Misogyny Archive

Updates and feedback for misogynyarchive

[misogynyarchivedisabled]

Reporting tool and a database of misogyny and male violence

The Misogyny Archive is online!

Misogyny Archive is a website where you can report any man who is known to indulge in misogynistic behaviour. You can choose multiple categories, from verbal, online, sexual, violent, spiritual. There’s currently 25 categories listed, with descriptions of what all of them entail. You’re also able to contribute information, that would help other women recognize the misogynist, and give them an option to make informed decision regarding this individual.

Our hope is that, by reporting the men we know to be dangerous, misogynistic, potentially violent and sexually predatory, by linking their locations, we could start drawing the lines between the anonymous assaults, anonymous stalkers and attackers, and figure out which men are most likely to be behind them. Women are encouraged to report and describe anonymous predators as well, and it’s possible some of their descriptions will match with those whose names are already reported!

The website is meant to be a resource and a database used for women to be able to make informed decisions, stay safe, be protected from the known predators, and aware of what men in their life are capable of doing, behind their backs. We also hope it will help us catalogue, track, analyze and keep track of the number of misogynistic crimes, and their severity, and give more detailed picture of the dangers we currently live in. This is up to the reporters, and depends on how used and utilized this website is!

This project is created by Inna, the developer, who worked for months to create the database from just an idea. We worked together on figuring out the fine spots, covering the questions of backups, security, functionality. We’re both excited to have it finally up and running, and we hope you’ll go and report everyone you can, everyone you feel you are safe from. Because as much as we’d love to, we can’t make a website only women can access, so if someone you’re reporting could guess it’s you, and try to take revenge, don’t mention him by name, or wait until you’re completely safe! The site is only working to protect women, for as long as it brings no women in danger.

I also want to note that giving the identifying information is optional. If you feel safe reporting only the crime, do it. If you feel safe only reporting the location and what happened, do that! You can always make a new report later, when it’s safe.You will never be asked to identify yourself.

[misogynyarchivedisabled]

Thank you for the hard work to everyone involved. This is the kind of sisterhood that i craved when i was younger and feeling crazy overs men mistreatment blaming myself

I forwarded the message to our developer! Thank you so much for your kind words, I'm so glad you're feeling the sisterhood and that it's helping you not blame yourself! I agree that we should have had a place to speak out all along, stay strong!

[misogynyarchivedisabled]

Is this blog still active?

It is, I'm only posting if I have updates :)

[misogynyarchivedisabled]

for an extra layer of security, would you recommend using vpn's when submitting reports? im not exactly sure if that will matter, cuz you guys are the only ones who can see an IP address right?

I'm not very techy so I don't even know how to see the ip addresses, but if it feels safer to use vpn please do! Someone who is tech smart could answer this better.

[misogynyarchivedisabled]

I think one of the things that are priority for a site like this is the security. In general males are much more tech attuned (including dark web stuff) and more fking vile and psychopatic when it comes to trolling and retaliation so its important for a couple of techy women to be the shieldmaidens

I do agree that security is the priority! We're working on making it safer, and I have a lot of trust in my developer, who is techy, and figured out a way to create backups so that the information will not be lost or deleted.

We're also working on the legality, we found some stuff that isn't yet legally covered, so we'll introduce 'terms of use' soon! (for instance, we need to clarify that the website is 18+, to protect children from descriptions of sexual and violent crimes)

If there's more techy women who can tell us or help us protect the site, please speak up! But also keep in mind that this is just 2 person effort, with no big budget, resources, or even time since we're both preoccupied with our own work and lives as well. But we're trying our best to stay safe.

[misogynyarchivedisabled]

Looked again to find out the number of the mentioned self report, it's #24. So you know what I'm talking about

wait, what? I only see 22 reports. It's something I can't see apparently, can you send me a snapshot of that?

[misogynyarchivedisabled]

Could you maybe pin the post with the link to the top of the blog? Then people don't have to scroll through the asks to access the site.

Also there's a self report (?) in the reports that feels kind of icky? Maybe have a look at it. I get that including a 'report' - button would potentially lead to a lot of spam, though.

Oh that's a good idea! I will do that.

