A Response (And Why I'm the 50 foot Woman)

Joanna I must commend you on the humanity you bring to baseball conversation. As a long time lurker (here sometimes but predominantly at DJF (RIP) /Stoeten) I always look forward to your comments. Your passion for the jays and ability to see past the drivel that is considered analysis by most of MSM is highly welcomed. Much of your writing IMHO has a feel to it that reminds me of the prose of John Lott, whom I consider one, if not, the best at his craft. So kudos to you.One question that I have for you. One or two weeks ago on a Stoeten post one commenter made a blatantly sexist retort to you which seemed to really unnerve you (changing your avatar, your demeanor, etc). It actually made me really mad (why is this idiot coming down on Joanna), but I assumed that replies like that are sometimes par for the course on social media and you'd brush it off as such. Obviously I was wrong. So my question is why was it so unsettling?You come across as an independent, confident woman who is so not intimidated by assholes. I regard posters who dole out insults as cowards hiding behind their anonymity, who wouldn't have the resolve to say boo to anyone in person. Am I wrong on that? I am not on social media and am only basing my perception on what others have said and written. I guess I'm from the old school about sticks and stones..... I would get angry, not frightened. Just trying to understand your thought process. Continue to keep up the good work Joanna and don't let these idiots get to you.

This was a comment that is on a previous post. It's one of the nicest comments I've received and I also wanted to address some of the issues brought up in a post, rather than just answering them in a comment.

Thank you for the compliments and the John Lott comparison- though I think that might be due to the fact that I routinely steal his quotes (he has a press pass and I do not.) He is definitely one of my favourites on the beat and has supported this little blog for a long time now. I've been at this since 2007- my first post was about B.J. Ryan's back that needed TJ, which is a lifetime ago- and sometimes I wonder if anyone appreciates it, but it is nice to hear when people do.

For background, I routinely hang out in Stoeten's Game Threats- I try to do my part to support his work and it also prevents me from over tweeting my thoughts during a game and annoying my followers. Stoeten uses Disqus and for a long time, I didn't have an avatar. I changed my avatar to a picture of myself wearing sunglasses. I shot it myself from below and if you look closely, you can see the Rogers Centre reflected in my lenses. It was my Twitter profile pic, so I decided to make it all consistent.

There are regulars on the Game Threats, and there are some that just occasionally stop by to post and there are trolls. Trolls are removed by moderators.

A few weeks ago, on the first day I changed my picture, some dude, not a regular, was posting comments on a game. It was normal "Yankees are stupid" stuff. He then posted a comment, calling Encarnacion "E5". For me, that's sort of a baseball related trigger.

I hate that nickname for several reasons- 1. It's a holdover from his days with the Reds. Stop taking unfunny things from the Reds broadcasters. 2. It's lazy. It's just as easy to type EE. 3. He hasn't played third in years. The current person who can commit an E5 is Donaldson. Don't go there. 4. It's cruel- Has the dude not played well enough to earn some respect? At least enough to not use that nickname and just hit the "E" key twice?

I have a habit of correcting people- it's impulsive. So I posted, "Don't call him that." Which is rather tame. And a switch was flipped, the previously innocuous commenter started saying that I must be engaging in relations with Encarnacion, which explained why I was defending him and also made several comments about my physical appearance, based on my picture. When I called him out,  he then also said that I should take his harassment as a compliment and that I was asking for it using the picture I did.

Some of the ladies and fellas on the board yelled and the comments were removed.

I thought about it and I switched it to the 50 Foot Woman.

I have always hesitated letting people know what I look like when I am associated with my blog. Of course, I use my real face on Twitter. And I've been on MTV while associating myself with this blog and I've sat on a stage at Pitch Talks (live!), so some things are more relaxed than they once were. But I'm usually prepared and this felt out of nowhere.

I'm going to assume that the commenter above is male, because I honestly think most women wouldn't ask this question because, depressingly, they've experienced it themselves. For whatever reason (misogyny? lack of imagination?), women are routinely dismissed for their opinions by using their physical appearance. "I don't agree- you are fat." "You're opinion on sports is stupid, but you are hot- you must want to sleep with the players."

It doesn't seem to matter whether a woman is conventionally attractive or not, her looks are used to dismiss her. I just made a choice to remove that weapon.

What happened didn't frighten me, particularly, although things can be very frightening for women on the internet. And while I changed my avatar, I don't think I've changed my demeanor. I'm still confident in my way and I'm not intimidated by assholes. My wall of sass is in full effect.

And I'll go back to writing about baseball and our totally kick ass Toronto Blue Jays.