Hello I have a point to make about women, internalized misogyny, and social media platforms.

Something you (I) hear women say a lot is “I don’t get trolled like you do.”

There’s an inherent judgment in this: Maybe you have too many opinions, maybe you’re too loud about politics, maybe it’s your fault in some way.

And: It’s not. It’s structural. It’s a biz model.

Trolling is about engagement.

Like Willie Sutton, who robbed banks because "that's where the money is,"

trolls and sock puppets and swarms SPECIFICALLY target people with high follower counts, verified checkmarks, and engaged followings because that's where the engagement is.

The goal of trolling is to draw attention from a popular account.

Here's why: When trolls, sock puppets or bots hurl abuse at a big account, they draw new followers or engagement (likes, RTs) that raise the troll's profile.

And not just for fun: In algorithmic visibility.

The way Twitter works, at a core level, is

1) you see more tweets from people who engage with you

2) the more a troll account engages with verified/big accounts, the more the troll is visible -- both to the account's followers AND site-wide

This is a structural incentive for trolling.

Trolls, bots, sock puppets are free-riders on the followings of big Twitter accounts. They're like little barnacles.

Muting them doesn't work, because the game is to access the popular account's *followers*. Only blocking stops it.

There is a tendency, because women are brainwashed by patriarchy, to believe getting trolled is the woman's fault: She spoke too much, or too confidently, or too much about male topics (politics, business) and if she could just be quieter, nicer, smaller, it wouldn't happen.

"IIIIII don't get trolled," women say to other women, signalling that they know how to behave, how to please the patriarchy, how to speak so that no meaning is communicated and no one is discomfited by having to do any moral introspection.

The truth is, if you're not getting trolled, it's not because you're an amazing communicator and everyone agrees with you. It's that your account 1) is too small to promise much engagement 2) doesn't cross many lines into "male" territory (including opinions of all kinds)

Trolling is almost mathematic. At 10K followers it starts in earnest. At 20K it becomes more obvious and you see more swarms. At 50K Twitter becomes largely unusable for women on a daily basis.

This is, as the movies say, not personal. It's business. You can't "nice" your way out of getting trolled. It's math.

The other option -- not talking about important subjects -- is voluntary self-erasure. It's meant to keep women out of male political, business, media spaces.

What you see when you spend enough time on Twitter is that “drawing trolling” is not some kind of commentary on your virtuous speech or lack thereof, it’s a play for engagement. More followers makes someone an appealing target because they have more chance of replies.

The internalized misogyny part is that this line is often delivered by women, who have been taught that they can only survive by fitting the patriarchal idea of a woman -- small, and subservient to male interests.

These women love to police other women, to attack them on behalf of men, to suggest that only if women weren't quite so *definite,* or had *so many opinions,* or could *stay in their lane* -- well then, you see, you could achieve the false and empty ideal of female likeability.

Here's the problem with that: The patriarchy will not reward you for following their rules. They want you to agree to step aside and shut up and let the boys make the rules, and they like to make examples of women who stick their heads up, to show to never challenge them again.

When you enforce patriarchal views of women's speech, you are not, despite what you think, winning brownie points with the boys. The boys think you're shit too, just like the women they're attacking. They just appreciate that you're dumb enough to assist them in oppressing you.

The fact that this social media math specifically works against women is not an accident. Start paying attention to how often prominent women here get swarmed by trolls or bots. Several times a day.

It could just be the world's greatest coincidence, sure, okay.

Or it could be a sign that social media thrives on *structural* misogyny. If you are good enough at your job to draw a large following, you've also hit the level where your speech and power are the same as -- and thus dangerous to -- the system that privileges white male speech.

This is what a lot of younger women don't understand. They think it's cute and cool to attack other women (whether for $4-a-word or otherwise) to show how edgy they are and how they're not like other women, they're cool enough to disrespect women like the dudes do.

And what happens is that you realize, when you get any kind of power that is equivalent to what a man would get -- a big following, a big title -- that men do not consider you "one of them" for it. They just consider you someone who has things that rightfully belong to a man.

