#YouCantTrustAWoman: Sexist trends on Twitter

Another day, another trending topic about women.

Having noticed that at least a couple of times a week, a topic would trend with an anti-female message, I’ve been keeping a list of sexist Twitter trends over the last few weeks. Of course, there is the odd trend directed at men, but these appear to be far less prevalent.

Trends are fascinating on Twitter, because although many spring up as a result of news stories, many are community generated – in the sense that they won’t have started trending as a direct result of breaking news, but will have spread organically. This vote of confidence in a topic or idea is reiterated, until it becomes so popular it makes it into that coveted list on the bottom left of the screen.

Twitter notes that:

“Trends are determined by an algorithm and are tailored for you based on who you follow and your location. This algorithm identifies topics that are immediately popular, rather than topics that have been popular for a while or on a daily basis, to help you discover the hottest emerging topics of discussion on Twitter that matter most to you.”

The frightening level of misogyny in comments found on social networking sites that are directed towards prominent female figures, has been spoken of before by Independent Columnist Laurie Penny and New Statesmen Deputy Editor Helen Lewis, among others. These frequent hottest emerging topics of discussion further suggest a worrying caveman fear of the female species running through Twitter.

Here are some of the worst offenders recently:

#Onewomanyouwanttoseemakesextape

#HowToArouseAFatChick

#howtoshutyourwomanup

#LiesWomenTellMen

#GirlsLoveItWhen

#ReasonsYouCantFindAMan

And today’s, possibly one of the bluntest – #YouCantTrustAWoman. But, then as a woman, and [therefore according to tweets on the topic] prone to truth-aversion, I might’ve just made it all up.

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• anonuk

  Yes Jill. Men are Beasts, aren’t they!

  Your attitude shows why feminism has lost so much popular ground over the last 40 years. Are there millions of women who need help and support? Absolutely. Do we need to improve the position of women in society? Of course. Do women trust feminists to do this, when so much of the movement has been about competing against each other to see who despises and distrusts men most, even to the point (at one time) of encouraging non-lesbian women to become lesbians to stick two fingers up… to the patriarchy?

  Both men and women indulge in behaviour which may appear to be morally questionable or unreasonable. A lot of this is Darwinist, in some ways- who is a suitable lover/progenitor and who isn’t? Until you recognise that women are just as capable of this as men are and with good reason, then you will always be Millie Tant to me.

• jillhare

  Lighten up. My remark was ironic. Ironic! ! The heading of this article was a quote from twitter and the person who wrote it was being misogynistic, as well as irrational in singling out just women as being untrustworthy. Which is exactly what you said, eventually.

  Sadly the term ‘feminist’ has been deeply distorted, and recognized as such, indeed distortions as described by you are seen as quite old fashioned these days. Laura Davis says that misogyny is alive and kicking, and real feminists are quietly trying to keep the playing fields of life level. I hope you will realize one day that the vast majority of women who support recognition by merit and not gender are not man-hating, lesbian militants with 2 fingers up, but rational, educated, and without bile.

  We also have a sense of humour. If you re-read her last sentence, you will see that Davis’ article was tongue in cheek, and therefore my tone was in keeping with that of the journalist.

• http://twitter.com/FrankPodmore Frank Podmore

  ‘We live in a society where fathers have been intimidated for taking photos of their children in public playgrounds’

  Have they? When? Where? How many? How often? Has no woman ever been intimidated for this reason?

  ‘where men are fleeing the teaching profession to avoid any unsavoury accusations arising from accidentally being alone with kids’

  I’m actually a man who’s just about to enter teaching. There are slightly more female teachers than there are male, but that’s been the case for a long time. Do you have any stats to prove your point? Bear in mind, you’ll have to show that: Lots of people are leaving teaching (as you imply with the word ‘fleeing’); that the leavers are disproportionately male; and that the reason they’re leaving is that they’re afraid of being accused of rape.

  ‘where vindictive women fabricate false rape claims’

  See above, re: fathers being intimidated. How does the number of fabricated rape claims compare to the number of women who have been raped?

  Incidentally, I read the other day that there are now more male victims of rape in the US than there are female. Is this also because of the war on men?

  ‘where any man opposing a woman is loudly denounced as a bully’

  Yeah, like remember when Thatcher was Prime Minister, and Foot and Kinnock lost all those elections just because people called them bullies? That sucked.

  ‘The gender battle is being fought by TWO sides.’

  THAT’S WHAT A BATTLE IS.

  Since I’ve been asking you for stats, here’s one: If you take all the people who were killed on September the 11th, and add it to all the US soldiers killed in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, you’ll find that this is less than half of the number of women who were murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in the US LAST YEAR.

  If there’s a battle going on, it’s people like you that are winning.

• http://twitter.com/darkone Darkone

  Still winning

• http://www.facebook.com/williamrandolph.royereiii William Randolph Royere III

  There is no battle. One can always trust a woman to be a woman, a man to be a man, and a human to be a human, save for a statistically-insignificant societal constant whose predilections and proclivities run to the “exotic,” e.g., those persons that the average populace deem “inhuman.” Twitter is hardly representative of anything even remotely resembling actual human relations, and one should never mistake it as such. Men’s dissatisfaction with women is generally proportionate to those same mens’ failure to treat women equitably (or to their tendency to superimpose unrealistic expectations), and vice-versa (e.g., the comment by “Happeh.” The fellows being there discussed ought to have studied female anatomy more closely. If anything, society in general has become more hostile toward women, especially in the last 20 years, thus inviting hostility in kind. Finally, on an individual level, the vast majority of dissatisfied persons are so as a consequence of their own failings (just as it is in any human endeavor, ill-advised actions and choices invite disaster).

• ROFLCOPTERY

  Mr Davis, please take advice from #howtoshutyourwomanup.

• Troy Pickard

  How in the WORLD is #onewomanyouwanttoseemakesex tape sexist? Is #checkoutthishotguy a sexist tag? A tag that indicates you find someone attractive is not sexist – that’s really idiotic.