'Twitter Feminists' to Katie Roiphe: This Essay is Not Very Good

In case you’re just joining us, here’s what happened: last month, news leaked on Twitter that Katie Roiphe was planning to write a piece for Harper’s in which she would name the then-anonymous creator of the Shitty Media Men list, a briefly-circulated Google spreadsheet that other anonymous readers could update with rumors, stories, and warnings about, well, shitty men in media. The outrage was swift and widespread. Nicole Cliffe offered to pay the publication fee to any writer who wanted to pull their piece from Harper’s (as well as help them get it printed elsewhere). Jessica Valenti encouraged readers opposed to outing the creator of the Shitty Media Men list to complain to Harper’s directly. Many writers called for Harper’s to kill the piece. Ecco even pulled an ad from the magazine. Then, Moira Donegan outed herself as the creator of the list. Katie Roiphe joined Twitter to defend herself, sort of, and denied that she was going to dox Donegan. No one believed her.

This weekend, the piece went live at Harper’s. It’s not great. Many have noticed that it is boring. It is mostly a complaint about “Twitter feminists” and their treatment of Roiphe, plus another version of the argument that the #MeToo moment has gone too far. She compares the Shitty Media Men list to an “anonymously crowd-sourced list of Muslims who might blow up planes,” which would be more offensive if it wasn’t pure nonsense. She tries to undercut the women she’s writing about by using their Twitter handles, which is a bizarre strategy since this whole essay is based on the premise that she takes Twitter seriously. She also seems not to understand jokes? On the other hand, she does carefully avoid using the term “hysteria,” though you can tell she really, really wants to. But don’t take my word for it. The responses from the literary and media worlds (yes, of Twitter, because this is the space in which this story exists) have been quite as sharp as you might imagine. Here’s some of the best, organized more or less thematically:

Jessica Valenti made it clear that the original problem wasn’t that Roiphe had a dissenting opinion from “Twitter feminists”—it was that she was planning to cause harm to an actual, real life woman:

If you’re going to be outraged, at least do it with some honesty.

— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) February 4, 2018

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Many people pointed out that all this essay proves is that Roiphe is not a great journalist, and dishonest to boot:

Main beef with Katie Roiphe at this point is that she’s staggeringly boring

— Jia Tolentino (@jiatolentino) February 4, 2018

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Truly dishonest Roiphe move: she trims the sharpest & most important insight out of Traister’s far superior writing on this subject, rather than wrestle with it. C’mon now. https://t.co/gI7abWOEuh

— Emily Nussbaum (@emilynussbaum) February 4, 2018

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Many of the women whose tweets are cited have written with nuance and at length about gender relations. Why not consider their “insightful and conflicted” work? https://t.co/dyGNQu2oZc, https://t.co/iRylprzRCp @dtortorici @MoiraDonegan

— Carla Blumenkranz (@carlahblumen) February 4, 2018

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Is this now how one reports an article? One refers it to a friend, who “checked it very thoroughly” though we’re not given any idea of with whom, and who can vouch for the falsity?

— Michelle Dean (@michelledean) February 4, 2018

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I read the Roiphe piece and I feel the same way about it that I feel about my aforementioned critics re: Woody. Namely, what if she listened to what people are actually calling for? What if she cared about what people actually think? What if she tried to engage in good faith?

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— David “left of commie” Klion (@DavidKlion) February 4, 2018

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Also, it does not take a single day to exhaustively report on the existence of a confidential settlement. Trust me.

— Irin Carmon (@irin) February 4, 2018

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that Katie Roiphe couldn’t get women to talk on the record about Twitter feminism says a lot more about her as a reporter than Twitter feminism

— Rachel Cohen (@rmc031) February 4, 2018

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i wonder if roiphe teaches her students that you can talk to a bunch of your acquaintances, grant them anonymity under the guise of a “whisper network,” and then completely dodge essential details of your subject matter by saying “i’m not equipped to investigate.”

— alyssa bereznak (@alyssabereznak) February 4, 2018

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“You Know Who Else Liked Lists?” by Katie Roiphe

— Brandy Jensen (@BrandyLJensen) February 4, 2018

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And perhaps not particularly equipped to write a piece about a platform she does not engage with:

The idea that it’s somehow hypocritical for a woman to tweet about both misogyny and designer clothes fundamentally misunderstands Twitter. Katie likes to talk about cocktail party conversation. Twitter is basically that, except (and this is the only real difference) permanent.

— Judy Berman (@judyberman) February 4, 2018

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Because I have had a contract at Harper’s now for a while, because I’m a feminist—I am commenting: I read the Katie Roiphe essay and I really am at the point where I feel that if you’re not active on Twitter, and never have been, you’re a bad choice of person to write about it.

— porochista khakpour (@PKhakpour) February 4, 2018

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anyway it is obviously fine to criticize the way that politics are performed online, but you can’t reverse engineer a coherent and allegedly dangerous movement from a handful of tweets

— Jess Bergman (@jesslbergman) February 4, 2018

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Because whether or not you agree with her politics, Valenti is a NYT bestselling author. She is the founder of Feministing. She’s not just tweeting and even if she were, what is the problem with that?

— Morgan Jerkins (@MorganJerkins) February 4, 2018

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roiphe searching for tweets to support her argument pic.twitter.com/aW2fKdGUli

— Tony Tulathimutte (@tonytula) February 4, 2018

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The last thing I’ll say about the Roiphe take is: you really know you’ve got a bulletproof argument when you have to treat a handful of semi-sarcastic tweets as fully exhaustive of the counterargument to your 6000-word magazine piece.

— Erik Hinton (@erikhinton) February 4, 2018

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Some responded with poetry:

This is just to say

I have read
the Roiphe
that was in
the Harpers

and which
you probably
rewrote last minute
in the face of strong criticism

Ask for forgiveness
it was still bad
so mis-directed
and it completely failed to imagine how this moment might lead to a better world

— Colin Dickey (@colindickey) February 4, 2018

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Others did not read it at all:

Why would I read the Roiphe essay when I can just as easily cut off my own hand and put it in the microwave?

— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) February 4, 2018

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The only part I’ve read so far is the first sentence of this screencap @erikhinton posted and it’s such a 101-level syllogism error that I just … cannot pic.twitter.com/8nKyETyvHx

— Helen Rosner (@hels) February 4, 2018

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I will read all of your mean tweets reading her, and I will fav them, and I will cackle. But I refuse to give her my eyes or Harper’s my clicks.

— Margaret H. Willison (@MrsFridayNext) February 4, 2018

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And of course, there was mockery:

I am buying SO MANY COPIES of Harper’s!!!!!!!!! Solid Proof how truly relevant I was downtown in 2017. My kids are going to tweet about this & be like my mom was a leading feminist voice omg !!!!! pic.twitter.com/gpTdl7S1OB

— Kaitlin Phillips (@yoloethics) February 4, 2018

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“Actually, my important male friends are good!” It’s a Medium post in fancier clothes

— Sarah Jones (@onesarahjones) February 4, 2018

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guys no one tell katie roiphe about the no fly list. she would faint

— Talia Lavin (@chick_in_kiev) February 4, 2018

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And the Washington Post! Truly one of our greatest thinkers.

— Tyler Coates (@tylercoates) February 4, 2018

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