There is a new meme going around Reddit and Tumblr.
[TRIGGER WARNING: domestic violence, misogyny]
It’s called (HUGE trigger warning on this link) Domestic Violence Turtle and it is, as you might expect, stunningly unfunny.
What is exhausting to me about this meme is not only that each page has ten different versions of “bitch get me a sandwich” or “bitch get in the kitchen” jokes, but that it exists in a world that’s supposed to be post-feminist. Of course, we know that such a world does not exist, and if anything could prove that (other than, of course… everything else that could prove that, from the GOP’s War on Women to the default sexualized woman on TV and in movies), it is the fact that there is now a fucking meme whose entire premise is that domestic violence is funny.
I keep trying to think of a way to finish this with a punchline, some kind of wry sarcasm in the face of this kind of bullshit, but I can’t. I just feel bitter. I am dully unsurprised by this particular development and wary of posting my outrage anywhere, because you know, it’s a joke. I’m just a humorless feminist. Can’t I take a joke?
“What I want is for you to write FUCK ME on your chest. And then I want you to walk out that door and I want you to walk down the street and anybody that wants to fuck you, say sure, no problem. And when they do, you have to say thank you very much and make sure that you have a smile on your face and then you stupid fucking coward, you’re going to know what it feels like to be a woman.”
