Trigger warning: Bigoted language, discussions of rape, assault, and violence.

[NOTE: This article is about — and hence contains copious examples of — violent, highly triggering, and bigoted language. When the slur isn’t something connected to my own identity, I have tried to bleep it with asterisks.] 

#MenCallMeThings has taken off, in these past few days. I didn’t expect it — if I had, I would have put more work into it than a simple Rebecca Solnit rip-off and a few top-of-my-head quotes — but then, I shouldn’t have been surprised. And, since it’s taken off, there’s been lots of coverage: requests for interviews (which I’ve turned down, as I’m on too many of my own deadlines at the moment, and also don’t want to be Face-Of-The-Movementing again any time soon or, you know, ever), op-ed pieces, meditations on Men Call Me Things As Phenomenon. And, of course, plenty of those op-eds have been about precisely what we set out to protest: The idea that the Internet is “equally mean to everyone,” that putting up with name-calling was something “everyone” had to do in the same way and at the same intensity and volume, the idea that “Internet cruelty” (whatever that means) isn’t gendered.

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