Um, yeah, exactly.

How is it constructive to tell her to toughen up when none of us know what we’d do in the same situation?

Emphathy and sympathy is nice but there is not much feminism showing. Just some good ol’ put them in their place and it worked.

Not in the same class, but in the early 60’s a service garage owner (male, of course) deliberately spilled coffee on me to scare me away (A car he worked on backed into our car because the brakes failed just after the owner got it back from the garage). When I went to that garage to get a check to cover the amount of the damage (which was supposed to have been agreed to with my insurance agent) the owner exibited threateing posture and 2 or 3 other men were standing around smiling enjoying the ‘game’ of scaring off a very young woman. I left without the check but went back after I made sure others knew what had happened and that he knew they knew. This situation is different, I know. I’m sure my life was not threatened but my diginity and the right to even transact the business by myself without my husband present was. I went back AND I was scared at the time.

What I would do in her situation, I do not know.

When did Americans become so sure they must be protected where ever they and are from everything that can possibly happen to them?

I’m not suggesting that I would be stronger or braver than she, just that this type of threat works and many/most women back off (and stay home and lock their doors).

If one is going to be terrified while staying home, what about going ahead with the presentation. Why not be terrified while doing what you want to do instead of still being terrified hiding at home?

Now everyone can tell me how much I just don’t understand!

In the 1990’s I defended women’s clinics in Birmingham, Alabama. The cops, the legislature, and the governor bent over backwards to “ensure” the Right to Life crowd could demonstrate, harass, spit on,physically assault, stalk, torch houses and cars not only of clinic defenders, but also patients on what had to be one of the most traumatic days of their life. and justified it in the name of “free speech”…That summer, doctors were murdered, clinics shut down and a clinic s bombed injuring 2 nurses…at that point, the feds finally stepped in to enforce the law.

It seems to be human nature to push the bounds of civility, decency, and morality until finally someone steps in and says enough. But who plays that role…The government or the society as a whole?

We are at a tipping point where bloggers and other web citizens have to decide… Do we self police and set a standard of behavior that we enforce as a community or do we surrender that power to some sort of “government.”. And who decides the penalties for less than acceptable behavior, or are there no penalties, no punishment, no deterrent, no reason to change unacceptable behavior short of does this make or lose me money, street cred,friends etc.

Kathy decided to make a stand…that she would not cover up, that she would not “let this thing go” quietly, that she would not be a “good little girl” and “put on her big girl panties and deal with it”. Kathy decided to use the power of the blogsphere to make the web a better place. Unlike her critics who not only hosted, but participated in unacceptable behavior that threatened Kathy’s economic, social, and domestic life…

Uppity Women Unite…

You stop at issuing death threats, telling people where their kids go to school, posting their phone numbers and encouraging people to call and harass them…

I’m no Pollyanna. I’m more like Cassandra (actually, Harvey Pekar is a better comparison).

One thing I know from experience. It only takes three people to make one of them an outsider, or just one person if you suffer from multiple personality disorder.

People do things with their anonymous identities that they would never do with their real identities exposed. A lot of people who would never scream in your face toe-to-toe in public are more than happy to use an alias to flame mail you non-stop in front of god and everybody.

One thing we can all do is to never let it simmer or slide. When we see or hear major bullshit, we should call it on the spot. One of the most interesting things about assholes is how quickly the self-appointed jokers can be made into jokees by simply pointing out how unfunny they actually are.