The price Saskatchewan women pay for speaking up

By Mark Melnychuk, Leader-Post March 23, 2015

While Evie Ruddy was moving in with her partner last year, she was being called an attention whore and feminazi. It was supposed to be happy day for the couple, but was marred by Ruddy’s rise as a target for online trolls. Others online said she should have been shot in the uterus, or had her ovaries ripped from her body. “It had blown so out of control, like beyond what I had expected and I wanted it to stop,” said Ruddy, a freelance writer and sessional lecturer in gender studies at the University of Regina. The night before, Ruddy did interviews with CBC and Global News about a human rights complaint she had planned to file against Ragged Ass Barbers. The Regina barber shop had denied giving her a haircut, a hard part, because she wasn’t a man. Ruddy went to sleep that night thinking she had simply raised a concern about a business discriminating against a customer, but awoke the next day to a slew of misogynist messages and comments, despite calls from the barbershop’s owners for civility online. Many of the comments were written by people living in Regina, from what she could see on Facebook, but some were from as far as California. All of the abusive direct messages Ruddy received through Twitter were written by men. As frightening as Ruddy’s situation was, it was not unique. Several other women in Saskatchewan who have spoken about social issues have paid for it by being relentlessly harassed and abused online, some even receiving death threats. *** Erica Lee has been involved with First Nations activism for much of her life. The fact that she’s an aboriginal woman made her a target for online harassment. Her first experience happened when she was involved with the campaign to have Bedford Road Collegiate in Saskatoon change its team name from Redmen. Lee, who was 19 at the time, was part of a group of activists that included men and teachers who were calling for the school to drop the name, which they felt was racist toward First Nations people. But it was Lee who bore the brunt of criticism against the movement. “I got called a lot of bad words,” said Lee, who is now 24 and is taking philosophy and political studies at the University of Saskatchewan. Lee received death threats from several students at Bedford, and others called her a whore. It happened again when Lee became involved with the Idle No More movement, volunteering as a moderator for the group’s main Facebook page. Just like the fallout from her involvement in the Bedford campaign, many of the comments were sexual and included rape threats. Many of them were sent by men who live on the Prairies. “She just needs to get laid,” is frequent comment Lee recalls seeing. Lee’s professors at the U of S have also received hate-filled letters concerning her activism. Much of the harassment Lee has received has been racially motivated, with abusers calling her a savage and a drunk. “It’s so stressful and such a surreal experience to go through that. Realizing that somebody hates you so much and they don’t even know you,” said Lee. ***

In February, when Reanne Ridsdale voiced her concerns over a sign on a women’s washroom in a Saskatoon bar, she watched commenters and Internet bloggers insult her and attempt to dig up background on her personal life. Ridsdale said the sign, which showed a male stick figure peeking over a bathroom divider at a female figure, highlighted how sexual harassment towards women is normalized in society. For bringing up the concern, Ridsdale was met with remarks that she should “get laid”, and other comments involving sexual violence. “I thought I was doing a good thing that maybe men and women could talk about,” said Ridsdale. One of the comments that disturbed Ridsdale the most was a man who wrote “just remember whose name is in the paper.” “And that was when I was like ‘What have I done?’” she said. *** After Lisa Dustyhorn made a Facebook post accusing Regina police officers of mistreating her daughter, Brooke Watson, the pair faced a barrage of online harassment. The post was shared more than 10,000 times, leading to hundreds of racist comments. “They called her a retarded junky Indian” said Dustyhorn. Other abusers told Dustyhorn she should take her daughter “back to their reserve” and push her “off the edge of the Earth.”Dustyhorn’s Facebook post, which accused two Regina police officers of taking Watson’s boots and coat after picking up the intoxicated 24-year-old on Jan. 4, was later proven false. The revelation only fuelled the anger toward the mother and daughter. “Honestly I had a nervous breakdown, because I wanted to be accepted in society as positive role model and now I feel like that people have judged me and the way they judged me (was) as a big mouth,” said Dustyhorn. Because of numerous death threats and abuse, Dustyhorn’s daughter has moved away from Regina out of fear for her safety. *** The fact that all three individuals who were met with abuse when they decided to speak up were women comes as no surprise to Lee. “I think sort of what drives a lot of these comments is that people aren’t happy, I guess, when women have a voice, or are confident in trying to challenge oppression or challenge things,” said Lee. “It’s like we’re not allowed to be confident or secure in our viewpoints, and so then there’s this urge to shut these women down. And that usually takes the form of gendered name calling.” Ruddy also believes the fact that she is a woman played a large role in the amount of harassment she received. “It’s almost like I poked the patriarchy,” said Ruddy. “All the sexist views ... and the hate towards women came out through this, and not just hate towards women but hate towards women who speak up about equality and discrimination,” she said. Ruddy and Lee went to police because of the harassment they suffered, and out of fear for their safety.

In response to the harassment, Ruddy shut down her Twitter account and changed her name on Facebook. She was so scared of being accosted in public that for a week she walked through the city with sunglasses and a hood pulled over her head. After seeing a comment saying that she should be shot, she went to the Regina Police Service. Ruddy was told by an officer that because the threat was not made directly at her, little could be done. “He’s like ‘Well, so what are the chances that this guy’s actually going to shoot you?” said Ruddy. “To me it didn’t matter what the odds were. It was just, I was afraid.” After receiving death threats while campaigning for Bedford Road’s name change, Lee also went to police, but was simply told to shut down her Facebook until things cooled off. Ruddy was told the same, but refuses to accept that the onus of preventing harassment should fall to the person on the receiving end. “That’s in a sense victim blaming. I didn’t do anything wrong, so why should I have to deactivate my Facebook account?” In 2014, the Regina Police Service received 165 complaints involving harassment. Sixteen of those complaints resulted in a criminal harassment investigation, and 80 per cent of the complainants in those cases were female. In the cases where charges were laid, police were able to establish a clear pattern of repeated contact between the alleged perpetrator and victim. But investigating a threat from a random person on Facebook is where things get more difficult, according to RPS Supt. Corey Zaharuk. In order to prove criminal harassment, police need to establish that the victim has a reasonable fear for their safety, something police and a complainant don’t always agree on. “That is a conflict between the police and some complainants where they don’t necessarily understand the threshold that police need to meet in order to lay a criminal charge like that, and so it becomes very difficult,” said Zaharuk. “If it’s one threat that changes things. We have to have a little bit more context to understand the probability of this being carried out, and again what that person is basing their fear on.” Even if the threats are coming from an anonymous account, police will still take them seriously if there is a reasonable fear for the complainant’s safety. Zaharuk understands the term “reasonable” can sound vague, but it is a standard police have to work with. “There are limitations. We can’t just go and charge someone criminally and make the behaviour stop,” said Zaharuk. While stopping the abuse frequently requires action by the victim, Zaharuk said there are other options, but that the complainant is still a “big factor” in the equation. Deleting a Facebook account certainly isn’t convenient for a victim, but in some cases it may be the only option. Zaharuk also said police are just one player in the fight against harassment. Social media companies and Internet providers should be considered as well when someone is looking for help. So after enduring the torrent of online abuse and threats, would these women do it again?