While I acknowledge that sexism has a web presence, I am starting to get a little concerned about the entitlement some men think they have to the content in women's Facebook profiles. Perhaps it’s the trial proceedings from last week that are still raking me: in the case of the man who murdered his wife after she changed her Facebook status, it was a UK based crime that involved a former couple.
But considering that perpetrators who commit gender-based violence do not discriminate against strangers, I want to voice some personal, moderate examples of male entitlement to my own Facebook page that have prompted me to take a second look at online sexism. Last week, I was greeted with a quiz on my Facebook wall posted by a 50-something man I had never met before in my life. It smugly read, “Does (My Full Name) have a nice body?” Over the past few months, I have been frequently getting Facebook chats from men, some who live overseas, resembling the kind of catcalls you’d hear from a street harasser — complete with "queen's" and "beautiful's"— but it’s online. Defriending some of these idiots has sometimes resulted in harsh Facebook messages, and some have even been repetitive.
I have always taken a big tent approach to adding friends on the Facebook. I am a young professional who wants to build my network. I write publicly. I travel and sometimes my memory can be shoddy. So, unless someone has something explicitly offensive in their profile pic, I add friends liberally. But is this unwise? Should I be changing my behavior to circumvent the possible sexism displayed by a Facebook friend who could really be a foe?
Initially, I wanted to make an appeal for some feminist privacy settings. Because, like the rest of you, I am busy and could do without the sexist chats and nonsensical quizzes. But when sexism interfaces with technology spaces that I should be able to navigate freely, it seems unfair that I have to modify my settings or friending to curb these behaviors. But the thing about Facebook is, it's not just American male entitlement that collides with it but also a vast array of gender norms from different cultures and environments. Communication, and ostensibly diplomacy, with men (or in some cases, other genders) from different cultures is even harder. I refuse to accept these behaviors and don't wish them on anyone. But what is the happy medium? How do I maintain online autonomy while also acting in the interest of my safety?
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Facebook troubles can be overwhelming. I had a huge meltdown after I graduated from college (the entire meltdown actually started at the beginning of that last semester but got SUPER bad. I ended up crying to my capstone professor because I really needed to get off campus and needed to skip the second half of capstone presentations) which was mostly because all of my college friends decided that stabbing me in the back was pretty much A-OK. Needless to say, this spread into my Facebook environment and it got so bad I just deleted my entire account. I started up a new account, privacy setting turned all the way up (people can't even friend me themselves, all they can do is send me a message and then I'll friend them if I want to) and only added those people who I was still on good terms with, mostly old high school friends and my cousins. Luckily I do not rely on Facebook for networking or anything remotely professional, so this option was easy for me. And yeah, it sucks having to change YOUR stuff because of what other people are doing, but, especially online, it's about all you can do. Luckily Facebook is getting a little better for those who are extremely choosy on who gets to see what and who you wanna get status updates and who not and so forth. You can actually pick individual people whom you want to exclude from viewing your stuff and exclude individual people from showing up in your news feed. Quite handy.
So I dunno if that helps too much. I kinda took the extreme route and I'm fairly certain you don't want to do that. Other than being more choosy on who you friend and going into the privacy setting and excluding individual people, that's about it. Or just unfriending people all together when they cross a line. One day laws and such may catch up to the internet but until then, we gotta live in this crazy and often-insensitive anonymous electronic world.
THIS HAPPENED TO ME TO! My college friends stabbed me in the back and I just couldnt go on fb anymore cause they kept writing crap about me (i was in an abusive relationship and ended it, and they kept calling me a bitch (yes, MY friends) long story short, I feel you COMPLETELY. I got a new fb and set it up so privacy is to the extreme.
Im glad someone posted this topic
My thoughts have always been: on Facebook, they're called "friends" for a reason--don't just accept strangers' requests.
I don't think it puts you online autonomy at risk to limit your profile to people that you know/would want to know. While it's creepy to be chatting you and cyber-hitting on you, it's also creepy in the first place that these individuals have trawled through the thousands of profiles and selected YOU to "befriend."
