Facebooking while female

For most people I know, the 2016 primary season has been completely different than any we’ve seen before. The spectacle of Donald Trump, the “who’s the most progressive” contest playing out between the Democratic candidates — let’s just say, I never thought I’d see the day. This cycle has also been completely different in my house because we are riding it out in the company of a new baby. Instead of spending 8+ hours a day in front of a computer and doing pretty much whatever I want with the rest of my time, I’m at home, enjoying a long maternity leave, by which I mean, using all of my time and energy taking care of a tiny human. Turns out babies are cute, but also kind of needy. Who knew?!

So I’ve been watching this primary season from the sidelines, rather than fighting in the trenches. And to be honest, it’s been sort of nice to be on a forced hiatus from online politicking, particularly right now when things seem to be as nasty as I’ve ever seen them. Even as an observer, the nastiness is getting to me. The sexist undertones — and frankly, overtones. The self-righteous ranting and speechifying. The defensive crouch so many people seem to have permanently adopted. It’s like we’ve all collectively forgotten what happens after a contested primary: we look around, remember who the real enemy is, and fight like hell to beat them, together. So when Connie Schultz published her latest column, saying so eloquently so much of what I’ve been thinking, I decided, somewhat nervously, to share it on Facebook.

Yeah, I’m not sure whether I regret that now or not. On the one hand, it provoked a time consuming and rather unpleasant exchange. On the other hand, the whole thing got me just irritated enough to write this all down. So, it’s kind of a toss up. Anyway, here’s what I posted:

I was not at all surprised when the most, shall we say, enthusiastic Bernie Sanders supporter I know (or at least, know in the Facebook sense of the word) commented within 2 minutes. I wasn’t even surprised when his comment was roughly twice as long as my original post. Or when he posted a second comment, within a minute of his first one. To be clear, the contents of his comments weren’t overtly sexist, or blatantly offensive. I didn’t feel threatened, and I wouldn’t call this Berniebro behavior (yet?). But there’s content, and then there’s context. The length, pace, and fervor of his comments — it was aggressive. He was spoiling for a fight, and I was unwilling to give him one.

So I deleted his comments, and went about my day.

Bold move? Maybe. But here’s why I did it: I didn’t have the time or energy to either engage in a debate myself, or moderate the debate that I believed would inevitably play out when another of my friends decided to speak up. As far as I’m concerned, it’s my post, on my page, so it’s my prerogative to handle the comments as I see fit. I knew deleting his comments would piss him off, but I decided I’d rather piss him off than have to deal with a heated back and forth that could last all day — or longer.

You may be wondering: why am I so afraid of a fight? If I’m posting political content on Facebook, shouldn’t I be prepared to defend it? What’s wrong with a little good old fashioned debate? Here’s the deal: most of the time, I’m game. Right now, though, with the aforementioned lack of time, sleep, and use of both hands, I’m being extra cautious, and partly that’s because this seemingly harmless debate actually intersects pretty seriously with my work. My paycheck. Which I owe it to my husband and four month old son to protect.

It’s no secret that I earn my living as a digital campaigner for the American Federation of Teachers, a union whose members have democratically endorsed Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. I really don’t need someone I barely know getting into it with my friends, coworkers, bosses, or potentially worst of all, the members who pay my salary, on my page, all while I’m too busy changing diapers and getting thrown up on to notice or do something about it. Paranoid? Maybe. But I’ve seen it happen. Just this week I saw a colleague, and mom, try to cut debate off on her page because it was interfering in her ability to spend time with her eight year old son before his bedtime. I say “try” because after she politely asked her friends to cut it out, they continued commenting and she had to explain herself, and ask them to stop again.

