087232253953

1. If you're a man telling a woman how to deal with online misogyny: nope. Just stop. You may as well be giving me tampon advice. Intellectually, you may think you understand what online (or real life) harassment is, but you can't understand the effect it has on the target.

2. It's highly personal; everyone deals with this differently. Not every target will choose to react the same way. Responses can range from righteous indignation to disengagement to direct response to trolls, and that's the target's choice, not yours.

3. "Just ignore them" is not helpful advice. It is very hard to ignore hundreds of hateful tweets or DMs. I know you mean well by saying this, but it is a damn near impossible feat. If you want to express support, a better message would be "I support you and value your work!" etc

4. And finally, please consider that I have very deliberately made the choice to highlight this behavior. I have screenshotted them, not replied to them directly or RTd them, and in cases where public figures are not involved, have hidden their names. Why is this my MO?

I choose to do it this way because I aim to build awareness about the extent of the problem without feeding the algorithm, giving oxygen to abusers, opening myself up to more harassment, or tacitly encouraging counter-harassment by my followers.

This is the approach I have deemed most effective for *me.* Other women may react differently. But we know what we're doing.

(If you want more info we'll be touching on some of these themes in our report launch tomorrow wilsoncenter.org/event/report-l…)