So the once Mighty Telegraph is resorting to articles telling men not to be mean to women on social media. This fucking hilarious video is the basis for this piece:
These homos had me howling with laughter. Pitiful, pathetic creatures.
These homos had me howling with laughter. Pitiful, pathetic creatures.
Quote:Quote:
Call me crazy. Say I’m sentimental. But I don’t think any one of us should have to wake up in the morning to a stranger saying “You’re fat, and no-one wants you.”
It’s very hard to have a positive, productive, happy day when someone you don’t know and you’re never going to meet has gone out of their way to track you down on the internet and shout at you.
These are the first words I saw when I opened my eyes a few days ago, and instinctively reached for my phone to check Twitter, as my husband snored beside me.
I felt fat. I felt unwanted. Even though this stranger appeared to have a huge bottom, a very narrow head and no facial features - if I were being cruel, I’d say they looked as though they’d fallen out of a chicken - I wondered what they’d seen in me that had made them hate me so much.
Even though I was desperate to reply (“Honestly, I’m just big boned!”) or retweet to my followers, saying “This is the s*** that I, and any woman who has the audacity to have a voice, has to put up with every single day.”
I resisted. Instead, I blocked, reported, and muted, knowing that Twitter can’t do more than suspend the account, and @BadEgg will live to hurt more women on a different day. If I’d have done more than that, several well meaning people would have got in touch to say “Just ignore it. Don’t feed the trolls.”
I am so bored and sick and tired of being told to rise above it. “Don’t feed the trolls” is more patronising than “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” It shows a lack of empathy and compassion. It’s not going to stop the angry egg mob.
That’s why I’m delighted by a short film made in the US by the Just Not Sports organisation.
Called #MoreThanMean, it shows two female sportscasters, ESPN’s Sarah Spain and Sports Illustrated’s Julie DiCaro, in conversation with a range of male fans. I say ‘conversation’ but it actually involves those men reading out some of the most hateful, misogynistic tweets sent to the two women.
These men are not the authors of the original tweets, but they look shamefaced and horrified as they deliver the insults. The mildest is one read to Spain: “I hope your dog gets hit by a car, you bitch”.
It escalates. One man has to tell DiCaro - who has spoken publicly about her own sexual assault - “I hope you get raped again.”
Another reads: "I hope your boyfriend beats you".
The readers struggle to deal with words in front of them, offering stuttered apologies “for people everywhere”, murmuring “I can’t even say that,” and “I’m having trouble looking at you while I’m saying these things.” While the two women appear genuinely shocked and upset.
The video, which has been viewed 2.2 million times so far, finishes with the words: “We wouldn’t say it to their faces, so let’s not type it.” The hashtag #MoreThanMean is trending globally.
Sadly, we're all too used to hearing about women working in sport being targeted with cruel and misogynistic insults. In February, BT Sport presenter Lynsey Hygrove was subjected to a torrent of sexist abuse online after giving her opinion on a controversial penalty - she was effectively slated for doing her job.
And only this week, British Cycling organisation were forced to launch an official enquiry after track rider Jess Varnish alleged that she’d experienced sexism and bullying in Team GB – something that her peer Victoria Pendleton backed up. Technical director Shane Sutton has since resigned from his position. Former FIFA chairman Sepp Blatter didn't even attend the final of the Women's World Cup last year.
We should be doing everything we can to encourage more women to play sport and take up public facing roles, but the odds seem to be stacked against us.
In 2014, two Twitter trolls were arrested for posting hateful, abusive messages to the writer and activist Caroline Criado Perez. Everyone from MP Stella Creasy to Chloe Madeley has been threatened with rape online.
But nothing seems to have changed in the last few years - trolling is as bad as ever, and as women we know that when we complain about it, we risk being dismissed, told we’re attention seeking, and expected to block it, dismiss it and smile as though it never happened.