Tag: Misogyny

Now it’s the National Women’s Law Center.

Starting in just 10 minutes we'll be tweeting with @ABetterBalance to support pregnant people in the workforce! Join us with #PDA38!

— National Women's Law Center (@nwlc) October 28, 2016

Starting in just 10 minutes we’ll be tweeting with @ABetterBalance to support pregnant people in the workforce! Join us with #PDA38!

The National Women’s Law Center avoiding the word “women.” When talking about pregnancy.

38 years after the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, too many people are still forced to choose between a paycheck & a healthy pregnancy. #PDA38

— National Women's Law Center (@nwlc) October 28, 2016

38 years after the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, too many people are still forced to choose between a paycheck & a healthy pregnancy. #PDA38

It’s the National Women’s Law Center. They’re allowed to talk about women. They have to talk about women, if they’re going to do what their name indicates they’re going to do.

Tell Congress to ensure reasonable accommodations for all pregnant people at work: https://t.co/yFiCVtFSQh #PDA38

— National Women's Law Center (@nwlc) October 28, 2016

Tell Congress to ensure reasonable accommodations for all pregnant people at work: http://bit.ly/1QudXzn #PDA38

They’re helping to erase their own constituency.

Who else does this? Who else is this stupid and masochistic and self-abnegating? No one! Anti-racism activists don’t do this, LGB rights activists don’t do this, labor activists don’t do this, nobody does this except women. And everybody else looks on approvingly as women compliantly erase themselves at the behest of others.

The National Women’s Law Center is going to have to re-name itself the National People’s Law Center. No feminism for you.

More bro culture and its hostility to women, from Gemma Clarke.

Football has a problem with women. It was there every day, in every training ground, every stadium and every press box I entered. The five years I spent working as a football journalist were so steadily and fiercely degrading, they very nearly destroyed me.

A good day meant being belittled, having my knowledge questioned, or my attire, or being complimented on the quality of the pastries at half-time because I stood too close to the catering table. A bad day meant being harassed, phoning a player for an interview to be told he was naked and intending to discuss a very different kind of performance.

I could try and recount all the times I was pressed up against or lunged at or spoken to or about with unbridled vulgarity but, after a while, it became so commonplace that I stopped noticing it. And therein lies the problem.

It’s appalling and it’s utterly commonplace. This isn’t right. It should not be routine and normal for women to be treated as contemptible underlings rudely keeping their own genitals out of the hands of the real human beings, men.

This is a world where normal rules appear not to apply, as the Ched Evans case demonstrates. In the regimented world of football, freedom is what happens in dark nightclubs and dim hotel rooms: freedom from coupledom, from fatherhood, from accountability.

Freedom for men, in short. Men only. Not women.

Locker-room banter is boardroom banter is press box banter is standard banter in every corner and corridor of every institution in the football world. Locker rooms should not be safe spaces in which sexism and misogyny are free to exist. Discrimination of any form should be challenged.

It should. That’s a big job. We may be some time.

Peggy Orenstein looks at Trump the pussy-grabber as one bead in the necklace of temporary outrage.

In each case, by the time it’s over, we turn away from the broader implications toward a more comforting narrative: The perpetrators are exceptions, monsters whom we can isolate, eliminate and occasionally even prosecute.

Certainly, such behavior is not representative of men, not by a long shot. Yet neither is it entirely atypical. Sexual coercion, in one form or another, is as American as that baseball metaphor — a metaphor that sees girls’ limits as a challenge boys should overcome.

And this isn’t anything new. Those struggles in the back seats of cars have been a staple of movies and sitcoms since…well maybe since movies began. And before that it wasn’t the back seat of a car, but it was The Seducer.

Orenstein has been talking to boys about their attitudes to sexuality lately. What she learned is not surprising but it’s depressing as fuck.

One 19-year-old in Northern California, for instance, told me he’d spent the summer working at a bicycle shop. The all-guy staff whiled away their days talking in what he described as “incredibly degrading ways” about girls. At the printable end of the spectrum, they referred to the cafe down the street, which was entirely staffed by young women, as “the Bitches.” As in, “Hey, you want to go grab coffee from the Bitches?”

