Aram Zucker-Scharff

You may notice that a lot of things happen to do with sexism on
the internet. Sometimes someone has done a sexist thing and
people are talking about it. Sometimes someone has written an
article about the time they experienced sexism and other people
are having feelings about it.  Sometimes a particular
woman or women is being harassed on Twitter and you are
witnessing it.

As you know, sexism is bad, and when bad things happen, you
might have feelings about it too. But how can you help? What
should be done? Here is a guide:

DON’T: Tweet at women asking them “what
should be done”. When someone is venting about systemic
injustice, commandeering their attention with the question,
“but what solutions would you recommend” is akin to walking up
to a person who is on fire and asking them to bring you a
bucket of water so that you can “help.”

DON’T: Make the person who is clearly
suffering from the effects of an unfair system do free work for
you. If you need more information to understand what you see
happening, you have ways of obtaining it: Look at someone’s
profile and read their feed or their conversations. Look at
links that have been posted. Google. Ask your own friends. You
can find a Game of Thrones torrent from anywhere in the world,
and you can find out what has happened or is being discussed
without making people who are obviously upset or occupied
explain it to you. Some people may have high public profiles
and busy feeds; some people may even be experiencing stressful
interactions, even threats. You are not helping by butting in
with “link please” or “did I miss something.”

DON’T: Feel like you have to give a response.
Sometimes people simply want to be heard and understood, and
you do not need to prove you are a good person by offering a
pithy reply or insincerely fist-shaking along. One component of
sexism is that men tend to inherently expect that what they say
is valuable, and that a statement from a woman cannot possibly
stand alone without their contributions. It is totally and
entirely possible that you might have nothing to add, and you
could benefit from the conversations of those who do.

DON’T: Try to explain things. Understand that
even if the person you are addressing is not an authority in
her field (though she often may be, as sexism targets prominent
women) you ought not automatically assume she needs you to let
her know how things go in her field, unless she has asked.
Experiment with the idea that her experience is not whatsoever
about you and it’s not the time for you to attention-seek or
offer an ‘alternative perspective’.

And absolutely don’t try to explain to a woman writer or
speaker what sexism is or what is happening to her. She knows.

DON’T: Tone-police. Does she sound enraged,
impatient, and bitter? Is she not being especially nice to all
the people who have Tweeted at her to explain sexism, ask her
how to solve sexism, or otherwise undermine the things she is
saying? Too bad. You wouldn’t be nice either if you lived in a
system which consistently conspired to remove your authority
and devalue your work. No matter what happens, you are not the
victim in the situation — do not re-center conversations on
yourself and your needs and emotions by pestering angry women
to talk more nicely to you.

Did she hurt your feelings? You’ll live. Ditch the passive
aggressive “fair enough” and “I was merely trying to” and “as
you wish” and all of this, leave her alone, and consider your
obligation to be part of the solution to a system that has
harmed her and made her angry. If you think women, particularly
women who are public figures, should feel an equally-important
sense of obligation to make you feel good about yourself while
they are under stress, congratulations: You are part of the
problem.

DON’T: Make stupid jokes. You might be one of
tons of people Tweeting at her, tone is hard to read online,
and you shouldn’t be putting anyone, especially someone who
does not actually know you, in charge of figuring out
your sense of humor when they are under stress. You might just
be trying to lighten things up or cheer the situation, but let
people be angry, let them have heated discussions if they want
and need to. Imagine this: Your dog dies, and a stranger
walking past thinks you should cheer up, or take it less
seriously, and decides to joke about your dead dog. What would
you think of them?

You aren’t the mood police, and joking when someone is upset
just sends the message that you don’t want to take her feelings
or challenges seriously.

DO: Express your feelings of support. When you
see something unjust happen, say that you condemn it. When
someone’s the victim of destructive sexist behavior, defend
them– not in a brownie points-seeking way, directing your
comments at the victim herself or copying women into your
Tweets so that they know you’re a good guy — but in your own
channels. When you see friends and colleagues passing on
destructive opinions, challenge them. By engaging the issue
yourself, you take responsibility.

