Ladies, if you'd sooner give that creepy guy at the bar a left hook than your phone number, here's some advice.
Give him some bell hooks instead.
A group called Feminist Phone Intervention has set up fake phone numbers that will answer callers with quotes from feminist writer bell hooks. The service has automated numbers set up in a handful of major North American cities, including a Canadian one with a Toronto area code. The hotline reads the quotes in a robotic text-to-speech female voice, then disconnects the call.
So the next time a guy gets overly aggressive, slip him this number on a napkin: 647-496-0921.
"Sometimes people try to destroy you, precisely because they recognize your power – not because they don't see it, but because they see it and they don't want it to exist," says one phrase.
"Whenever domination is present, love is lacking," says another.
The moniker bell hooks (lowercase intentional) is the pen name for Gloria Watkins, whose list of feminist writings includes “Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism.”
A Tumblr site for the hotline explains it's meant to offer women an option to safely evade unwanted advances. "Protect your privacy while dropping some feminist knowledge when your unwanted 'suitor' calls or texts," the site says. "Because we're raised to know it's safer to give a fake phone number than to directly reject an aggressive guy."
In an interview with the Independent newspaper in the U.K., the site's anonymous creator says the movement came in response to California shooter Elliot Rodger's rage-fuelled rampage last month. Rodgers posted a number of anti-feminist rants to YouTube before going on a shooting spree in Isla Vista near the University of California on May 23. He killed six people and wounded 13 others before he killed himself.
The Feminist Phone Intervention page has nearly 20,000 comments and likes.
"When we started this phone line, we had no idea that it would receive thousands of calls in the first day, with no signs of slowing down," reads a message on the Tumblr page.
There are six phone numbers set up so far, but Feminist Phone Intervention says it plans to add more options and more messages in different languages.
Existing hotlines include:
Toronto, Ont. (1-647-496-0921)
New York, NY (1-917-512-2833)
Chicago, IL (1-312-697-1778)
Monterrey, Mexico (52-81-4170-7141)
San Jose, CA (669-221-6251)
