Dear Author finally weighs in on the Stop the GoodRead bullies dêbacle.
Also, strong indicators as to the identity of at least one of the people behind that site are becoming common knowledge–see Cuddlebuggery’s report back in May and Wendy Darling’s own post on the matter.
Passive Guy’s linking of the blog spawned a discussion thread that runs the gamut, but (at least so far) leans heavily towards the uncritical passive agressive (i.e., “oh I read the StGRb site, those awful women deserve to be outed”).
In the meantime, Foz Meadows points out one instance wherein an author, misled by the content on the StGRb’s sites, attacked one of the women profiled on twitter.
The Bawdy Book Blog has a good summary and links with several days’ worth of updates.
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It scares me how often the larger consequences of outing people who dare disagree with you–by outing them in their real lives, while keeping yourself cozily anonymous–have for society in general and women in particular, are ignored in these comment threads.
Oh but they are mean! Oh but they bullied me (that is, trashed my book in a review). Oh but those reviews are not useful to me as a reader/writer.
How about the fact that outing these women’s real identity exposes them to real, physical danger? How about the fact that by doing this you are silencing their voices? (did you notice that Wendy Darling hasn’t updated her blog since the end of May?)
Has it occurred to you that, what someone is doing to these women could be, just as easily, be done to you next, if you dare disagree with someone with the means to out you?
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Another reviewer profiled at that assholeish site is harassed–at her home, via phone calls. And people still don’t see the difference between criticism/disagreement and bullying.
Amen sister.