The furor over “Hit the Bitch” now prevents you from visiting the supposed “anti-violence website” out of Denmark that allows a mouse-powered (and male-looking) hand to repeatedly
smack and slap a young woman.
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Instead, the following message appears at www.hitthebitch.dk:
“Dear
non-danish visitor: Due to an extremely high amount of traffic “Hit the
Bitch” has been limited to only allow users from Denmark. However,
domestic violence is a global problem, so please support the fight
against it in your local country. Thanks for your interest. Kind
regards, children Exposed to Violence at Home.”
The anti-violence advocacy group's website, which is meant to inform men that domestic
violence is unacceptable, suffered a huge backlash on the feminist blogosphere this week.
“This is straight up glorifying violence against women,” blogs Vanessa at Feministing. The violence on display is sexualized, notes Jezebel. “Color me unconvinced” that being called an idiot while virtually hitting a woman for 10 minutes conveys the intended anti-violence message, writes Jill at Feministe.
Sounds like a “Hit the Bro” website will be coming soon.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.