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19 Yale J.L. & Feminism 295 (2007-2008)
Blogging While Female: How Internet Misogyny Parallels Real-World Harassment

handle is hein.journals/yjfem19 and id is 299 raw text is: Blogging While Female: How Internet Misogyny Parallels Real-World Harassment Jill Filipovict In early March 2007, The Washington Post published a front-page article titled Harsh Words Die Hard on the Web: Law Students Feel Lasting Effects of Anonymous Attacks.1 It detailed an online message board called AutoAdmit, wherein anonymous posters leave hundreds of comments every day about law school admissions, top schools, and law firms-along with sexualized and sexually aggressive comments about female law students, whose pictures are regularly posted for commenters to evaluate. All of the women quoted in the article asked to remain anonymous out of fear that the posts on the message board might have negative consequences for their employment prospects. The article hit a nerve-because I was one of the women whose pictures and personal information were posted on AutoAdmit. I found my name on AutoAdmit just after starting my first semester of law school at New York University. A fellow student emailed me a link to messages about Jill F at NYU, and I took a look around the board. My name came up several times, and was clearly a running joke that I didn't get- someone would post something like, Did an NYU student just spew on himself in torts? and another would respond, Was it Jill F? Other posts made it clear that people on the board knew where I had spent the previous summer, what I looked like, and even the ethnicity of my boyfriend. Some anonymous commenters mentioned meeting me or seeing me at school. Others were aware of my feminist activism and threw out the usual slurs: bitch, whore, cunt. I spent two years writing a feminist newspaper column, and I run a popular feminist blog (feministe.us). I've gotten my fair share of harassment and name- calling. I have fairly thick skin. But this felt different-this involved people I go to school with, whom I could not identify, but who knew me. I stopped t New York University School of Law, J.D. expected 2008; New York University, B.A. 2005. 1 would like to thank Shannon Browne, Helena Phillibert, and Julie Rubenstein for their editorial advice, as well as Lauren Bruce, Ann Dana, Jess, Amanda Marcotte, Melissa McEwan, Maureen Moran, Jessica Valenti, and Susan Faludi for their insights. I would also like to thank Sumeet Sinha and Mary, Michael, and Christina Filipovic for their support. I. Ellen Nakashima, Harsh Words Die Hard on the Web: Law Students Feel Lasting Effects of Anonymous Attacks, WASH. POST, Mar. 7, 2007, at A01. Copyright © 2007 by the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism

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