DO: Consider the well-being of others. When a
woman or group of women becomes the victim of sexist harassment
in public, spotlighting them isn’t always helpful, even if it’s
well-intentioned. Tweeting “Everyone currently spewing hateful
bullshit @thisperson is a jerk” expresses a noble and true
sentiment, but it also does two things:  puts the
spotlight on @thisperson and the volume of hate speech
circulating around her, and also risks attracting more jerks.
Good intentions aren’t quite enough: Think about the impact
your statement may have, and make sure you’re not just creating
more social media noise for someone. You do not improve
someone’s level of stress or overstimulation with a wall of
five replies from you about how bad you feel for her.

DO: Boost the individual and her work, not her
victimhood. No woman who experiences sexism in her profession
wants to be known primarily for “being a woman who experiences
sexism.” It is right to defend and support women, and it is
right to condemn sexism, but sometimes the best way to do that
is by supporting their work. Hundreds of hair-tearing tweets
protesting all the terrible sexist things that are happening to
so-and-so can actually have the same ultimate effect as sexism:
In both cases, the woman is reduced simply to “victim of
sexism”.

Instead of Tweeting “it sucks what’s happening to @thisperson,
why are people so evil and why is this industry so terrible,”
consider something more like “I support @thisperson, author of
this impactful paper [link]” or “I respect @thisperson, one of
the best speakers on [topic] that I’ve ever seen.” Be sincere
and not flowery or excessive — sometimes when people are trying
to diminish someone because of their gender, talking about
their achievements instead is the best countermeasure. Keep the
individual at the center of the story, not the people
harassing her nor the fact of her harassment. Don’t say “it’s
so brave, what you do.” Say “I like something you
created.”

And remember, women are individuals who all do
different kinds of work, not a hive mind of “women writers”
“women programmers” or “harassment victims” for you to group
together.

DO: Take on some of the battles. When you see
someone attacking a woman — or even just asking the kind of
obtuse “but why is this a problem” questions we’ve already
discussed in point one, here — explain and correct. Provide
resources. Injustice and inequality of all kinds happen because
people don’t recognize or realize the myriad way society has
written different, deeply-ingrained rules for some people
versus others, and information and empathy are keys to solving
that problem. It should not only be women and minorities who
are in charge of disseminating this information and heading up
this fight.

Offer to moderate your friend’s Twitter feed or her website
comments at stressful times (if it’s someone you know
personally, who would trust you with her login
information). Empower yourself to do better than just
watching things happen with angst and concern, feeling bad
about yourself and wondering “what can be done”. Take the lead
sometimes, especially when you see someone being assailed, and
share the load.

DO: Be aware of your own power and how you can
use it to help others. It’s tough for women when they speak or
write about sexism, or become victims of public harassment, to
see strangers on Twitter care about what is happening to them —
but their male peers, the organization they work for, their
colleagues and coworkers remain silent in public. Don’t just
send her a nice note in private about how bad it looks like
things are sucking and how you “have her back.” Actually have
her back. Stand up in public and say that yours is not a
professional infrastructure that allows women to be abused or
treated unfairly. Say that so-and-so is a talented, valued
asset you’re proud to work with or for.

The silence of our friends is so much more painful than the
noise of our enemies, and when our bosses, important figures in
our field, or colleagues do not come out to condemn sexism or
acts of abuse against us it can be very lonesome — we get the
message that sexism is our own problem, an inconvenient issue
that no one wants to get their hands dirty with.

when men condemn sexism the response is universally approving —
good man, brave man. When women talk about sexism, we get death
threats. Men should use this advantage to the fullest: The
essays guys often write about how sexism is wrong or how they
came to understand their own sexism may set examples for other
men, and that’s not unimportant, but it’s basically just
patting their own backs if those men are not also
signal-boosting and supporting the work of women colleagues,
hiring women, and bringing attention to the accomplishments of
the women in their field.

DO: Care about feminist issues all the
time, not just when someone you like on Twitter seems to be
being abused. Share and RT the stories and articles that have
educated you so that others can learn from them. Regardless of
gender, all of us have been sexist before and will probably be
again, as sexism, like racism, is unconscious and related to
the values we internalize in our societies growing up. If
someone tells you you are being sexist or racist, it is not a
slur against your character, but an opportunity to learn more
about yourself and others. We should all be interested in
continuing to read, learn and share with those around
us.

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