Think dehumanizing women in the public sphere, portraying them as sex objects and victims of men and simply vessels to be fucked or abused or turned into a great big joke is completely harmless? Tell it to the office worker whose boss referred to her by asking a colleague “if big tits has come in yet”. Tell it to the woman who was asked by her boss in front of 30 colleagues “If I ‘wax my crack’”. Tell it to the girl of 10 who was walking home from school when “two older boys said ‘show us your tits’”. Tell it to the child of 13 who didn’t even understand when two men in a white van asked her if she had “a tight pussy”. Tell it to the woman who reported being groped by strangers “at least once a week and often much more, regardless of what I wear, where I am, how I behave.” Tell it to the woman who declined to talk to a group of men and was pursued down the street by them, shouting “rape!” Tell it to schoolgirl who was “beaten by her boyfriend” and whose “friends asked her if she was going to stay with him until after the prom so she’d have a date”.

Laura Bates, in an article titled The 12 Days of Misogyny, explaining why your hilarious jokes about women actually do matter. (via ceedling)