When Women Talk Politics with Women
From casual sexism to rape threats, male voices often drown out women’s voices on the internet. A closed online group for women across the political spectrum gives birth to unique conversations on politics and society, and a window into what the world would look like, if women were to run it.
Tina Grubbe, a 51-year-old from California, was shaken by a fight that broke out on social media. It involved a man she went to high school with and a woman who is a university professor. Grubbe felt the professor was winning the debate. All of a sudden, the man began commenting on how fat the professor was. The professor excused herself from the argument and the man had the last word.
“He’s 50 years old and has a daughter! How could he body-shame another woman?” asks an incredulous Grubbe. As she learned that day, attacks silencing women on the internet are often from unexpected quarters and the men capable of launching them don’t come with warning labels.
While women’s voices are often drowned out by gendered harassment online, Grubbe has found an oasis where she can engage freely in nuanced discussions about politics and current affairs. It is The Many, a closed Facebook group comprised of over 400 women across the U.S. — both liberal and conservative — who talk about everything from politics and policy to periods and menopause. The Many was started by Spaceship Media, an organization that uses dialogue journalism to reduce polarization and build communities.
“Women on The Many are not as competitive as men when it comes to winning an argument. They’re really trying to understand each other. Maybe they’re like me, just tired of fighting,” says Grubbe.
Ninety years ago, British writer Virginia Woolf spoke of a woman’s need for a room of her own. At a time when threats and sexism push women to the fringes of the Internet, The Many creates just that, a room on the web for a multitude of women who want their own space. Women frequently talk of visiting The Many, not as if they were logging on to an online platform, but as if they were walking into a room where they feel at ease.
“Women are subject to incredible harassment and attack in online spaces. This is well-documented, tiresome and draining for the women involved. And it limits the possibility of meaningful, open dialogue,” says Eve Pearlman, co-founder of Spaceship Media. Women are twice as likely as men to say they have been targeted as a result of their gender, according to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey on online harassment.
Some attacks are grotesque, like one comment suggesting “that there should be a special holocaust just for women,” which TheAtlantic.com editor Adrienne Lafrance reports having received on a piece she wrote.
“At a subtler level, men are often condescending, dismissive, inattentive and more inclined to disregard the opinions, thoughts, and knowledge of women. Mansplaining is a real phenomenon. By creating The Many for women only, it allows for a different kind of engagement, one that is sorely lacking in online spaces,” says Jeremy Hay, who co-founded Spaceship Media with Pearlman.
A scientist at a chemical plant who loves baseball and hiking, Tricia Nociti from Tennessee, is accustomed to mansplaining, which is when a man explains something to a woman in a manner that is patronizing. While Nociti shrugs off online vulgarity, she says condescension and dismissal get to her.
A solo backpacker, Nociti is offended when men on hiking forums are overly protective, cautioning women not to travel alone. She is also part of online baseball forums where men routinely treat women as if they know nothing about baseball. “They assume no woman could have followed baseball for 30 years, like I have. Sometimes women’s comments receive zero response. There are comments all around you, yet yours are routinely ignored. It’s the Internet version of talking over and around someone,” she says.
As a scientist in a male-dominated field, Nociti has faced this offline, too. Sometimes her ideas are ignored, only to be presented by a man later as if it were his idea all along.
Having negotiating male-dominated spaces for so long, Nociti appreciates The Many, where women have hard and smart political conversations, unencumbered by men. While she’s wary of generalizing character traits based on gender, she does feel women approach conversations as listeners, a possible outcome of being talked over in society. “Women’s comments on the group show they have read and contemplated what others are saying, and aren’t just make a point,” she says.
Nociti feels that women on The Many come with a keen desire to hear what “the other side” has to say, and genuinely want to listen to the messages that are missing from the media sources they access.
“We all get news from the sources we like, and so, in a way, we are our own filter. This means that we’re missing some of the story, whether or not we think it’s the important part,” she says. “The Many is a platform where women from all walks of life bring their perspectives with the intention of hearing someone else’s perspective. This makes it a safe and open space. You know that everyone here wants to listen to what the other person has to say, instead of trying to teach other people what they think is right.”
Her time on The Many has actually led Nociti to seek out other women-only spaces — frequenting more women-only hiking groups on Facebook. She has begun leaving spaces that are antagonistic towards women. The Many has helped her believe that a sisterhood is possible.
