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By Daniela Sirtori Cortina

Published as a part of Maneater v. 80, Issue 14

The opinions expressed by The Maneater columnists do not represent the opinions of The Maneater editorial board.

I have a confession.

While strolling through Walmart a couple days ago, a friend and I noticed a gigantic pile of T-shirts bearing the message, Cool story babe, now go make a sandwich. Motivated by our natural feminist dislike of such demeaning language, we engaged in an unusual act of rebellion and hid all the shirts all over the mens clothing section.

It was our feminist deed of the day, and we were proud. We thought we were fighting the patriarchy, one T-shirt at a time. Later, however, I realized our act was nothing to be proud of. It was immature and inconsequential.

Yes, we made some sort of statement about our disagreement with the message on the T-shirts, but it is a statement no one will ever see. Sure, it was a funny manner of displaying our views, but it was one that might be perceived as radical and will not succeed in convincing anyone that equality is worth the fight. Our actions, while not harming anybody, did not have a real positive effect either.

But most of all, we engaged in a practice which is a nightmare for journalists, activists and all those who seek the truth and advocate for noble causes: censorship.

To be clear, I think and I believe most feminists will have a similar opinion, the message displayed in those T-shirts was offensive. It implies that womens sole purpose is to please others and that our words do not deserve to be taken seriously. Yet, the fact that such idea makes me cringe does not constitute free license for me, or for anyone, to actively place obstacles on someone elses freedom of expression. Hiding the T-shirts, without triggering real change, is equivalent to hiding the problem.

Lets think about it this way: We may not hear it, but that doesnt mean it isnt there. Banning all T-shirts, symbols and behaviors we might find offensive does not constitute an epiphany from the part of those who truly believe women are worthless or inferior. Its simply a desperate act to protect our values from opinions that threaten them. Censorship does not elevate our ideals to a point of worthiness. Rather, it portrays them as indefensible rants that would cease to exist in the face of opposing views.

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Censorship does not trigger real change

Rafsanjani Under Censorship Talks with IRIB Iran Feb 10 2010
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By: PersianMedia

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Rafsanjani Under Censorship Talks with IRIB Iran Feb 10 2010 - Video

The Third Plenum: A New Wave of Tightened Censorship
Follow us on TWITTER: http://twitter.com/cnforbiddennews Like us on FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/chinaforbiddennews During the Third Plenary Session, Ch...

By: ChinaForbiddenNews

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The Third Plenum: A New Wave of Tightened Censorship - Video

Chinese leaders are planning economic and legal reforms, but they won't relax the country's online free-speech rules

A man checks his iPad on the Bund in Shanghai on Sept. 24, 2013

China boasts a Web-censorship system that would be the envy of any autocrat. The state blocks Facebook, Twitter and a growing list of foreign news sites. It polices blogs and pulls political content. After riots hit the restive far-western region of Xinjiang in 2009, Beijing managed to shut down the Internet there for months.

All this, it seems, is not enough. The ruling Chinese Communist Party on Friday released more details from last weeks meeting of top leaders in Beijing. Organized around the theme of comprehensively deepening reform, the 20,000-odd-character communiqu outlines what could be a major economic overhaul, as well as some positive, if limited, promises on rights and rule of law. But on matters of free expression, Chinas top leaders doubled down, harping on the need to maintain social stability and control.

Judging by the statement, Beijing is pretty worried its censors cant keep up. As the qualities of Internet media grow stronger, online media management and industry management cannot keep up with development and change, it reads, according to a China Media Project translation. Of particular worry are real-time communication tools like Twitter and WeChat, which have scale and social mobilization capacity. The answer, leaders reckon, is a strengthening of public-opinion channeling in the name of online information order and national security.

(MORE: China Internet Crackdown Snares Uighur Users)

Some of this is old news. The rise of social media has long been a sore point for Chinas risk-averse rulers. The strategy thus far has been to allow a certain amount of digital freedom while actively purging content they deem subversive or destabilizing. The handling of last months attack in Tiananmen Square showed the speed with which they work. Within hours of the wreck, eyewitness accounts started disappearing from the Web. Soon after, the state issued concrete censorship guidelines: Downplay the story, dont put it on the homepage and monitor those microblogs, please.

But the fact is, when something interesting happens, not even an army of censors can stop the information advance. My colleague was on a flight to Chinas northwest at the time of the Tiananmen incident. When she landed, hours later, locals were well aware of what was going on. Good or bad, news travels fast especially when its not supposed to. And Chinas netizens are adept at bypassing or outsmarting censorship software, whether through virtual private networks, also known as VPN, or the clever use of coded language.

Chinas leaders know this and they dont like it, which may be why tighter controls are on the way. Indeed, in terms of censorship, whats most interesting about the document is the way it links social media to national security and, we can only assume, the newly created National Security Commission. I suspect that enhanced media controls, and particularly Internet controls, will play a central role in this unfolding project of national security, said China Media Projects David Bandurski, in an e-mail. The language in the decision makes it clear that press control, or public-opinion guidance, remains a key priority for the leadership. Reform may be the new buzzword in Beijing, but the Great Firewall is looking pretty solid.

MORE: Internet Censorship Is Taking Root in Southeast Asia

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China Doubles Down on Web Censorship

By: News Desk

AFP/Getty Images

China's ban on Wall Street Journal and Reuter's Chinese-language sites Friday prompted activists to find a weak spot in China's expansive internet censorship system, the Guardian reports.

The two sites were blocked after publishing a New York Times expose on business ties between the daughter of former Premier Wen Jiabao and JP Morgan. Both the New York Times English and Chinese-language sites have been blocked since 2012.

Charlie Smith, the co-founder of GreatFire.org, a website that monitors internet censorship in China, said these sites are now accessible after replicas of them were created and hosted on servers that could not be blocked without severely disrupting internet traffic.

"We're serving these mirror sites through companies like Amazon," Smith said. "For them to block these mirror sites, they're going to have to take down Amazon web servers in China, and that would affect thousands of services in China, maybe tens of thousands," he said.

H/T Cindy Huang

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Cyber-activists find weak spot in China's internet censorship apparatus