By Vibrational Ahh international women's day(IWD), that magical time of the year where women are celebrated and some men scream BUT WHAT ABOUT AN INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR MEN!?(FYI it is 19th of November, but we don't care about that today)
International Womens Day is meant to be a platform to discuss the achievements and struggles of females around the world, for example, women are being paid 80c to every dollar a male colleague earns for the same job, almost 500 women are raped every day in the US alone, and 1 in 4 women have experienced violence from a spouse or boyfriend, but on the bright side, from not being able to vote, to the current #metoo movement, there has been so much progress for womens rights in the last few hundred years! I think it is important to discuss women in all aspects of life, and their successes and societies failures, and that includes Habbo! HDA is run by a majority female foundation team, one of the only ones in Habbo, and 64% of our 3iC members are female (I wish companies around the world had these kind of statistics!) and while we have achieved gender equality in HDA, things aren't always peachy. Sexist and abusive language is directed not just to the HDA female founders, but almost every woman on Habbo. And yes, Habbo is a game, but if you speak like that towards women on a game, what kind of attitudes do you hold towards women offline? Many people brush off this behaviour as a joke, and laugh about the behaviour, but language and words matter. "Men" frequently approach me and ask me out and flirt online, 99 per cent of the time I'm not interested, and politely decline with a 'no thank you', but 9 times out of ten I will receive abusive messages upon my rejection, for example, calling me a slut (don't get me start on the irony of THAT) or going to extremes and saying I should kill myself. As a founder I need make tough decisions, and sometimes people don't like those decisions, often gender is brought into a discussion or argument, like during a heated argument, my point of view being dismissed because I'm frustrated and I'm labeled as being 'on my period'. I could go on, guys come in all the time to base and complain there are too many females (trust me that will most likely be the only time they say that in their lives) or as a founder I get called babe because guys think that will help them get what they want quicker. I am not intending to be negative towards all men, 99 per cent are amazing, fantastic people (especially the ones in HDA!), but IWD is a day where we can examine generally, what some women experience while spending time online, and it isn't always positive.
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AuthorVibrational is the Senior Founder at HDA and runs the blog you are reading right now. Archives
July 2018
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