If you’re anything like my parents, you probably wouldn’t even understand most of the content that floods my social media, no matter how hard I try to avoid it.
Here’s a recent example from Instagram: “Do y’all females ever tell ur homegirls ‘Sis chill you letting too many dudes hit?’” Essentially, that means: “Women – do you ever tell your girlfriends that they’re whores and need to stop letting so many guys fuck them?” The reel, posted by a 19-year-old man, appeared on my Instagram feed without me wanting to see it, or ever interacting with any other similar content. The comments that followed were pure misogyny. “Women see body count as a leaderboard and they try to outdo each other,” was one of them. Translation: all women are competitively promiscuous.
Consider the use of the word “female” in these posts. It is not a neutral term here, it is a term of abuse. It’s used by teenage boys to degrade us and equate us to animals. Boys are never described as “males”, but girls are always “females” – the equivalent of sows or calves, creatures that are less than human. We’re also “thots” (whores), “community pussy” and “bops”. “Bop” stands for “been over passed” and is a derogatory term used by boys to refer to a girl they’ve decided has been “passed around” or had too much sex. Sexual equality has ceased to exist online. It’s absolutely fine for boys to have sex, but when girls do, they are called worthless and referred to as objects. “When community pussy tries to insult me, I just want to beat that bitch up.” That’s a message I saw on TikTok.
I’m a 15-year-old schoolgirl and like most teenagers I spend a fair portion of my spare time on social media, often scrolling through short-form videos on apps such as Instagram or TikTok. All of my friends use those apps, and many spend multiple hours a day on them. I actively try to avoid online misogyny, but I am met with it incessantly whenever I open my mainstream social media apps. It only takes a few minutes before there’s subtle or overt misogyny, such as comment sections on a girl’s post filled with remarks about her body, videos made by men or boys captioned with a degrading joke, and even topics such as domestic violence or rape, trivialised and laughed about.
the internet is not a daycare for children.
if you don’t have the skin to be online, don’t be online.
it’s like walking into a biker bar and complaining about the loud music, smoke and lack of healthy food.
yeah no how about we don’t build rapey applications then entice kids to use them?
STOP MAKING EXCUSES, THEY BUILT A BIKER BAR NEXT TO A ELEMENTARY SCHOOL AND ADVERTISE $2 JELLO SHOTS FOR 8TH GRADERS
fucking gross
The complaint here is that the culture we live in is so deeply misogynist that it causes even young women deep emotional pain.
Maybe pick up on that message and show you want to make the world a better place for the women who are part of your life.
you’re right, and when I see misogyny I speak up against it.
the problem here is that the article wants you to treat the symptom and not the illness.
the symptom is systemic misogyny. the problem is poor ethics and morals when raising our kids.
teach a child to treat others with understanding and acceptance regardless of who or what they are.
when they’re no longer children, shame them publicly.
it’s nigh impossible to do that on the internet without losing the basis of the freedom of speech the internet affords.
stop treating misogyny as the problem, and treat it as the symptom and things will improve over time.