Funny thing – last night when channel-surfing I watched a few minutes of Philadelphia, including the scene in court where Tom Hanks explains why he never told the partners at his law firm that he was gay. There’s a flashback to the scene he describes: a row of naked men with towels over their groins lounging at an athletic club, telling jokes. The first joke we hear is: “What do you call a woman with ESP and PMS?” “What?” “A bitch that knows everything.” Roars of manly laughter.

That wasn’t even the point – the point was the next joke, the homophobic one.

[A]ccording to Michael Kimmel, the author of “Guyland” and a sociologist at Stony Brook University, silence in the face of cruelty or sexism “is one of the ways boys become men.”

That’s what Deborah Cameron said in her post on Trump – talking about women that way is a bonding exercise for men.

Trump should not be the end of the conversation, Orenstein points out.

“Don’t sexually assault women” (or, for that matter, “Don’t get a girl pregnant”) is an awfully low bar for acceptable behavior. It does little to address the complexity of boys’ lives, the presumption of their always-down-for-it sexuality, the threat of being called a “pussy” if you won’t grab one, the collusion that comes with keeping quiet. Boys need continuing, serious guidance about sexual ethics, reciprocity, respect. Rather than silence or swagger, they need models of masculinity that are not grounded in domination or aggression.

They do, but…

…but I can’t feel much confidence that would do any good, because guidance is all very well but they will still always end up with each other, rolling their eyes at the grown ups and showing how cool they are by rejecting all that pussy-whipped “guidance.”

So, Sincere “women and femmes” Kirabo included a link for the “femmes” part: a link to What We Mean When We Say “Femme”: A Roundtable. So let’s read it. It’s guaranteed to put us off our dinner, but let’s read it anyway. It’s from July, so not too out of date yet.

Femmes. We live in different places. We’re different ages. We have different gender identities. Some of us are people of color, some of us are white. In this representative sample, we are Autostraddle writers, or artists, or musicians, or educators, or all of these things. The only thing we have in common is that we’re queer and that, in our own deeply personal way, we breathe life into the word femme.

So the word is meaningless. It doesn’t name anything, because of the infinite (and oh so impressive) variety of femmes. Femmes have “different gender identities” but they’re all femme – can you make sense of that?

Come on. “Femme” is French for women; it’s a subset of lesbians; it means girly, or feminine. Except – wait! – it means that but in a special, new, complicated, thrilling, woke, correct, impressive, don’t you wish you were as cool as we are way.

When did supposedly leftist politics become so entangled in personal vanity and peacocking? When did it become just a way of saying “I’m special and you’re not”?

This shit is about as left-wing as Bonwit Teller.

But like so many other differences, we don’t agree on what the word femme means to us. This is the beauty of gender fluidity. We live in a world where it is totally possible to claim the same word as someone else and completely disagree on what the word means.

It means everything! And nothing! It means so everything and nothing that we can have round tables about it, and bore each other senseless discussing it!

But above all, it means we get to tell women how fucking conservative and useless they are, and to get out of our way.

There are people today who are angry, they think that only women should call themselves femme. They think that if you’re not a lesbian or bisexual woman and you’re calling yourself femme, you’re contributing to an erasure or appropriation of the history of lesbian and bisexual women. These people are talking in a really binary way. In my observation, it seems to be a generational thing. But the people who are most affected by these opinions are trans women or transfeminine people, and I feel like if trans women and transfeminine people are telling you that you’re doing something fucked up, cis women should listen to that.

Of course you do. That’s the whole point, isn’t it – telling women they’re wrong, and fucked up, and the wrong generation, and just generally awful, and should shut up or better yet go away and die. And it’s so radical and woke and wonderful to say that. It’s the best political idea ever.

On the idea that an older generation of people think only women should claim the word femme: I’m 36 years old and I find that kind of restriction on “femme” to be abhorrent and willfully cruel. No femme friends of mine — and I’m lucky that they are numerous — believe anything like that, and many of them are my age and older still. If they did, I’d dump them on the spot! The “erasure of lesbian history” narrative is weak and fearful, that’s all. If it takes you longer than a millisecond to know the answer toDo I want to be weak and fearful or do I want to be kind?, then I haven’t got time for you.

