Katherine Cross

Katherine Cross is sociologist and Ph.D student at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City specialising in research on online harassment and gender in virtual worlds. She is also a sometime video game critic and freelance writer, in addition to being active in the reproductive justice movement. She loves opera and pizza.

Posts Written by Katherine

By Katherine Cross • 8 years ago

Here Lies the Abyss: Xenophobia and Gender After the Cologne Assaults

On New Year’s Day, outside the central railway station in Cologne, Germany, dozens of women were sexually assaulted by a pressing crowd of men, groping them, slipping their hands under their clothes, trying to kiss them, trying to rape them; the mass crime, fuelled by alcohol, could have arisen in any number of places in the Western world.

By Katherine Cross • 9 years ago

Like Uber, but for online harassment: Why we should be very afraid of new app Peeple

By now it’s a cliche to make fun of Silicon Valley copycat-ism with the “this app is like Uber, but for x” joke, which has produced some amusing permutations. But it turns out what we needed to be afraid of was “it’s like Yelp, but for people.”

By now it’s a cliche to make fun of Silicon Valley copycat-ism with the “this app is like Uber, but for x” joke, which has produced some amusing permutations. But ...

By Katherine Cross • 9 years ago

Feministing Reads: Joanna Russ’s “We Who Are About To…”

One of the most enduring themes of mainstream fiction is heroism against impossible odds: no matter how staggeringly unlikely the hero’s ultimate triumph may be, you can rest assured that through some contrivance, it will be secured by the end of the third act. But, even if it’s a bit hopeless, might there not be something interesting and profoundly human in impossibility itself?

By Katherine Cross • 9 years ago

In this together: Pay attention to Europe’s refugee crisis

For weeks now the so-called “Migrants Crisis” has dominated headlines in Europe. While I traveled across the continent a few weeks ago it was a top story again and again in the UK, Sweden, and Denmark, with headlines blaring out from airport and railway newsagents’ in a dozen languages.

By Katherine Cross • 9 years ago

Our shared affair: The sexual shaming behind the Ashley Madison hack

The hacking of Ashley Madison, the infamous adultery-focused dating website, and the release of the names and identities of its many users, has, not unexpectedly, prompted more than a little schadenfreude out in the world.

By Katherine Cross • 9 years ago

What “I Am Cait” gets wrong about trans suicide

This past week there were a lot of dismal “I told you so”s fluttering around social media with the (entirely staged) revelation that Caitlyn Jenner holds odious views on welfare recipients, repeating the dependency myth and suggesting they have no incentive to find other income sources.

By Katherine Cross • 9 years ago

Instead of trolling a lion hunter, we should #SayHerName

The recent social media onslaught against a feckless lion-killing Minnesota dentist tells us a lot about the nature — and uselessness — of online outrage, especially when directed at a single target.

By Katherine Cross • 9 years ago

Go Set a Watchman on Fire: Reddit and Ellen Pao’s Resignation

The resignation of Reddit CEO Ellen Pao is terrible news for anyone interested in making the internet less toxic. After a month-long torrent of abuse that fixated on Pao’s race and gender stemming from her reforms to the site, gender advocacy, and the fact that the executive chair of the board fired a popular employee, Victoria Taylor, who managed the site’s well-known Ask Me Anything board, she’s decided to take her leave from the social media site.