Dating apps can be a hotbed of mean spirited messages and chancers. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are still decent humans who frequent the apps, but for every polite message there's two waiting for the right moment to send a dick pic. Cynical? A tiny bit. But I'm sure we’ve all heard at least one horror story that’s left us poised to deactivate our profiles.
But positive changes seem to be happening thanks to dating app Bumble, which lets people ‘match’ but puts the ball in the girl’s court because it’s down to them to make the first ‘move’ and start chatting. Recently they decided to call out one of their male users (Connor) in an open letter for being for being agressive and misogynistic to a female user, Ashley.
As you can see from the exchange, after Ashley asked the innnocent question of 'What do you do?' Connor proceeded to go off on one. Talking about ‘girls like you who shamelessly attempt to pry into my career' and telling her that ‘I don’t have time for entitled, gold digging whores’ and ‘I don’t fall victim not prescribe [sic] to this neoliberal, Beyonce, feminist cancer which plagues society’.
Oh, wow.
In their letter, Bumble calmly took him down, letting him know that his antiquated and inappropriate behaviour would not be tolerated and that he basically needs to GTFO.
*Dear Connor, *
It has been brought to our attention that you lost your cool on one of our female users named Ashley. She made small talk, you felt personally attacked. She mentioned her work day and asked about yours; you assumed that she was prying into your financial status.
We are going to venture a guess into the state of mind of Ashley here, given that we are all working women ourselves. Take a seat, because this concept may blow your mind. Women nowadays work. It’s happened over time, we know, but a vast majority of women from our generation have jobs.
With that in mind — and knowing that Ashley simply mentioned work in the conversation — we can gather that she wasn’t hoping to figure out if your wallet was sizeable enough for her to move into your house and start cooking dinner for you after vacuuming your living room while you clock in a 9 to 5 work day. Instead, Ashley was (wait for it, Connor, because this is where things really get interesting), viewing herself as an equal. It might sound crazy, but people connect over the basic routines of life. You know… the weather, working out, grabbing a drink, eating, and working.
And while you may view this as “neo-liberal, Beyonce, feminist-cancer,” and rant about the personal wounds you are trying to heal from classic “entitled gold digging whores,” we are going to keep working. We are going to expand our reach and make sure that women everywhere receive the message that they are just as empowered in their personal lives as they are in the workplace. We are going to continue to build a world that makes small-minded, misogynist boys like you feel outdated.
We are going to hope that one day, you come around. We hope that the hate and resentment welling up inside of you will subside and you’ll be able to engage in everyday conversations with women without being cowardice to their power. But until that day comes, Connor, consider yourself blocked from Bumble.
Never yours,
The Bumble Hive
#ImWithAshley
#LaterConnor
Yes, Bumble.
As Bumble point out in their terms, they will not allow 'language which could be deemed offensive or is likely to harass, upset, embarrass, alarm or annoy any other person; is obscene, pornographic or otherwise may offend human dignity; is abusive, insulting or threatening, or which promotes or encourages racism, sexism, hatred or bigotry'.
Lets hope more apps follow Bumble’s strong lead in making dating apps a safer place for women and operating a zero-tolerance policy for this kind of behaviour.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.