Tavi and Anita

Over the years, social networking has become increasingly popular. Facebook has replaced face-to-face contact, Tumblr has replaced scrapbooking, and Twitter has replaced writing letters. There are pros and cons to these, but one of the greatest cons, in my opinion, is the everyday sexism and misogyny that is posted as playful banter on public forum.

I’m only sixteen years old, but I believe that women are equal to men. We don’t deserve to be catcalled when we go for early morning jogs; we don’t deserve to be treated as pieces of meat to be torn apart and devoured by any hungry predator. Women are people and we deserve to be treated like so.

4chan is a popular website to talk trash, discuss anime, and do basically anything. There are very few moderators on 4chan, but the basics are banned- child pornography, threats of violence, and illegally downloaded images. Unfortunately, the moderators are so busy dealing with these three issues that the mistreatment of women goes almost wholly unnoticed. “Joking” threats are made to women who stand up against sexism and the objectification of women in video games.

Anita Sarkeesian is a Canadian-American feminist/blogger/video game critic. She’s the author of the blog “Feminist Frequency” and “Tropes vs. Women”. Naturally, as a successful woman, Anita has made enemies. In May 2012, Anita started the Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a series of videos to examine the tropes of women in video games. This triggered tidal waves of rude and sexist comments, and Anita even received some death threats. She was forced to flee from her home on May 17, 2012 after reading a particularly scary bomb threat. She later told everyone that she was safe, and despite the threat, she would not back down from her cause.

Anita Sarkeesian’s story is important when discussing women’s rights. Anita was only stating that women in video games are used as decorations for the mainly male main character, and their outfits rather impractical, and her life was threatened. When will people realize that this is never okay?

Despite her issues with the internet and its misogynistic population, Anita Sarkeesian remains as amazing and influential as ever. At the XOXO Festival in Portland, Oregon, Anita spoke about the most basic way to support women online- “One of the most radical things you can do is to actually believe women when they talk about their experiences…” Sarkeesian walked off stage to a standing ovation.

Tavi Gevinson is another amazing woman who made her own path through the forest of online sexism. At only eleven years old, Gevinson started a blog about fashion, and a couple years later, she started blogging about feminism. Gevinson was only 15 years old when she started standing up for herself and her gender. Her sister says she was lucky, simply because she “got into feminism and Riot Grrrl before she got into that girl self-esteem phase…” when girl’s self-esteem plummets.

Gevinson has done many speeches on feminism and how it has affected everyone. In her TED Talk, Tavi talks about how pop culture makes their female characters very 2-D, and people expect women to conform to this unrealistic mold; women then punish themselves because we don’t fit the form of those 2-D characters. Gevinson applauds Lena Dunham and the women of Mad Men for their amazing female roles.

Tavi Gevinson also interviewed Miley Cyrus for ELLE magazine in late April 2014. When Miley said that she was a feminist and wanted everyone to be equal, Gevinson agreed, saying “Right! And that’s what feminism is!”

Following the examples of these two amazing women, I encourage the entire population of the internet to stand up against the ignorance and misogyny that riddles the cracks of every website. When a rape joke is made, don’t laugh. Say “That’s not funny,” even if it’s only to yourself. The first step to stopping sexism is changing your own attitude first. Stand up to the catcalls and women-in-the-kitchen jokes. Everyone is equal, no matter race, political party, sexual orientation, or gender. And anyone can be a feminist.