Fredericton — Local activist Madison Hayes, who has spent the better part of the last two years waging an online campaign against restrictive beauty norms for women, is concerned that her Facebook friends refuse to comment on her profile photos to tell her how hot she is.
Hayes, 23, blogs frequently about society’s inability to see women as anything other than sexual objects, and recently updated her profile photo on the social media site to a carefully staged panorama of her standing on a beach in a bikini, facing the waves with her arms stretched out and hair flowing in the wind.
“That photo took about 19 takes. I had to make sure the bikini bottom was pulled up into the crack of my ass just enough to be, like, a sexy tease,” Hayes explained. “I still don’t have any likes on it. The only comment I got was from this cute guy at my old job who just said ‘I respect you as a woman and admire your work ethic’ — shit, that probably means he’s gay or something.”
Hayes, who once spent an entire weekend promoting the #EffYourBeautyStandards hashtag on Twitter and attacking anyone who fat-shames or slut-shames women, has been creeping other Facebook profiles and was sent into a jealous frenzy over one friend’s photos from a recent fundraising event.
“Amanda is short and chunky but she got 70 likes because, what, she’s wearing a fancy gown and got her hair done for some cancer charity thing,” said Hayes, who previously accused other women of having “internalized misogyny” if they can afford nicer clothes, or can flirt their way to free drinks at a bar better than she can.
On her Instagram account, Hayes broadcasts numerous photos of herself in the middle of everyday activities like drinking coffee or waiting at a bus stop, each time using a selfie stick with her phone pointing down at her, a technique she’s perfected “for maximum cleavage exposure,” she says.
“People think women want attention just because we wear revealing clothes, but that’s seeing the world through the male gaze, which is problematic,” says Hayes, who secretly just wants Jordan from the lacrosse team to comment “damn girl ur so hot” on one of her photos.
“It’s about accepting who you are, and making your other girlfriends jealous because you can rock a pair of yoga pants better than they can,” she said as she checked her Tinder account for new messages, only to roll her eyes at the young man complimenting the photo of her Slutty Princess Elsa Halloween costume.
“Ugh, what a pig,” she muttered.
At press time, Hayes was considering joining the #FreeTheNipple campaign in an effort to de-sexualize women’s breasts and also get the attention she so desperately craves.
“This is why we need feminism.”