Men who are not the original authors read (or try to read) some of the tweets. The NYT provides some of the background.
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6 thoughts on “Female sports reporters receive abusive comments”
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Feminist Philosophers 
Reblogged this on Em's Way To Go and commented:
Good video but quite distressing – men read out sexist abuse given on Twitter to women sports reporters IN PERSON. I hate “keyboard warriors” as much as I hate sexism, but – sports aside – I don’t think the online problem is restricted to men. Whether I’m right or not, the message is simple – if you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face then don’t be a coward and say it online! #morethanmean
EmmaJCarson, I agree that it can be distressing!
BTW, there are areas where the abuse of women is worse than that of men. Women involve in digital tech is one such case, in addition to that here.
I didn’t even make it to the 1 minute mark. For me this video represents the intersection of the grotesque pictures of abused animals sent in the mail by animal rights charities and the Milgram experiments. Like the former, I know that it’s awful, I know that it happens, and I’m already opposed to it. Like the latter, it seems that just because you’ve been asked and agreed to engage in this exercise doesn’t mean you should follow through with it when you see how bad the messages are – especially given that the men apparently didn’t know the women had already seen these.
Derek, I’m a bit shocked that I didn’t have your reaction. I’m afraid that to many women it will seem at least vaguely familiar.
Anne, I would suspect a big part of the difference in reaction is one of default identification. I am most apt to identify with the men in the video and so more likely to share their discomfort and embarrassment at being asked to read the comments outloud. It is also likely that women writers who post under their own name on the internet – like women sportswriters – may have been forced to develop a thicker skin about such comments in a way I have not.
DB, I expect that has a lot to do with the differnce, but we still need to explain why I wasn’t shocked, since if these things are not familiar they can be shocking.