Sometimes It Just Has To Be Said
There’s an allegedly feminist US law professor – a demonstrably public figure, a scholar, an authority on privacy, consumer databases and the internet – who’s reportedly using her tenured position to harass another not quite so privileged pseudonymous feminist blogger from the public sphere by threatening her via a third party with a defamation lawsuit.
Because there’re are no costs orders for losers in the US courts system, the expense of defending such a suit, no matter how ill-founded the suit (and even if it’s sucessfully defended) could well be a financial death blow to the average blogger – a fact which you’d think a law professional would be well aware of and which makes said prof’s actions even more reprehensible.
This supposedly-respected and widely-published academic’s also apparently made veiled threats about publishing this and other pseudonymous feminist bloggers’ personal details online, as though she wasn’t aware, as an internet privacy expert, of the potential harassment and even violence this could trigger. There’s no way she could not know this and indeed it’s the implied threat underlying all her attacks; how very handy to be able to indulge in threatening physical violence by proxy whilst safe within the safe cocoon of your own insulated academic position.
The potential financial and work-related pressure of the impending lawsuit and the outing threat has now caused the pseudonymous feminist blogger to stop blogging.
It doesn’t really matter who the feminist blogger or the blog is in the great ongoing theme of internet discourse, though of course it’s vitally important to the person affected – what matters is that someone with a protected online voice, a voice that’s protected not just by free speech laws but by her employment contract, can use that position to silence the voice of those she doesn’t like or who have opinions she doesn’t agree with. She’s allegedly even gone so far as to have used her privileged position and access to databases such as Lexis/Nexis to stalk other bloggers.
That a tenured academic, a female academic at that, who even self-identifies as feminist would attack another woman in such a vicious, underhanded and yes, childish way boggles the mind.
There can be only one response; I give it in the full knowledge of all the baggage that comes with the word and I make no apology whatsoever. Sue me, I’d love it. Fuck, I’m just reclaiming our word from the patriarchy anyway.
Ann Barstow is a bitch, she’s a big fat bitch
She’s the biggest bitch in the whole wide world,
She’s a stupid bitch, if there ever was a bitch,
She’s a bitch to all the boys and girls.
On Monday she’s a bitch
On Tuesday she’s a bitch
On Wednesday through Saturday she’s a bitch
Then on Sunday just to be different,
Shes a super king kong mega mega biyatch!
Update: This appeared in the comments at Feministe:
Ann Bartow Says:
Hi, it?s me. Ann Bartow. I?m not going to sue anybody.
I?m not going to out anybody. I want Zuzu to come back to Feministe. I never intended to threaten Zuzu (or anyone else) with the prospect of my outing her, and I wasn?t trying to silence her. I?m sorry anything I said or did contributed to her thinking otherwise.Here?s what happened: Yes, I happen to know who zuzu is. No, I didn?t use any special databases or inside knowledge to find out. No, I?m not going to tell you how I know, because that would be tantamount to outing her, and I?m not going to do that. I did want to convey to her the fact that her anonymity wasn?t as
secure as she thought it was, because I believe that people who legitimately want anonymity shouldn?t be outed. (I?ve made it clear that I think the discussion would benefit from people choosing not to be anonymous or pseudonymous, but that?s another story.)I know that a lot of you have concluded that by conveying this to her via Jill last July that I must have been making some sort of hidden threat, and I gather that Zuzu concluded that, but I wasn?t. I?m sorry she thought so.
I was pretty upset when zuzu indicated on Feministe that
I was somehow using secret knowledge to ferret out her identity and terrorize her with the threat of revealing it. That was the opposite of anything I had intended or wanted, and I did think it was defamatory, and I figured that Zuzu was saying it as some sort of attack on me. It?s become clear to me since then that no, she was just freaked out, and I can understand that.So anyway, I?m not a litigious person, and I?m not going to start now suing people now. I do think that discussion works better when people use real names, but I?m not going to out anybody. That?s not me. I?ve never intended to make Zuzu or anyone else feel that they were in danger of that from me. I?m sorry that an email to Jill from me last July, without my realizing it, caused her to think she was. (I do think that a lot of the rest of you folks jumped to some pretty nasty conclusions about me without any evidence to back them up). And Goddess knows I didn?t intend to cause Zuzu to take a break from blogging. There was no reaction after I sent the e-mail to Jill back on July 5th. I guess it has been bothering her for a while.
So nobody in this community has anything to fear from me ? we?re on the same side, even when we disagree ? and I hope Zuzu comes back soon.
If that was indeed by Ann Barstow then I’m glad to hear this apology, barbed as it is. So she’s not sueing, or threatening to sue, which has to a good thing.
But I sense she’s being disingenous with all this upfront niceness. However emollient it doesn’t disguise that what Barstow did was to use a fundamentally dishonest and nasty tactic in argument, one which ill behooves someone who argues professionally. It was the online equivalent of “I know where you live” delivered slwoly and with a meaning look.
Another commenter at Feministe said that just because you can figure out who someone is it doesn?t mean you should, to which I would add that just because you know who someone is doesn’t mean you should threaten, however obliquely, to use it against them, then turn around and act all innocent.
Read more: Internet, Blogs, Blogging Feminism, Feminist Blogs, Freedom of Speech, Defamation, Pseudonyms, When Law Professors Go Nuts.