When you're young+powerless it's easy to believe you just need to align with male power to get your own. But that's not what happens. Ask *any* woman who gets authority: The attitude men have is not "wow, she's one of us now, an equal, capable human" but "how did she get here?"

So you should know that every woman with a large following, a big career, a title -- not the little titles, the big ones that men want -- had to work really hard to make that space, against a lot of resistance.

And the trolling, bots, sock puppets, swarms -- almost always male-dominated but heavily supported by women who have never experienced authority or autonomy -- are just a way to take that hard-earned space away from women again.

So the next time you see someone preening about not getting trolled, please take into account these dynamics. The algorithmic incentives to harass women, misogyny from men, and internalized misogyny from women. People project their fears on anyone who's prominent-esp women.

As a funny, distantly related anecdote:

I was young (28) when I first became chief of an international bureau. It was the usual "promote our best reporters into management" type of thing. I didn't actually want it but I figured: Gotta grow up sometime.

And as a senior reporter then, immersed in my beat, I received so much praise and support from my male colleagues. "Killer scoop," "good story," lots of respect and pats on the back.

When I got promoted, though, elbows got a lot sharper.

I was surprised- and dismayed.

I thought it was me, I really did, although of course no one changes that much in a month.

I felt the urge to even nicer, even smaller, show I was unthreatening. (It didn't work, they just pushed harder).

One Q they asked a lot: "How many people do you manage?"

I was so thrown off by the question. Who cared? The point was to have a well-functioning bureau, not preen and swagger about it.

I ran this by a friend -- a lesbian, from Belfast, so we're talking absolutely fearless -- and she explained what was going on.

"When they ask you how many people you manage," she said, "they're really asking how big your d*ck is."

()

The idea is the job was a "man's" job so I would be judged on "man" metrics. And she was right. I got it.

And I realized that my interests and those of the patriarchy were not aligned.

I don't talk about myself here a lot but I feel that anecdote may help another woman to recognize that being smaller doesn't make you safer. You can't be small enough.

You also can't succeed by being small. And you won't be rewarded for it. So don't tell yourself to be quieter and don't tell other women to be quieter. It's pointless.

The opposite: Think bigger. Speak more. Have more opinions. Leave your lane. That's how you make your space.

Also, I mentioned younger women here but this is across age groups. You also see older women bully or talk down to other women (Nancy Pelosi to The Squad is a good example) because they believe they have more authority. Neither way is good. We should see each other as equals.

Here's a great read about deprogramming internalized misogyny, by @mollylambert from 2011. via @mademoiselleMim

The best concept: No woman diminishes your coolness. Together you are only magnified.

http://thisrecording.com/today/2011/2/22/in-which-we-teach-you-how-to-be-a-woman-in-any-boys-club.html

And something else: If you're a woman, another reason to reject internalized misogyny -- to actively interrogate yourself -- is because a lot of it is patriarchal programming designed to turn you against yourself, less able to show your feelings and full range of humanity.

The patriarchy wants you self-doubting and weaker and constantly expending energy on how to speak to and align with the patriarchy.

This is so the patriarchy can give yoy just enough internalized second-class status in order to dismiss you as a second-rate man.

And you don't have to believe that "strength" is male strength. There is also a woman's strength, which makes room for all emotions -- happiness and anger and compassion and vulnerability -- and still knows how to hold its space.

That's what strength is, imo: Holding your space.

I was saying this to @taffyakner in discussing her (excellent) book Fleishman Is In Trouble, where one character seemed to me someone who had internalized male messages on how to be a woman.

That character showed how so many women don't speak - until they have to scream.

That's the thing about being a woman: You're told, pressured, forced not to speak...so you store it up until the only way you can possibly be heard is to scream.

I reject this. This is why I keep writing and talking and tweeting. Speak up regularly now so you don't scream later

(And this is why my tweets are feisty but I'm completely calm and diplomatic in person and never shout. Some things you have to keep back - for your own sanity as well - but a lot of us think better dialectically and can rid ourselves of weight through conversation).

