The Other Whisper Network
How Twitter feminism is bad for women

http://harpers.org/archive/2018/03/the-other-whisper-network-2/
Publisher:  Harper's Magazine
Year Published:  2018
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX22987

Katie Roiphe takes a closer look at the #MeToo movement, particularly the use of Twitter and social media which can dangerously be used to rouse extremes in a similar way that Trump has energized his supporters.

Abstract: 
--

Excerpt:

No one would talk to me for this piece. Or rather, more than twenty women talked to me, sometimes for hours at a time, but only after I promised to leave out their names, and give them what I began to call deep anonymity. This was strange, because what they were saying did not always seem that extreme. Yet here in my living room, at coffee shops, in my inbox and on my voicemail, were otherwise outspoken female novelists, editors, writers, real estate agents, professors, and journalists of various ages so afraid of appearing politically insensitive that they wouldn’t put their names to their thoughts, and I couldn't blame them.

Of course, the prepublication frenzy of Twitter fantasy and fury about this essay, which exploded in early January, is Exhibit A for why nobody wants to speak openly. Before the piece was even finished, let alone published, people were calling me "pro-rape," "human scum," a "harridan," a "monster out of Stephen King's 'IT,' " a "ghoul," a "bitch," and a "garbage person" - all because of a rumor that I was planning to name the creator of the so-called Shitty Media Men list. The Twitter feminist Jessica Valenti called this prospect "profoundly shitty" and "incredibly dangerous" without having read a single word of my piece.