If you were on Mars this winter, let's summarize the "Abbreviation brother " controversy : it's the story of a tik-toker who is all the rage by interrupting the videos of other tik-tokers and summarizes in a few words the content of what they had to say.  End of the message : you have saved time of minutes and seconds thanks to this " abstract ".

We say thank you whom ? Except that the whistle-cutting tik-toker has an unfortunate tendency to " shorten " women's videos more than men's. And as a misogynistic misfortune never comes alone, his funny initial intention quickly turns into a pack effect when other users of the network seize on the meme " abbreviated brother " to cyberharass all those who annoy them or whom they would simply prefer to see shut up. Let's decipher!

Bad intentions ?

Behind the account " Abrège frère ", there is a debonair thirty-year-old who vigorously defends himself from having had sexist intentions. And there is every reason to believe it: few discriminate intentionally and deliberately cruelly. This is the general law of biases : they are essentially unconscious, and therefore not very dependent on good or bad will. On the other hand, they are very revealing of stereotyped socialization and the influence of collective mentalities.

It is therefore not very surprising that in the globally sexist environment of social networks (it is not us who say this but the figures relayed by the High Council for Equality), the initiative of our abbreviated tik-toker has benefited from a misogynistic sounding board... And that the impacts of all this are beyond him.

Is "abbreviating " women a novelty ?

But is the sexist dimension of " Abrège frère " in itself an emanation of " social media " culture? Not really ! In reality, it is furiously reminiscent of what is known as manterrupting. The concept was coined by essayist (and New York Times gender editor) Jessica Bennett to refer to the fact that women are subjected to obreptitious censorship consisting mainly of cutting them off, encouraging them to speak less, to be short when they express themselves (all against a backdrop of stereotypes about the alleged tendency of women to be " talkative ").

Yes, but we all know at least one woman who cuts off others, and men who are cut off (including by women). Except that the figures speak for themselves : according to a Brigham Young University/Princeton study, men hold 75% of speaking time in the world of work and women are cut off 23% more often than men.

" Abbreviated brother ", a blessing in disguise?

What if, in the end, the controversy surrounding " Abrège frère " was a great  opportunity to popularize this notion of manterrupting among the general public and above all to draw the attention of as many people as possible to this insidious dimension of ordinary sexism?

In any case, we can no longer say that we did not know that the field of speaking out and sharing is also strategic, when it comes to making equality effective.