Women! The Internet Hates You

I've been felled with a terrible cold/cough/bird flu. So a couple nights ago, I found myself doped up on NyQuil and totally useless to everyone around me. Naturally, what with Reddit and Wikipedia being offline in protest of SOPA (yes, I wrote to my representatives, don’t lecture) I turned to StumbleUpon for some lowbrow entertainment to take my mind off my lung-threatening illness.

What did I find but yet another user-content driven web site capable of providing hours of entertaining fun! It’s called IdeaSwap. You're supposed to submit an idea you have but can't or won't accomplish. Like, for example, “Build a leaning tower of Portland.” Once you click submit, someone else’s idea pops up. You click that button enough times, something you DO have the resources to commit to is bound to pop up. Like, for example, “Go to sleep.”

Naturally, I typed in my brilliant idea, and what pops up but this:

It reads: "[sic]if you're a woman, get offline and go to the kitchen,
if you're a guy, tell a woman to go fetch a beer for ya :D"

Awww, thanks internet! It sure is awesome being a female on you. The internet is a glorious place where it’s nigh impossible to ignore misogyny. In real life, it's often masked and difficult to uncover. On the internet, though, people aren’t afraid to reveal the true nature of their woman-hatred, ‘cuz they get to be anonymous and add stupid little smileys after their grammatical train wreck sentences.

Being a masochist, I clicked again. What should appear but this:

It reads: "Women should not crack their backs. It's bad for their
reproductive systems."

Firstly, this is less of an idea and more of a misguided directive so five demerits there. Secondly, it's stupid. I’m no doctor. Nor do I have any chiropractic training. But a cursory Google search turns up no evidence for what this sticky note posits. Only a bit of hemming and hawing about joint-cracking in general being possibly linked to arthritis, which has no relation to reproduction whatsoever. A cursory brain search turns up … rage. As per usual, the only type of health women have worth caring about is the reproductive variety. We can certainly feel free to crack our knuckles, knees and even skulls, just so long as we can still serve as incubators for the next generation of male overlords and female incubators.

Clicking again, I got this:

It reads: "sometimes all you need to get by is a girl[sic]"

Sometimes all you need to get by is a steady paycheck and a 5th-floor walkup. Other times, a bowl of soup and a blanket. Today, though, is an object lesson in females as objects. Feeling down? Head over to your local K-Mart and pick up a late-model lady! She’ll get you beer, give you babies, and help you “get by,” apparently. It’s like a sinister version of the peppy Beatles hit:

Exasperated, I clicked again.

It reads: "Let's do a wife swap every ten years."

And that’s the topper. Not that there’s anything wrong with swinging, if that’s your bag. There ain’t. But for the luvvagod, people, check with your wives first. Nothing is less sexy than nonconsensual nonmonogamy, except maybe being traded for funsies with strangers on the internet via digital sticky note.

With that, I turned off the computer and went to bed, safe in the knowledge that I am surrounded by insane people who hate me and millions of people like me, because we have ladybits. If they're not busy hating your ladybits, they're busy hating your queeritude. If they're not busy with that, they're busy hating transpeople, or people of color, or poor people, or... all of the above. And that hatred leads to the taking-away-of-rights. And violence. And rape. And murder. And mutilation [NSFW]. I tells ya, it's enough to make a misanthrope outta me.

In any case, I'm glad that Wikipedia and Reddit are back, and that SOPA is failing miserably. Now if only we could all rally behind other causes that are just as - if not more - important. Ideas, people? Put 'em in the comments. No 'get me a sandwich' allowed. Lurkers, ummask thyselves!

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