Charlotte Shane reports on women-on-woman harassment cases and their relationship to the false intimacy of the internet.
In my online circles, which consist primarily of women who are not prominent feminists (if they identify publicly as feminists at all), I've noticed a flavor of harassment different from pure vitriolic trolling, a harassment that more closely resembles old-fashioned stalking. … These cults of personality developed through social media have led many women to experience occasional, aggressive, and unwanted attention from other women. (Which may be no surprise, given that studies have shown simply consuming information about the lives of others decreases one's own sense of worth and increases a sense of envy.) Increasingly, I hear friends mention having stalkers, and they're rarely referring to men.
A striking warning sign of these interactions, Shane writes: "obsessive female 'fans' who [readily] transgress boundaries with the presumption of an established intimacy."
