A new website capitalizes on the cliche that "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."
ShesAHomewrecker.com encourages wives and girlfriends to "expose" the women their partners cheated with -- posting the "homewrecker's" full name, location, photograph, and in some cases, even their phone numbers and addresses.
"They say if you can’t beat them join them, but we say if you can’t beat them, EXPOSE them," the website's "About" section reads. "Don’t forget to include photos! We LOVE to publish pictures of the Mistress who is driving you mad!" The site also has a Facebook page with over 240,000 fans, where women who suspect their partners of cheating seek advice and justify retaliating.
Most of the posters' and readers' collective fury is directed at the "other woman" -- not the partner who cheated in the first place. This makes the entire site feel incredibly mean-spirited. And really, does seeking out and shaming these "other" women actually do anyone any good, or does it simply perpetrate the myth that women are catty towards each other?
As Jezebel's Kate Dries points out: "Despite the horrible stories [these women] tell, you can't help but feel like they're the mean ones, not these whores sleeping with their partners."
In an August 2013 blog for the Huffington Post, Tracy Schorn cautioned readers against staging a public confrontation after you discover a partner has cheated. "The point is to get away from them both and stop giving your cheater and the affair partner your precious mental energy," she wrote. "You know what says 'you are beneath contempt'? Filing for divorce. Letting the cheater have the affair partner. Walking away from this lets you maintain your dignity and self respect."
Dignity and self-respect are two things seriously missing from this site.