by If you’re a comedian or Facebook friends with a comedian, undoubtedly your Facebook News Feed has seen a flood of statuses about rape, rape culture, social media justice, police and prosecution effectiveness versus lynch mobs, mansplaining, White Knighting and more in the past five days.
As a journalist covering comedy, I generally stay away from the offstage problems facing comedians — whether they be victims or perpetrators, abusers or the abused. I have weighed in on my personal page from time to time, including this time, to offer my own thoughts about dealing with these personal dilemmas as they crossover to professional business. Perhaps I’ll expand upon them here, too. But not now.
For today, I’d much rather direct you to Reductress.com — “the first and only satirical women’s magazine” online. “The mission of Reductress is to take on the outdated perspectives and condescending tone of popular women’s media, through the eyes of the funniest women in comedy today. Also, we want people to think we’re pretty.”
Today’s mission is even more straightforward. Women who are funny, tackling rape culture.
The front page headlines for Aug. 17, 2016:
- “We Built This Robot to Explain Rape Culture to Men”
- “Chill Ways to Just Sort of Live With It”
- “This Rapist Has Figured Out a Way to End Rape Culture”
- “How to be an Ally to Both a Rapist and His Victim”
- “This Brave Man Hates Social Media Witch Hunts So Much He Decided to Start His Own”
- “Man Who Sexually Assaulted You Likes Your Facebook Post About Assault”
- “‘Most Women Lie About Rape,’ Says Man Lying About Rape”
- “Fun Summer Cocktails When They Ask You, ‘Well, What Were You Drinking?'”
- “How to Stop Listening to What a Woman’s Outfit Says and Start Listening to Her Mouth”
Three more op-ed pieces, filed under “Thoughts” follow along these lines:
One of my friends described this as the Reductress version of The Onion‘s 9/11 issue. I don’t know if that’s an apt comparison. More like Reductress going all Network, persuading everyone to open up their windows and yell, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
I’m certainly mad about this, and I want to know what I can to do help. So I’ll start here.
