John Nimmo is not a ‘troll’: Defining male violence online
John Nimmo has been charged with sending "a message causing anxiety or distress" at the South Tyneside Magistrates' Court. The charges stem from multiple emails sent to Luciana Berger, the Member of Parliament for Liverpool Wavertree. One email allegedly included this statement: "she is going to get it like Jo Cox did". Nimmo has been remanded into custody, as he was on bail for a previous offence for threatening to burn down a mosque in an email to Tell Mama, an organisation that tracks hate crimes against Muslims. He was sentenced to 8 weeks in prison in 2014 for sending abusive messages to campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez and MP Stella Creazy.
The Guardian, in one of the most ridiculous misrepresentations of male violence we've seen recently, has suggested Nimmo went to jail for telling Criado-Perez to 'shut up'. If we were to convict every man who tells a woman to ''shut up' online, a not insignificant percentage of men online would be facing prison. Our criminal justice system would collapse. Granted, the Guardian did remember to include a reference to Nimmo threatening Criado-Perez with rape, but that hardly makes up for minimising the targeted campaign of harassment involving abuse and threats.
Despite multiple arrests for online harassment abuse and threatening acts of violence, Nimmo is still labelled a 'troll' by the press. This is precisely why we do not use the term 'troll' to refer to men who engage in stalking, harassment, threats and abuse online. Men who tell women to 'shut up' for daring to have an opinion in public are trolls. Men who stalk, harass, threaten and abuse women are perpetrators of male violence against women and girls. Threatening individual women is meant to serve as a warning to other women: speak publicly and we will target you too.
We need to stop minimising the stalking, harassment and abuse of women online and start recognising it as a both a crime in and of itself and as part of the conducive context in which all other forms of violence against women and girls occur.
‹ Raped for a second time, boyfriend does not believe me. (content note) The Representation of Women in the Media Matters ›
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As usual mens’ malestream media – in this instance that male supremacist newspaper the Guardian, trivialises the fact a women-hating male named John Nimmo was convicted of threatening Luciana Berger, the Member of Parliament for Liverpool Wavertree, with male violence.
But of course mens’ malestream media – the Guardian are apparently the male experts in defining what does and does not constitute ‘real male violence against women’ and what does and does not constitute a ‘troll!’
Nimmo has a his tory of threatening women with male violence specifically because these women are females not males.
‘Abuse’ is a term increasingly being used by mens’ malestream media in order to minimalise/trivialise precisely what innumerable males are threatening women with and that is not ‘abuse’ it is male violence! Women-hating males are also increasingly using social media to subject women to vile sexualised insults simply because of their sex and again this is not ‘abuse’ it is sexualised insults directed at women because their sex class is female!
‘Abuse’ is a verbal interchange between two individuals predominantly males of equal power whereas male violence describes what the agent (male) is subjecting the woman to and that is violence wherein the woman will suffer physical injury and/or death!
However, naming the issue as male violence must not be written or said because this term succinctly describes what men are increasing enacting against women.
Perhaps given the Guardian believes Nimmo is a ‘troll’ then white males who send racist insults and/or threats of male violence to non-white males are also just ‘trolls’ not white male racists!! Perhaps these white male racists are also just engaging in ‘abuse’ not systemic racial hatred because the victim is not a white male?