Twitter is exploding with #QuestionsForMen that need to be raised

On Monday, Australian Daily Life columnist Clementine Ford launched the newest feminist hashtag on Twitter. After years of being dismissed as an attention seeker for her writing, instead of anyone criticizing the substance her actual work, Clementine had a question for her male colleagues:

Instead of being critiqued or praised for her work, Clementine had been criticized for failing to fit the misogynistic expectation for women to remain silent. Luckily, after this first post, Twitter exploded with women eager to speak up.

Clementine soon followed up this post with other instances of casual misogyny she has experienced, unified by the hashtag #QuestionsForMen. Along the lines of #EverydaySexism and other popular feminist hashtags, she aimed to call out instances of sexism that male privilege tends to blind men to.

These statement prompted women across the Internet to respond with their own questions highlighting double standards in how women are treated on a daily basis.  And, no surprise: there were plenty.

While Twitter users of both genders supported the movement, there was also backlash, and plenty of it. But despite receiving numerous threats over the next twenty-four hours, participants stayed cool and collected and continued to pose challenging questions about gender biases. Clementine even retweeted some of the haters (one tweet simply read “why do you hate men?”) and then shut it down:

That’s the sad truth about everyday sexism. Even when women try to make a statement about double standards in an effort to change the status quo, they’re sometimes faced with actual threats.. It takes bravery for all these women to stand up against the trolling and misogynistic vitriol on Twitter, especially the ones who didn’t get (or wouldn’t accept) that the questions being asked were rhetorical. Bravo, badass women of Twitter, for calling out the issues that need to be addressed.

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