Faceless Misogynists and Queer Identity

In the past few days I’ve seen some pretty unfortunate things of facebook, many of which convince me that the online world is becoming the one of the best ports of call for misogynistic attacks.

Just last week I was astounded to find a member of the GLBTQ community which I am a part of at my University had joined a group called "Dress Your Age You 12 year-old Whore". It’s the kind of group clueless high schoolers undoubtedly make but that apparently people my age think is acceptable to endorse.

It’s silly to automatically think GLBTQ people would not take part in this kind of thing but there it was, I had just assumed that as a member of an oppressed sexual orientation that this person would be at least cautious to condone such a thing.  I guess another reason why I held this person up to be more accountable than they feel they have to be is that they are leading the collective.

These things mean nothing in terms of shattering my feelings of comfort in the communities I fall within, as a queer-identifying person in a heterosexual relationship I often feel I don’t fit the moulds of the queer or heterosexual communities.I am not out to my family, only a few friends… so it would be easy for some queers to say that I am just riding along on the privilege of assumed heterosexual identification.  I don’t buy that for a minute but people will say it. All I can ask in reply is whether they were interrogated about being out before they were. It’s not a easy thing to do.

Further to this, I’m not your stereotypical queer woman.  Such a stereotype exists and because I don’t adhere to it, my identity is often overlooked as some kind of whimsy or game.  "Femme" lesbians and bisexuals are discriminated against in the queer community and I pretty much fit that mould.  My version of being a woman doesn’t seem to quite fit easily. Oh.. and I should mention I’m engaged. In that case, does anything I just said really matter? To some people it doesn’t.

Anyhow, I’ve diverged far from the point I was making. The said group has since been shut down, I complained and I can only wonder how many others did too… but another group with the same name has cropped up in it’s place.

It’s easy on facebook to say pretty much anything you want and to file it under the heading of "Outlandish Statements" but to me it should never be acceptable to sprout misogynistic hate speech directed at children or anyone for that matter.

Just today a news report on a national website told of a pro-rape group on facebook run by students at a Sydney University. Pro-rape? Ugh. Yet there it is, on facebook.

I know facebook is a social networking website and so these kinds of views will undoubtedly be expressed by someone somewhere but surely not views endorsing rape, who honestly thinks that is okay?