“Hello, do any of you know a certain Julien*, 47 years old, curly hair, tall? I have serious doubts”worries Sylvie*. Like more than 7,000 women, she is a member from the Facebook group “Are we dating the same guy?” The page, which is just over a year old, describes itself as a safe space for women.
The idea is simple: each of them can post a report message about a man, to warn others of certain dangerous behaviors or to obtain information. In the description, the administrators of the group make a point of respecting the anonymity of all the people mentioned. They emphasize: the objective “is to cultivate an atmosphere of female empowerment, acceptance and support”.
The vast majority of members, like Sylvie, are women questioning their partner’s fidelity. In the comments below her post, the young woman details the situation in more detail: “He responds much less than usual, he often goes on business trips, anyway, it’s weird.” Bingo: a nurse from the same department seems to recognize the profile.
Another scenario exists: those who post a message to warn about the toxic behavior of the men they have crossed paths with. “Be careful, girls, if you meet a certain A., a firefighter, living in Carcassonne: he is married, he is a big liar”Cécile* gets angry. For some time now, initiatives of this type have been flourishing on social networks.
Liberty, equality, sisterhood
Some post a message on a Facebook group like this one, others film the room of the person they are with to make sure that no one recognizes them, or publish the private messages received asking: “See if your boyfriend’s nickname is there.” But what works best are the «live tests»At the request of women, an Internet user tests the loyalty of their partner live.
Becca Moore, an American influencer with over a million followers, is one of those who started the movement. «Testing your boyfriend» (“Test your boyfriend”, in French), from 2020. “It goes like this: A woman, concerned about her boyfriend’s behavior, will ask Moore to put him through his paces and slide into his DMs with a flirty “hi, hi”, explains the American online medium Elite Dailywho was able to interview the young woman.
For many of the women interviewed, these actions are based on a desire to help each other and “to stop being taken for fools”explains Julie*, 32. The young engineer says that, since the #MeToo movement, she has become aware of the impact that women could have if they decided to show solidarity. “For a long time, and we still see it in our parents’ generation, when a man was unfaithful, the finger was pointed at the mistressshe says. We want to get out of this pattern.”
Today, women still cheat less than men, but much more than before (38% of women had sexual intercourse with someone other than their partner in 2022, compared to 46% for men, according to Satista). While unfaithful behavior tends to become gender-neutral, the sexist stereotype of the “tempting homewrecker” is hard to shake and helps maintain a certain rivalry between women.
“In a patriarchal regime, in a society dominated by men, the bond between women is experienced as an act of betrayal. Everything is done so that, precisely, women never show solidarity and, on the contrary, build themselves into rivals.”underlined Alice Coffin, journalist, feminist and LGBT+ activist, elected environmentalist since 2020 to the Paris Council, au micro d’Europe 1Faced with this observation, Julie and others explain that they want to change this and “to show sisterhood”.
A questionable modus operandi
For some time now, the concept of sisterhood has been everywhere. On social media, in the title of new feminist writings, at university, in politics and in the street. However, the movement is not new. The idea of sisterhood appeared in France in the 1970s. It was used by feminists of the time in order to introduce the feminine equivalent of “fraternity” into common language.
The term refers to the link between women who have a shared experience, due to their feminine condition and the social status attached to it. “From what we’ve seen since we were little, models of female solidarity are rare. In movies or in real life, it’s rare to see women uniting against something. That’s what I like about these groups: we feel like we’re all together.”underlines Emma*, 25 years old.
But it is precisely this “against something” that bothers some people in these online initiatives to combat male infidelity. “I am against infidelity on both sides, but I feel a certain animosity towards men through these TikToks. I think that sisterhood should not be a reason to attack”writes Tom* under a test video. Many respond that these are not attacks, but rather tools of emancipation.
On the Reddit platform, these practices are also at the heart of several discussion threads. In theory, the anonymity of people is always preserved, but the question of invasion of privacy is still debated. A young woman, who says she has been in a relationship for eight years, explains that she called on an Internet user who was doing loyalty tests. “Even though it turned out that my partner was not faithful, I felt very bad about it because I felt like I had trapped him.”she admits. A little further down, a man confides: “It happened to me when I was younger. Friends from work recognized my profile, even though my name was blurred, and I took it very badly.”
Sometimes traumatic practices
Despite messages warning about these practices, they are growing and are no longer exclusively feminine, imitated by men. Getting more and more views, they therefore bring money to those who post them. From now on, they can appear as entertainment practices, to the detriment of the people “exposed in the public square”.
Interviewed by Metro Belgique, Rhonda says she underwent a test from her ex-partner and experienced it as a betrayal, even losing her self-esteem. “She ended up having doubts whenever she spoke to a new person online”the newspaper claims.
Specializing in new technology law, the Parisian law firm Avomédias reminds us that it is not authorized to distribute screenshots of a private conversation on social networks (between a man and a woman who is flirting with him to trap him, for example) without prior consent.
* Names have been changed.
Source: www.slate.fr
