Monday, October 27, 2014

On Ebola Panic And Bitches


Via ql at Eschaton, this CNN tweet about NJ Ebola quarantine got 37 responses:





Out of those 37 responses five used the term "bitch," as in "quit bitching bitch" or "fuck that bitch" or "no bitch youre a walking plague" or "she needs to relax holy shit it's one thing criticizing but now she's sounding like a bitch" or "it's bigger then u .... BITCH."

One tweet just stated "fucking women" and was favorited 43 times.

This example is interesting because it is about something where the hind-brain takes over and tells people to panic, especially if those people lack the necessary information.  And because it's the hind-brain, out comes that misogyny, in the sense that women should shut up.

But it's also crucial to understand that the tweet itself got favorited 900 times, that the responses above are a small minority and that we shouldn't draw inferences about the general population of Twitter users from those responses.  Nevertheless, anger and fear are clearly infused with sexism in this example.