So: Please don't hold back as much. There's no need to hurt anybody (except terrible people, you don't owe them niceness) but a lot of the stuff women suppress will find a way to get out, so learn to mediate it and share it. We women barely know each other bc dudes talk so much.

Some very nice and smart ladies have said "wait should I worry I don't get trolled?" and here are my thoughts on that.

(At this point I've been typing a lot so I just screencapped my side. Yes I text and DM in annoying bursts like this, sorry)

This brilliant poem by Erica Jong (a fellow Barnard woman) also gets at the way internalized misogyny ruins us.

https://www.poeticous.com/erica-jong/alcestis-on-the-poetry-circuit

That poem is via @jenmercieca! A wonderful and brilliant person to follow.

This thread is generation so many smart comments and reactions and conversations with women, and another point came up about internalized misogyny.

It's subconscious. A lot of women don't perceive that they have accepted male misogyny and see other women ONLY as men see them.

What this means is that straight women check out each other's breasts and busts and wrinkles as often and as closely as men do. Not out of solidarity, but to evaluate whether those women are a threat to their standing with men, which is based on sexual value and implied youth.

First of all, implied youth is nothing to celebrate. Everyone gets old. No one is immune. There is no point in celebrating youth, because 1) you didn't earn it, it's not special, everyone goes through it and 2) the *best-case scenario* for life is that you get old.

But back to the point: Women evaluate each other as sexual objects as they have been taught men evaluate them as sexual objects, and allegedly, the more of a sexual object you are, the more the patriarchy will like and elevate and celebrate you.

So: That's not what happens.

There is no patriarchal privilege in being a sexual object. Having perfect breasts, thighs, butt, hairlessness: It does not confer power on you. In actuality, it denies you free will. Men will constantly be in your space trying to control you. It makes you an accessory at most

Certainly you can attempt to be the perfect sexual accessory but again: That's not a long-term plan. Patriarchal misogny dictates that women are no longer sexually viable as of 35. If you plan to live to 75, you're going to need a better plan than good thighs.

So you're going to have to see your body differently: As a useful, moving, functioning thing that does not exist for male decorative value. And you're going to have to see *other women's bodies* that way and stop marking up their features on some pricing chart: "good hair, $100"

So where this objectification becomes most apparent as a female safety tactic is in friendships. There are a lot of women who think they can't be misogynists because "LOOK AT MAH GIRLS, LOOK AT MY SQUAD!"

These female cliques are not entirely empowering, however.

In many cases, closed cliques like that are a feature of adapted internalized misogyny: "These few women are okay, they will not compete for sexual attention with me, all other women are suspicious and threatening."

Frequently, mocking other women is a feature of those cliques.

So if you think you have a close, amazing friend group that makes you feel "safe," it's worth asking what's safe about it. What are you talking about? Are you characterizing non-friend women as sexually threatening, as bitches, as sluts or golddiggers?

Congrats, that's misogyny

You're doing the same thing the boys are doing, and having MAH GUUUURRRLLS doesn't really change that. If you're judging other women on their looks, weight, body, sexual viability:

You're losing.

Not them, you: Because your energy is directing self-hatred and male control.

Here is the means to liberation: You must understand that all hatred of other women, all hatred of their bodies and behaviors, and all hatred of your own body parts is just

...self-hatred programmed into you by men to make the task of controlling and weakening you easier.

Straight men are taught that the world is theirs, that their sexual needs are central and important not just to themselves but to the rightful functioning of power and the world. Women are taught to accept and submit to this principle: Male interests first.

But: don't.

Don't accept that you were put on this earth to attract or support or serve or hide behind a man. Women are equal humans.

Gonna say it again: Women are equal humans.

You have as much right to the world as any man. So do other women. Let's keep that in mind and unite forces.

https://twitter.com/latimes/status/1154939483894308865