MAY 7 • 2020 | 19
B
irmingham artist Sarey
Ruden has had it with
online dating culture. All
of it, she says. The hate speech
women receive from men after
they say they aren’
t interested,
the trauma from cyberflashing
— receiving an unsolicited sexu-
al image — and, most of all, she
says, being silenced by dating
platforms for reporting abuse
and harassment that happens on
their sites.
Ruden’
s not alone in her out-
rage. Over the past 3½ years,
women all over the world have
connected through her art and
design project, Sareytales, to say
they’
re having the same experi-
ences.
They’
re drawn to Ruden’
s
creative response: to transform
ugly into art. She takes the cruel
and obscene messages men send
her, and turns them into clever,
conversation-starting graphic
design prints, sculptures and
photographs.
“I’
m subverting the narra-
tive,
” she says, “
and reframing
the words. ‘
You said this to me,
yeah, but I’
m doing something
with it that makes me feel pow-
erful and fulfilled.
’
”
Having connected with
female audiences and their
allies through pop-up art
shows, speaking engagements
— she hosted a TED Talk,
“The Art of Online Dating” at
TEDxDetroit’
s 2019 conference
— and on social
media, Ruden’
s
now launching a
week-long protest
to raise awareness
of what she calls
gender-based
injustices and
abuse on dating apps.
Women are routinely silenced
in digital spaces, she says, for
exposing cyberflashing; harass-
ing and threatening messages;
and unwanted sexual offers
from men. But what if there
were no women on dating apps,
she asks.
So from May 9-16, Ruden is
launching AWOL: All Women
On Line, a protest where she’
s
urged her 11,000-plus Instagram
followers and other Sareytales
supporters to go dark on their
dating platforms. Participants
can freeze engagement, ignore
their messages and even cancel
their accounts.
There’
s significance to the
launch date of May 9 — the
date the FDA approved the
birth control pill in 1960. “It’
s a
theme of hearing our voices and
not being silenced,
”
Ruden says.
“I want [dating
apps] to feel this,
” the
artist-activist says. “I
want them to see less
activity, to be made
aware there’
s an
issue, that people are unhappy
and there’
s injustice going on.
”
Online dating activity has
been on the rise since COVID-
19, according to media reports.
With many Americans being
asked to stay home, platforms
are producing new tools and
offering free special services.
But numbers released by the
Pew Research Center in early
February revealed some of the
downsides.
Nearly half of women who
date online say they continued
to be contacted by someone
after saying they weren’
t inter-
ested, compared to 27% of men,
the study says.
Forty-six percent of women
say they’
ve received an explicit
message or photo they didn’
t ask
for, compared to 26% of men.
The study of various age groups
also found that young women
ages 18-34 see the highest lev-
els of explicit communication
(57%), offensive name calling
(44%) and threats to physical
harm (19%).
Going dark on Instagram,
Facebook and Twitter was part
of the AWOL plan, but Ruden’
s
decided to focus only on dating
apps during COVID-19. People
need social media to work and
communicate with loved ones
right now, she says.
She gives a few examples of
the thousands of remarks that
have propelled her movement,
remarks she’
s collected and
made into art from her interac-
tions on sites like Plenty of Fish,
OkCupid, Match, Tinder and
Bumble.
• The Only Value You Have is
Women Protest Online Abuse
by Going Dark on Dating Apps
Local artist Sarey Ruden will lead a weeklong digital silence
in May to challenge online sexual harassment.
SARAH WILLIAMS CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Jews in the D
Birmingham artist Sarey Ruden
launched the AWOL Movement as part
of a larger effort to combat harassment
of women on dating apps.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF SAREY RUDEN
continued on page 20