Right? Right? Right? Women are so shitty, aren’t they? They’re just the worst. We all hate them. Femmes are much better than those shitty horrible women people. Ew.

On a more positive note, I think of femme today becoming more inclusive as an acknowledgment of what already was rather than a new reclamation. It always feels new once you realize who you are and choose not to hide it! I’d love it if we all welcomed non-cis femmes into the light with open arms and a friendly “What took ya so long?” knowing full well the answer, and knowing how brave you have to be as a femme in this world.

Yes!!!! Let’s hate and banish all the cis women, and welcome all the non-cis femmes, so that there just won’t even need to be any women any more. They can just do all the cooking and toilet scrubbing, and let the rest of us get on with being awesome and woke.

***********

Damn, that’s only about a tenth of the way down the page. I’m not going to read all this shit.

But that’s where we are now – we’re at the point where people are calling themselves “femme” and shitting on women in the same breath. We’re at the point where people are pretending it’s the height of social justice to do that. We’re at the point where the Social Justice Coordinator of the American Humanist Association (really) rewrites Women in Secularism so that it’s about “women and femmes.” Maybe in a week or two it will be renamed Femmes in Secularism.

Via the brilliant Glosswitch on Twitter – buzzfeed and Elle are giving advice on how to rock that binder. Yay, let’s go back to squashing women’s bodies again! And this time let’s pretend there’s something social justicey about it!

Buzzfeed:

For many people, wearing a chest binder is simply part of the daily routine in this thing called life. But it can be a real strain, both mentally and physically.

So can foot binding, or wearing a corset. Here’s a thought: don’t do it.

There are tons of reasons to bind. Many people find that wearing a binder helps ease the discomfort that comes along with gender dysphoria.

Are we sure about that? Are we sure none of those claimed “many” just don’t entirely like parts of their bodies, without having anything severe enough to be called dysphoria? And what about the rest? Are they doing it because being “queer” is trendy and being a horrible titty woman isn’t?

So what are you doing to ease the misery caused by this business of squashing your breasts?

Maybe you make sure you are binding safely — wearing the proper size and taking care not to wear it longer than you need

Maybe the fact that binding can be unsafe, and that there’s an improper size, and that it’s possible to wear it too long – maybe all those facts should hint that wearing a binder is not all that healthy and maybe you just shouldn’t do it.

Elle:

A few months ago, Kim Kardashian posted an Instagram of herself in the gym wearing a corset by shapewear brand Ann Chery. After I got past the white leggings, I had to know more: What was that corset for? A quick Google search and deep dive into the #waisttraining hashtag gave me my answer: Kim was using this device to attempt to cut down the midsection of her already infamous body-oddy-oddy.

That device is also known as a faja, or a girdle, popular in South America. Ann Chery is known for them. A few years ago, The New York Times reported on the trend of women wearing fajas as a “shortcut to an hourglass figure,” and Jessica Alba credits wearing corsets with helping her shed baby weight.

So of course the Elle reporter Danielle Prescod had to do the same thing, so she did.

About 10 days in of waist training, I start to notice something: Waist training gives me a bad attitude. It makes me irrationally mean. I am irritable, cranky, and short-tempered. I am sending rude e-mails. I am blank-staring at jokes, when I could just give a polite giggle. I am walking away in the middle of conversations when I’ve just had enough. It’s the corset—I realize that it’s controlling me. The other thing is, I’m hungry. Actually, I’m HANGRY. The corset is so tight and constricting that I find myself skipping meals. The bladder issues are out of control. I have to pee every 10 seconds. Still, I persevere. Why? Because I am obsessive and crazy and I want a waist like Kim’s. So I accept it. I ignore it.

My rage prevents me from saying anything coherent about this.

Amanda Marcotte posted this publicly on Facebook:

I never check my message requests, but apparently I should. Do you think I should report this guy, or is public shaming enough?

I looked at his wall and found another screenshot:

I also saw that he’s quite popular in the “atheist community.”

We can at least warn people.

Whitman-Walker Health posted on Facebook about its “Safer Sex for Trans Bodies” guide, the one that says women have front holes while trans women have vaginas. A woman commented to say it’s misogynistic to call vaginas front holes.