Like Nociti, Jane St. Pierre, a Louisiana participant, believes in the power of sisterhood. “When you get together with your girlfriends, you often discuss things in a way that’s different from when men are around,” says St. Pierre, pointing to a thread on The Many about online dating, where women talk about safety, a concern that men may not imagine while discussing the subject.
“I feel men get vicious a lot faster than women. I’ve blocked a few men online for obscenity and name-calling,” says Denise Sellers from New Jersey. While commenting on articles online, she finds “trolls coming out of the woodwork” and attacking her. She worries they could trace her via social media.
“It feels a little less intense when it’s only women. When things get heated, women back off, come back later and try to steer the conversation towards a more positive note,” says Sellers, for whom The Many is a comfortable space. While she has butted heads with other women, she has never felt threatened or unsafe.
While Sellers has rarely seen a man express ambivalence during an argument, she has often observed that women on The Many are keen to see the shades of grey in a debate, and want to come to points of understanding. “They routinely question themselves and question their earlier thoughts, something I don’t see men doing,” adds Sellers.
“While women may leave a conversation when they’re upset, men who feel frustrated during online discussions fire back with more ammunition, and it’s usually only other men who will be able to redirect them towards a more constructive dialogue,” says California-based social worker Brittany Walker Pettigrew, an enthusiastic participant in The Many, who has faced online threats and attempts at intimidation by men on other forums.
Her experience illustrates another finding of the Pew Research Center survey on online harassment, which says, “Women (63%) are much more likely than men (43%) to say people should be able to feel welcome and safe in online spaces, while men are much more likely than women to say that people should be able to speak their minds freely online (56% of men vs. 36% of women).”
Another member of The Many, Wendy Juska from Michigan, was called a drama queen while engaged in an online debate with a distant relative about the 2016 elections. The gender-specific insult made her angry. She feels it detracted from what she was saying.
Likewise, London-based Eleanor O’Hagen wrote in New Statesman that instead of engaging with her opinions, commenters online would make her out to be hysterical or a “silly little girl.” She says she managed to avoid the worst threats and misogyny other women endure, not through luck or superior arguments, but because, early on, she became conscious of how her opinions would be received, and began watering them down, or not expressing them at all.
Women on The Many do not need to water down their opinions. The sheer absence of threats and insults makes it a safe space for women like Juska, who feel at ease expressing themselves. Elsewhere online, Juska has seen friends being ‘slut-shamed’ and demeaned for their gender and appearance.
It is often argued that there is nothing special about the harassment of women online, because men are harassed too. But Online Abuse 101, a guide by the Women’s Media Center, says the harassment women face is quantitatively and qualitatively different from what men face. “When men face online harassment and abuse, it is first and foremost designed to embarrass or shame them. When women are targeted, the abuse is more likely to be gendered, sustained, sexualized and linked to off-line violence,” says the report, which talks of how women report higher rates of finding online harassment stressful, not because they “can’t stand the heat,” but because the online abuse exists simultaneously with real life abuse and patriarchal constraints.
Diversity, inclusion and career strategist Stacey Gordon says she is constantly asked why women need to exclude men from their networks. “We are judged all the time and we’d like to occasionally be in a place where we are judged less. Or at least judged on criteria that pertains to our jobs rather than to our gender,” she wrote for Forbes.com.
“Women are under-represented in all areas of public life where people come together to share information and express their views. The Many seeks to right that imbalance in a small but meaningful way, by creating a public square for women only,” says Hay.
While much has been written about online vitriol spilling offline, The Many is proof that online warmth and companionship can also spill into the real world.
“Whenever I travel to another state, I want to meet women from The Many who live there, and get to know them better. Even when we disagree on politics, I don’t see them as enemies, but as human beings,” says Kim from New Jersey, a teacher who’d rather not reveal her last name.
She talks of the ease with which women on The Many discuss subjects like periods, relationships and menopause, subjects that are easier to discuss in a women’s group. “When I talk about going through menopause, it helps women to relate to me even if they disagree with my political views,” she adds.
Growing up, Kim was the liberal in a conservative family. Now a libertarian who tends to vote Republican, she is a minority in the liberal community where she lives. An avid consumer of news, Kim rarely finds spaces where she can discuss her views on politics and current affairs, as she feels they are not welcome. On The Many, she has found her voice.
