Responding to sexism on Facebook

[HengshanRoad]

I know Facebook is hardly the bastion of good sense and model behaviour, but I was incensed today to see a wall post from a male "friend". He'd seen a car crash into a barrier, and posted the photo captioned "Women!"

His mouth-breather mates had commented with such delights as "Shouldn't be allowed on the road", "Was she doin her lipstick? lol".

I deleted this guy as a friend, but somehow it doesn't seem enough. WWYD?

[thefinerthingsinlife]

I'm probably the worse person to ask because I usually end up getting in a fb argument with things like this because I will challenge it, then delete them along with a message about why .

[Animation]

I got into an an argument with two guys on a music forum - back in February. The more I challenged the more they churned out the sexist material and baited me more with it. I originally got on OK with these guys so when they turned nasty with it it was a bit of a shock. In the end I ignored them - which I found quite hard to do actually - intentionally gave them a 'non-response' - and stayed away from the forum for long periods.

I've recently gone back and the sexist material has stopped bar one guy's attempt, but the others give him no reinforcement now which is a nice surprise. I think it's fizzled out. I might have had some influence.

During that time it helped a lot reading this Feminist section and I wish I could have taken some of you people over there with me for support. I was pretty much a lone female voice, but I think it's the combination of giving a strong challenge followed by a period of non-responding or absenteeism that can work.