[NOTE: This article is about — and hence contains copious examples of — violent, highly triggering, and bigoted language. When the slur isn’t something connected to my own identity, I have tried to bleep it with asterisks.]

[EDITED TO ADD: Since its publication, this article has been cited by many reporters and bloggers. Thanks, everybody! I appreciate it! Huge compliment, love you, etc. However, there is one major clarification I’d like to make. Several outlets are reporting that all of the slurs quoted in this post were aimed at me, personally. This is not the case. The insults I’ve listed with bullet points and introduced with “see, from my own life” were directed at me. The insults I’ve alphabetized, and introduced with “see, cited in the hashtag” were cited by other people participating in the hashtag. I have not named or linked to their targets, simply to stress the overwhelmingly impersonal, repetitive, stereotyped quality of the abuse. In my view, it doesn’t matter so much who said what to which person, but that all of us are being called the same things, in the same tone; I’ve removed names, not because I don’t want to give those people credit, but because I think reading this as “oh, somebody said that to Jill Filipovic,” or “oh, somebody said that to Kate Harding,” or even “oh, somebody said that to Sady Doyle” is fundamentally misleading — the real point is, “oh, somebody said that to women and anti-sexist people.”]

Right as I sat down to write this post, my phone beeped.

It does this! For some reason, it is broken so that its “ring” settings are reduced to either “silent” or “beep every time you get any sort of message whatsoever including Twitter @s.” It’s been beeping a lot these past few days. But since all of these, including the Twitter @s, are often work-related, I check it every time. This one was from Twitter.

“I will fuck your ass to death you filthy fucking whore, ” it read. “Your only worth on this planet is as a warm hole to stick my cock in.”

Ahhhh. I love the smell of a good hashtag.

#MenCallMeThings has taken off, in these past few days. I didn’t expect it — if I had, I would have put more work into it than a simple Rebecca Solnit rip-off and a few top-of-my-head quotes — but then, I shouldn’t have been surprised. And, since it’s taken off, there’s been lots of coverage: requests for interviews (which I’ve turned down, as I’m on too many of my own deadlines at the moment, and also don’t want to be Face-Of-The-Movementing again any time soon or, you know, ever), op-ed pieces, meditations on Men Call Me Things As Phenomenon. And, of course, plenty of those op-eds have been about precisely what we set out to protest: The idea that the Internet is “equally mean to everyone,” that putting up with name-calling was something “everyone” had to do in the same way and at the same intensity and volume, the idea that “Internet cruelty” (whatever that means) isn’t gendered.

How do you know it’s gendered? These op-eds tend to ask. How do you know you’re getting it just because you’re a girl, or just because you’re feminine, or just because you oppose sexism? It’s not like there are any recurring themes, or anything. It’s not this stuff is intrinsically tied to stereotypes, to structures, to your oppression. It’s not like “everyone” doesn’t get this, or like ladies can’t be mean to men sometimes. Maybe you’re just overreacting! Maybe you just need to calm down! In other words, maybe you are just

THEME #1: THE WEAKER SEX

Lists of feminine stereotypes often include descriptors such as “sensitive” and “emotional.” Lists of masculine stereotypes often include descriptors like “stoic” and “rational.” Those feminine-stereotype lists, not coincidentally, also include the term “weak.” Women are emotional, hence not rational, hence not like men, hence bad. See “hysterical,” which currently means “exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement,” and which used to mean a disease exclusively diagnosed amongst women or those mistaken for them, thought to be caused by a dysfunctional or “wandering” uterus. See also “shrill” and “shriek,” two words for “overemotional” and irrational speech which also mean “high-pitched,” which women’s voices are more likely to be. To discredit a woman — or anyone perceived to be woman-like, such as genderqueer people, “effeminate” men, and male allies — you must determine that they’re acting from feminine emotion, which is always wrongheaded and bad. See, from my own life:

More Assange-related feminist meltdown

Sady Doyle is a stupid fucking whiny bitch

Sady Doyle always takes the rape bait

Allow me to recommend a treatment for her hysteria

Sady Doyle, that living, breathing argument for the restoration of “ hysteria” as a legitimate medical diagnosis



Shrieky hysterical moron

All this “we need to be screechy in order to have more influence” thing

See, cited in the hashtag: “Agreeing ‘just to calm me down’,” crybaby, cry more, do you need to file a hurt feelings report? Hysterical, hypersensitive, oversensitive, oversensitive, too sensitive, “upset at my pathetic life,” whiny.

And after all, what do women have to get upset about? Everyone gets made fun of sometimes. If this were gendered, then the overwhelmingly most common variety of insult cited wouldn’t be

THEME #2: UNFUCKABLE WHORES

The most obvious and pernicious form of sexism is reducing women to sexualized objects. This divorces them from other forms of human worth, such as work, intelligence, or general character — it effectively makes them inhuman. Under this framework, the worst thing you can say about a woman is that she is not worth fucking. This invalidates the entire reason for her existence (in the eyes of a sexist commentator) and thus renders her worthless. Again, this form of insult often extends to people mistaken for female, or perceived to be feminine, including genderqueer people and trans men. And since a woman’s sole value is sexual, her virtue is entirely sexual too: Thus, if a woman is not unfuckable, she fucks too often, and is a slut. See, from my own experience:

Prematurely haggish

You’re an ugly fucking cunt

This bespectacled smirking cunt is most certainly NOT cute

That sort of smirk is why God invented anal sex.

AIDS-positive

Bitch glasses.

fatassskank Sady Doyle

Sex with Sady Doyle would be the most perfunctory, acceptable sex imaginable

no woman, you do not get to define how a man views your sexuality, that’s the entire purpose of your sexuality is to attract a man