Everything you always wanted to know about calling anonymous women sluts via Twitter but were afraid to ask

I'm pretty much just like celebrated Little League pitcher and female sports pioneer Mo'Ne Davis. Except I'm not good at playing baseball. Or 13 years old. Or ever included in the SportsCenter Top Ten. Or a paragon of moral rectitude. But she and I both got called whores on Twitter this week. There's that. And, yeah, that's pretty much all we have in common.

Point of clarification: I was called a whore. Bloomsburg University baseball player Joey Casselberry referred to Davis as a "slut," actually. He was reprimanded and even kicked off his college team for his tweet. Harsh, perhaps, but he was stupid and he made a choice. But of course, as the 24-hour news cycle collapsed around the story it quickly became Mo'Ne Davis' responsibility to fix the situation, even though she had no involvement whatsoever in either the tweet or the punishment. Davis contacted Bloomsburg University and asked officials to reconsider Casselberry's suspension. She publicly acknowledged that hey, people are sick of hearing about me and that is probably why this guy who doesn't know me felt it was okay to refer to me as a slut even though I am a mere child and he didn't mean it literally and I hope this doesn't affect the status of my Disney Channel biopic.

As I read the NPR story praising Davis for her benevolent actions, I honestly wanted to throw up. Not because I had any problem with what Mo'Ne Davis did or how she handled the situation, but because this is the messed-up way our society works. You're only allowed to be a little bit offended by misogyny (or racism or {{insert name of bad behavior here}}), and the responsibility always falls back on women (or people of color, or {{insert name of marginalized group here}}) to react in just the right way. It is NOT Mo'Ne Davis' responsibility to make Joey Casselberry feel better about acting like a jerk on the Internet. Except that it is.

The Internet is great for so many things -- getting life-changing information about how to peel a mango, for example. But it's also a great place to meet narcissistic psychopaths. I'm glad I'm not a famous female athlete or feminist author or movie star, because all those people get all day is Trolly McTrollerson Troll-Trolls. Despicable trolls. I would not even begin to try and compare what was said to me this week by an anonymous person with any of the abuse those aforementioned women have to endure just to be on Twitter.

But yes, this week I was told via Twitter to "Shut up, whore" for presumably no reason. I guess I was saying something annoying; I don't really know. I made a "sad trombone" joke about the NCAA tournament...? Four people favorited it. No one else complained. I dunno. The narcissistic psychopathic who contacted me, I think, believes he is funny. I didn't think he was. I blocked and reported him.

Do I think that, in referring to me as a whore, he is literally suggesting that I routinely sell sexual favors out of a minivan on the corner of 86th and Hickman? No. But that is completely NOT THE POINT. That's why he thought I was offended, though. Actually, it's why he thought my husband was offended; I had nothing to say about the matter, but my husband got a teeny tiny bit enraged. (God bless my husband, by the way, for things like this still bothering him; he has been living in a college-educated feminist man bubble for about 37 years. Also: Why am I putting all my family members in bubbles this week?). But of course the implication was obvious: I am the one who is supposed to tell my husband not to worry about it because if I am also offended by the "joke" then I'm just a crazy feminist.

Here's the thing about feminism and the Internet, though: Hardly anyone seems to understand what feminism actually is. (Thank you to The Onion for making this point hilariously last October.) I realize that not everyone shares my enthusiasm for podcasts about intersectional feminism or routinely studies up on infant feeding policy, but I do believe we all have a little bit of feminist inside of us. Today I call upon all citizens to embrace one simple piece of advice about relating to today's woman -- every woman, whether she's as nice as Mo'Ne Davis or as cranky as I am:

Don't call a woman you don't know a slut or a whore, even as a joke, even if anyone on Earth thinks it's even remotely funny.

And that is all. Have a nice weekend, everyone.