At what point would your dream job become your ultimate nightmare?
Would it be when you received your first threat of rape? Or your second, your third? What if you became the target of rape threats every day, with so many such threats made in so many corners of the Internet you couldn’t possibly keep track of them all?
That’s the reality facing some women in public life. It’s often a reality facing any woman with a strong, opinionated public profile.
It’s a reality former prime minister Julia Gillard shared yesterday at a memorial service for the late British MP Jo Cox, who was murdered in the lead up to Brexit vote back in June.
Gillard told the service threats of violence have become more common for women in public life
“Once upon a time, to criticise a public figure, you generally had to put your name to that criticism,” she said
“They can take the form of detailed death threats, or threats of violence against family, friends and staff.
“And of course, as a woman in public life, the violent threats take on another sickening dimension. Threats of violent abuse, of rape, are far too common. A woman in public view may expect to receive them almost daily.”
Gillard also shared her own experiences of sexism and misogyny, saying it’s impossible for female politicians to win on the question of family.
“If you do not have children then you are characterised as out of touch with ‘mainstream lives’. If you do have children then, heavens, who is looking after them?
“I had already been chided by a senior conservative senator for being ‘deliberately barren’.”
I heard a male political commentator say yesterday that surely to ‘expect daily violent threats’ isn’t the case. It must be an exaggeration. But it’s absolutely not. I know from the number of comments that would come through on Women’s Agenda stories about Gillard’s leadership — the comments that thankfully got caught in the backend of our commenting system (which we’ve since removed in favour of simply using Facebook) — that numerous comments about rape and other disgusting things would often come through, from both men and women. That’s just on Women’s Agenda. One teeny tiny part in the Internet. Imagine everything else out there on blogs, on Facebook, Twitter etc.
At this point I’m not sure how we change that. The internet’s given such comments a free pass, it’s lowered the barrier to entry for rape threats and other written abuse. Previously disgruntled constituents had to physically mail such things, they had to put a name to them. While education might be key to minimising such attacks in the future, it’s still clear that any woman in public life, sadly, has to have a very tough skin — as well as a great handle of the ‘block’ function.