To me, it seems like putting your phone number on a business billboard: sure, you might get some great connections, but 9 out of 10 times, the person calling will be a creep. Is it sexist and entitled to call a woman whose number is on a billboard (for business reasons) to hit on her? YES. But you probably wouldn't be concerned about your billboard autonomy.
Privacy settings are empowering! You get to decide who sees your information! Use them! Good luck.
I'm confused about what it is you're looking for. You say you want feminist privacy settings, but it seems unfair that you may have to modify your settings.
As far as I know, the features exist for you to remove/block quizzes, block apps, defriend people who aren't actually your friends, permanently ignore idiots, and the other things you want.
Do you not want to have to personally use these tools, but have them automatically take effect? Because I'm pretty sure the algorithm that can determine whether a given posting is sexist or not with any remotely acceptable accuracy is at least 20 years away.
I think if you have a high tolerance for idiocy your best course is a "one-strike-and-you're-out" policy where you, as you currently do, accept everyone who requests it into your inner circle, then defriend and block them the first time they are offensive.
If you have a low tolerance for idiocy, accepting everyone who requests a friend invite is at some point going to expose you to it. At the very least, when you see a "friend" post a status update that conveys some particularly stupid belief.
I really do sympathize with you for the tooth-grindingly bad behavior that has been pointed at you, though. Hopefully the tools / privacy settings will let you block out all these offenders.
Many other people are probably going to chime in with well reasoned, eloquent arguments as to why you even having to deal with this issue is utter crap. To that end, I'd like to address your solicitation for ideas on how to handle this.
The best example I know of someone who did this successfully is writer Julia Quinn. She also operated on the principle of "the more the merrier" when she first joined Facebook, and she friended any fan who requested, or anyone who listed her books in their favorites section. Eventually, the 976 responses to each and every status update started to get a bit much, so she created a fan page and had most of us move over there. At this point, her Facebook page is pretty much just for friends and family, and her fan page is, as is intended, largely for fans. She's very active on the fan page and I think it's working out better for all involved.
A strategy like this may be the best way for you to keep the two separate and lower the level of harassment you're experiencing on your personal page. Good luck!
This is probably the most reasonable option. It may be that you don't have enough of a following or base of contacts to make it seem like you can get away with having a personal account and a professional one- the professional one would obviously have a smaller number of friends/followers than a single account, which reduces the perception of you as a writer to pay attention to. But even if that's the case and you want to keep it all under one roof right now for strategic reasons, look for the time when you can split it up.
I'm sorry that you've had to put up with all of that. You seem to use Facebook very differently than I do; I don't add anyone that I don't know. No one who I haven't approved can even SEE my FB page, it's not something for public consumption.
I'm a young professional as well, and I'm not sure that networking online using social website seems like a very effective method of actually making useful connections. For example, what benefit are you getting out of the 50-year-old man that you've never met before in your life?
If you're interested in using an actual business networking site, I've read quite a bit about LinkedIn, which seems like more of a living resume that people can view and connect to. Otherwise, I'd recommend that you "network" in the old-fashioned way. Volunteer, attend young professional meetings in your industry, make connections in person when you travel by using business cards and other tangible reminders to help your memory. All of these will be far more meaningful to you as a professional.
One benefit to using sites like Facebook for networking is that it enables you to easily keep in touch with people that you might otherwise "lose." For example, I am Facebook friends with my supervisor from my last internship. Although I do not regularly talk to her, I can keep up with what she is doing via Facebook.
Still, I agree that if one is networking, one should be restrict friends to people that you've actually met. If, instead, the site is being used for self-promotion (such as a writer trying to share her work), then, as NomadiCat said, a Public Page/fan page is probably a better fit.
LinkedIn is, as you said, more like a living resume, which is nice, but can feel a little impersonal. And if you are a writer, and want to be sharing your works, it's probably less useful.
