the feminist librarian reads

Classic trolling “to get a rise out of someone” and its more violent descendant now have much more in common than Mantilla seems to credit. Even trolls not specifically affiliated with misogynist movements were trying to get trans women to kill themselves recently. Another “operation” of trolls from the infamous 4chan message board sought to sow confusion among online feminists by impersonating women of color and saying particularly outlandish things, such as “white people can’t be raped.” Yet this whole mess is entirely elided in Mantilla’s book, despite its serious implications for both the study of trolling and its gendered dimensions. You cannot understand the abuse of women online without understanding what sociologist Jesse Daniels calls “cyber racism,” for instance. Even if one claims to be narrowly focusing on the online harassment of women, that research agenda is poorly served by emphasizing the axis of gender at the expense of all else.