So I spend a lot of my procrastination time browsing through imgur, especially the user submitted. It has some fun images and posts and it’s a good way to kill some time before starting a paper. Early on I noted that many of what I assume are straight men on imgur view themselves as “enlightened.” If a woman who was about 150 pounds with some sexy curves posted a pic of herself many of the comments would be about how that user, personally, thinks that her body is sexier than size zero bodies. Or you will commonly see someone post a picture of girls doing a duck face and those commenting will mercilessly ridicule the girls. Another commonly seen comment or post purports that the user prefers that one-in-a-million smart girl over a dumb hot girl. Seriously, one of those comments says, “Smart girls are awesome. Wish there were more around here” yeah because girls with intelligence are so FUCKING rare. Idiot. Anyway, despite their self-professed enlightenment regarding respect for women, I’ve found that there is still an overwhelming amount of users critiquing women and their bodies, dictating what a woman should and should not look like, and objectification of women. I’ve collected a few of the images that have pissed me off most. Here they are –
Despite their love of curvy women, certain body types get openly ridiculed
Other women are ridiculed for other things about their appearance
She’s fake and we hate her. Look how enlightened we are for hating women we think are fake. We’re better because we judge a different kind of women for how she looks than everyone else. Yay us.
Several things aggravate me about this previous post. First, in both cases women are “made for” men to do things with. They are made for men to write poems or jokes about, that’s it. Fucking hell. Seriously? Women aren’t made for anyone to do anything with. Women are born same as fucking men and we are born to do what we want with whomever we want. Secondly, the girl on the right is obviously responding to several of the high standards we place on women’s appearance here so critiquing her for responding to those standards, even if she responds extremely, is a little messed up. And third, the top voted comment on this pic as of right now is “Sad part is that somewhere, someone thinks she is the most beautiful thing on earth.” Seriously? Yeah, soooo tragic that someone could ever find a woman attractive because she doesn’t fit your personal standards. You do not get to dictate what is and is not attractive and you do not get to judge people for finding her attractive. You aren’t better than everyone because your preferred standards of women feels more natural or progressive to you than that of someone who will prefer the girl on the right. You’re still defining what is and is not attractive and what women should and should not look like and that makes you an asshat.
Meanwhile, the bodies of women who fit the men of imgur’s standards are reduced to objects for them to look at.
Jennifer Lawrence exists so you can stare at her tits when you’re having a bad week
These women aren’t athletes, they’re hot bodies for you to check out. Kudos to ifeelveryinsensitive though for getting back at exquisite2013
Meanwhile other hot women are assumed to be bitches
She’s hot so she has to be a bitch. They must have a terrible marriage. She’s not even that hot, she’s only good for her tits.
Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of people on imgur who aren’t sexist and patriarchal. There are plenty who seem to genuinely respect women and their bodies but I see these posts and comments everywhere and it pisses me off. I’m so sick of hearing these comments that clearly show that these users think they’re better than other people and are more enlightened when it comes to respecting women but they aren’t. They think being respectful means calling hot girls probable bitches, critiquing women who dress and style themselves a certain way, and telling smart and curvy girls that they’re better. But they’re still dictating what women should look and act like and it’s not okay. It’s not respectful. And you need to shut the hell up.
On a related note, I’ve also noticed a hefty amount of racism on imgur despite the fact that many users similarly feel they are more enlightened about race. However, I think I’ll have to make that a separate post from this one.
Things and Stuff 