Learning New Words, II
“Misogyny”
Read: Part I “Empathy”
My phone makes a bell sound and I lazily pick it up and check. It’s a generic Facebook notification message, telling me that some people had posted some stuff on their timeline. There is also another birthday notification. It is someone’s birthday. Someone I do not know but we seem to be Facebook friends. I’m idle, so I click the notification.
I look through my notifications again, lazily. It is hot outside, and I am drowsy but I am at work, and I need to at least look focused. I switch from my phone to my computer. I dim the screen because I shouldn’t be using Facebook here.
I scroll down my feed. Giggle sometimes. The rest of the time, my face is expressionless. I move from memes, to news, to gossip, to entertainment, to funny videos. It takes me around seven minutes to get to the comment that makes me stop.
It’s a video shared by Candy, with the caption, “Misogyny in 2017. This world makes me sick sometimes.” I click it, and there is an old man in the video, in what seems like his living room.
I can say a lot about the video, but disgust is one word that expresses my thoughts about it pretty well. His video seems to be advice on how men can control their women. His ‘techniques’ range manipulation based on self-esteem issues to straight-up violence towards women. The entire thing is hard to watch. I look at its stats.
Four million views. 113K shares. Unbelievable. I guess everyone wants to see and share this video, regardless of whether they support it or not.
I head to the twenty-six comments left under Candy’s status and I read through . I don’t usually post anything on Facebook, but my mind flashes back to last Sunday, with Sharon. I still feel good about that conversation. I decide to leave a comment. It takes a while, I keep writing and deleting what I put down. In the end, I leave two words down there.
“So uncouth.”
It feels lackluster, without character, but I can’t delete this one too. I leave it there and leave the app.
Before I sleep my phone beeps. It’s next to my laptop in the desk near my bed. I pick it up and I look at the notification. A Facebook notification. My stomach feels weird. I wonder if someone actually responded to what I said. I click it and look. It takes me to my comment. Someone called Teresia Langat likes my comment and left her own under there.
“Exactly.”
The feeling I feel pales in comparison to last week, Sunday. But it’s there. A stranger agreeing with me. It feels good. I felt more right than I had before.
I receive another Facebook notification two days later. I look at it and I can tell it’s from Candy’s thread. There is no excitement now, however. It’s more… anxiety. I am in the middle of a CAT, and my phone should be in front of the class, with the rest of everyone’s devices. This notification comes at a bad time. I panic and slide it back under my hoodie’s sleeve. The lecturer doesn’t seem to have noticed. She is on her phone as well. Oh, the irony.
I take a few seconds before I pull it out again and continue on with my exam. If I get caught for cheating because I commented on a status two days ago, I wouldn’t even complain. I brought that fate onto myself.
At lunch, I open up my Facebook and I go back to that post. According to the notifications, there was someone who commented on my reply, but what interests me is that the thread has gone longer. Or, to be specific, one reply after mine, written in Swahili, seems to have spawned a rather long thread under it.
“Nyinyi ndoo wale madem hawajui kupika.”
You’re those women who don’t know how to cook.
Something in me tenses up. This feels like an attack. Candy responds next. I can feel her anger seep out from her comment.
“I could also assume you’re the kind of man who would hit women, but I won’t.”
The next reply, from the guy. “What’s wrong with that?”
The next reply comes from another person I don’t know, an Amani Kwesoe.
“You’re disgusting. Do yourself a favor and shut up.”
I realize I am getting slightly excited, enjoying what is happening here, and I wonder whether that is wrong, but only for a second. I do not want to entertain the thought.
The chat becomes more and more abusive, mostly between the new girl that just joined and the man. The guy responds to the comments like a troll, but the girl’s responses show she seems deeply disturbed by the guy’s comments. Some of her words seem harsh but I keep doubling back to what she is defending. I whisper out loud that she’s in the right.
I realize I might be forcing what I’m feeling about all this, but I throw that thought away as fast as it comes to me.
Candy appears somewhere in the thread every once in a while. A comment here, a comment there. She seemingly tries to go back to the intention of the thread, but there’s too much bad blood from the two that her comments are easily forgettable. Other people stream in as I continue scrolling. Three women who express anger. Two men: one who defends the troll and another who also expresses his disdain against the troll. They carry the vile that the original two had created.
I leave that response and I go to my earlier one. There are only three comments under it. I notice the name of the first person to comment is familiar. I read the comment and I remember where I read this name.
“You look like a girl, no wonder unawatetea.” No wonder you’re defending them.
It’s the troll. I feel unsettled, defensive. I feel attacked when I read his comment, and I immediately find myself typing.
“You’re not the smartest person, are you? If all you can do is go around abusing people on Facebook and — ”
I stop.
I think about it, and I wonder what exactly I hoped to happen once I posted this. Would he magically turn a new leaf, and admit it on social media? I could tell he was a troll, probably doing this to elicit a reaction.
I giggle a bit. Can’t believe a Facebook comment could actually make me mad. I put my phone aside and I continue eating.
