Carrie Goldberg

Victim rights lawyer Carrie Goldberg should get a Nobel Prize for her work helping girls and women (as well as gay men, non-binary individuals, and other LGBTQ+ folks) who have been victimized by, as the title says, psychos, stalkers, pervs, and trolls – known and unknown. From victims of anonymous death threats and gang stalking to revenge porn, blackmail, and extortion by exes — Goldberg has literally seen it all and helped countless people, not least by lobbying for new laws that take new technology and platforms and their misuse into account. This book is an excellent resource for anyone who is being harassed online or offline and needs practical advice. How it could be better It’s impossible to be 100% up-to-date with bills, laws, court cases, legal precedents, and active web links with such a timely topic. I look forward to reading an updated edition. I’d definitely recommend this book.

Favorite quote “These offenders want to dominate, manipulate, and punish their victims. I refuse to let them win. All of us have the power to fight back. We don’t have to be victims. We can be the army to take these motherfuckers down.”- Reviewed by The Other KGB… (más)

This book has a lot of interesting, and often heart-breaking, stories. The teenage girls raped by classmates and then slut-shamed and punished by their schools. The man tormented by fake profiles being made in his name on Grindr, and Grinder refused to do anything about it. Carrie's own stories of trauma and abuse were vivid and wrenching. She is a Jewish woman who was raped and had a swatiska burned into her. The accounts of abuse in this book are horrifying. Reading these stories taught me a lot more about power and the abuse of it, about trauma and the effects of it, and how abuse and trauma play out in the digital space. Sextortion was one cyber-crime I'd never heard of, and reading about how children are manipulated by sick individuals into performing humilating sexual acts...I just can't...it was a lot.

I think Carrie Goldberg is amazing for the work that she does for victims like the ones in this book. May she continue to do what she is passionate about for many years to come.

Now, for my criticisms of the book. Often modern feminism falls into casual misandry. That was a huge problem in this book. She muses that although there are good men, so many stories of powerful men abusing their power keep coming out, there MUST be something fundamentally wrong with men, something in them that is innately predatory, and all it takes is enough power for a man to become an abuser.

This is a horrible way to view men. I hope it needs not be explained WHY this is horrible.

Not only is the book misandrist, it's just boringly repetitive in its misandry.

On page 7: "What makes them so terrifying is that many of these unhinged men-and they are almost always men-are compelled by the same impulses that trigger other offenders to drive cars into groups of protestors and fire assault rifles into churches, synagogues, and schools."

Then three pages later, on page 10: "Typically a guy (and it's almost always a guy) feels bad (as in jealous or humiliated), but instead of handling his emotions like a normal adult, he goes full asshole.."

See what I mean? The sentence structure is the same and everything, and she does this many times throughout the book.

I'd prefer if feminism took a systemic approach to fighting oppression, rather than painting MEN-the collective hivemind, I guess-as the enemy.

There's also just a lot of stuff that isn't backed up by anything, so I just don't believe her. I don't think she's lying. But I think her worldview is one that seeks out oppression and finds victimhood where there is none. She believes what she is saying is true, but it probably isn't. Like when she says that she hates being asked what she does for self-care, because her male colleagues never get this question. How does she know that? Did she ask them? Is she constantly around them? The way she just says this and expects us to believe her without any further details, it just gives me victimhood feminist vibes. I feel like she's the type to run around crying that women's pants don't have pockets, even though....yes, yes they do. Target and Kohls are full of female pants with pockets. A lot of her little quips gave me the same kind of "whiny modern feminist ignoring reality for victimhood points" vibes.

Then there's the "Hey, fellow kids" vibe of this book. Just...holy shit, the way this lady uses slang like she's some hip young person about to Reach Deeez kids!-but then goes on to explain the slang, liek she's speaking some foreign language or something. My GOD. The cringe.

Here are a few examples:

On page 174, in a section about porn, she actually explains what a facial is.
????????????????
Even if you've never heard the term "facial" in a sexual connotation, if you are a human adult and not an alien from the outer reaches of space, then I feel like you can figure it out from context.

