Thread by @sswyrs

[Thread] My boss made a comment today along the line of "I don't get how women can complain about how they get treated when they do shit like this." I turned around and to see what he was talking about, and he was looking at a thumbnail of a profile pic of a woman on LinkedIn.

She was a nice looking woman - it was a head and shoulders shot of her wearing a grey t-shirt and smiling at the camera. It was as generic as you could get, which is what LinkedIn likes for profile pictures. I was totally baffled and said "Shit like... what?"

He clicked on it to open it full-size, like he thought I just wasn't seeing it well enough and said "This!"

I said "Taking selfies?"
He said "Taking selfies like THAT."

I was still absolutely fucking lost, so I asked him to explain.

He said "Just, like, slutty pictures."

"Slutty" is obviously a dumb af hypermisogynistic construct, but let me repeat - it was a headshot of a woman wearing a gray t-shirt. The only skin on her you could see was her face and collarbones. I was STILL LOST and he was getting annoyed like I was being deliberately dumb

I was getting annoyed right back, so I told him to just explain what he meant. He talked for a minute about how if you're going to post pictures like that, you deserve what you get. I was incredulous and reiterated to him that it was literally just a picture of a smiling face.

We had this go round for a few minutes - him going come on, you know what I mean, me going no, I literally don't. Eventually, I told him to define the word "slutty". He said "way over the top sexy and obviously down to fuck." I asked him what about that picture said that to him.

After going in circles for about ten minutes he finally goes, "Well, she's insanely hot."

There it was.

This man saw a THUMBNAIL of a picture of an attractive woman, and decided that not only was she a "slut", but that her presumed "behavior" meant she deserved any harassment or assault she experienced - and felt this strongly enough to say it out loud, unprompted, and AT WORK.

A woman has her smiling face on her profile. A man she has never met sees it and instantly feels rage and disgust. He believes she invites and deserves harrassment/assault.

All because she dared to be attractive in a public space.

@ men: Don't you ever ask women why they're afraid again.