I was just four months into my role as technical editor for the UK’s most popular cycling magazine, Cweekly cycling, when a man who didn’t like content I produced asked his followers to comment on the private parts of my body. This resulted in a flood of sexually aggressive responses that left me feeling violated and questioning my decision to pursue a career in a male-dominated industry.
This first demeaning comment was part of a video criticizing a product test I participated in. Rather than specifying which parts of my work he didn’t like, the presenter invited his subscribers to make mocking and disgusting remarks about my anatomy.
The use of sexual slurs is a common tactic among a vocal minority of people who oppose journalism produced by women. Last year, a global survey of 901 journalists found that women are experiencing unprecedented levels of violence. violent and sexual harassment. A quarter had been threatened with sexual violence and death. These abuses, according to the UN, were aimed at “belittling, humiliating, shaming, instilling fear and ultimately discrediting women journalists”. Likewise, the recent Panorama documentary “Why do you hate me?” revealed to the public the sexual and violent abuse that affects women.
The reports are consistent with my experience: the harassment made me feel physically threatened and the instigator clearly sought to discredit my career. Very little of the abuse was directly aimed at my job, but instead focused on my appearance, my fertility, my husband, and our home. The campaign of insults and intimidation lasted almost a year.
When I tweeted my disgust at strangers’ lewd speculation about having sex with me (“like fucking a bucket”), I received a lot of support. However, the tweet has also become a magnet for grayed-out, faceless bots who utter terms clearly aligned with the Incel movement as well as other abusive content from the leader.
A series of videos deployed insults such as “more fucked up than Michelle’s vagina”, “more fucked up than Michelle’s career” and referred to a dishwasher called “Michelle…no, Miele!” a “good fucking kick” as punishment for “disobedience”. There was also a 10-minute rant that included claims that I had broken Covid guidelines on a bike ride, with the pre-lockdown date conveniently cropped from the screen; followed by jubilation at having searched my activity on Strava and annotated “every detail”. That’s when I started to feel physically threatened.
The final attack – published almost a year after the first incident – included two articles targeting not only me but also my husband. These showed our home address with photos of our house, an analysis of the parking situation outside, as well as screenshots showing the routes I used for regular bike rides – as well as false allegations of driving offenses based on reconstructed roadworthiness records, false accusations of using anonymous online accounts, as well as a completely fabricated story about my use of “feminist extremism as a cover-up” to hide my “infertility” and my “multiple failed IVF treatments”. The giant red flag of misogyny here is the assumption that a woman would, or even should, hide her infertility out of shame.
This content didn’t just affect me in cyberspace. Abuse and false allegations appeared every time my name was searched online, alongside our home address, which had very real repercussions for us, until we moved.
My response to this tsunami of hatred was to publish the facts in a post on my personal blog, intended to correct the false accusations made against me – such as driving without brakes and breaking Covid guidelines – which have damaged my career.
Meanwhile, trolls were scouring my Instagram profile, commenting on my smiling 2014 wedding photos “this woman is a cuckold”, elsewhere “you idiot”, and calling me a “whore”, a “feminazi” and a “toast » (see: Incel Culture). “You’re not just a bad person women, “You are a bad HUMAN,” one commented tellingly. I woke up every morning anxiously anticipating more abusive and unwanted direct messages or emails. I was either a slut to be shamed or a child to be belittled.
The Misogyny Detection Test: Should Men Put Up With It? And the answer here is no; None of my male colleagues have ever had to endure archaic accusations of infidelity, speculation about their fertility, sexually aggressive messages, or harassment from loved ones while doing their jobs.
If you are wondering why I didn’t contact the police, I can assure you I did.
Eventually, police visited the individual to offer “appropriate counseling,” assuring me that this would provide a paper trail in case the harassment escalated. But most victims are not so lucky: without knowing the name and address of the attacker, it is generally out of the question to provoke a police visit.
Negotiating YouTube’s generic reporting procedure proved fruitless. Once connected with a human being, things improved, but only after hours of diligently copying and pasting snippets of the company’s terms and conditions to his own employees. Reporting website pages to Google was an equally frustrating dance with an AI bot. The most help has been provided by my employer, Future Plc, in the form of weekly third-party counseling sessions as well as practical support; Not all journalists benefit from this level of support.
This is a problem that extends far beyond my own experience, and beyond gender, misogyny, sexism, and the Incel movement. The authors cite “free speech” as their free pass to defame and insult. I am a woman facing a relentless wave of online abuse – racism and homophobia are just as prevalent as misogyny and just as damaging. In one way or another, this hateful rhetoric affects us all.
It is the responsibility of social media platforms to stamp out egregious instances of harassment, hate speech and fake news. There is no doubt that they will need the help of law enforcement and governments to control the cumbersome beast they have created, with its algorithms so ingeniously tailored to generate polarizing echo chambers and a superficial discontent. In the meantime, it’s up to all of us to create content on social media that reflects the world we want to live in. Personally, for me, this world leaves no room for sexual harassment, violence or hatred.
—–
Writing about personal experiences can be difficult, thanks to the friend who gave his time to help me edit my thoughts. I have disabled comments on this article because I do not wish to allow any comments that could identify the people involved; it’s time to move on.