Whitman-Walker Health replied.

Whitman-Walker Health In developing the content of this guide, Whitman-Walker and HRC held focus groups and discussions with members of the transgender community and physicians to identify terms that were used within, and supportive of, the community. We aimed to make the language in the guide most affirming of all different bodies, transition, gender identity, and gender expression. We chose to use “front hole” in the place of “vagina” for that reason. Many trans men and non-binary individuals do not consider themselves “women,” so using the term front hole is not aimed at erasing womanhood, but providing vocabulary for the unique trans experience.

A dishonest reply. They didn’t use “front hole” in the place of “vagina” alone, they used use “front hole” in the place of “vagina” for women and “vagina” for trans women.

Mind you, it would still be misogynist if they had used “front hole” for both…but they didn’t.

The Guardian reports that police in various bits of England and Wales are considering the creation of a category of misogynist hate crime.

The initial success of Nottingham’s crackdown against sexist abuse has drawn national interest after the city’s police revealed that they investigated a case of misogyny every three days during July and August, the first months to see specially trained officers targeting behaviour ranging from street harassment to unwanted physical approaches.

…

Dave Alton, the hate crime manager for Nottingham police, said: “The number of reports we are receiving is comparable with other, more established, categories of hate crime. We have received numerous reports and have been able to provide a service to women in Nottinghamshire who perhaps wouldn’t have approached us six months ago. The reality is that all of the reports so far have required some form of police action.”

Incidents reported by Nottingham women ranged from verbal harassment to sexual assault. Initial claims from sections of the media that wolf-whistling would be reported by women have proved unfounded. So far, two men have been arrested for public order offences and actual bodily harm in incidents classified as misogynist.

It’s tricky. There are good reasons to resist making everything a crime…but at the same time, relentless street harassment can make life hellish for women.

The force defines misogyny hate crime as “incidents against women that are motivated by an attitude of a man towards a woman and includes behaviour targeted towards a woman by men simply because they are a woman”.

The new classification means women can report incidents that might not be considered a crime and the police will investigate.

Last week it was revealed that prosecutions relating to violence against women and girls in England and Wales have reached record levels amid warnings that the increasing use of social media is fuelling the rise. Campaigners believe misogyny is spilling over from the virtual world of the internet into the real world.

It would be very odd if it weren’t. Internet misogyny trains a great many men and boys to have contempt and loathing for women, and there’s no obvious reason that wouldn’t spill over into the real world.

Irene Young on Facebook a couple of days ago:

There is criticism this morning that Hillary Clinton did not smile enough last night during the NBC Commander in Chief forum. I have a 2-part comment about this.

First, Trump NEVER smiles and is NEVER personable, yet there is no mention of it.

Secondly, I say this not just in response to this campaign, but because of my 40 years as a pro photographer in the independent music business with over 600 CD covers to my credit. It is just a fact. I have seen and heard it a million times. If men don’t smile in their photographs, it’s considered cool and strong. If women don’t smile, even if the photograph is stunning, the feedback they get from friends and family is usually, “Why aren’t you smiling.” In other words, why aren’t you “Sugar and spice, and everything nice?”

Don’t get me wrong, an openness in photographs is wonderful and powerful, and I love it. However, there simply is a double standard. Hillary Clinton probably does not keep a constant smile for many reasons. First of all, she is taking this race very seriously. Secondly, she may be getting fed up with the email questions over and over and over, and over, and over. Thirdly, she smiles when it is appropriate, not just for show. And lastly, she may just be tired of the misogyny, but she cannot say it. I am saying it for her, because I am with her, because I am for America.

Another possible reason: she knows very well she would look idiotic if she smiled every second, because she’s not running for Clown or Hospitality Officer or Cheer Up Everbodyer or flight attendant or  server or Giggler-in-chief. She’s running for a very serious grown-up job, and she has to be serious some of the time. She’s damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t.

The Telegraph reports an ugly story out of France.

Two families on a cycle ride in Toulon, southern France, came under violent attack after assailants hurled insults at two female partners for wearing shorts, according to prosecutors.

