We’ve all seen it. A female posts in an online forum or Facebook group about pretty much any topic, and immediately the comments just go South. Thirsty guys jump in immediately, and the comments become offensive and sexist. As a male car enthusiast I’m sick of seeing this. I’m sick of seeing true female car enthusiasts unable to enjoy the scene due to being immediately thrown in the same category as e-fame hungry posers. Having been around the scene since the humble beginnings of the internet, I’ve seen the shift away from a culture of equality and mutual respect. I’ve seen how today’s “selfie” and “Instagram culture” has made things much worse.
Let me start off by saying that I am not against females being involved in the car community. Why the heck would I be? It’s great! I’m also in no way against models who do professional photo-shoots with cars for a living. You rarely see them posting in car groups anyway because they tend to be professional about their work. What angers me is these girls that seem to be more interested in shameless self promotion and mining for InstaFame than they are in cars. More specifically, I’m talking about the girls that love to draw attention to the fact that they’re female. Whether that be through the use of hashtags like “#girldriven” and “#beatbyagirl”, or shamelessly posting duckface selfies showing as much cleavage as is possible just to get attention, whilst contributing nothing of actual value to the community.
In a society that seems obsessed with gender equality, why do we still have this problem? Why are these people doing their best to draw attention to the fact that they are a female if they want to be treated as equals?
Let me finish by saying that there is never an excuse for the sort of harassment females receive from some guys online. It is not the girl’s fault that guys behave so disgustingly. I am simply saying that these e-fame hungry girls are significantly contributing to the overall issue.
If you’ve read this far you either agree with me, or disagree strongly enough to keep reading. My hope in recording this VLOG is that we all give a little more consideration to the things we post online. Ultimately we’re all a part of the community for the same basic reasons. We all love sharing our journeys and what we’re working on. We all get a buzz out of people liking and commenting on our posts. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of attention seeking, that’s just human nature. It becomes a problem when it becomes more about “LOOK AT ME!” and less about the cars.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic in the comments below….
