Twitter Troubles Me

There is a troubling Twitter pre-trend that speaks to both the ontology of the forum as well as to the way males in our culture see - or fail to see - violence against women.

I joined Twitter nary a few weeks ago and since then two* men posted accounts witnessing violence against women or the aftermath. Given the 140 character limit, male posters have accommodated by stripping "tweets" (=twitter entries) down to bare facts. Like my recent coffin-in-a-truck tweet, the brevity works in service of humor, the martini kind. When reporting trauma or conflict however, the effect is disturbingly different.

A lack of commentary is simply cold; in the second account the perpetrator made a verbal racial assault on two males but enacted the physical violence only upon a woman, yet this fact was not highlighted.

The first poster went so far as to call his account "an interesting 911 call". What is interesting about a beaten up, half-naked woman, I cannot seem to find. (I removed that poster from my "following" list.)

I find the blase treatment of these incidents unsettling and traumatizing. Despite the hearty attempts by America, I am not media-numb. Sensationalism has the effect of nauseating me, not titillating.

These testimonies are also personally distressful, as they recall my own two assaults in San Fakecisco in broad daylight, with bystanders watching or commenting and none coming to my aid. I pray for both the women that these posters witnessed and the countless many that do not get Twittered about.

Awareness about misogynistic violence is so dated it almost seems unnecessary to mention. But it has not ended. I am far from my feminist college days, to me it is a dirty "f" word. But I will speak strongly when I see patterns based on race or gender that have chilling results.

We are not done, people. Let us wake up from our slumber when it comes to violence, especially against females.

Go here (National) and here (Asian women in NY) to help.


*thus a pre-trend