Of course, when Mr. Opinionated noticed that his comments had been deleted, he chimed back in to accuse me of “throwing a tantrum.” By this point, my kid was asleep, so I once again deleted his comment, and then I decided to take a minute to message him privately to tell him I understood why he was frustrated, it’s nothing personal, I respected his opinion, yadda yadda. I’m sure you’ll be shocked to hear that did not help. Reading his frantic, indignant responses to my borderline apologetic message, it hit me: this was not about Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton or Facebook etiquette —this guy was in a tailspin because he felt his input wasn’t being welcomed. He said the article represented a “personal attack” on him; he accused me of “censoring” him when he was only trying to defend himself; and he wrote,
“if my opinions aren’t valuable enough to matter and be read, I don’t know why were friends on the site.”

Wow. Where to start? There are two main things I keep coming back to:

1. It’s almost as if this guy isn’t used to wondering whether anyone cares what he thinks or says. What a novel way to live! In all seriousness, as a woman, it took me a minute to even wrap my head around that idea. What must it be like to go through life never feeling that your ideas aren’t welcome, never having to make a case as to why anyone should care what you have to say, and never having to fight to be heard? In his world, when he has an opinion, he is given the time and space to express it, no matter the who, what, where, when, and why. If this isn’t a perfect encapsulation of white male privilege, I don’t know what is. I recognize that as a white woman, I’m a member of the second most privileged group in this county, but it’s clear to me that there is still a huge gap between my experience and that of white men — and the idea that one’s opinions should be inherently valuable to someone else, and that you have the right to express them anywhere, anytime, and any way you see fit, is at the root of that difference. The fact that I was choosing not to let him make my page a platform for his endless diatribes in his mind amounted to censorship. Mind you, I didn’t report his comments to Facebook as offensive; I didn’t try to have his account suspended; I didn’t go onto his page or posts and tell him to keep his opinions to himself. I just chose not to make room for them on my page. As my husband pointed out when I recounted all of this to him later, if he really wanted to weigh in on this article that he felt was a personal attack on him, he could have posted it himself.
2. Did you catch the part where he said that if I’m going to delete his comments, then he doesn’t know why we’re friends on Facebook at all? That is like someone saying to me, if you’re not going to let me stand in your front yard while you’re not home and yell about my political opinions then I don’t even know why we’re friends. Yes, I’m going to stand by that metaphor. For people of my generation, social media is as much where we live as our brick and mortar homes are. I’ve lived on Facebook a lot longer than I’ve lived anywhere else in my life, and hey, I’ve built a career on social media too. So yeah, I’m protective of what happens in my online space, and I don’t have to let you have carte blanche to say or do whatever you want there just because we are friends (or acquaintances, or more accurately, people who once briefly shared an employer more than a decade ago).

To be clear, this wasn’t an egregious, sexist, all-caps tirade. It didn’t make me feel unsafe, or threatened; it didn’t really even qualify as Berniebro behavior, since, like I said, it wasn’t really about Hillary or Bernie. So why am I writing about this instead of rolling my eyes and moving on with my life as I usually do when people behave badly on the internet? For one thing, it was such a neat and tidy example of privilege that I thought it might be a useful illustration for anyone struggling to understand the concept.

But I’m also writing about this run of the mill incident precisely because this kind of thing has become an everyday occurrence. The women I know are so used to being shouted down, in our own spaces, without provocation, that we mostly don’t even bother to say something until someone crosses the line into actual threats. I posted a squarely mainstream political article, written by a well-known columnist, for an established media outlet, and it basically ruined my day. No big deal, in the grand scheme of things, but I honestly can’t even imagine what it must feel like to actually decide to post something brave on the internet — like the women I know who have shared stories of their abortions, or rapes, or run ins with the police. Not mentioning this behavior until we feel physically threatened makes it easier for guys to get away with creating an atmosphere where women have to weigh the pros and cons of posting anything on their own goddamn Facebook pages. I’ve also come to realize, via the much-appreciated perspective my husband provides in moments like this, that our collective downplaying also makes it harder for the good guys out there to learn about and push back against this culture.

So I’m done pretending like being an asshole to women online just because you feel like it is a small enough offense to be shrugged off and ignored. I’m not going to be shouted down in my own space anymore and I’m not going to stand by and watch it happen to other women either. I hope if you’re reading this, and this kind of story sounds familiar to you, you’ll decide to stop ignoring it too.