I saw that report, it's reported as if the perpetrator was reporting himself, right? I was looking at it but ultimately it's not breaking any rules, I think it was just written in a weird way. I imagine it wasn't the perpetrator but the victim writing it, based on the other information they submitted to the form. It's not the best way to report someone, pretending you are them, but I don't find it offensive to the point where it needs to be taken down.

We're only going to delete reports if they're exposing a victim's identity or putting someone in danger.

[misogynyarchivedisabled]

I really like the site, but have noticed that people leaving perpetrator's Discord names and tags will leave just that. It's super easy to change your username, and your tag can be changed with a subscription. However, Discord assigns an ID to each user that can never be changed - I feel like giving a heads up to submitters to include this would be a good thing. There are websites such as discord. id that will tell you what the current username and tag are if you plug that ID into them.

okay, I understand what you mean, but we're actually planning a change in allowing people to submit social networks and usernames.

Someone noticed at one point, that if one abusive man finds the website, and there's links or very easy pathways to contact the other perpetrators, it would become easy for him to contact every single of these men and alarm them that they've been reported, and they could join their efforts to put the site down. And it's true that we set this scenario up by allowing people to link socials and give both usernames and platforms.

I've been thinking all night how to mediate this problem, and I figured the only thing we can do is tell women to only leave usernames, but not link them with platforms. That way, it would take significantly more effort, googling and guessing to know if you've got the right person, if you want to contact them, and if a woman were to find that particular username in the wild, she could be alerted and double check if it could be the same man.

I'm sorry we didn't anticipate this before! The safety of women comes first, and even if we have to make the site a little more vague and less useful, that's better than it being outright dangerous and having such weak points as, allowing men to easily find out and join together against vulnerable women who reported them, or the site itself.

Thank you for helping, still! I didn't know that about discord, and I appreciate being informed.

[misogynyarchivedisabled]

maybe i didn't look properly but when reporting is it possible to upload pics and videos as proof?

It's possible to upload links to pictures, but not videos (or, it's not recommended). Sharing private pictures and videos against someone's knowledge is in the illegal area so we don't want to encourage it, even if it would be helpful! So basically, you can do that but at risk that it might get deleted.

[feminescu]

hmmm i don't know much about laws but aren't there countries that allow taking and sharing pics without someone's knowledge if they're doing something illegal in said vids? and does sharing screenshots of misogynistic text messages with the phone number visible enter in this category of sharing private pics?

as for sharing pics against the victim's knowledge, if it turns out that through legal loophopes we could share some pics, we could maybe blur our faces and video chat with a moderator to prove that it's in fact us and sign a digital document that yes we give our consent to share those pics etc etc?

i know this is a lot of ifs but i hope there's at least some way that this could work somehow and hopefully you or someone else can clarify it for me

[misogynyarchivedisabled]

It’s a grey area in some countries, yeah! But we don’t want to do anything overly risky, most sites that offered services like this got shut down, deleted and were attacked on any possible premise they could be attacked, so we’re trying to be as safe as possible, even if it compromises the usefulness a little bit.

It’s not possible to employ a full-time moderator to chat with people, this is an archive, not an interactive experience that requires staff and employees.

Sharing screenshots is not illegal, and you could upload the pictures of screenshots and add links to the misogyny archive!

And for sharing photographs without the person’s knowledge, that was alluding to the photographs of the perpetrators, who will no doubt, have a problem with their pictures shared on such a site. Adding pictures of the victims would only expose the victims, and is not allowed.

[misogynyarchivedisabled]

also is there a way for a woman to find your contact info from the site if she doesn't know about this blog? if there is and i missed it sorry

There isn't. If there was a way to be contacted, it's a sure way to get a lot of misogynistic men contacting me, and I would prefer to avoid it. The only way the site is promoted is thru tumblr, so it's most likely that people who want to ask questions or offer feedback will know where to find me, at least for now.

[misogynyarchivedisabled]

is there a way to give the year of the incident but not the exact date?

It would be good if you could just give a year, I've asked the developer and she said she'll look into other date options. If not, you could just pick 1st of January for that year and it will be implied that you mean the entire year, symbolically.

[misogynyarchivedisabled]

maybe i didn't look properly but when reporting is it possible to upload pics and videos as proof?

It's possible to upload links to pictures, but not videos (or, it's not recommended). Sharing private pictures and videos against someone's knowledge is in the illegal area so we don't want to encourage it, even if it would be helpful! So basically, you can do that but at risk that it might get deleted.

