The journalist and activist's new ebook is a perfect illustration of the pros and cons of digital publishing
Last month, journalist and activist Laurie Penny was in a safe house after bomb threats were sent to her Twitter account. The essay she wrote while she was there, Cybersexism: Sex, Gender and Power on the Internet (£1.74, published by Bloomsbury), is now available to download as an ebook.
The ease and speed of digital publishing is perfect for this kind of reactive long-form journalism. Penny was an early practitioner of the form: her short ebook, Discordia: Six Nights in Crisis Athens , was published last year as part of Random House's Brain Shots series.
Cybersexism is more brain dump. Penny writes in raw, engaging prose about how blogging was a liberation from her troublesome teenage body, about the joys of being a geek, and – most interestingly – about what it is like to be on the receiving end of sexist abuse. Her insights into the psychology of trolling are fascinating, and her honesty about how online bullying makes her feel is endearing. When she describes how young women tell her they dream of going into journalism or politics but are put off by the abuse they might suffer, it makes you sad and angry.
It's when she wades into wider debates about censorship and pornography that Penny seems out of her depth. Generalisations (anyone worried about the impact of porn on children must be a rightwing loon) and contradictions (an upbeat conclusion that it is up to geeks to save the world seems at odds with her observation that the internet is simply a reflection of society) abound.
A danger of digital is that the rush to publish while the topic is still fresh means editing is sacrificed. Cybersexism would have been infinitely more powerful had it focused on Penny's personal experiences. Still, a worthwhile and provocative read.
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