Joke tweet gets called out as promoting rape culture

A tweet posted on Tuesday, intended as a cute story, has received backlash for promoting “rape culture.”

The tweet in question told of the Twitter user’s 13-year-old brother, who had been crushing on a girl since pre-school. The user called the girl dumb, and included shots from a conversation the young friends had on Snapchat.

In the chat, the brother had asked his crush if he could buy her something, and she said he couldn’t because they’re just friends, and “that’s what more than friends do.”

He then pushed that they could be best friends, and she declined again saying she already had one.

“Oh it’s ok don’t worry about it [sic],” he concluded, and a picture of his dejected face was added to the tweet.

One of the most popular responses to the tweet was from Connor A Miller (and has since been deleted), which called the young girl a “bitch” and asked where she lived, implying he wanted to shoot her.

Almost immediately, users jumped at the young girl’s defense, asserting that she had every right to say no, and that the boy should respect that.

This is a great example of how we raise boys to understand that a girl’s “no” is not a declarative statement. It’s negotiable.

— 🍒 (@delafro_) May 31, 2017

Many identified it as rape culture, referring to the way in which society normalises and promotes sexual assault, and ignores women’s control over their bodies.

This is rape culture, btw pic.twitter.com/3iYF07MvSN

— elexus jionde (@Lexual__) May 31, 2017

Some came to the young boy’s defense, deeming it not that serious because of his age.

girl they will grow out of it (hopefully)

— two ghosts (@mileyania) June 1, 2017

Nothing more than banter tbh

— Odera (@OderA__) May 31, 2017

But the argument to that was that teaching a 13-year-old persistence despite rejection is cute could lead to a resentment of women as he gets older.

So what y’all want is for the behavior that we have been taught to never be corrected or any teachable moments to happen on here. Lol.

— 🐛 (@krissiscribbles) May 31, 2017