Women Share Horror Stories Of Harassment, Start Funny Twitter Trend

By Cake Staff:

Tweets like these – which make you laugh and simultaneously bristle with anger – have gone viral over the last few days, as women documented their varied personal experiences of harassment. Though very similar in theme to two earlier ‘hashtag’ campaigns – #EverydaySexism and #YesAllWomen – the approach with this one is entirely new.

It’s a game of black humour and sarcasm, as women enlist the situations and behaviours that are LEAST likely to endear them to their harassers – yeah yeah we know, #NotAllMen, but certainly too damn many of them. The point is to assert (across all the boundaries the internet can possible traverse) that #NoWomanEver should be made the object of such sexist, patriarchal garbage masquerading as “compliments,” and that we need to call it what it is: a whole bunch of jerkwads looking at every woman in sight as theirs to possess.

The hashtag takes on power politics in work spaces:

It takes on stalker behaviour:

And unsolicited sexual advances:

It takes on the literal commodification of women’s bodies:

And it takes on the idea that men have the power to ‘convert’:

It takes on the way men want women to perform for their pleasure:

And it takes on a whole lot more. Fresh tweets are still coming in, even today, and there’s something cathartic about reading 140 passive aggressive characters. But as with all things that go on the internet, #NoWomanEver is vulnerable to being hijacked by the very harassers it criticizes. Dudebros with great WiFi plans are already clambering onto the hashtag to tell women they are “ovary-acting” LOL *slaps knee*. Nevertheless it exposes the absolutely obnoxious and unjustifiable behaviours condoned by the patriarchy, and holds up a mirror to a society that won’t talk about it.