Women deal with more than their fair share of online harassment, from being fat-shamed to straight up threatened on platforms like Facebook comment sections and online dating apps. 

Enter Lindsey, a Minneapolis, MN-based advocate for women’s rights. Perhaps you remember her from the clandestine videos she posted online, where she approached street harassers and catcallers, or her “Cards Against Harassment.”

This month, she decided to confront a double standard that exists across the Internet: women are slammed for showing skin by their male counterparts who do just the same. She noticed disparaging tweets or statuses from men such as,”You should have more respect for yourself” and “Nobody wants to wife up some bitch that’s posting half-naked pics online.” Digging deeper, she realized that these same men posted photos of themselves seductively posed and shirtless — or, one could say, half-naked.

Lindsey cut together screenshots of a few of those self-righteous tweets, posts and status updates beside compromising photos of the men who made them. She calls her newest crusade #ShirtlessShamers2016.

Lindsey told The Huffington Post that her goal in revealing these double standards is to “give people an opportunity to have a conversation about where double standards about clothing and nudity fit into the bigger picture of gender equality and sexual violence.”

When asked about where the idea for #ShirtlessShamers2016 came from, Lindsey said, “I generally use Twitter to discuss sexual harassment and sexual violence, and often run up against misogynists trying to redirect the conversation to one about women’s bodies and clothing,” noting an all-too-common, distinctly male idea across the Internet. “The prevailing misogynist ‘wisdom’ is that if women ‘dress appropriately’ they get respect and if they dress ‘inappropriately’ they ‘invite’ whatever disdain, disrespect, or violence they get.” 

Lindsey also noticed that the same men who shamed women for what they chose to reveal on social media didn’t seem to mind having their own collection of semi-nude photos of women on their own accounts.”I was also struck by how many of the guys espousing this double standard had ‘likes’ lists overflowing with gifs of porn and images of naked women, meaning their problem isn’t actually with nudity or sexuality, but with women and girls celebrating their bodies or sexuality on their own terms,” Lindsey said. “It was the pattern and frequency of these dudebroze, rather than the individuals, that got me interested.”

Lindsey told HuffPost that she,”refuse[s] to pretend that attitudes and behavior on social media are totally divorced from real life attitudes and behavior.” It is for this reason that she felt it necessary to share the contrasting images of misogynistic words with scantily clad men in a space as public as Twitter. 

Follow Lindsey @CardsAgstHrsmt for more #ShirtlessShamers2016 and Cards Against Harassment. 

More on HuffPost:

Women Who Reported Sexual Harassment

Women Who Reported Sexual Harassment

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When it comes to sexual harassment in the workplace many picture the blatant sexism of the “Mad Men” era, however, workplace harassment (sadly) comes in all forms. From an unwelcome sexual comment to inappropriate physical touching, sexual harassment should be reported every time, yet it’s not always so easy for victims to speak up. With allegations of sexual assault spanning various workplaces — including (but not limited to) the fashion industry and tech startups — it’s no surprise that workplace harassment is still common, even when it’s not making front page news. In 2011, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received 11,364 complaints of sexual harassment, 84 percent of which were filed by women and 16 percent by men. The American Association of University Women also reported that a telephone poll of 782 U.S. workers revealed that of the 38 percent of workers who said they had been sexually harassed, less than half reported their harassment. Inspired by our friends over at Jezebel, we rounded up 11 testimonies found on the anonymous message-sharing app Whisper that speak to the bravery required to report their harassers, but also the relief they feel once they do.
When it comes to sexual harassment in the workplace many picture the blatant sexism of the “Mad Men” era, however, workplace harassment (sadly) comes in all forms. From an unwelcome sexual comment to inappropriate physical touching, sexual harassment should be reported every time, yet it’s not always so easy for victims to speak up. With allegations of sexual assault spanning various workplaces — including (but not limited to) the fashion industry and tech startups — it’s no surprise that workplace harassment is still common, even when it’s not making front page news. In 2011, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received 11,364 complaints of sexual harassment, 84 percent of which were filed by women and 16 percent by men. The American Association of University Women also reported that a telephone poll of 782 U.S. workers revealed that of the 38 percent of workers who said they had been sexually harassed, less than half reported their harassment. Inspired by our friends over at Jezebel, we rounded up 11 testimonies found on the anonymous message-sharing app Whisper that speak to the bravery required to report their harassers, but also the relief they feel once they do.
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Read more: www.huffingtonpost.com