The attack, carried out by a group of youths from a housing estate in the Mediterranean port town, has sparked claims that parts of France are prey to an Islamist “morality police”.

There were two couples, three children and a friend, out on bicycles and roller blades.

They were passing near the Cité des Oeillets, an estate in eastern Toulon, when a group of adolescents starting insulting the women of the group because of their shorts, including jibes such as: “Dirty whore, get naked.”

When their male partners sought to intervene, a larger group of youths arrived and a fight ensued, according to the Toulon prosecutor; Bernard Marchal.

Women are not public property. Women don’t need random people on the street telling them how to dress.

The attack comes a month after an 18-year old girl was spat at and insulted by a group of girls who found her shorts indecent.

Maud Vallet posted a Facebook picture of herself in shock afterwards with the caption: “Hello, I’m a slag”. The post received over 81,000 “likes”, or signs of readers’ anger and sadness over the incident.

She recounted asking her taunters: “Why are you calling me a whore because I’m wearing shorts while a man can walk around the centre of town bare-chested without anyone saying anything?”

She said they replied: “Because you’re a woman and should respect yourself, you idiot.”

Women are not public property. Women don’t need random people on the street telling them how to dress.

I’ve been watching the reactions to the reporting of the murder of Clodagh Hawe and her three children for the past few days. Allison Morris at The Irish News sums it up.

THE backlash following some of the fairly appalling early reporting of the murder of a mother and her three children in Cavan by a knife wielding maniac has by now – I hope – stimulated some real debate about domestic violence and the kind of men who beat and murder their partners.

An outpouring of sympathy for a man who acted savagely but was eulogised as a ‘pillar of the community’ was quite frankly sickening.

Clodagh Hawe and her three sons Liam, Niall and Ryan were initially treated like collateral damage in the life and death of Alan Hawe.

Or even as a tragedy that happened to him. He murdered them, yet the sympathy was for him.

Such was the backlash on social media with the #HerNameWasClodagh trending that journalists were forced to defend the reason why the murdered mother of three wasn’t initially pictured in the coverage.

It turns out that journalists spent two days knocking on doors and making phone calls trying to find a picture of her.

In an age where it’s almost impossible not to leave a digital footprint that alone raises questions.

Like: did he discourage her from having friends, going out, doing things?

I’ve friends who lived through years of domestic abuse, one a successful business woman kept it from her friends and family for years.

It was only when she was left in hospital with serious injuries that she stopped covering up for her partner.

He was handsome, professionally successful and publicly attentive. She had spent years being told how lucky she was to have such an adoring partner while secretly hiding what was happening behind closed doors, partly out of fear, partly of of shame, stigma and embarrassment.

He had to almost kill her before the truth finally came out.

And women see the way this murder was reported, and how do we think that works out?

Given the almost iconic status bestowed on a multiple murderer in Cavan last week is it any wonder women suffer in silence.

Would the people who had Alan Hawe on a pedestal have believed Clodagh if she had spoken out?

Irish Mirror

Heads we win, tails you lose. Jon Boone reports from Islamabad:

Family members accused of killing Samia Shahid, a British citizen who divorced and remarried without their permission, planned to use Pakistan’s much-criticised “blood money” laws to forgive her killer, a report into the case has alleged.

Police findings say the 28-year-old was the victim of “premeditated and cold-blooded honour killing”, which her family had hoped to get away with by exploiting Islamic laws the government has repeatedly promised to scrap.

The laws in question allow family members to pardon people who kill other family members – which of course makes “honor” killing risk-free: Daddy kills his daughter and her brother pardons Daddy. Everybody’s happy except the daughter, but she was their property anyway so that doesn’t matter.

Under Pakistan’s 25-year-old blood money laws, the guardians of murder victims can forgive their killers in return for compensation, even though family members often conspire with each other to commit such crimes.

Rights campaigners say the effective impunity created by the laws has helped fuel the problem of so-called “honour killings”. There were more than 1,000 such killings reported to police last year, although the real number is thought to be far higher.

Pakistan keeps saying it’s going to scrap those laws, but somehow the lawmakers never get around to it.

