I don’t particularly care to rehash all of the garbage he spewed on Twitter yesterday, but I wanted to briefly showcase some of the most disturbing messages that Tumblr politics tag editor Alexander Ryking posted on a public forum last night. I just have one question: is this mature, professional behavior? Is this the type of person you want curating your tag content, Tumblr? Reblog if your answer is a resounding NO.
In order, here’s just what we’ve got in the screencap—he says similar things on his personal Tumblr all the time, but I thought it was important to point out that his troubled behavior is now spilling over to other media:
- calling women morons, feminazis and cunts
- equating the denial of “misandry” (a concept that is overwhelmingly rejected by everyone who understands gender politics) to denying scientific consensus
- stating that women who dislike him must have “daddy issues”
- again with the “daddy issues” thing, which IMO is the most grossly sexist part of this entire tirade
- equating women to dogs
- telling feminists to go die
This isn’t about removing him from the position of editor because of political disagreements; after all, Ryking isn’t a conservative! This is about baseless personal attacks against women specifically (although non-women who disagree with him about “feminazis” have incurred his wrath as well) and for no reason other than they identify as feminists. I cannot stress enough that these attacks take place in an internet culture where being an outspoken, visible woman online will routinely earn you death threats, sexual harassment, and acts of intimidation. Here we have someone completely oblivious to the way his words contribute to that atmosphere, and yet we’re supposed to trust him to edit the official politics tag? How can we believe that this man’s raging misogyny doesn’t spill over into that? It’s absolutely unacceptable.
Why am I still surprised at how horrible people allow themselves to be?