Summary
On November 6, Nigerian men infiltrated feminist groups, misrepresented their messages online, and organised hundreds of men to doxx and harass the women in the community.
When women dare to express their anger about male violence and abuse, men’s response reveals the true nature of patriarchal control in digital spaces. The recent events in Nigeria’s Twitter space starkly demonstrate how men systematically work to silence women’s voices while defending perpetrators of actual violence.
In a calculated attack that unfolded on Twitter on November 6, 2024, male infiltrators spearheaded by @societyhatesjay penetrated private feminist groups such as Feminist Witches and Just Feminists, where women were processing their trauma and expressing justified rage against their abusers. These men, pretending to be women together with their female allies, captured screenshots of women’s raw emotional responses saying they wished to kill their abusers, deliberately stripped them of context, and weaponised them against the entire feminist movement.
Moreover, they strategically cropped these messages from another mixed-sex group where a member expressed her heartbreak at how men trivialise their rape, and Kummie responded with “Why men go rape fellow man? When woman full school,” a popular statement often made by Nigerian men on Twitter in response to male rape. Thus, the men shared the responses without context to create a false narrative of organised violence when, in reality, these were isolated expressions of pain from survivors.
Furthermore, the orchestrated nature of this attack became clear when these men simultaneously released personal information about these women, including phone numbers, pictures, and addresses. The consequences were swift and severe, with hundreds of men flooding these women’s WhatsApp with rape threats and death threats, calling their families to harass them, and in several horrifying instances, showing up at their homes.
The coordinated nature of this response reveals how men unite to protect their privilege against abuse while punishing women who dare to speak against it.
Meanwhile, Jay, the man who orchestrated this doxxing campaign, himself was revealed to be making multiple rape threats in July alone and faced no similar consequences. This stark double standard illuminates Andrea Dworkin’s observation that:
“Men have defined the parameters of every subject. All feminist arguments, however radical in intent or consequence, are with or against assertions or premises implicit in the male system, which is made credible or authentic by the power of men to name.”
The system protects its own while crucifying those who challenge it. More disturbingly, some women joined this witch hunt, positioning themselves as “real feminists” while helping men terrorise their sisters. Some of the comments include:
“It’s really pissing me off cause this isn’t what feminism is about. And because of dumb girls like this, They’re the problem feminism faces. People will always see “feminists” as bitter, man-hating people. It’s an embarrassment.”
These class traitors, seeking male approval, became willing instruments of patriarchal violence. Their betrayal exemplifies what feminist scholars have long observed: that patriarchy’s most effective weapon is turning women against each other, destroying any possibility of class solidarity that might threaten male dominance.
Also, as Precious said, “My issue with statements like ‘I’m a real feminist, I don’t hate men’ or ‘I’m not a Twitter feminist’ is—who are you trying to convince? Who needs to hear this for you to feel more ‘acceptable’?”
The hypocrisy becomes even more glaring when examining how society responds to actual male violence versus women’s words. While men maintain entire digital networks dedicated to sharing non-consensual intimate images of women, society fixates on policing women’s verbal expressions of anger. As Dworkin pointedly stated, “Men’s rights to act cannot be infringed, while women’s rights to speak are constantly under attack.”
This pattern of silencing reaches beyond social media into every sphere where women attempt to create safe spaces for dialogue and healing. Men demand access to these spaces while simultaneously working to destroy them, demonstrating what feminist theorists have long argued, that male supremacy requires not just the subjugation of women but the active suppression of their resistance.
The digital age has given men new tools for this suppression, allowing them to mobilise harassment campaigns with unprecedented speed and reach. Yet they maintain plausible deniability by hiding behind screens while their victims face real-world consequences. This cowardice reveals the fundamental weakness of patriarchal power–it cannot withstand direct confrontation with women’s truth.
Moreover, this systematic silencing serves a broader purpose: to prevent women from recognising their common experiences of male violence and organising against it. By attacking individual women who speak out, men send a message to all women: stay silent or face destruction. This isolation and intimidation strategy aims to prevent the development of female class consciousness.
What these men fear most is not individual women’s anger but the potential for collective female rage to disrupt their power system. Their violent reactions to women’s words betray their deep insecurity about maintaining control. These attacks will likely intensify as women continue to create spaces for sharing their experiences and building solidarity.
However, their escalating attempts at silencing only prove the power of women’s voices. Every coordinated attack, every betrayal by female collaborators, and every double standard in how society treats male violence versus female anger only serve to validate the radical feminist analysis of patriarchal power. Our rage is justified, our solidarity is threatening, and our voices will not be silenced.
