I’m vain enough to check the stats on my blog reasonably often. Not as much as when I first started writing, when ever reader was a victory, but a few times a week I check how people found me.
Usually they’re searching for Brad Shipton, Clint Rickards or Bob Schollum. That people who want to know about those men find what I’ve written satisfies me.
There are always some upsetting searches which manage to convey a weight of racism or misogyny in so few words. I think most feminist bloggers have it worse than I do; I don’t write much about pornography.
But a few days ago someone found my blog by searching for: “rape a woman” “get away with it”.
I’m on the second page. He hadn’t found what he was looking for in the previous 18 sites, so he checked me out. This is what he read:
For most rapists, there are no consequences, formal or informal. There are consequences for all too many women out there who try and pursue justice and safety.
So any men out there, know you can rape women with impunity, know that there is no need to treat women as human beings. I don’t know if you can imagine what it’s like to live as a woman knowing that, maybe you could try.
I’m scared he read my words and ignored what I was saying. I know that most men who rape face no consequences. I’m terrified that this man is now going to add to that number.
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But, is that not how this society treats women:
-Rape them
-Batter and abuse them
-Murder them and throw their bodies into garbage dumpsters
Why should this man who wrote to you think any different?
We live a rape/murder glorified culture that celebrates the destruction of women.
And people wonder why Don Imus (“nappy-headed hos”), Enema (“all black women are bitches”), and so many men think and go out of their way to practice femicide against women.
This is a society that considers women as expendable and that women are to live only to serve the purposes of men.
As for rape, of course this man would think what he does.
With the way women are treated in this society when they are raped, it is a wonder that ANY woman would come forward to report rape.
Women’s lives are held in so little regard in this country.
That we are able to get up and face each day and carry on is a testament to our inner strength and fortitude.
Is it possible that someone was actually looking for feminist writing pointing out how many men do get away with it? Or did they contact you?
Scary. He’s probably what you thought he was.
The strange and sad thing is that you don’t have to write about it at all to get sexually based search terms to bring people to your site.
I wrote on the racist, sexist and homophobic email scandal involving a police department in Washington state. For several days after, I had visitors from all over the world finding that article through the search terms, “arab sex videos”, which had nothing to do with the post or my blog. Occasionally “sexual positions” and other similar language will bring them there.
But like you, many of the search terms used do match what’s on my site.
To Andrew above: ha! You should see the search strings that people use to find my blog. Every pornographic, violently graphic, or pedophilic combination you can think of. So in answer to your question, yes, it is possible. Probable? Not so much.
How do y’all know what search strings are being used? Do the engines pass them along to you somehow?
This is a bit disconcerting, to say the least.
As a student in college, I’m going to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. Often students are given strange topics for research, or research that one usually wouldn’t think of to write a paper on.
Recently, my women’s studies class was given the assignment to find out about working conditions for women in our campus community, and the college’s administration shockingly shot the whole assignment to the ground rather than bring it up with the professor. The administration assumed we were digging for conspiracies, which we weren’t.
At any rate, this guy could easily be searching blogs for information. In fact, my commenting (aside from personal interest) is part of an assignment for women’s studies where we had to follow a blog all semester. Besides, I don’t think your common variety rapist does research before committing such a crime. Then again, I’m no expert…
If you have a stat counter on your site, depending on what type or version you have it gives you different information on site visitors. The one I use shows referral links and that’s where the search terms show up, for engines like msn.com, google.com, yahoo.com, etc. Or for blog search engines like Technorati, blog catalog and others.
Sometime’s it’s context. I’ve had the word, “nappy” show up in a racist context several times for search terms but if I see “nappy” “Baltimore” for example, then I know that it’s someone probably looking for information on the controversial hair style bans implemented by Baltimore Police Department that disproportionately affect African-American officers and they get the link for my postings on that issue.
The internet is a public place. It is not a safe place. Be careful what you post.
I will often search for an old post that I vaguely remember by entering phrases such as the ones you mentioned here into a google search. I sincerely hope the authors of the blogs I re-find through this method don’t start thinking I’m searching these phrases because I support these ideas.
Oh, man, Maia. That just hurt to read. Have had the same sort of screeching to a halt seeing some of the search strings on my stat counter, and made the same internal arguments some make here (they’re doing research, they’re entering a search term based on something they vaguely remember a feminist writing, etc.)
Maybe they are, maybe they’re not. Some of them probably are. Many of them are not.
But I couldn’t disagree more with ‘Be careful what you post’ being the take-away message – if we self-edit in pre-emptive fear of ‘contributing’ to misogyny by writing about it, we’re sunk.
RE:
Here, here! Or is it “Hear, hear!” ? Whatever the case, I wholeheartedly agree, LOL!
Breaking news. Sadistic rape at Columbia University.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/2007/04/16…
oops. incorrect thread.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/2007/04/16/2007-04-16_pervert_tried_to_kill_her-2.html
It’s not just a rape culture. It’s a rape culture with fig leaves.
When a (violent or otherwise obvious) rapist is caught dead to rights, he’s hit hard–public condemnation, long prison sentence, registry…which provides the fig leaf covering the fact that other rapists get clean away. “We’re not a rape culture, look what we do to rapists!” And with that, the culture gets away with ignoring the fundamental issue.
That’s what’s behind the MRA position that the accused is unfairly treated. The rape culture has its most deleterious effects in making sure that the perpetrator doesn’t become the accused to begin with. Because the ways in which this happens are often subtle and hidden, it’s too often overlooked.
(The above may be off-topic, but I was reminded of it by an argument I had earlier today).
Gosh. If website owners are going to assume that any phrase a searcher uses is something of which the searcher approves, they’re going to have some horrific ideas about me. Often I’m trying to find a piece of writing I vaguely remember–does quoting it mean I agree with it? Of course not.
I remember reading a stat once about the percentage of American men who said they would commit rape if they could be guaranteed of getting away with it. If I ever go looking for that stat for a piece of my own writing, I might use the exact search terms this person did. I’m a woman and a feminist, not a man or a rapist.
Now I have just searched using this person’s search terms, because I’m curious what the other 18 sites were. And hey, the stat I just mentioned was there. I’m glad to have found it. It bolsters my work as a feminist. Let’s hope that’s who your searcher was.