And yes, it sucks that men feel like they can solicit women they don't know on the Internet. It would be nice if we could change Internet culture to make that stop, and maybe we can work towards that.
I only add people I actually know on Facebook, that helps. Lately I have, though, been getting a lot of random friend requests from foreign men in the Arab world. I guess Facebook is just starting to get popular there.
I think it's more of a problem with the application than with Facebook per se. I know exactly what you're talking about. It's really annoying and fundamentally a bit evil how it tries to rope you in with notifications like "Bobby rated you! Sign up for our data mining and see WHAT HE REALLY THINKS OF YOU!"
But seriously, set your privacy settings or defriend. The tools are there.
I'll try to use a recent example from my own life. I've recently submitted some iReports to CNN and have actually been put on the air. The raw video, which is never shown in its entirety on air due to time constraints, is viewable by all who access the iReport website.
To wit, I have gotten several comments in poor taste thrown at me. Several of them are from men who have implied or directly stated that my position is somehow unmanly or that I somehow am less than a real man for stating my opinion. I've always been sensitive to criticism so I try to ignore these whenever possible, but I admit that they are hurtful, even though they're not anything more than baseless personal attacks.
It seems to me that if I took the time to personally respond to each, or to make the effort to delete them, more would just pop up. The phrase, "don't throw your pearls before swine" comes to mind when it comes to replying to trolls. They won't get it and they'll use it against you to launch more personal attacks.
As for Facebook, I keep my privacy setting set to private and in my own life, I am notoriously slow to let anyone in my circle of friends. But this is just how I deal with it, take it for what you will.
I've rarely had this problem on Facebook. I used to get it all the time on Myspace though, which is one of the reasons why I don't use it anymore. But yeah, I agree that it's generally a good policy to only add people you actually know. Occasionally I've added friends of friends who have commented on my notes or pics or been otherwise friendly, but never complete strangers who for some reason found my profile pic enticing or whatever.
I think you need to remove all friends who you don't actually know personally and well, and stop accepting new ones unless you know them.
It's AMAZING what people can get access to once you accept them as a friend.
Also they are NOT notified if you remove them as a friend or reject a friend request. So they will never know.
Sadly, there are alot of people who add random facebook people who seem hot from their profile picture, just so they can get access to their profile and pics. Sounds like you've let some of these people in. Shut them out now.
I haven't had problems with my facebook, but my photobucket account has been hacked at least twice, and pictures of me were used for "amateur porn" sites and things like that.
Thats fucked up. That elaborates on how misogynists use the online technology to spread their oppression.
"...I add friends liberally. But is this unwise? Should I be changing my behavior to circumvent the possible sexism displayed by a Facebook friend who could really be a foe?"
Yes, this is unwise, and yes, I think you should change your behaviour. The key is in your use of the term "Facebook friend." What makes a Facebook friend a "friend" if they are not already your actual real-life friend? It's a falsehood. A stranger might not turn out to be a full-blown foe, but he/she is at any rate not your "friend" unless proven otherwise through good/friendly behaviour. That's how I see it. And there's nothing un-feminist about being a bit selective in who you allow to access what is, after all, your personal stuff. You could even argue that the bid to bare ourselves to the world in ever greater and broader detail is in itself a symptom of the patriarchy, which likes to see everything, to have everything nicely labelled with a photo and vital statistics.
So cut out the prats! Add people very selectively, and operate a zero-tolerance policy for randy nitwits. Quiz rating your body? Chop. Hey gorgeous what's up? Chop. (Unless it's welcome of course!) End of the day, it's not a competition to see who has the most friends! I've had no problems so far with Facebook harrassment, but it does require a certain regard for self-preservation.
If you don't like the idea of losing your less personal contacts, I think making a Fan Page or turning to LinkedIn might be a good compromise.
If you're concerned about a nasty message in retaliation for unfriending someone, block them instead. I think it's on the lower lefthand of their profile page. Then they can't message you or see that you even still have a FB profile.