Mia Matsumiya is a talented violinist, a former member of avant garde band Kayo Dot, and recently, curator of an Instagram highlighting the abuse and sexual harassment she and others have faced online over the past 10 years.
In the past few weeks, the page Purv_Magnet has blown up, amassing over 37k followers. The chats and posts are taken from directly from Matsumiya’s blog, Twitter, Facebook, or a public forum she took part in. Although most posts are from men directing their lewd comments towards Matsumiya, she includes posts that have been sent to friends across the Internet, plus some taken from dating sites claiming to be safe spaces.
All the messages are aggressive and sexually explicit. They detail exactly what these men want to do to Matsumiya, with or without her consent, often taking on a violent disturbing tone. However, Matsumiya also deals with a very specific kind of harassment. Standing at 4’10" as a Japanese American woman, Matsumiya encounters the fetishization of her body and her race in nearly every way imaginable: from men who fetishize Asian women, to men who refer to her as an animal. Both are racist forms of sexual harassment that are insulting and repulsive.
Matsumiya cites the scariest messages as ones she received from a man who wrote pages fantasizing about coming to her concerts and raping her in the bathroom. This particularly nasty user was eventually arrested for stalking another Asian woman.
Just like sexual harassment is not a problem limited to the Internet, the fetishization and objectification of Asian women isn’t just limited to certain circles. It is a constant issue in non-virtual society and can present specific issues and even dangers in dating.
Contrary to arguments about people in the public eye “signing up” for conversations about their personal life --which somehow encompasses harassment and abuse-- women don’t need to have fans or a social media following to be harassed online.
Just recently a Facebook acquaintance of mine warned friends not to look in their “other” inbox on Facebook messenger --the place spam and messages from people you don’t know go-- because it was filled with messages from random men who had found her profile. Not everyone’s Facebook inbox will be filled by sexually perverse messages, but I don’t know a single woman who hasn’t had harassment to a certain degree on social media. From fairly benign Instagram comments along the lines of “nice face” to long messages on blogging platforms like Tumblr, everyday women are targeted just like celebrities.
After 10 years of harassment for just being on the Internet, Matsumiya finally has the chance to reveal what it’s like to be a woman in today’s age of social media. The very thing that allowed these men to harass in droves is the very vehicle being used to expose their threats. As a white woman, I can’t pretend to understand the added aspect of racism that goes along with the rampant misogyny of the messages sent to Matsumiya and others, but I can express my outrage at their actions. The Internet allows people to act as if their words and ideas don’t have real world consequences, and, in parallel, gives less weight to women’s claims of online harassment and discomfort. Platforms like the one Matsumiya has created are important to giving this issue the attention it deserves.
