Men Who Just Don't Get Misogyny But Think They Do

Last night, I tweeted some examples of misogynistic abuse to the new twitter account: @misogyny_online. They've been collating images of some of the abuse directed at Caroline Criado-Perez in the past two weeks. I took just 15 minutes and trawled through some of the messages Caroline received yesterday. There was the usual threats of extreme violence and abusive messages and one totally clueless man genuinely suggesting that Caroline shut down her account for a few days because that's what he does with trolls. I forwarded this tweet to @misogyny_online as a demonstration of "men who just don't get the reality of misogyny but think they do" as this group of men are as harmful as those deliberately sending abusive messages because they minimise the reality of misogynistic violence whilst simultaneously blaming women for being victims of male violence. 

I didn't screencap @Slinky_Anthony 's responses to me last night and he's since closed his account so I cannot share what he posted at me. His response to my retweet went straight through the usual male response when challenged:

• The "how dare you challenge me"whine
• The "how dare you be so aggressive" whine
• "Don't you understand I'm trying to help" whine
• The "I'm a supporter of Caroline and I was totally being nice" whine 
• "You're a bad feminist for being mean to me by disagreeing with me" whine
• "You're a feminazi because you disagree with me" range of insults
• Tweets twitter demanding I be suspended for "ranting" 
• Brings in a female friend as evidence he's not an asshole
• Tweeted Caroline to whine some more
• More tweets demanding I be suspended

At this point, I blocked him. 

I've screencapped my tweets to him so you can decide for yourself whether or not I was acting like an aggressive, mean feminazi by challenging him. 

This dude may not have tweeted Caroline rape or death threats but what he did was support those men who did by silencing Caroline. And, frankly, considering yesterday was #shoutingback, it was somewhat ironic that this dude started the day by suggesting Caroline log off twitter so the trolls would stop.

Telling a woman to be quiet in the face of harassment serves only to support their abusers. It tells abusive men that it is acceptable to shut a woman up by threatening to rape or murder her. This is not the action of a man who understands the reality of the misogynistic abuse women face every single day. It's the actions of a man who equates multiple threats of rape with some whiny teenagers being rude to him.

If you are genuinely a male feminist ally, tell the abusive men to shut up and leave twitter; not the women they are abusing. 

If you are genuinely a male feminist ally, listen when a woman tells you you're actions are silencing.

If you react to a woman calling you on your behaviour with whinging, insults and threats to have their account suspended, you aren't a male feminist ally. It really is that simple.