Quoted In Mail Today: Ignore The Abusers And Keep Blogging Ladies – Harassment, Inacceptable

Mail Today carried a story today on women bloggers and the problems we face in blogging. Yours truly has been quoted alongside a number of promiment ladies on the blogosphere.

 (Click the image below to see the full story)

Some of you may recognize the trolly character I’ve mentioned in the story. For the others, I found his comments about me on his own blog distasteful but unimportant. What made his behaviour really most unacceptable was the fact that he made it a special point to make contact with me on the public space and spew. This is as far as I’m concerned, the online version of street harassment. They do it because they can. Sure, it doesn’t cause grave wounds on my psyche. But that doesn’t make it right. So if you are a victim of this kind of online harassment, speak up and make it unacceptable for your perpetrator to behave in such a manner.

Note: It’s just unfortunate that the article got the facts wrong. I am not- repeat, not-a photographer. What’s interesting is that I did tell her what I do for a living but requested her to not use it in the story and just mention my URL instead since that was my only valid identification on the blogosphere. Is it just me or does everyone have the same problem with journalists mixing up what you tell them? I work with information myself and I know that I could lose my job if I made such errors, no matter how insignificant they may seem to others. If you’re of the ‘It’s minor, why’re you getting so worked up?’ school of thought, don’t bother saying anything because I’m afraid you’ll already lost the point of the story or at least my angle on it. Speak up for what is inacceptable.