Misogyny on Facebook: a rant about ‘vagina cleavage’

The other day, a boy that I went to school with decided that his opinion on the female body and what women should wear was so important and valid that he should make a live stream Facebook video about it. The result was a two-minute video entitled ‘Fam’ that was utterly repulsive.

The reason for this Facebook live rant was an article showing “all these fucking celebrities who are wearing these dresses that are like cleavage for your crotch,” he states. Apparently if you are a woman wearing these outfits you could be “in a ten thousand [I assume he meant to insert some form of currency here] dress,” but “you now look 99p, you a slag.” Charming.

I decided to take it upon myself to use my in-depth investigating skills to find this article. I went onto Google, searched “celebrity crotch dress” and found an article by, of course, The Sun. The article SKY HIGH SPLIT ‘Vagina cleavage’ is now a thing! Latest trend sees celebs exposing a little too much in revealing knickerless dresses is a little more subtle in its body shaming but still implements the opinion that women should not dress how they want. If you ignore the trash writing, the article shows a bunch of women who, quite frankly, look bomb with their “vagina cleavage”.

“While one person’s obnoxious opinions are somewhat irrelevant, it is upsetting to think that people with such misogynistic, degrading views are still so prevalent in today’s society.”

Back to the Facebook video. In two short minutes, this boy managed to shun feminism, compare women to dogs, admit to being purposefully vulgar to women on Tinder, and tell women that they should put some clothes on. Oh, and I forgot to mention the fact that the whole time this boy was shaming women for their apparently offensive lack of clothing, he was topless. Double standard at its absolute finest.

I’d planned to write a paragraph highlighting one of the most disgusting comments from this video, but in all honesty I can’t choose just one. So, I’ll list a few of my favourites here:

“I’m all for a little short skirt, I’m all for a little top whatever show off your cleavage if you’ve got it. But, you’ve all got pussies so why the fuck wouldn’t you hide that shit? Everyone knows it’s there. That’s meant to be the goal.”
“You lot are trying to express the whole ‘we can do what men do’ yeah but you’re just becoming dogs.”
“Take the positive aspects for equality, don’t just get your flange out for no reason.”
“Talking to some of these girls on tinder and shit, sometimes I find myself saying shit just to see if they’ll go, ‘Hold on, wait a minute. I actually do have some sort of self respect’. The answer is, very few of you do. Which is why we need some sort of empowering course for our females, you lot giving up crutches like it’s nothing. You’ve gone from wanting equality to be a dog like men.”
“Keep your fannies in your knickers and stop fucking showing it. It’s weird, I don’t get it, put some clothes on.”

While one person’s obnoxious opinions are somewhat irrelevant, it is upsetting to think that people with such misogynistic, degrading views are still so prevalent in today’s society. It is upsetting to think that someone I went to school with for nearly seven years, who lives a few roads away from me, has such backwards views and is too oblivious to admit he is wrong. It is upsetting to think that people can still be so ignorant about feminism, the lack of equality and the discrimination that women face today. Why can’t we get our vaginas out when we want to? Why does that make us cheap or unworthy? Why does it make us dogs?

“So this is a call, for all women to stay strong, to stand in solidarity with each other”

The one uplifting thing to come out of the video was some of the comments; the women who were making their voices heard, standing up for themselves and for each other. Sadly, their comments were dismissed and a second video was uploaded the next day. This time he directly attacked the people who had confronted him, calling them “self righteous” and “butt hurt”.

These videos, while seemingly insignificant, unfortunately are a sad reminder of casual modern day sexism. They remind us of how some men still discriminate against women and try to dictate them, and they ultimately remind us of how desperately we need feminism and equality.

So this is a call, for all women to stay strong, to stand in solidarity with each other and to get our vaginas out if and when we please.