Tinder Tuesday and #YesAllWomen

4 days.  That's all it took for me to become a victim on Tinder.  I was Tindering happily along in my bubble for 3 whole days thinking I was going to be the exception to the rule, and then it happened on Day 4.  The day I received my first overtly obscene message.

I could have just deleted the message, but I chose to call out this imbecile.  What follows is the actual message and because of this idiot, it's NSFW, so be warned.

 

 

As, you can see my retorts were somewhat humorous and tongue-in-cheek, but afterward I began to feel really angry that in 2014, this is still the state of affairs when it comes to dating protocol.  The conversation even continued on a few more lines but at that point he started calling me unattractive (uh, YOU are the one who messaged ME, Prince Charming), and I decided to just block him instead of stooping to his level and getting into an argument.

I don't know if you've been following the Twitter movement the past two days - #YesAllWomen - but it aims to call attention to the misogyny and harassment of women that is still rampant, decades after the birth of feminism and women's rights were supposedly 'won'.  The Twitter hashtag is a response to the senseless shootings in Santa Barbara, CA over the weekend by Elliot Rodger.

My intent in bringing my unfortunate Tinder exchange is not to showcase this misogynist's blatant disrespect and misguided attempt at wrangling my attention, but to start a conversation about how this type of behavior is still even happening among men in this day and age.  ANY girl who's participated in online dating, or heck, just meeting guys during a night out with friends has almost surely experienced this type of sexually harassing behavior, and has come to expect it as just something we need to put up with and weed through. 

There is something seriously wrong with that.  There are even men complaining on Twitter about the attention the #YesAllWomen movement is getting.  Because yeah, being the dominant sex for pretty much the entire course of history has been really rough.

I hope all you women out there are brave enough to call out men you see behaving this way and I hope all the men out there (at least my readers)  have evolved way past the days of banging women over the head and dragging them into your cave.


Have you ever been a victim of any sexually harassing behavior?

Have you participated in or followed the #YesAllWomen movement on Twitter?