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Couple of years back when Laurie Drew posed as a man to befool teenager Megan, who would subsequently commit suicide, women posing as men to date with women was a very underreported and unfocussed issue. When I picked up this very issue of women posing as men to harass women earlier in my book “Cyber crime and the Victimization of Women: Laws, Rights, and Regulations”. Hershey, PA, USA: IGI Global. ISBN: 978-1-60960-830-9 , I noticed that one of the main causes behind such behaviour for women was a burning desire to take revenge on her victim.... jealousy.....thy green eyes.... The perpetrator woman generally feels extremely satisfied when she realises that she is driving the victim woman for nothing else but utter emotional disaster. Drew posed as a boy to give Megan a feeling how unworthy she is in the eyes of a boy.....a would be man, who would subsequently approve the worthiness of a woman. Most feminist scholars have argued since long against this very apparently (un)disputed truth. But this remains a fact for a majority of women and men alike. The reason behind such a nasty game by Drew was nothing but the anger, frustration and jealousy which arose due to her own daughter’s not so friendly and comfortable relationship with Megan.
But note that I have used “one of the main cause” to describe my reasoning behind the issue. Apart from jealousy, there is something else which also drives women to play this nasty game. Imagine when a woman poses as a man just to have fun at the cost of the emotional distress of another woman! Don’t think that such behaviours are abnormal for women; but in reality, such trend is growing. I do get to see couple of reported cases where women, mostly younger women play this fun game. Putting on the shoes of the opposite sex and playing with other women as charming prince in dating sites and also social networking sites is no more uncommon now. I refuse to believe that this could be the result of “penis envy” only, a Freudian psychoanalysis term. Probably this might call for deep research on cyber psychology; but something in me tells that this could also be the result of acute loneliness in the wrongdoer as well as the victim. The ‘man’ woman unknowingly falls in the self created trap when the victim woman senses something wrong with the camouflaged identity. Not to forget the trail of private investigations, police complaints and even the risk of being banned by the website itself..... the perpetrator ‘man’ woman may become a victim herself as she may invite open threats regarding her sexuality, sexual orientation and following gradual out casting by the virtual society on which she would have depended heavily to change her monotonous life.
It is high time ‘man’-woman that you go ahead with some other positive productive leisure activity, for the painful crash of your imaginary ‘flight’ to the reality-ground may become extremely hard to cope with.
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