In 2014, in Govan, I experienced something uplifting and inspirational during those final, febrile days of the Scottish independence referendum campaign. A group of working-class women, most of whom were struggling with a host of social challenges, were debating the constitutional future of their country with passion and eloquence and in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Like many other women during that wonderful campaign, they had gone from being passive outsiders to active participants.
There were some adverse reactions to this awakening, though, and some of them are still with us. On social media, professional female commentators, as well as women who simply sought to participate in online debates, were being subject to a sickening slew of violent intimidation. Much of this was grotesquely carnal and included threats of rape, sexual assault and plain violence. Vile claims about women’s sexual history appeared amid disparaging comments about their appearance and their intelligence. Male commentators, too, receive threats and a measure of unpleasantness, but most of it is from indolent lurkers who couldn’t fight sleep. None of it is as sinister and deliberately designed to degrade as the filth aimed at some of our female colleagues.
It’s too easy to say that this was a disturbing by-product of an intensely divisive campaign. Rather, it points to the fact that many men are still resentful and, yes, intimidated by strong and articulate women trenchantly expressing opinions which are wiser and better informed than theirs. More than two years after the independence referendum, it has been evident in the UK and Scottish elections and during the EU referendum campaign.
A clutch of strong and committed female journalists such as Angela Haggerty, Cat Boyd and the columnist and Nationalist MSP Joan McAlpine have attracted some of the worst online abuse, but many ordinary female voters were also threatened merely for having an opinion. It’s become symptomatic of the way in which social media has come to dominate political engagement in this country.
Distressingly, there is a view that holds that this is simply confined to politics, and that female journalists and commentators are somehow expected to have developed extra layers of emotional and psychological robustness to deal with the threats. Even if that were true, it would be unacceptable. It’s not true, though, for evidently there are more than just a small number of men who think that this sort of conduct is essentially harmless. It imprisons young women in the belief that this is just something to be endured. Consequently, some will be dissuaded from making a contribution to public life and many others will simply prefer to keep their mouths shut.
Last year the Guardian reported comments by Dunja Mijatović, the media freedom representative for the Vienna-based Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. She said that although male journalists were also subject to hate speech and online abuse, research suggested that females suffered “a disproportionate amount of gender-based threats and harassment on the internet”.
She cited the example of a female colleague whose phone number was shared on sex-dating websites, and her email and other accounts hacked. She also received death threats. I know of two female Scottish journalists who have also experienced this.
In the House of Commons on Thursday, the Scottish Nationalist MP Michelle Thomson described how she was raped at 14. Thomson, an engaging woman, recounted the details with a quiet dignity that reduced the speaker, John Bercow, to tears. She divulged this during a debate on violence against women. Going purely by the television footage, it looked like it was attended by fewer than 20 MPs, a mere handful of whom were men.
Thomson’s intervention came a day after the Scottish journalist Vonny Moyes confronted a male tormentor who shared nude pictures of her. She named the man on Twitter, declaring: “What’s gone wrong here is an abuse of trust and something ending up in the wrong hands, I refuse to be sex-shamed by you or anyone else.”
There were echoes of Michelle Thomson’s speech at Westminster when she said: “I’m not scared; I’m not a victim: I’m a survivor.” It was uncomfortable watching Thomson deliver her brave address, and not simply because I am a man. I began to realise, though, that this was the most appropriate place of all in which to share this intimate and shocking memory. By declaring it in the highest chamber in the land, she was ensuring its integrity, free from distortion or exaggeration. It also guaranteed widespread coverage. Her courage and that of Vonny Moyes will empower women and diminish the men who harbour warped views about them.
I am acutely aware that when a man approaches a subject like this, he must tread warily. Many of us lack the words and the sensitivity. No matter how sincere you think you are, it can be as dangerous as trying to cross a busy road howling with the drink. Every act of male sexual violence against women diminishes men, and not just because of the act.
Too often, our responses are inadequate. I felt shamed by Michelle Thomson’s courage because, if she hadn’t spoken up on Thursday, I wouldn’t have known that the debate had happened, save for a few cursory tweets by female colleagues.
Once more, this Christmas, I will light a candle for my daughters and for the daughters of fathers everywhere. And I’ll tell them that rape or sexual assault can never be the victim’s fault, and that there is never a point beyond which a woman can’t say no.
