Total Frat Move? More like Total F*cking Misogynists

“You may have seen your favorite celebrity like Taylor Swift or Gigi Hadid sporting one of these babies [referencing high-waisted bikini bottoms] on their latest social media post … either way, you’re not them. These girls have the body to pull it off. You do not. Snap me photo proof if you think you can.”

This is just an example of one of the unsupported claims by The Therapist, an anonymous user on Total Frat Move, or TFM, in an article called “Why Girls Should Stop Wearing High-Waisted Bikinis.”

TFM, a self-claimed “news and entertainment brand that consists of the #1 college comedy website on the internet,” (yes, they really left the ‘i’ lowercase), is owned by Grandex Inc. Grandex owns other “entertainment” brands like Total Sorority Move, Rowdy Gentleman and Post Grad Problems. Grandex has 47 executives listed on their website, and only seven of them are women.

Misogynistic posts like The Therapist’s litter the site, using derogatory language in most articles and treating women as sexual objects.

“Misogyny now has become so normalized,” Paul Roberts, author of Impulse Society, said. “It’s almost like we’ve gone back to the Mad Men days.”

Mad Men, a television series that premiered in 2007, follows the lives of advertisers working at a fictional advertising agency in the 1960s on Madison Avenue in New York City. The male employees often harass the women, almost all of which only work as secretaries, and treat them as sexual objects.

Total Frat Move harbors this misogynistic norm and maintains it by allowing users to remain anonymous and write what they please. Providing anonymity provides these men with the confidence to post an uninformed, ignorant, degrading opinion without fear of personal retaliation.

The author that wrote about high-waisted swimwear, The Therapist, also wrote articles titled, “Girls Should be Required to Shower and Shave Before a Guy Goes Down on Them,” “The Smaller the Dog, the Crazier the Girl” and “Should I Bang my Girlfriend’s Hot Mom?”’

One of TFM’s featured columns this week, titled “The Official Guide to Scoring a Threesome” starts by claiming, “In a new relationship, you’re pretty much inside your new girlfriend 24/7. You basically live inside her. You pay rent for her vagina.”

At least this writer, Wally Bryton, chose to use a name. Whether it’s real or not is up for debate.

Other articles on the site include, “The Time I Brought Home a Dime and It Blew Up in her Face,” “What Your Favorite Porn Category Says About You” and “I Banged a Fat Girl and My Life Will Never be the Same.”

To find those articles, I looked through the first 5 pages of the website.

Conversely, looking through the first 5 pages of Total Sorority Move, a parallel to TFM, not a single article criticizes men – most don’t even mention men. Instead, they feature more gender-friendly articles, such as “8 Reasons you Should be Celebrating National Wine Day Right Now,” or “13 Snapchat Filters We Actually Need.”

Like many other writers, I’ve received criticism from articles or blog posts that I’ve written. It comes with the territory. Sharing an opinion to a national, online audience always comes with the risk of backlash. Because of this experience, I support any and all opinions – supported opinions.

Someone could write a very conservative article about why gay marriage (which I fully support) should not have been legalized, and if it’s a well-researched and supported article, I respect the writer and his/her opinion. I may disagree completely, but I respect it.

However, an opinion based on claims not supported by any data, research or examples that shames a community based on both body type and gender does not deserve any respect, and neither does the writer or the website that supports it.

 

Image Source: http://cdn.totalfratmove.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/060a01e1820234c9c277f0e3f76c6ff11255442744.png