Internet stalking, gaslighting...I know that more often than not they are gender-targeted forms of harassment...but really, you could say that about just about any harassment. But reading this Washington Post article, describing men harassing women by pretending to be their target and trolling online for sex, it occurred to me that this wasn't just a crime perpetrated by a lone individual. Can you imagine a woman trying to harass a man by placing ads asking random women to meet him for sex? Even if women showed up, which I find highly doubtful, it would not be nearly as threatening for the target. Spurning the advances of a random woman is a lot less likely to lead to violence.
And what kind of men would travel to see a woman they have never met and expect sex? I'm guessing it's the kind who would blame the victim for not having sex with them, not the kind to feel bad for the target and embarrassed for themselves.
So this kind of crime is not just the lone act of a harasser, although they certainly deserve a lot more than they will get from our justice system. My point is, it's a crime that would be impossible if there wasn't an undercurrent in our society of treating women like mere sex toys. Without the complicity of these other men, the harasser would not be able to do anywhere near as much damage from behind their false online persona, and they would be caught much more quickly. To me, the attitude of the men who responded to the ads by showing up at someone's door demanding sex is as much the problem as the harasser themselves.
I don't know what it gains us to point this out, or what else we can do about it right now other than keep shaming and fighting harassment and bullying, but I'm hoping that the more we notice and understand societal problems like this, the better equipped we will be to eventually deal with them.
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