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.
Imagine if TikTok automatically tagged all content with #misogyny, #racism, #sexism and so on. And then published monthly reports on society trends. Like “In Feb 2026 racism went down 12%, misogyny went up 5%”. I think it would be incredibly insightful and helpful.
While article tries to promote social media ban for under 16s, I strongly believe its just a way to sweep the problem under the rug. I think much more reasonable approach is to recognize those trends and deal with them through education and better parenting.
Subheading:
Objectification, hate, rape threats: the politicians debating online abuse mean well, but to truly understand, they need to see what I see
No, they don’t.
I am really sorry that you have to live through this. I (middle-aged, white, cishet, more or less wealthy male) know that I’m super priviledged - yet reading posts like that show me that I will never be able to fully feel what you girls/women have to live through. I promise that I will fight against misogyny whereever I can.
And thank you for your post, there are really phrases that I wouldn’t have understood.
This isn’t social media, it’s social acid, dissolving and corroding everything.
Shit is infuriating.
The age verification debate misses the real point. These commercial algorithms are harmful for everybody.
The identity verification debate is the point and it is the only reason this article exists in the first place.
These commercial algorithms are harmful for everybody.
Also true.
i suppose it shouldn’t be surprising but these comments sure are proving the articles point. i guess blaming the people being oppressed is a lot easier than blaming or even actually acknowledging the systemic oppression when you’re a brickheaded fascist, especially when you’re unaffected by/benefiting from it
Don’t use Instagram or TikTok ✅👍
Enragebait is a well known consequence of using a profit-driven Algorithm, i.e. enshittification.
15-year-olds are not being specifically targeted so much as caught up in the phenomena occuring overall.
The thing is this isn’t a phenomena that’s recent. This type of shitty misogynism has been going on for decades/centuries. The only difference between then and now is that we have social apps that make it easier to spread.
I’m coming up on 70 yrs old and misogynism has always been the bane of my existence.
Indeed. Not saying that adult women don’t face sexist harassment and that that isn’t a problem to solve, but kids shouldn’t be on social media in the first place. Not to mention that social media is 90% bots anyway. The majority of the blame here falls on the parents.
Why should we police the victims instead of the perps???
Because it’s easier to monitor your children’s use of the internet than to remove dumb men, hateful men, and bots from the internet?
It isn’t really that easy to monitor or control one’s children’s use of the internet. They’re smart and can be good at figuring out ways to get what they want; more so as they get older. It’s better to stay aware of what they’re likely exposed to, and talk to them and prepare them to recognize harmful things and avoid them.
Now that you say that… I do agree. But at the same time, I wouldn’t want my daughter to be exposed to gross misoginy in the first place. That kind of thing affects someone deeply, especially teenagers, I think. I wouldn’t want my son to be exposed to it either. Not sure what to do. I’m relieved they are far from reaching that age, yet I’m aware that time will come.
holy shit these comments
lemmy users stop being individualist-brained, victim-blaming misogynists challenge: IMPOSSIBLE
you don’t stop misogyny by just ignoring it you twats, and hot take, mainstream social media being filled with nothing but privileged assholes being bigots (because all the good people were told to just go somewhere else 😇) is not good, actually!
Yeah, “just stop using social media” is an insanely stupid take that misses the point so hard it makes you wonder how someone distorted their perception so hard that they can even react that way.
“Stop using social media” is literally the only real solution because oligarchs will never again risk letting us actually connect with each other. You stay on “social” media and you will just be getting run in circles by engagement algorithms and bots.
You cannot save Facebook, Instagram, X, or Reddit because their owners will not allow you to.
No, it’s not. It might seem impossible for society to improve, but that is the solution, and talking about it without telling people to just avoid certain avenues is the only way to that end.
“Social media” is not society; it’s a series of platforms built by billionaires for the purpose of control.
Filled with people expressing opinions. I don’t understand how this could possibly be controversial or difficult to grasp.
You’re literally pretending social media isn’t real or doesn’t matter as long as you just do the right thing and ignore it instead of addressing the horrible ideas spread on it.
I don’t understand what you’re failing to grasp. You see what you’re allowed to see. They are signal boosting shit heads while suppressing everyone else. If your message begins to spread, they will just pull the platform out from under your feet.
How do you propose to win on billionaire-owned social media when they can just kick your legs out at will the moment you stand too tall for their good? Look at all the Reddit protests that amounted to nothing besides getting moderators booted from their subs, they’re a perfect example of this.
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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.
This isn’t new. I’m a man in my mid 40s and the disparity between how promiscuous men are viewed as compared to promiscuous women has existed for as long as I’ve been sexually aware, and well before.
Obviously that doesn’t make it okay. I also have no idea what the solution might be. There have been a few cultural efforts to normalize the idea of women enjoying and seeking out sex but none of them seem to really reach the people that need to hear it.
I do find it oddly paradoxical that men who make it very clear that they are actively seeking sexual partners would disparage women for being sexually active.
I do find it oddly paradoxical that men who make it very clear that they are actively seeking sexual partners would disparage women for being sexually active.
They don’t want experienced, knowledgable, self-confident partners. They want naive young women they can gaslight and abuse.
They don’t want experienced, knowledgable, self-confident partners. They want naive young women
You’ve obviously never lived with the aftermath of dating worn out, bitter and combative women who have been traumatized by their numerous “experiences.” Men like inexperienced women precisely because they want to mold her and give her her first experiences. Also, “experienced” women are more likely to be single moms.
Your comment actually made me feel sick. Please go re-evaluate where this toxicity in your life has come from.
Hint: it’s not women
Your intolerant ad-hominem post offers no constructive rebuttal of a good-faith argument and should be deleted by the mods.
The audacity and hypocrisy required to accuse others of intolerance after writing such misogynistic claptrap is staggering
Your blithe refusal to engage my constructive rebuttal of your uneducated and intolerant opinion (linked here for your convenience) renders this pearl-clutching statement irrelevant.
My posts are almost always based on logic. I do not engage in insult posts, like you did.
Appeal to the high road. What a child.
Imagine posting this and thinking it sounded okay.
boys are never refered to as males?
that’s your takeaway from this?
Just close the laptop little sis.
Did You miss the part, where the author says, she actively avoids misogyny yet stumbles upon it everywhere?
Please consider Your own advice.
I always hear the “it’s ok for boys to have sex” part and I guess I’m a pod person but me and my entire circle of friends would say neither sex should be promiscuous. So we’d say both the men and women in question are whores. Also, it’s a proven fact that a small percentage of men get the majority of attention from women on dating apps. So I’d wager the average male’s body count is lower than the average woman’s.
And no I’m not saying the online vitriole is ok, good, or warranted. I’m specifically talking about the idea of celebrating high body counts of men. I’m just saying no one I know thinks a man having a high body count is a good thing. But that line is always said so confidently.
a girl shares her experience and you really came along with that comment
remind me, what is the male coded word for someone who has sex a lot? or do we only have female coded ones?
it’s not that male promiscuity is valued “good”, but it is acceptable, barely raises any eyebrows, meanwhile for women, it’s almost always a widely accepted condemnation
