Mary Elizabeth Winstead Takes ‘Twitter Break’ After Abuse Over Photo Response
Mary Elizabeth Winstead is one of several celebrities to have her personal photos leaked in ‘the fappening,’ a huge 4chan event in which many female public personalities found their private lives becoming public information. She responded to the incident on Twitter, and the abuse she took in response is a nasty look into misogyny and human hate.
Winstead responded to the leak on Sunday, and perhaps she was even more surprised by it than some of the other victims, because her photos, according to Winstead, had previously been deleted.
To those of you looking at photos I took with my husband years ago in the privacy of our home, hope you feel great about yourselves.
— Mary E. Winstead (@M_E_Winstead) August 31, 2014
Knowing those photos were deleted long ago, I can only imagine the creepy effort that went into this. Feeling for everyone who got hacked. — Mary E. Winstead (@M_E_Winstead) August 31, 2014
By the end of the day, though, the responses drove her off the site:
Going on an internet break. Feel free to my @'s for a glimpse of what it's like to be a woman who speaks up about anything on twitter
— Mary E. Winstead (@M_E_Winstead) September 1, 2014
A sampling of the attacks on Winstead follows:
Shut the f— up with your "how it feels to be a woman who speaks up" lol, next time don't use Apple products. @M_E_Winstead
— Nathan Grayson (@WeeabooThot) September 1, 2014
@M_E_Winstead "instead of taking responsibility for my actions I'll blame other people"
— Kevin Leathley (@KevinLeathley54) September 1, 2014
Much of the abuse she took was too graphic to re-post here, including threats of rape, derogatory comments on Winstead’s body, a suggestion she should be glad that people want to look at her photos, and a heaping helping of victim blaming.
Winstead dropped back in briefly on Tuesday afternoon to share a link to a Forbes piece that discusses the attacks on Winstead and others as sex crimes rather than ‘scandals.’
As is often the case when we discuss crimes of this nature against women, we have it backwards. It is not on the (usually, but not always, female) victim to take “enough” measures to protect herself but rather on the (usually, but not always, male) victimizer to choose not to commit said crime.
Winstead quickly exited the social media stage again, but the message she left behind was clear:
Calling Mary Elizabeth Winstead (and other victims) a whore or slut, saying she asked for it, saying she should be grateful to be victimized, and making nasty or threatening comments toward her is just another degree of victimization. It’s one more way society dismisses women and place them on a lower social tier.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead clearly knows she didn’t deserve to be victimized, but that doesn’t excuse telling her she does.
