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.
That’s fucked up.
That level of misogyny is definitely learned, but it’s not just her age group. I’m floored by (for example) some comments my Dad makes, a “quiet, respectful, classy” type guy who’s never had a Facebook or Insta, who’d you’d never expect to hear insults from. And it’s definitely worse after he watches Fox News… that shit is like a drug.
My school “friends” dropped my jaw, sometimes. They got a lot from their parents, but social media (Faceboook back then) absolutely made it worse.
Even here on Lemmy, the disrespect or casual sexism from commenters sometimes makes me want to throw up. Not that I’m a particularly standup guy or anything, but the longer I live, the more I wonder “the fuck happened to my sex?” I certainly can’t critique this girl for wondering the same thing.
Yeah, I feel like a lot of the people here going "just don't use social media then" are missing part of the point. Like, as she specifically mentioned, the misogynistic discourse happening online is also happening offline. Even if you yourself manage to avoid most online misogyny by not using social media, you'll still be exposed to it through everyone else who is and all the people watching and reading stuff like Fox. It's just kind of everywhere.
Exactly! Precisely. It’s affecting her real life, too.
That “just don’t use social media then” response in itself feels… misogynistic? This isn’t her choice; she can’t ignore the catastrophic effects.
It feels very reminiscent of "well don't dress like that then"
Yup. And that's bullshit. It's way past the time we should be teaching boys how to NOT be misogynistic asswipes.
The thing is, teenage boys learn this behavior from social media. If we had told boys not to use it, they might have not turned out like that.
If misogyny has been around for centuries (and it has) who taught boys back in the 1600's to be sexist assholes?
It didn't originate from social media. It started with fathers teaching their sons that they were more important and special than girls were.
Obviously, but it gets reinforced there.
"Stop using social media" is probably good advice for everyone, but as you say, its not the solution to the this problem unless literally everyone follows it and even then there is more to do since its not like the internet invented misogyny.
Yeah, it is great advice. But I'm under no illusion that's happening anytime soon, not for most people.
The context matters. And in this instance “stop using social media” feels more like blaming the abused teenager while the rest of the world carries on, like its totally dismissive of what she's saying.
the issue isn't just that she's reading and hearing these comments online, the issue is that teenage boys are doing so. social media has normalised this kind of behaviour to them, and they bring those views with them to the real world where girls will interact with them: school, sports clubs etc.
Gestures at Lemmy comments in this post. See what I mean?
We gotta stop this Lemmy from forcing her to do all that
I'm reporting you for still not even bothering to read the fucking article. The is un-fucking-real. Just open the fucking link and absorb the words written in it. Then come back and apologize for being an asshole.
Yeah I've already read it. Feel free to use the report button however you choose, though. That's what it is there for!
Oh ok, great, so you've now learned the problem extends to real life, and the boys around her talk this way in person as well as online. So just quitting the entire Internet wouldn't help in the slightest. What's your apology gonna be like?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/help
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/slightest
So not voluntarily subjecting herself to internet abuse would ...not... improve the situation in at least the smallest way? Are you sure?
Just wanted to chime in and say that you're part of the problem. That is all.
No, actually I've provided the solution to the problem. You just didn't like it.
Part of the problem is that it's a feedback loop. People use social media and somebody makes some misogynistic content which angers people which then gets the algorithm to promote it heavily. Then somebody else who's inspired by that content makes their own misogynistic content and the cycle repeats. Once enough of that content is circulating it becomes the norm and a bunch of people start dogpiling on it to be part of the in crowd. It's particularly pernicious when it's being used to blame people's problems on others which is how the incel and red pill groups got their start.
It's not just the girls/women that need to get off these platforms, it's the boys/men as well. Algorithms that reward anger and controversy are a significant part of the problem and really should be looked at to be regulated the same way gambling and addictive drugs are.
Yet here we are, still in the War on Drugs. Betting apps are exploding in popularity and being straight up paraded by politicians and business leaders.
I agree with the sentiment, but I don’t think the engagement feedback issue will be addressed directly. It’s too profitable. We’re cooked, for a while. So maybe we should reach for every half measure with a chance of passing, like restricting kids?