Twitter Hiatus Until The Men I Know Get Loud

I’m on a Twitter strike. I am so sick of the way men on Twitter treat women. And my male friends always DM me or text me or email me or talk to me about how they hate it too but they never speak up.

Let me be perfectly clear - this has nothing to do with the “women aren’t funny” argument. I am talking about on the web, when I write things about the plight of women in Saudi Arabia or how the ERA never passed, dudes write back that I should be funny, stop being political, shut up, stop complaining and all that. THAT is what this is about mostly.

I am constantly tweeting about gay rights (I’m straight) and racism (I’m white) - it takes two seconds and it’s part of who I am. My male comedy friends show support by suggesting that I just let it slide, “these people are idiots/trolls.” But I don’t see it as “trolls” - these are actual men who are showing me that their opinion is that a woman is acting “hysterical” when she reacts to being treated unfairly. Suddenly I am not funny or fun. My male comedy friends sometimes lament that they want to support and that they hate how they see their women friends being treated on line but “but don’t know what to say.”

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I’m often told that women’s rights are not in any danger and I have the vote and we don’t need feminism anymore for “big issues” - (that’s a whole other issue) But the small issue of feeling part of the global web community is still a new frontier for women and we are starting at square one. I would love the support of my male friends in comedy - OUT LOUD and as part of their daily lives. The way we all do with gay rights and racism.

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**updated as of 10pm PST on Nov 29** No one stepped up so I started it myself. Hoping my peers will contribute. http://menagainstassholesandmisogyny.tumblr.com/