I’ve written about male abuse of tools, generally, and the internet, specifically (here and here, among other places). Good ideas, including the internet, which are often created by women and then stolen and perverted by men, always end up being used as WMDs. We’ve seen this with knives and guns at the more literal end of the tool scale (and easy to see as weapons, although they have other basic uses), but it is the same story with medicine, the law, science, education, and computers/the internet. You name it, it ends up a true weapon in the hands of men. Once that happens, you end up with one more way to abuse oppressed populations (i.e, women and girls), one more area of law needed to be developed in order to deal with the crimes resulting from male abuse of the tool, and divided camps fighting endlessly over who is to blame – if anyone is to be blamed at all. And when males are the perps, either no one is blamed, or the victims themselves take the rap.

So, let’s surf.

Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of social networking. I find many of the more specifically ‘social’ sites to be time-wasters and seem to attract angry armchair warriors who are, more than likely, completely useless, lazy fuckers in the meat world. Once online, fingers more active than brains, they litter the internet with spew. And the general consensus is that this is what the internet is for, and if you don’t like it, leave. That was not the original intention of the net – to provide a place to abuse people. How and when it came to be accepted that this is the primary purpose, I couldn’t tell you, but as I said, it seems to be a foregone conclusion that once men take over and use a promising tool, everything goes to hell. And the idea that ‘if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen’ seems to be a male way of thinking as well. To protest is to show yourself to be weak, oversensitive, or something along those lines. It’s just bizarre.

Now, these days, spew isn’t just limited to the dark net, or even to 4chan or one of those other angry-man havens. It now par for the course on most, if not all, social forums, social networking sites, and places where people are allowed to voice their opinions (i.e., comments sections of articles). Free speech is oft cited as what drives these sites. But of course, free speech is only allowed to males, men who think they are women, and male-identified women. Women who don’t suck cock literally or figuratively are regularly censored, banned, net-raped, doxxed, or worse. Some of the worst sites for supporting double standards are Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter. But as men own all the social networking sites, it is pretty much everywhere.

But you can exist on the net without using social media, right? Hell, I quit Facebook years ago. I was so tired of liberal mantras and the requisite pile-ons of the few brave questioners of liberal lies and misinformation. I was also tired of Cult of Positivity posts – silly fluff posted by people who are, more than likely, completely miserable inside, and often like to shit on people who dare to talk about reality (aka ‘negative thinking’). Unfortunately, after I quit, those friends who seemed only able to stay connected through FB were lost. But if people can’t stay in touch without social media, are they really friends…? That’s for you to decide. Myself, I get sick of one-sided efforts to maintain friendships, and this was a good test for me.

So, now I get to LinkedIn. I’ve had an account with them forever. I didn’t ditch it because it is supposed to be a professional social networking site. I do have a few real world friends connected to me there. And I’ve gotten a few little consulting jobs through them over the years. Some of the grad students I taught in China have found me there to check my academic creds – I don’t waste time in class talking about my overqualifications. That is a Western habit, I’ve noticed.

As a tool, I haven’t maximized the potential of LinkedIn, but it does help me keep on top of maintaining my resume and thinking about the direction I’m taking, professionally speaking. I don’t read a lot of the articles posted because there are a lot of stupid ‘look how forward-thinking and politically correct I am’ pickme liberal posts – they’re just written at a higher intellectual level than the stuff spewed on Facebook.

But the other day, one of my connections reposted (in support) something a woman had posted. The latter was sick and tired of being sexually harassed on LinkedIn. All of us women have been there – at least once. Some fucking man asks to connect with you, you stupidly assume it’s a potential professional connection, which is why you are there in the first place, and then he ruins everything by trying to start up a dialogue that quickly turns into an attempted pick-up. Some start in right away with a ‘hey beautiful’ or immediately ask you to send them nude photos, while others try to be trickier, pretending to be professional at first, and then you realize nothing professional is happening. And then, you drop your connection with them.

Anyhow, this woman was sick of it. LinkedIn is a professional networking site. Why are men using it to harass, intimidate, demean, and objectify women? I know, dumb question. Boys will be boys, right? They can’t help themselves. They need to do this. We make them do it with our tits and long hair and shit. If we didn’t want it, why would we post a profile anyway???

Well, you can imagine the response – there was lots of it. Mostly, piling on this uppity bitch for assuming that she could use the internet as a person, instead of a fuck object. And to complain!?! Crime!!!!1! Men piled on. Women piled on. The best comment was from this Vietnamese male who mansplained to the woman that she was stupid for expecting anything but objectification. It’s social media and she is a woman. This is what happens on the internet, duh. It doesn’t matter that’s it’s a professional/career-oriented space – how dare she expect to have a professional experience! If you have tits and three holes, you are there (like in the meat world) to be abused by men! The internet, despite being made possible by women, is not for women. Not at all.

It’s 2020. Free consent – meaning that ‘no’ exists and that you can define your terms and when you say yes, that you know what you are getting into, and that you can get out if rules are broken – is still not possible for women. We don’t exist on a level playing field with men, and so consent doesn’t mean what it does when men consent. Participating in this world, and especially on the internet, still means that you are giving an automatic and blanket ‘yes’ to being harassed and abused, even in a setting that is supposed to be professional. And by the way, you are not allowed to say ‘no’ if you want to be part of the world, electronic or otherwise. And don’t dare complain.

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