 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

