Last week, Women’s Post published an article about the success of Canada’s female athletes at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. It was a great piece and it received a fair amount of attention from our sport-fan readers.
However, Monday morning I opened up my computer to check the website’s status and found something shocking underneath that very article: a comment by Roosh V, North America’s favourite hateful misogynist.
At Women’s Post, we have a strict policy in regards to our comment section. We will publish almost anything. It doesn’t matter if opinions differ, but as long as the comment is not hateful, sexist, or racist, we will publish it.
Women’s Post will NOT be publishing Roosh V’s comment.
The comment includes a link to an article published on his website Return of Kings, where he writes about how women shouldn’t win real medals in the Olympic Games, rather they should be awarded “a giant knockoff of that cheap Hanukkah gelt (chocolate gold coins) that Jewish children get for the holiday season.” The post goes on to say that women are the weaker sex and shouldn’t be considered real athletes.
Before deciding to delete the comment, the staff at Women’s Post got together to express their concerns and their frustrations. As women ourselves, we had a lot of reasons for wanting to address Roosh V in an article on our website. We wanted to let him know exactly what we thought of his activist group and his theology. At the same time, we didn’t want to give his organization legitimacy by acknowledging it and linking to the post.
But, the biggest question we asked ourselves was this: should we let our personal feelings dictate what our readers — which I still can’t believe includes Roosh V — write in our comments? After much discussion, the answer in this particular case was yes.
The post Roosh V included in his comment was everything that Women’s Post despises. It was hateful with no purpose. It took obscure facts and altered them to make women sound like pathetic and weak creatures that need to be coddled and taken care of by strong, athletic men. It argued that women have no place in society other than staying in the home and taking care of a man’s needs. And finally, it demeaned the vast accomplishments women have made over the last week and a half. It was sexist and hateful — and therefore has no place on this website.
To solidify this argument, let me say this. These types of activist groups and comments are not welcome here at Women’s Post. We will not give them credence. We will not allow them to insult or offend women using our publication. There is no wiggle room.
Women’s Post has written about Roosh V previously, but this will be the last. We refuse to waste more precious space and time defending our choices against a man who thinks women are scum.
And that’s all we are going to say about that.
