Online Harassment?

Q: I know from talking to some well known women in various communities that sexual harassment on the Net has been a problem for while, and most agree it is getting worse. Some fellas supposedly just look for a female first name and make the unlucky person's life a digital hell. I run the risk of getting a full mail box with this question, so let me apologize in advance if I can't respond to everyone, but my deadline is tomorrow. (I am the procrastinator's procrastinator.) Does anyone have any horror stories along these lines? I ask because women are still far from having adequate representation (at least numberically) online, and all of the stuff I've read so far imply some really bad stuff. Like grade school girls hating computers forever after being verbally abused online by know-it-all school chums, Women receiving harassing (sp?) mail from the annonymous server, and of course the really bad stuff, like digital stalking and rape threats.

A: I agree with you that if women ARE being harrassed in this way, then it is a bad state of affairs and something ought to be done to protect people from such abuse. However people_ receive email threats and harassment all the time. Of course, it depends on how you define harassment. Back when the first bout of the "Rape poster at UMD" thread went by, I got an almost continual flow of mail from local (and non-local) homosexual men who mistook my _implied_

misogyny for being a homosexual. (Indeed, I also get similar posts when posting to other groups--post anti-woman some day, and see what happens.) Was this harassment? I don't know, and don't much care, either. Most of them were sexual pick ups (and, for the heck of it, I went out to lunch with two of them to see if it was sarcasm--no, 'fraid not.) Is this harassment? I suppose a woman would say so. I would also point out that only a complete wimp would start whining about email harassment of that kind. Besides, some of them were so pathetic that I forwarded them to friends for a laugh.