Not a lot needs to be said about this, but the idea of people hiding behind the anonymity of social media to post derogatory and hateful thoughts is nothing new. And unfortunately, neither is directing negativity to women who may step out of traditional gendered roles, or really any woman who seeks to excel in her chosen field. Obviously women in sports are not the only group targeted in such a way, but I believe this is a very powerful video. I'd like to take their argument even one step further though. I like the attitude of, "if you wouldn't say it to someone's face, you shouldn't post it," but really "if you wouldn't say it to their face, you shouldn't say it to yourself" is preferable. We don't all have to be language police all the time, but we can all do more to combat these attitudes when we see them. For every single one of us, we can think about what we've done or not done in the past, and we can do just a little bit more. Figure out a creative way to subtly challenge the language of your friends and peers, and figure out a way to critically challenge your own thoughts when you hear this type of voice.
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Men Read Horrible Tweets
I'm a little late in posting this, but I just saw an article about men reading mean and derogatory tweets that were directed at two different women who are members of the sports media. Neither the men nor the women had read the tweets ahead of time, and apparently the men thought they would be similar to the Jimmy Kimmel "Mean Tweets." Unfortunately, many of the tweets took it to an entirely other level of cruelty. Please watch the video here:
Not a lot needs to be said about this, but the idea of people hiding behind the anonymity of social media to post derogatory and hateful thoughts is nothing new. And unfortunately, neither is directing negativity to women who may step out of traditional gendered roles, or really any woman who seeks to excel in her chosen field. Obviously women in sports are not the only group targeted in such a way, but I believe this is a very powerful video. I'd like to take their argument even one step further though. I like the attitude of, "if you wouldn't say it to someone's face, you shouldn't post it," but really "if you wouldn't say it to their face, you shouldn't say it to yourself" is preferable. We don't all have to be language police all the time, but we can all do more to combat these attitudes when we see them. For every single one of us, we can think about what we've done or not done in the past, and we can do just a little bit more. Figure out a creative way to subtly challenge the language of your friends and peers, and figure out a way to critically challenge your own thoughts when you hear this type of voice.
Not a lot needs to be said about this, but the idea of people hiding behind the anonymity of social media to post derogatory and hateful thoughts is nothing new. And unfortunately, neither is directing negativity to women who may step out of traditional gendered roles, or really any woman who seeks to excel in her chosen field. Obviously women in sports are not the only group targeted in such a way, but I believe this is a very powerful video. I'd like to take their argument even one step further though. I like the attitude of, "if you wouldn't say it to someone's face, you shouldn't post it," but really "if you wouldn't say it to their face, you shouldn't say it to yourself" is preferable. We don't all have to be language police all the time, but we can all do more to combat these attitudes when we see them. For every single one of us, we can think about what we've done or not done in the past, and we can do just a little bit more. Figure out a creative way to subtly challenge the language of your friends and peers, and figure out a way to critically challenge your own thoughts when you hear this type of voice.
