What online communities can show us about the principalities and powers

tw: sexual harassment, gendered slurs

From Slate: 

...Actress Emma Watson gave a speech supporting the HeForShe campaign, a project run by UN Women in support of women's equality around the globe. Watson, in her role as a Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women, denounced the negative impact that rigid gender roles have on both men and women. 

You can see the speech here. And what was interesting about the speech was that--to my ears--the speech was not incredibly radical.  Watson spoke of the need for gender equality in explicitly 'equalist' terms--as opposed to giving any indication of supporting a type of feminism that misogynists fear:  namely an inversion of power in which women can enact upon men that which men enact upon women.  (Interestingly enough, this fear of an inversion of power is when one can see that men who deny the existence of sexism actually know exactly what it is.  We see the same thing along any axis of privilege/oppression.)  Watson also mentioned the problems men face in a world in which gender expression and roles are so constricted.  She talks of specific instances where she has seen the harm "being a man" does to men.  Men are also made to fit in a small box of approved expressions and roles or men face the consequences of being seen as effeminate, weak, unmanly.  She explicitly notes that she would like men to take up the call of the HeForShe campaign because doing so will benefit both our future daughters and sons.

She also speaks of the moments in which she realized she was coming around to feminism, mentioning how "at 14, I started being sexualized by certain elements of the media." I will also mention that I remember what I read on social media the day she turned 18. It wasn't pretty.

The reaction from a certain website 4chan--which was where the recently stolen celebrity photos found a platform for being viewed--was rather swift and is particularly egregious.  It was also odd.  A site was started that showed a five day countdown, and after those five days it was threatened that they would publish nude photos of Emma Watson.  This news was met on 4chan and Reddit with glee, and a particularly good write-up from Vox (go read it!) on the issue gives an example of a particularly cruel and graphic comment one man made--as well as his hope that such a leak would end Watson's "career" as a feminist.

It is worth noting that while the threat to release those photos was a hoax, the reaction to the prospect of Emma Watson being "put in her place" was not. There might be a temptation to write the incident off as inconsequential since it came to nothing, but the 4chan and reddit reactions were real, and hideous.

To which I'll make two short observations:

1. It was not always known to be a hoax, and to be a woman speaking on feminist issues publicly in spite of the threats that one will probably receive is quite brave.  Rape threats are quite common, sexist screeds even more so.  (Witness the abuse Anita Sarkeesian recieves.)  Cursory Facebook and Youtube use will show it to be true that the comments men leave on any article having to do with feminism will justify the existence of feminism.
2. That it was believable--and that it has happened before--that men were planning to use sexual shame as a tool to silence a woman actually gives weight to Emma Watson's and feminism's claims about the state of the world's gender politics.

From the same Slate article as mentioned above, Amanda Marcotte writes that

Though there’s no way to know if this is a real threat, or just an ugly prank, Jill Filipovic of Cosmopolitan captured some 4chan users explicitly suggesting nude photo leaks to punish Watson for her outspoken feminism. "That feminist bitch Emma is going to show the world she is as much of a whore as any woman," wrote one. "She makes stupid feminist speeches at UN, and now her nudes will be online, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH," wrote another.

In addition to the clock the website features a photo of Watson wiping away tears. The choice is a telling one, demonstrating that the point of releasing these photos—or threatening to—is not the pleasure of seeing someone naked. After all, there are millions of images of naked women who happen to be consenting available online. It's about getting those tears, the pleasure of hurting and humiliating a woman who offended you by being unobtainable, and by standing up for other women.

Marcotte is bringing up a good point, even though she wrote this piece before it was known that the site was a hoax.  The threatened photo release--through the approval it was receiving from those who thought it real and justified--showed that the mindset of the supporters of the leak was not primarily about gratifying anyone's prurient interest.  The point would have been specifically to punish Watson for speaking out.¹  Like most gendered violence, the very real support for the fake threat to release nude photos was the outworking of power, not simply lust. And it is important to call demons by their proper name (Mk 5:9).

