Until my thirties, I belonged to a WhatsApp group that included several old friends from school. It wasn’t a political group, but one member occasionally posted political material. Over time, his contributions became aggressively right-wing, eventually running to far-right memes about asylum seekers and Muslims, interspersed with sexist “banter” about women.
Typically, these posts would be met with stony silence. Tumbleweed blew past and a chorus of metaphorical crickets rang out. Two or three times a week, another offensive meme would appear, receive no response, and remain there until the conversation moved on. Whatever he made of our silence, it plainly wasn’t discouraging him.
Eventually, somebody told him to stop posting this “shit”. He promptly flounced out of the group.
I can’t say whether the exchange caused him to reconsider anything. But it did achieve something that repeatedly ignoring him had failed to do: the posts stopped. Those of us who hadn’t objected might have considered our lack of enthusiasm sufficiently obvious. We had never actually told him that his contributions were unwelcome.
The old group chat came to mind last week when I was reading about the allegations at Cornell University. A former student says that seven fraternity members sexually assaulted her in October 2024. Her lawsuit includes a Snapchat message allegedly advertising “free pussy” to other fraternity members. Lawyers for two accused men have denied involvement in sexual assault; some men told university investigators that sex was consensual or that they were uninvolved.
As should be obvious, an offensive meme and an alleged gang rape are vastly different things. We also cannot infer what every recipient of that message saw or understood. But it raises a disturbing question about the reception its sender anticipated. What would make someone expect that describing a woman in these terms would be acceptable to his friends?
It is tempting to assume that private conversations reveal what men really think: once women are no longer present, politically correct declarations of respect are rapidly dispensed with. Sometimes that really is what happens. Yet, this explanation leaves out those men (perhaps the majority) who dislike what is being said but take the easy way out, allowing it to pass by saying nothing.
Research by Craig Haslop and Fiona O’Rourke at the University of Liverpool helps explain this reluctance. Their study of British lad cultures describes young men sharing and rating photographs of women in private chats. Some participants recognised the misogyny but struggled to challenge their friends because they wanted to fit in. One spoke about turning a deaf ear to sexist and racist remarks. These were qualitative accounts, rather than a representative survey, but they suggest that belonging can take precedence over disliking the group’s behaviour.
There may also be an element of what psychologists call the bystander effect. When several people could intervene, each can feel less personally responsible for doing so. In a group chat, you can put your phone away and leave the conversation to somebody else. If everyone who dislikes a post does that, its author never encounters an objection.
Other research suggests that men may misjudge other men’s attitudes. In online experiments, sociologist Tagart Cain Sobotka found that men believed other men were more sexist than themselves. Someone might therefore overestimate the opposition he would encounter if he spoke up, while his silence encourages others to make the same mistake.
None of this means that every unpleasant WhatsApp group contains a frustrated majority of male feminists. Some men clearly get a kick out of humiliating women. Others simply don’t care. In the case of our old WhatsApp group, silence did not always mean we were privately appalled. But whatever our reasons for saying nothing, the practical result was that one person took encouragement and continued posting.
I would hesitate to make a general claim that men fear confrontation more than women. But one reason we find it harder to speak up is that it changes the terms of the conversation. Among men, affection is habitually expressed through jokes, so a serious objection can leave you feeling exposed. You have admitted that something bothers you – a grave violation of some unwritten masculine code.
In a group accustomed to taking the micky, who will be brave enough to introduce an unwelcome earnestness? And even if you do, whatever it was that prompted your objection can become secondary to why you are making a fuss. Everyone else is having a laugh, apparently, so what’s the big deal?
Friends who will cheerfully ridicule a man’s haircut can be reluctant to question how he talks about women. The first is understood as part and parcel of the friendship. The second risks being interpreted as a repudiation of it, or a claim to moral superiority.
There is also the matter of shared history. Someone you have known since school can become a very different person without the friendship ever quite catching up. You still think of him as the boy you knew and make allowances you probably wouldn’t make for a stranger.
This is why simply urging men to talk more seems so inadequate. They may already be talking constantly. Group chats sustain friendships through moves, parenthood and long stretches without meeting. A stupid photograph can be an affectionate reminder that an old friend is thinking of you. There is plenty worth preserving, including the freedom to be silly.
Those friendships should also allow someone to object without putting his membership of the group in doubt. The response need not be elaborate. “That’s out of order” will often suffice. Taking the mickey can work too: “Did you get that one from your uncle’s Facebook page?” might puncture the reception someone was hoping for without requiring a solemn speech. The point is to make his behaviour the subject of the joke, rather than joining in at somebody else’s expense. A private conversation afterwards may help, particularly with an old friend who might listen more readily without an audience. But some disagreement should appear where the original post appeared.
It would help if the next man backed the objection. Leaving someone to argue alone, then privately assuring him that you agreed, preserves the awkwardness that makes it so difficult to speak up in the first place. A brief expression of support lets everyone see that the objection is shared.
Persistent behaviour may warrant expulsion from the group. Anything suggesting coercion or an immediate risk of assault requires urgent help for the person at risk. The response ought to reflect the seriousness of what is happening.
In our WhatsApp group, the individual in question eventually chose to leave. That was hardly a triumph of persuasion, but persuasion was not the only thing at stake. The rest of us were entitled to a civilised conversation without it being derailed by racist and sexist material. It should not have taken as long as it did to establish that. We didn’t need everyone to confront him. Somebody did, however, have to say something.