The report said Samia was sufficiently worried about her security not to tell her family when she was arriving and to arrange to be collected from the airport by a childhood friend, with whom she left her passport and return ticket as a safety measure.

The report said they decided to kill her the day before she was due to return to Dubai, having failed to persuade her to stay in Pakistan.

Shakeel was said to have confronted Samia in an upstairs bedroom of his large house in Pandori and demanded to know where her passport and return ticket were. After she refused to tell him, he attacked and raped her, the report said.

While trying to leave the house and threatening to alert the British government, she was confronted on the stairs by her father, it was claimed. Shakeel then strangled her with a scarf while her father held her legs, the report said.

That’s her father and the “husband” he forced on her.

Pakistan’s government has won international plaudits by repeatedly promising to reform the blood money laws in a move that could trigger angry opposition from some hardline clerics. Sharif promised to take action in February after a Pakistani documentary about “honour killings” was nominated for an Oscar.

In July, Sharif’s daughter, Maryam, said the law would be changed “within weeks”. While a bill is ready to go before both houses of parliament, no legislative action has been taken.

No problem. Take your time. There’s no hurry.

Planned Parenthood. A tweet.

Menstruators in New York started to #TweetTheReceipt celebrating the repealed tampon tax—but some are still charged. https://t.co/xnY5IaUZta

— Planned Parenthood Action (@PPact) September 2, 2016

Women. The word is “women.” Not “menstruators.” Women menstruate; men don’t.

Planned Parenthood should not be erasing women.

The BBC reports:

A comment in which a transgender Tory councillor was called “he” by a Labour rival is being treated as a hate incident by police.

Zoe Kirk-Robinson, 35, said Guy Harkin, 69, referred to her twice as a man in a debate at a Bolton Council meeting.

The hate crime ambassador, who transitioned 10 years ago, said the comments on 24 August “hurt a lot” and she reported them to police.

Mr Harkin has apologised. Police said “hate incidents are not tolerated”.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said it will resolve the incident, which was reported on 25 August, using restorative justice.

Mr Harkin said he “inadvertently referred to her as a he” during a debate about pensions at the meeting where more than 60 councillors, press, council officers and the public attended.

Hate incidents are not tolerated. Really? You could have fooled me. There’s certainly a hell of a lot of tolerance for men calling women cunts and twats and bitches.

Ms Kirk-Robinson, who has stood as Conservative councillor for a year, said: “All I’m looking for is an apology and a chance to say why this is inappropriate.

“To have someone attack me, for being me, it’s deeply upsetting.”

Interesting…Here’s Kirk-Robinson on Twitter a couple of years ago:

https://twitter.com/ZoeKirkRobinson/status/504231494475595776

Note that the BBC referred to Kirk-Robinson as “the hate crime ambassador.” She seems a tad misogynist for a hate crime ambassador.

And speaking of sex-segregated branding, a friend on Facebook alerted me to the story of the Yorkie chocolate bar.

YORKIE – IT’S NOT FOR GIRLS!

In case we don’t understand the words or don’t know how to read, there’s also a stick figure with a skirt and a purse, with a line through her forbidden self. NO GIRLS.

Brilliant marketing, isn’t it, telling half your market NOT FOR YOU.

The Yorkie bar is famous in the UK for its former tag line: “It’s not for girls.” Nestlé first launched the slogans “Don’t feed the birds,” “Not available in pink,” and “King size not queen size” in 2002, but the bar has always been targeted at men ever since its inception.

Ahahaha – don’t you love the quirky British sense of humor? So sophisticated, so ironic, so hilarious.

It’s odd, though, that they didn’t think to say it’s only for WHITES. Wouldn’t that have been even more sophisticated and ironic?

No, I’m just pretending to think that. Of course they didn’t think to say that, because it would have been outrageous. But to say it about women? That’s just quirky laddish humor.

The whole point of women is to be machines for sucking the penis.

A giant banner sign posted at a home near the University of Cincinnati campus asking “Your daughter got a gag reflex?” has area residents, returning students, and alumni upset, saying it represents rape culture. They’re demanding the university take swift action against those responsible.

“Rape culture” isn’t even adequate to name that. It reduces female humans to literally nothing but holes for men to use as penis-pumping devices. I’m naïve enough to think that’s not the sum total of what girls go to universities for.

