There are several grounds on which Instagram stories fuck with my mental health. I get FOMO. I often envy people’s purported happiness — in their relationships, their careers, any sphere of life in which they might appear to be excelling faster than me. But watching people you know and like laughing and joking with your abuser(s) sparks a special kind of pain. 

Last week, Twitter saw a surge in private “lists of abusers” circulating around respective communities. The idea is that, as a woman, you can direct message the original poster to add to the list, and/or request the list so as to unfollow and dissociate with those on it. Adjacently, individuals are posting in solidarity: "DM me in confidence if I'm following your abuser,” for example, “I'll delete your message straight away and quietly unfollow." 

Many have spoken out over risks posed by the private list format. “Sick people are abusing this because they know ‘they won’t ask for proof’ and that it’s anonymous. A list is completely different to a female coming out and sharing her story,” wrote one user. “I don’t think it’s fair to put a load of names on a list of abusers and have no story to back it up,” wrote another. I’m reminded of Donna Rotunno, Harvey Weinstein’s contrarian lead defense lawyer, on the arguably flawed ethos of #BelieveAllWomen: “We’re just supposed to believe you without any pushback, or questioning, or cross-examination. I think that’s dangerous.”

Of course, “Believe All Women” – synonymous, according to its critics, with “Ruin Men’s Lives With Zero Proof” – manifest in large part as a straw man, stoked into bonfire by the right. It may be true that a broad maxim reveals little of the merits of an individual case; perhaps job losses and convictions, for better or worse, require more than a single anonymous tip off. But are women really to be told they can’t share details of their abusers with each other? And more importantly, what does it say about the state of our systems – about the very real fear of collective patriarchal reprisal that persists – when even post #MeToo, many of us would never dream of publicly outing the men who have hurt us? 

When women go public, research shows that social media is used to blame sexual assault survivors and perpetuate rape myths. Rarer still, if they decide to press charges, the benchmark for validation is proof of lifelong, unwavering morality: you’ve worn a thong before? You’ve sent a sext before? Nullified. The further women stray from the “perfect victim” (of which being white, cis, educated and palatable are all primary components), the bleaker their chances are.

When we speak out, simple human misjudgements are used against us to derail our experiences — even by people we know and love. I’ll never forget my conversation with a former boss about the obscene comments I was subjected to when a male superior drove me home one night. “If you didn’t have a boyfriend, you and I would have fucked in the toilets by now,” he’d said (sure, he respected my boyfriend, whom he’d never met, but the woman before him was a stretch too far). “In future,” my boss later told me, “you should think about the signals you’re giving off when you get in a man’s car.” I was 22, and umbrella-less in a thunderstorm. 

Current opposition to the private circulation of abuser lists – this emphasis on the importance of women sharing their stories – is plagued at best with delusion, and at worst bad faith. As though women “speaking out” about coercion, exploitation and the negation of their consent is by definition enough to overthrow the men imposing it. 

When recent reports broke of comedian Chris D’Elia’s grooming of underage girls, some Twitter users claimed they couldn’t be true; if they were, they’d have surfaced at the height of #MeToo. But therein lies the poignancy of the era’s presiding rhetoric: the rallying cries that ‘time’s up’, the media’s performative reverence of accusers’ bravery. A hashtag made it easy for the world to hear our voices, but “speaking out” was only ever the beginning. Without deep-rooted structural change and an inconvenient degree of commitment from men, women’s speech in and of itself never wielded the social, political and legal power the world’s attention purported to give it. So many of us didn’t bother.

For those that did participate in #MeToo, it was the inherently collective nature of a hashtag – the relief of individual accountability it imbues – that gave many of them the courage. “Accountability” is an ironic concept in this context, but it’s seemingly what cynics purport to be acting in favour of when they argue the right to rip an accuser’s life to shreds: accountability for the possibility she’s lying. By contrast, a hashtag is a mechanism specifically designed to detract the emphasis and attention away from a solitary statement, positioning it instead as part of a broader, singular thought. A woman adding her voice to the thread becomes visible at the relevant moment, while the rest of her life remains unseen. Unscrutinized.

As long as our systems remain stacked against us, safe spaces for women to share details of their abusers – to warn each other collectively and anonymously, away from the wrath of spectacle and scrutiny – is vital. Critics may ask, is it fair for men’s names to be tarnished by these lists, without proof or stories to back it up? I ask, is it fair that unfollowing these men is the best we can do in response? Is it fair that we hold such a dismal degree of power over the ubiquitous violation of our bodies?

That said, if these lists do achieve the depletion of friends and followers for certain men – and more women, in turn, are spared that special pain of seeing acquaintances, friends and colleagues associating with their abusers online – at least that’s something.