The apostle Paul speaks in his letters of the "principalities and powers."² By this Paul means the  spiritual and worldly forces that exist in opposition to God.  For it is Christ through whom all things were created and exist--whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers-- but the good news is that Christ has disarmed these powers and authorities through his life and death (Col 1:16, 2:15). The greatness and goodness of God is at work through and in Christ, who is placed above the principalities and powers (Eph 1:20-23).  The Church's role is one of proclaiming God's power and testifying to God's coming reign to these spiritual forces (Eph 3:7-12).  And the promise we inherit is the coming complete destruction of these forces-- "every ruler and every authority and power"-- at the consummation of history (1 Cor 15:24-28).

One way in which I define the powers and principalities are that they are those practices and ideas which foster impediments to seeing all as equally beloved and redeemed by God, meaning that there is little drive to foster the reconciliation Christians are called to witness to (2 Cor 5:14-21).  They could be spiritual or simply the mundanely human outworking of our desire for power and control in the face of uncertainty (which will have a spiritual impact).  Further, for the principalities and powers, there is little concern to active hostility to the equality of all before God (Gal 3:28) and the role of women in places beyond where society would deem them welcome (consider Jesus' relationship to women in the Gospel, as well as women's roles in Paul's letters and in Acts).   Colonialism, sexism, racism, and homophobia all fall within the control of principalities and powers that devalue the beloved of God while teaching others that they have a divine right to maintain an oppressive social order "for the good of us all."  Control is sanctified in lieu of holiness, forbearance, love, and grace.  The principalities and powers instead resort to threat, harm, shame and death.   You can know who you are dealing with by the fruits they produce.

It is not uncommon to hear Episcopalians talk about social issues and the role of a Christian in terms of the Baptismal Covenant's questions asked of all who seek right relationship with God--and two questions in particular: "Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons?" and "Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?"  I'd like to suggest that the impulse to social justice in general, and sexism in particular, does not begin at these two questions.  The impulse begins with the recognition that there are realities of this world we must renounce before we make these promises.

Our desire to do God's work in the world should imply the desire to throw off that which impedes that work.  In the Baptismal service, two of the three renunciations immediately come to mind:  "Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?" and "Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?"  These renunciations speak of throwing off the world's claims about the proper place of others and seeking instead to discern the wild and radical things God chooses to do with the unlikely in order to confound the wise and powerful.  It means de-centering the will to power (think Jesus' temptation in the wilderness (Mt 4:1-11)) in favor of God's will and mission for humanity.

Here's the point.  Whenever you see the use of terroristic violence, shame, and belittlement against anyone, you are seeing the powers and principalities at work, as well as the all too human desire for power.  And what was witnessed on 4Chan and Reddit in these particular instance--and many others--was the outworking of the desire to control through punishment.  All because one woman in a very public way said all women and men were equal.

It was flat-out sexism.

And it is important to call demons by their names.
______________________

¹ What wasn't a hoax, however, was the treatment of Anita Sarkeesian for her work in engaging video games through the lens of feminist inquiry.  The abuse that she recieved in digital venues which threatened to become all too real speaks to ways in which the treatment of women in the digital landscape mirrors "the real world."   Catherine Buni and Soraya Chemaly write for The Atlantic:

If, as the communications philosopher Marshall McLuhan famously said, television brought the brutality of war into people’s living rooms, the Internet today is bringing violence against women out of it. Once largely hidden from view, this brutality is now being exposed in unprecedented ways. In the words of Anne Collier, co-director of ConnectSafely.org and co-chair of the Obama administration’s Online Safety and Technology Working Group, “We are in the middle of a global free speech experiment.” On the one hand, these online images and words are bringing awareness to a longstanding problem. On the other hand, the amplification of these ideas over social media networks is validating and spreading pathology.

In other words, the internet and real life are not that different. The two connect because those same people who interact online exist in the world, too. The difference is that the persons who threaten others online might hold in their vitriol in real life for fear of social consequence.  Yet it must be noted that the same folks who threaten violence against women in digital forums likely interact with women in the real world.  That is not a pleasant reality to think about.

² As the KJV puts it; "powers" and "authorities" in the NRSV.  For the purposes of this piece, the authorship of the Pauline canon is not going to be addressed.