The reader's editor on… the online abuse that follows any article on women's issues

[ismnotwasm]

It was one of the more striking remarks of last week, even though it was born out of the recognition of an unpleasant theme that runs through the web. Charlie Leadbeater, a former adviser to the Labour government on the internet, was interviewed for the Guardian in connection with his report, A Better Web, for the Nominet Trust. What he sees as the pervasive misogyny of the web is an example of how the democratising potential of the internet has not been fulfilled.

"I'd love to create something like the 'Mary Beard Prize for women online' to support people who are supporting women to be able to use the internet safely," he said in the article, which was published on 8 August.

A great idea and one that would win support from many editors at the Guardian who see the amount of the moderators' time spent weeding out either off-topic or offensive comments in threads attached to any article loosely related to feminism or women's issues.

As one moderator told me:"There seems to be a huge backlash against the Guardian's increasing coverage of feminist issues, from more frivolous pieces (body hair, sunbathing topless, anything to do with Beyoncé) to pieces on domestic violence, FGM etc. WATM (what about the men) is now something we look out for on any piece about women as standard."

Alex Needham, acting network editor, raised the issue at the Guardian's morning conference following an article by Hadley Freeman on 5 August about the arguments for and against women shaving their body hair.

He told me in an email: "On any article by Laura Bates or Jessica Valenti, or most recently this piece by Hadley, the first 15 or 20 comments always say 'not this again, Guardian, where are the men? We face this kind of problem, so cover that instead.' Because the comments are off-topic they're then removed, which leads to cries of censorship and the claim that the Guardian is sexist – that the problems of white working-class males (who these commenters say are the real victims in society) are ignored."

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/10/readers-editor-online-abuse-women-issues