She explains the term "Dox" on page 180.

She tells readers to POS means 'Piece of Shit'-what decade did this woman come from? Who doesn't know that? Who was her target market?

I also felt like this book, while it delves into deep and important issues in a very detailed work and therefore is a meaningful piece of feminist literature, it didn't add anything new to feminist ideology. Slut-shaming is wrong. Rape is wrong. Stalking is wrong. Online harassment is wrong.
All feminists already agree on that. This doesn't challenge or add to the feminist ideology, and because of that, I think marketing it as a feminist work makes little sense. She can be an attorney representing victims of cybercrime without making it a feminist thing. She has plenty of stories of male victims in the book too (and yay her! I liked that male victims were included), but this proves that this isn't soley a woman's issue.

The book also represents Men's Rights Activists and Incels in a disingenious way. I have spent a fair bit of time in these manosphere communities as part of research for my own writing projects. MRAs are fighting for important issues that affect men that feminists do not care about. Incels are (largely from I have seen) mysoginistic. There are isolated communities of incels that are pretty chill (like incelistan.net and r/incelswithouthate) but I'll give this one to Goldberg, they are misogynists. BUT only 4 mass shooters have come out of incel communities. The Columbine fangirl communities have produced more (attempted and caught) mass shooters than that. It isn't fair to blame an entire community for Elliot Rogers and Alek Minnassian, when such a small number of incels have gone on to do harm. I think it'd be more telling to look at the suicide rate for that community. And at the very least hold deviant female-majority online communities to the same standards. I'm waiting for somebody to do a deep dive on those Columbine fangirls. They on Tumblr right now incubating their next mass shooter. But they're female, so you know, women am I right? What are they gonna do /s

Lastly, the book just has a very r/thathappened vibe. I really felt like a lot of anecdotes should have ended with "and then everybody clapped." Maybe they originally did and her editor cut it out.

She really likes to brag about wearing heels like it's an accomplishment. And at the end of the book when she tries to paint this emotional call-to-action she talks about her "army of warriors" clacking down the road in heels.

Are you against gender coding or not? Women have to wear uncomfortable and frankly, unhealthy, footwear to be taken seriously professionally? And she lets us know that her senior clients would "give her hell" if she didn't wear her heels. I feel like..no...no they didn't give a shit. But also if she's a strong feminist, why isn't she making her own decisions about her footwear? The whole thing with her bragging about high heels was weird, and coupled with the cringey author's photo, I get the sense she's trying to sexualize herself, which is odd considering the serious content of the book.

Also, "Army of Warriors" I found myself both bewildered and annoyed everytime this phrase was used. It's so painfully redundant.
What the hell else would an army be made of?

I wish that detailed description of Nazi Dr.Mengels' work would have had a bit more of a lead-in. If you're going to vividly depict the torture and gruesome deaths of children, I think there should be more of a drawn-out foreshadowing leading up to it. Yes, I knew the chapter was about her work with holocaust survivors, but I felt like that part came out of nowhere and I would have opted to skip it if I'd known she was going to get THAT dark.

All in all, Carrie Goldberg does important work. I admire what she does for victims and cyber-law.

She shouldn't write anymore books. She needs a ghostwriter who is less of an obnoxious man-bashing feminist. I'm not saying ALL feminists are obnoxious and man-bashing, I am saying that this particular feminist is obnoxious and man-bashing.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk XD
… (más)

When I requested this book from Netgalley, I had no idea how engrossing, moving, unnerving, overwhelming, and important it would be. Nobody's Victim is Carrie Goldber's memoir of the work she has done as a Victim's Rights attorney. She represents clients that have been assaulted, humiliated, stalked, and harassed in the digital age - something that is crucial these days.

The stories of her clients gave me chills, and made each of the issues personal. The author's own stories were heartbreaking and inspirational, because they set her on a path forward.

In a fiercely feminist, accessible way, Goldberg tells readers that she believes, you are enough, and she won't stop fighting for you.… (más)