“Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me” has been a stock response to verbal bullying since the 1860s. It may be a little antiquated but it is one of the phrases I have often encouraged women to take courage from, as I have given talks up and down the country. I have talked of standing fast and being courageous if they are saying or doing something they believe is right. “Let the name calling, whispers behind their backs, jeers and sneers wash over you.” That was until the torrent of abuse I received after my Article 50 challenge against the government last year. A torrent of the ugliest words constructed into venomous sentences that made me question the Britain I live in. I realised that the line between words and physical violence can fast become blurred.
Laura Kuenssberg interviewed me after my High Court win and as I was leaving the set she said, in a whispered tone, words to the effect of being sorry about the abuse I was getting, that it was not just about me as it goes with the territory, that it was normal. These sentiments have been repeated to me by female politicians who have security at their weekly surgeries or at hustings, female journalists, presenters and experts; even the female lawyers and QCs connected with my case were singled out for “special” treatment.
As I read with great sadness and solidarity that Laura herself now has security due to the severity of threats against her, the question is—what has she done to deserve this abuse? She is an award-winning journalist who has risen from local radio reporter to the first female political editor of the BBC. This appointment has cracked the glass-ceiling in news media, and she should be celebrated as a role model. She is a woman who is doing her job of asking politicians difficult questions (that they can be all too eager to evade), being sceptical and reporting her findings to the nation. The answer is therefore that Laura has been doing her job.
“The poison is spreading, quickened by the syringe of social media”This is not to say that men in similar positions do not receive threats and abuse; what they rarely receive are the sexist threats or attacks on their appearance or attire. There are types of particularly poisonous phrasing reserved just for women. Add in elements of race, colour or ethnicity and the torrent becomes animalistic. When the threats include detailed violence against your children, real fear sets in and the words can break you.
As a society we need bright, articulate, hardworking, ambitious, feisty women taking on the bastions of masculinity, who will inspire young women to do the same; not because we are feminists but equalists. But why would women want to put themselves in the firing line when they see the abuse endured by myself, Laura and so many others? When you are reduced to questioning whether you can leave your home, if you can go out with your children in case they are endangered by being with you, assessing which social event you can safely go to? When exercising the freedom so many women in the past have fought for could end in your death?
This poison is spreading, it is seeping into the veins of our country, quickened by the syringe of social media. The examples go on forever. The young female lawyer who wrote to me of the time she was making her way to work and as she waited at the bus stop in her smart suit a group of young men verbally abused her and said her place was at home “keeping her man sweet.” The gang rape threats, the burning your pretty face threats; what of the women who cannot afford bodyguards or whose employers cannot put security measures in place?
The time for a national intervention is long overdue. We need politicians, media owners, editors, commentators, business leaders to all think “what if that was my daughter, mother, sister, wife?” The people who appear to get a thrill from spreading this bile, especially on social media, must feel there is a threat of punishment, a price to pay for their actions. As the great parliamentarian Edmund Burke said, “the only necessity for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” In the case of protecting women, this appears as true today as it was 200 years ago.
