Lane Haygood

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  Lane commented on the article | about 3 years ago

  Is Digg Sexist?

  The problem isn't that these douches are consciously trying to undermine feminism, a la, "Oh look, a woman with opinions!  Let's bash her!"  Most of them would probably say, in other contexts, that they support "equality." The problem is that many people that participate on Internet forums find it the only way they can socialize without fear of rejection, and so develop a persona that is free from the normal social conditioning that forces us to regulate what we say before we say it.  Hence, the anonymity provides a shield for them to flirt with saying "taboo" things, and they'll justify it with a bit of naïve libertarian political trickery that they're just refusing to "drink the Kool-Aid" or "be PC" because (the persona they've invented to live out their fantasies) they're iconoclasts.
  You'll see it on any forum that allows comments by mass users:  Digg, Fark, Livejournal, Reddit, Craigslist... you name it.  It's not that a particular site is or isn't sexist.  It's that our culture has so tied together the concepts of sexism and masculinity that men (and women, too) everywhere spout off these things in an attempt to "look cool" to the other Internetians.