The Tinder Swindler and Why We Love to Hate Loving Women

“I think we like to believe that those women are stupid or greedy because to see them as otherwise; loving, caring, and trusting people who simply found the wrong person, would be to admit that the same thing could happen to us. ”

Last weekend, I watched the Tinder Swindler with my boyfriend. The documentary is two hours long, but the discussion we had around it took three hours. It mainly circled around victim blaming, and why as a collective culture we chose to so vehemently hate Cecilie Fjellhøy, Pernilla Sjöholm and Ayleen Charlotte for being conned into giving Shimon Hayut, or “Simon Leviev” all of their money.

What makes this comparison feel all the more stark is that the limited series "Inventing Anna" came out at the same time on Netflix. A show focused on unraveling Anna Sorokin, better known by her fake identity as German heiress, Anna Delvey. Inventing Anna follows journalist Vivian Kent – based on real-life journalist Jessica Pressler, whose 2018 The Cut article about Sorokin’s crimes inspired the series and uncovered the faux-socialites manipulative actions. However, followers of that show had only sympathy for the people that Anna defrauded; seeing them as unfortunate victims and loyal friends who were taken advantage of, rather than the opposite.

The response to both shows has been shocking, in particular because while essentially the situation is the same (master manipulator cons innocent victims out of thousands of dollars through deceit and by abusing their trust) the women that Hayut conned are seen as gold-diggers, shallow and greedy women who got what they deserved, while Anna's victims are seen as poor unsuspecting and overly generous kind-hearted individuals.

What is it about romantic scams that gives us permission to hate the women that fall for them? Why are we so quick to blame the women who are manipulated and abused into giving their life savings to a conman? To quote Cecilie Fjellhøy who gave over 100,000 pounds to Hayut, "if we were gold-diggers, we would be the worst ones in the world."

Historically, women haven't had access to financial independence until very recently. We haven't been able to own property, have our own bank account, and for a long time, we couldn't even control our own money. We were given allowances, or open accounts at certain stores where the men in our lives (our brothers, our fathers, our husbands) could carefully monitor what we spent money on. Futhermore, we weren't allowed to work, and so our value laid in what we could provide for our families, and namely, who we could marry. For a long time, women were a currency in a financial system that only valued (mainly, white) men as active participants. Our value lay in what sort of partner we could attract, and without access to our own money, it only made sense that we, or our parents, would look for a partner that could provide for us financially as much as possible. It's no wonder that we learned to value a man's wealth as a priority.

Hayut's victims were abused and attacked online for being gold-diggers, for only valuing his money over anything else. The documentary cruelly didn't focus on how long these women had been in romantic relationships with Hayut, some of them for over a year, in which he showered them with love and affection, and emotionally manipulated them into thinking he loved and cared for them. While many have said "it would be stupid to give money to a near stranger" wouldn't you think differently if it was your boyfriend who you've been seeing for 14 months? On top of that, the movie didn't do a good job of showing how psychologically challenging it can be to act rationally when you've been put into emergency mode, such as when Hayut told each of these women that he was in trouble, and that bad men were imminently out to get him. As women, we've been raised in this society to be carers, to value community and relationships. To try and turn off this innate responsibility in the midst of a crisis in which you think a loved one is in harm's way is nearly impossible.

I think we like to believe that those women are stupid or greedy because to see them as otherwise; loving, caring, and trusting people who simply found the wrong person, would be to admit that the same thing could happen to us. To punish and decry women for acting the exact way the way we are all supposed to act; to be loving to a romantic partner, to be trusting to someone they are in love with, is to say that we are stupid to trust our loved ones, or try to help them out when they're in need. It's saying that our kindness is a character flaw, and that our trust in people is a weakness.

What's ironic about this is that the men who are financially distrusting of women (assuming the women they are dating are just trying to take advantage of them, are trying to get their money etc.), who see romantic relationships as inherently suspicious and the kindness and cooperation required of relationships as a trap, will turn around and be bitter about women who embody the same characteristics. When a woman enters a relationship and is distrustful or cautious because she doesn't want to get scammed, she gets the #notallmen hashtag thrown in her face.

If a sex worker goes out and expects compensation for her time, her energy, and her body, she gets labeled a selfish, greedy, money-obsessed bitch. If a woman gets into a romantic relationship with someone who says that he loves and cares about her and needs her help, and she gives him money as a result, she's labeled a selfish, greedy, money-obsessed bitch. If she enters a romantic relationship with a man and as a result of her past trauma (or the learned trauma from other women's experiences) is slow to trust or reluctant to share financial responsibilities, she's labeled as a selfish, greedy, money-obsessed bitch. Whichever way, we can't win.