Recently, a 'feminist' hashtag has started trending on Twitter #GiveYourMoneyToWomen encouraging (read: aggressively demanding) men to, quite simply, give their money to women.
Eh?
I get that a hashtag needs to be short and snappy but I can't be the only person confused and angered by this dumbed-down way of, allegedly, highlighting inequality of the sexes.
Apparently the hashtag is 'A global movement to be compensated for our years of lifetimes of unpaid emotional, physical, sexual and intellectual labour'
Within two days the hashtag had gathered more than 16,000 interactions.
#GiveYourMoneyToWomen -
'if you have ever smiled at her without her consent to'
'Man: hey honey you look beautiful
Me: okay but you're causing a glare on my face, that'll be $10'
'If you have *ever* harassed a woman for anything (even an unsolicited hello on the street) get your wallet out'
'A bi activist, currently broke, I'd love donations to help me attend and report on LGBT events'
'I'll be happy if folks chip in for my dental bill'
'It's time for men tot compensate my intellectual and emotional labour'
I could go on but I'm sure you get the picture.
So what's all this then, you ask. And, hell, I'd love to give you an answer, but, I too, am totally confused by this campaign. A feminist plight which looks to me, more like women, asking, pleading, begging - whatever you want to call it, for money.
Maybe I am totally missing a trick here and it's some kind of faux-femininst, ironic social media experiment, but if it's not, and let's presume it's not - then this isn't an act of feminism, it's an embarrassing attempt for 'feminists', and self-pitying women to drag men through the mud again - a social media witch hunt, once again victimizing all women and vilifying all men, and it makes my blood boil.
Is it any wonder women are sheepish about calling themselves feminists, when this is the kind of nonsense that it's associated with?
Aside from anything else, I struggle to see how a smile in the street should be 'fined' to fund somebody's dental bill or an 'unsolicited hello' contribute towards a woman's art fund. Yes, I understand that a lot of the links are metaphorical but nonetheless, linking money to 'harassment' (subjective in many cases, I personally have no issue with being smiled at in the street) infuriates me.
You want money? Cut out the bitching and moaning and go the f**k out and earn it. Men don't owe you anything and believe me, the last way you're going to get it is demanding it from strangers on Twitter, because you've been so hard done by, and life is just so unfair.
What are you, f***ing twelve? No wonder, women are so often branded as difficult and irrational when this is what we, as women, put out there to represent ourselves, and our apparent injustices.
Perhaps this obscure hashtag is a nod towards the gender pay gap - something which again, has mixed reports in its accuracy, nonetheless if it is, and let's say there is a pay gap then, I fail to see how an angry, man-hating hashtag goes anyway towards encouraging equality.
Feminists who create, encourage and promote such madness genuinely make me recoil in embarrassment and only go towards reinforcing the gender stereotypes people have worked so hard to dissolve. Do I feel like without these screaming feminists sexism would be worse? No, I feel like running to the first man in the street, grabbing him by the ankles and begging him to believe that not all women are this angry and irrational - that I do believe in equality but don't hate men, or, believe that they owe me anything, monetary or otherwise.
I'm grateful and proud to be able to make my own money and not have to bully anyone else into giving it to me, literally or otherwise - #GiveYourMoneyToWomen is nasty and embarrassing coming from angry women hiding behind social media to fester over their apparent injustice in the world.
Highly employable and just the kind of person I'd like to sit next to in the workplace - Oh, the irony.