Imagine walking into a YWCA for the monthly meeting on women's issues. Imagine wanting a safe place to discuss your concerns about women in the workplace, or needing a place to discuss something even more intimate like sexual abuse.
Imagine in mid-conversation, the door to the room bursts open and an angry, violent man says you are worthless, and that you deserve to be assaulted.
Horrifying, right? This may not be happening often at the local community center, but this kind of misogynist talk is spreading throughout chat rooms and on message boards all over the Internet.
Although hate on the Internet is nothing new, one feminist organization is hoping to create an environment with minimal verbal abuse. By restricting access to a new website to paying customers, participants who want to denigrate women will have to pay for the privilege.
Beginning May 1, The National Organization for Women will offer Internet service provider accounts through its website. For $19.95 a month, the service from Affinity will give users full Internet access, plus the ability to interact with NOW's new website, NOWworld.org.
The site will only be accessible to people who sign up through the ISP. NOW is moving its message boards and chat rooms to the protected NOWworld site.
"I've been really disappointed by the number of men who are determined to be abusive to the women on these boards," said Kim Gandy, executive vice president of NOW. "(The ISP) came out of a desire to create a new space that was safe and welcoming, but also informative and inspiring."
Gandy said one of the women on the message boards talked about being raped, and a man posted something that said she had asked for it.
"Another fella signed up under 15 to 20 names, and he ended up dominating the boards," she said. "He would post up to 800 messages a day. I think it almost killed off the boards."
The monthly ISP fee (of which $2 will go to NOW) also gives subscribers up to five e-mail addresses, instant messaging and access to NOWworld. The website will offer women-related news, message boards, chat rooms, reviews, columnists and classifieds, and list upcoming feminist events.
While NOW hopes this will help deter the hate on their message boards and in the chat rooms, other organizations wonder if this will limit the freedom for expression.
"I would think that open communication would be beneficial to both sides," said Beverly Cielnicky, president of the pro-life organization, Crusade for Life. "I think limiting communication is detrimental."
Cielnicky said debate of all issues should remain on a high level and should not resort to name-calling. She said her Crusade for Life does not have message boards or chat rooms, or its own ISP.
NOW is not the only group that has had recent problems with message boards or chat rooms. Last month, the Anti-Defamation League became aware of raids on MSN Judaism message boards by anti-Semites who kept transmitting hateful remarks and threats, said Todd Gutnick, assistant director of media relations for the ADL.
MSN was notified, and responded quickly by alerting the company that moderated the chats. The moderators are now visiting the rooms on a more periodic basis to scout potential problems.
"What happened there is what happens unfortunately in most chat rooms," said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. "This has become a new forum of hate, bigotry and anti-Semitism."
Gandy said she is in full support of healthy debate, but that abuse on the NOW website will no longer be tolerated.
"We don't need (abusive participants') $19.95," she said. "We're a not-for-profit organization. We can survive without them."
