I've been following FeministsonTinder on Twitter since a friend recommended it to me. She knew that I was a feminist and liked making fun of douche-bag guys, and I'd hoped it would be a place where men and women would both be able to mock and shame the sort of guys they are talking about.

It's actually a pretty cool concept. It's both a microscope and a spotlight onto issues that affects all our lives; male or female. The issues are everything from gender expectations and roles to growth and development to rape and rape culture and so on. They all come to a point in this one phenomenon, which is peoples experiences on Tinder.

On one hand this page gives women a voice and community for what they experience in this modern dating world, and also shows guys what women go through regularly, and that these guys aren't just an anomaly. It has a lot of potential to drive social change starting with this one unique starting point that most younger men and women will connect with, (their dating experience.) I think we as a society are at a time now where we can finally step outside our upbringing and belief systems and individual experiences and start to see "the forest for the trees" on issues like feminism and gender roles.

Unfortunately I think it's missing the mark. Instead of promoting dialogue about gender issues and what makes men this way and how a woman can be empowered in the dating scene, it has a distinctly anti-man feel to it. The dialogue regularly lumps all men into the category of "men" and talks about them like they are the problem and are all a certain way, (all rapists or all creeps or all just after sex.) It is basically an outlet for anger, which only attracts the trolls, not the males who just want to work with women to understand each others experiences and find solutions. For a woman who is struggling through conflicting feelings about wanting to find a partner, but also feeling angry and disillusioned with the men she's finding, a site like this will probably only make her more angry and disillusioned. It's a vicious cycle.

It would be great if women went and followed this Twitter page, but worked to bring some productive dialogue to it. If we could talk openly about the complex factors that both men and women face which leads to this symptom of douche-bags on Tinder, we could actually support each other and change peoples thought patterns. I would like to be able to quote things from there to male friends, or direct them there to gain insight into women's experiences, without it just being all empty rhetoric that further drives men and women to their corners. It seems like now is the time for people to stop blaming each other based on their sex and start seeing how many small things lead to this big problem. More thoughtful dialogue will help men to better empathize with women, but women will also have to better empathize with men and not just vilify them. After all, a man is just someone who was born with a penis. Everything that came after that to make these guys this way is society's fault as a whole.

Tldr: I encourage women to go to the Twitter page feministonTinder and change the dialogue that occurs there from hateful and anti-man to something that actually drives social change.