A Muslim woman had to involve the police due to the ongoing anti-Muslim and Islamophobic harassment she faced from a man on a dating app.
Having spoken with him initially, she had decided not to message further – his replies, however, grew more abusive and hateful – a mix of racist and misogynistic abuse.
He would write messages like “you’re not talking to me” before bombarding her with statements like “you’re a gold digger”, “you’re dirty and cheap”, “all Arabs and Muslims are dirty, cheap, and gold-digging”, and “you’re a bloody Muslim.”
Other statements shared with Tell MAMA include messages like “f****** Indian”, “stupid little girl”, and “you don’t even know how to speak good English, you dirty little sl**”. Other misogynistic abuse included a message where he called her a “b****”.
Speaking to Tell MAMA, she described how the abuse left her unable to sleep, adding that men act like this when women reject their advances.
The Metropolitan Police investigation remains ongoing, as Tell MAMA liaises on behalf of the woman impacted.
She described the perpetrator as being a South Asian male in his mid-to-late thirties, with the abuse beginning early last month, and consented for Tell MAMA to write this story anonymously.
More broadly, academics have explored the dangers of “gendered cyberhate“, misogyny, malicious trolling (and the personality-oriented characteristic of web trolls), racism on dating apps.
Much has also been writing about racism, fetishisation, and algorithmic bias on dating apps in the news media.
The intersection of misogyny with anti-Muslim hate and Islamophobia continues to be a critical trend in annual and research reports and case studies from Tell MAMA.
Whilst a clear majority of reports to Tell MAMA in the online world on Facebook and Twitter, we urge those who experience or witness abuse on other digital platforms – be it dating apps, newspaper comments, message boards, or other social media platforms to report in confidence or anonymously through the Tell MAMA app (for iOS and Android) or online.