Intro from Rand: Despite Mystery Guest having misgivings about contributing to SEOmoz, I was able (after months of pitiful pleading) to cajole her into one more post. This is a topic close to my heart as well, and one that doesn't deserve to be buried just because it's uncomfortable.

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I am conflicted. I'm in an abusive relationship with reddit. And I keep going back, thinking I can somehow change things.  I keep visiting, keep commenting, keep frantically checking my comments every hour or so to see if anyone's replied. I think if I say the magic word, somehow, things will get better. I'm addicted to it, yet I don't enjoy any of it.

 

I kind of hate reddit.

And yet, I keep visiting, in hopes that things will improve. But it's like pushing a bowling ball uphill with a feather. It's not happening. Reddit is not for me. It's sexist and hateful. It's becoming more and more apparent each day – from the photo montage of Russian school girls that makes the front page, to the commenters who feel that the word “cunt” is an acceptable term for a woman they dislike.

I don't submit stories. Maybe that's part of the problem. But honestly, if I did submit women-friendly stories, I don't think they'd get modded up. Several months back someone posted a photo essay about a young girl undergoing genital mutilation. Most of the commenters talked about how it wasn't that big a deal – how  it's the same thing as a man getting circumsized. They called out the so-called hypocrisy of many of the members of reddit's female community (myself included) for getting upset about “female circumcision” but not male circumcision.

Needless to say, I didn't leave the conversation feeling happy. I didn't leave it feeling that I should return, either. I left it thinking that a women's voice and opinions are not welcome on reddit. It's something I've felt time and again.

But, for reasons that still escape me (I'm stubborn? I refuse to look for other sites that offer good aggregations of content? I think that all social media sites will pose the same problem?) I did return to reddit, and I encountered more of the same. Here's a lovely interaction I had, regarding an article that, most unusually, pertained to women's issues. The comments however, were not so enlightening:

rio517:

She can't come out and say "In short, learn to control your emotions."

In my experience, most women hate being told their being overly emotional. My mom was 50 before she finally accepted that women are more emotional than men.

mystery_guest:

Christ, could you be more offensive? Maybe we just all had our periods that day. Yeah. That must have been it.

Okay, so maybe that wasn't the most mature response I could come up with. But my comments don't actually do anything.  They either get buried, or ridiculed, or ignored. I'm not the only one this happens to – whether you express a pro-woman viewpoint, or heck – if you just are a woman you have to deal with negativity. Some female redditers even lament picking usernames that aren't gender neutral as the harassment and comments are so bad (apparently, she has thicker skin that I do, and feels that most of the users on reddit are cool. I respectfully disagree). Even attempts to open up a dialog about the sexism on reddit are met with sexist comments. Some have even admitted to avoiding comments fields on posts that could lead to a feminist discussion, because those threads are the most upsetting.

I even tried to take a cue from the guys – I figured, I can objectify men as well as they can women. And if I can't beat them, I might as well join them. So, after seeing submission after submission of some scantily clad starlet on the homepage, and reading the comments about what some redditers would hypothetically do to them should the restraining orders even get lifted, I decided to try for myself.  – I responded to a posted image of Matt Damon with “I'd still hit it.” Clearly, I confused the locals. And the comments are only half of the problem.

As I noted earlier, the content isn't women friendly, either. Check out some of the quality submissions that have been voted up recently:

• Yay! A bunch of Russian girls in short dresses hugging each other. (I commented here. It didn't go over so well.)
• Clearly, this is less the article itself and more the way it's framed in the submission title. I wonder if the submitter was really close to writing: BIRD MITES CRAWL OUT OF WOMAN'S VAGINA!.  
• The content itself isn't too bad on this, but it quickly turned into a “women are materialistic whores” discussion in the comment thread.
• Yes, these girls are awful. How this is at all positive and relevant is beyond me. (That didn't stop me from commenting, of course.)
• As a woman, I often wonder when the opportunity will arise for me to put on a skimpy bikini and hug some guy at what is apparently computer camp.

If this is the sort of thing that's popular, I don't think that stories that interest me are going to go over well with the rest of the reddit community. Frankly, I have neither the energy nor the thick skin to submit women-friendly stories where they aren't wanted. It's impossible to change a broken system from within the framework. It's impossible to fix a broken reddit from within reddit itself. And honestly – if the community doesn't want it, what right do I (or does anyone else have) to force enlightenment upon them?

Besides, to be fair, even if we somehow managed to clean up reddit, there would still be other sexist sites out there. Even SEOmoz, which strives to create an open, friendly community, has the occasional hiccup - whether it's a comment that could be offensive or an avatar that objectifies women. But those instances are few and far between, and often quite funny – they don't dominate the entire landscape to create a hostile environment towards women. And I'm pretty sure that, unlike reddit, if I voiced serious objection to something on this site (which I am not doing, by the way), it wouldn't be met with the hostility or harassment that I've encountered on reddit. (By the way, I want to make two things clear in citing those examples: one, is that I love Danny Dover. He's like, my favorite intern ever. Way cooler than the fat kid on Letterman. And two, while I think the photo that Rishil posted of herself is a little provocative, it's her own choice. I mean, that's what feminism is about, right? Besides that, Rishil is awesome, too, and totally changed her avatar to Dale Midkiff for a day at my request. Plus, she's newly single, so I suggest all of you send her a personal message, since she explicitly said her turns ons are WOW enthusiasts and SEOs who wear free conference t-shirts.)

Even the search engine themselves aren't infallible. A few of you might remember how, last year, I jokingly complained to Rand that a search for Vanessa's name on Yahoo! also yielded the suggested search phrase “Vanessa Fox Fishkin.” Rand mentioned it on the blog (and how I had teased him about it) and Yahoo's blog issued an apology to Rand, but not to Vanessa. I think that simple act actually spoke volumes. Essentially, Vanessa and Rand were in the same boat but only Rand received an apology. Granted, the whole thing was a joke, but still.

So what the heck can be done? If even well-meaning and women-friendly sites end up being sort of sexist, are women who use the internet just ... screwed? (See? I can do it too.) Is the internet inherently sexist? Rand asked me this today and I wasn't sure how to answer. I don't know if it's a blanket statement that I can make – clearly some of it is, and some of it isn't. If I were to look at all the sites out there, I'd probably find more anti-women material than pro-women. But that's probably true of most media. More importantly, if the web is sexist, what am I going to do about it? I'm certainly not going to stop going online. It's not like there's another internet that I can choose as opposed to this one.  One solution, of course, is start visiting women-friendly sites, to spend my time and money in places where I feel I'm treated fairly.

Interestingly, Rand and I had been talking about a women's alternative to reddit a few months back – we were actually considering embarking on the project together. Of course, Lorna Sullivan beat me to it by about, oh, a year – she launched Boudica.com, a social networking site for women this week. Clearly it's stating that the time has come. And I couldn't be happier.

Lorna mentioned to me that the site wasn't necessarily feminist but rather that it was women-friendly. (I see them as one and the same, but there's such a stigma against feminism that I think a lot of people don't like to use the term. Which, if you think about it, really sucks.) Considering how overtly hostile to women other sites are, I'd say that a site that was even slightly women-friendly, or for that matter, gender-neutral, is going to land on the list of feminist websites simply by comparison.

So, it's a start. And opening up a dialogue about the issue itself is yet another way to combat sexism on the web and social media sites. As for reddit, we'll see. Maybe I'll finally throw in the towel, put down my feather, and let the bowling ball roll back down the hill. Then again, I really don't think I should let them get away with crap like this.