[misogynyarchivedisabled]

If I may make a suggestion? It can be very difficult to log past instances if they happened a while ago. For example if I wanted to log something from 2006 Id be pushing the back button on the month by month calendar for a long time. Unless I am mistaken or using it improperly.

I checked this and it does allow you to type in the year if you try to! It's a good thing to ask because there's no hint that you can just type in the date, it just offers you the scroller, but you can, in fact, type it!

[misogynyarchivedisabled]

Would the language of the country be more preferable, I've seen all reports so far are in english, but it seems to me to make sense if it is a local man in question? Of course this is up to the one reporting, I am asking for advice?

Yes, it does make sense to report in a local language. However, we've just started reporting, I think everyone is still a bit nervous, and reporting in a foreign language feels safer. It's okay to just report in a way that feels the safest, and later the reports can be added in the local language as well, when they’re not the only ones anymore. it's always the most difficult to start!

[misogynyarchivedisabled]

Is it ok to log past aggressions on the misogyny archive?

Absolutely! Past aggression can point to future aggression, and we want all male aggression archived.

[misogynyarchivedisabled]

Update on the Misogyny Archive + translator volounteers needed!

I’m happy to announce that the website is almost completed, and just needs a few days to be tested and make sure everything works alright. We have put a lot of thoughts into safety and security; the entire database will be backed up, continually, so the data does not get lost.

Even more than that, I worried that the men who are reported, might eventually find the reports, and figure out who reported them just be reading the report; I wrote a safety page where I explain in detail how to avoid this, how to make it as hard to figure out as possible, how to make a report without adding a name, or adding it secretly, and in the end, advised women that if they feel they might be in danger should the predatory man find the report, to rather keep themselves safe, and not report at all. It’s always possible to report once they’re safe and protected from the man, but putting their own safety at risk, is not advised, and I do not wish for it to happen.

I’ve translated the website into Croatian, so now we have an English and a Croatian version, but if anyone is willing to translate it to their own language, that would be greatly appreciated, and would add accessibility for women who don’t speak English. If you feel up to it, please respond to this post, or send a message to me or balkanradfem, and I’ll send you a document with everything that needs to be translated.

You can expect the archive to be up in a few days! It will be published on this blog.

[misogynyarchivedisabled]

Safety concerns for the Misogyny Archive

One of the biggest concerns for Archive is that men will also be able to access it, and see the reports, possibly about themselves. With the reporters completely anonymous, it won’t be clear whether the woman who was the victim of the misogynistic crime reported it, or someone from her family, her friend circle, her social circle did it. However, knowing abusive men, if they see a report about themselves, they’re likely to seek revenge, without questioning whether it was the woman they abused who reported it, or someone else; his accusation will be that she dared telling someone.

In order to protect women from this type of unjustified retaliation, we advise to women who are exposed and unprotected from their abusers, to wait until they’re safe and completely protected from any type of revenge, and only then to report it. Safety of the women comes first. However, we also thought of additional measures.

If it’s too dangerous to report a man by name, it’s possible to report him without adding a name that is searchable. In order to make his name searchable, you’d have to write it in the form where the name is specifically asked. However, if the name isn’t written in that specific field, but only mentioned in the story in another field, it will not be searchable. Meaning, when a woman writes in the name only in the story part of the report, a man will not be able to find it via search function, but it will still exist for those who search more thoroughly; it will be findable via the area search function, and offense search function. For those who have the patience to read out reports, they will find out who the perpetrator is.

Lastly, it’s possible to not add the name at all, and only write the story without mentioning who committed the offense. It’s still a story worth reporting and cataloguing, even if the name cannot be revealed for safety concerns.

The archive itself will take no information from the reporter, we’re not saving the ip addresses, and we’ll have no way to prove in any way, who sent the report, from where, or from what kind of device.

I’m considering offering an option to list offenses without personally writing the story, in case the man would read the report and recognize the way it’s written, the wording, the detail, how much she was able to reveal, and recognize who wrote it based on this. That is a safety concern. We could avoid this by giving women an already written-out report where she only has to add offenses done to her person.

I’m welcoming all ideas and opinions on how to make this safer, I want this archive to have zero backlash on women, or at least as little as humanely possible.