Are we dating the same guy groups are setting a dangerous precedent.
What if Facebook allowed only cis-gendered, heterosexual men and women to form a group where they exchanged gossip about their LGBTQ neighbors and coworkers?
What if there was a hugely popular racist group called “No Blacks Allowed” that separated black people as either “a good one” or “a bad one” based on anonymous opinions about them, or the way they look or speak? Members claim they’re just keeping each other safe. “A black person broke into my cousin’s house last year“. “The group saved me from hiring a black woman who some random white guy in my group said slapped him in the grocery line”. “Black people commit X % of violent crimes…”
Is it really that much different?
AWDTSG warps women’s perceptions of men much like extreme, right-wing, incel forums warp men’s view of women. Stick around AWDTSG long enough and you’ll start to think 90% of men are cheaters, creeps and abusive narcissists. Women cheat too, by the way. Women can be stalky and narcissistic as well. But that is not a narrative that is permitted in AWDTSG ideology, which is fostering a toxic feminism just as a lot of “men’s rights” groups are fostering a toxic masculinity. Both are fueling a gender-war that will leave us all lonely and miserable.
Women have good reasons to be upset, and I do see why it is so tempting to have groups like AWDTSG.
But, do you want to live in a world where…
It is widely accepted for groups made up of different segments of the population (age, race, gender, sexuality, religion, politics…) to spy on and gossip about each other in exclusive groups that others can’t join? Where members who “snitch” are ostracized? Where everyone is constantly bombarded with messaging about how terrible “the other” groups are, and how great and blameless “our” group is? Where people in one group are entertained by the drama when members of their group bully “the others”?
Do you want to live in a world where the white people in every major city have a group that their latino neighbors can’t join, where Bill and Suzy know all about the intimate details of their neighbors Mateo and Elena’s financial life?
Should men be allowed to post women’s real names and photos, and to say whatever they want about them in front of their neighbors, family and coworkers without allowing women to even see what is being said about them? Do you want to live in a world where, for some reason, it becomes your coworker Bob’s business that you fuck on the second date or, allegedly, have herpes? Should your male coworkers know what your private parts look like, what you fantasize about, or what your emotional triggers are just because some creep you dated for a minute got hurt when you broke up with him?
Some of the stuff posted on AWDTSG amounts to emotional or social revenge porn. Maybe “your group” isn’t so toxic, but do you think if these groups are allowed to continue that every one of them will always enforce the rules? They will always be used for malicious or just run-of-the-mill gossipy purposes, in addition to women sharing true stories about dangerous men who should be avoided. Even if only good things are said about men, it’s still very creepy. It gives us the creeps just to know that a woman we might be dating chose to post our name and photo in front of tens-of-thousands of strangers, exposing us to all kinds of risks, without even having a reason to other than we matched or started chatting. Most men are not rapists and serial killers! This is like sending every person who looks vaguely Middle Eastern through humiliating security checks at the airport while letting literally everyone else walk right through.
Do you want to be the group who normalizes this stuff?
The choice is yours to make because nothing is going to stop you from creating this dystopian nightmare. You are protected by the wrong-headed law absolving social media networks and those who post on them from any responsibility for what they publish. Short of blatant and provable defamation (and then, only the poster themselves is liable) there is nothing men can do. Even if you are clearly libeling us, we’d have to pay over $10,000 for the opportunity to tell our side of the story or show proof of libel in civil court. You are free to spy on us and gossip about us. It is not illegal for you to be entertained by the drama when the extreme members of your group make fun of us, lie about us, spill our personal secrets to the world, paint us in the image of our worst traits while ignoring all of our best ones, accuse us, exact revenge on us for rejecting them, imply that we’re all liars, cheaters, narcissists… You can watch, giggle even, as we are humiliated in front of tens-of-thousands of our neighbors, coworkers and family members. You’re free to do that to us, if that’s what you choose to do.
And you can tell us that if we have done nothing wrong then we have nothing to worry about. Those words sound dystopian AF, like something a totalitarian government would say to its people when their rights to privacy and due process are taken away. They’re also untrue.
The choice is yours to make. If you are a member of AWDTSG, you can walk away from this dystopian future right now by leaving the group. I don’t have an answer for how to keep you safe (I wish I did), or how to keep your heart from getting broken. I just know that the AWDTSG paradigm is not the answer. It can’t be. We don’t want our sons and daughters living in that world.
End AWDTSG 