21st Century Misogynists
Although women have come far from the stereotypical and sexist days of the 1950’s, the modern times of the 21st Century have created a new war against misogynistic people on the internet who continue to degrade women. Misogyny is the ‘Dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women’ (Misogyny, 2014). I am witness to women being targeted in media more than men, whether they are well known or not. Women who speak their mind and stand up for themselves are being called feminist in a negative connotation; and women in less fortunate countries fighting for their rights are being belittled. Now, because I am a woman myself, does not mean that I am feminist or misandrist as I discuss this growing concern for online misogyny. However, I do empathise for the women that are fighting this battle as I have been a direct target of a misogynist person online before as I play in online gaming communities, however, this wasn’t to the highest degree that it was capable of becoming. In a vague sense, I was playing an online first person shooter game that is played mostly by men where I was the last alive in my team for each of the three rounds we played. I won the game for my team and some particular men on the opposing team weren’t happy about it. When I spoke into the headset and they found out I was a women, they had nothing to say but sexist remarks.
Trolling is not new, it has been around for quite some time; it has however increased through the anonymity of the internet. I have seen this myself through different social networking sites, most commonly it is seen towards celebrities where ‘haters’ state unnecessarily rude comments and insults. What ever happened to “if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all”? I see that women in particular are targeted more than men on social media platforms and I believe that there is a difference between voicing your opinion and being ignorant of other people.
References:
Misogyny. (2014). In: Oxford Dictionaries, 1st ed. [online] Oxford University Press. Available at: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/misogyny [Accessed 16 May. 2014].