Michelle Cottle at The Atlantic warns us to be ready for a new avalanche of misogyny. Hahaha we’re already in that – she must mean a new even bigger avalanche of misogyny.

Raw political sexism is already strutting its stuff. At Donald Trump’s coming-out party in Cleveland, vendors stood outside the Quicken Loans Arena hawking campaign buttons with whimsical messages, such as “Life’s a Bitch—don’t vote for one” and “KFC Hillary Special: Two fat thighs, two small breasts… left wing.” One popular T-shirt featured a grinning Trump piloting a Harley, grinning as Hillary tumbled off the bike so that you could read the back of Trump’s shirt: “IF YOU CAN READ THIS, THE BITCH FELL OFF.”

That’s not new though. We mouthy women who do our being mouthy online have been getting that kind of thing for years. There are lots of people – some of them women – who have no hesitation about raw political sexism. (Many of them have a lot of hesitation about doing it under their own names though. That might mean they would face consequences, and that wouldn’t do.)

The home-crafted humor was equally tasteful, like the guy in a Hillary mask brandishing a large “Trump vs. Tramp” sign or (my personal favorite) the conventioneer who put together an elaborate “Game of Thrones”-themed ensemble incorporating a life-sized, inflatable Hillary doll—naked, of course.

Social media is awash in references to Clinton as a bitch, among less-flattering terms. “Trump that Bitch!” T-shirts are this season’s must-have couture at Trump rallies. And how about the tween boy yelling, “Take the bitch down!” at a recent Trump event in Virginia? Pure class.

Cottle says don’t go thinking it will get better after the election. Nope, no worries, I wasn’t going to. I’m well aware that there are countless people who are entirely happy to do this kind of thing forever.

One of the most annoying parts of all this? It can be tough for women leaders to push back against sexist attacks without inviting even more sneering. “You can try to call people out on it, but you have to be a little bit careful,” said Huddy. “People will say you’re playing the woman card, that you’re a crybaby, that you can’t handle it.”

That you’re “playing the victim card,” as Richard Dawkins actually said to me a few months ago. The irony is thick. We’re attacked for being women, and then attacked again when we object to being attacked.

“Sexism is more socially acceptable than racism,” said Jennifer Lawless, of American University. Multiple women, in fact, brought up a couple of examples from Hillary’s 2008 campaign. One was the low-grade sexism of some in the mainstream media. (MSNBC’s Chris Matthews is still considered the worst offender, with his “Nurse Ratched” crack and gripes about Hillary’s “cackle.”) Then there were the two hecklers at a New Hampshire rally who waved signs and chanted, “Iron my shirt!” Clinton laughed it off, and the incident was reported mostly as dumbass 20-something guys acting like dumbass 20-something guys. But if someone had yelled an equivalently demeaning remark at Obama—like, say, “Shine my shoes!”—the public response likely would have been very different.

Gillard agrees. “In some ways, I think we put a burden on women in the face of gender attacks that doesn’t necessarily play out in the face of racist attacks,” she told me. Take the episode with the anti-tax protesters, she said: “I have made the point since that, if Australia had an aboriginal Australian prime minister and the opposition leader went and stood in front of signs that said, ‘Sack the black,’ or inserted any of the dreadful words we have for aboriginal Australians, it would have been a career-ending moment. And if an indigenous Australian prime minister had complained about that, I don’t think people would say, ‘Oh, he is just playing the victim.’ But that is what gets said about women who complain about sexism. There is an added kind of layer that women leaders are just supposed to take it on the chin and not complain about it.”

Wearying, isn’t it.

A British Tory MP with Trump-envy, perhaps – Philip Davies gave a talk at a men’s rights conference to explain what spoiled bitches women are.

Philip Davies, the Conservative MP for Shipley, delivered a 45-minute speech at the International Conference on Men’s Issues, organised by the Justice for Men and Boys party (J4MB).

Davies, who sits on the Commons justice committee, told the conference at the ExCel centre in London that Britain’s justice system was skewed in favour of women and discriminated against men.

He sounds nice.

Davies, a pro-Brexit campaigner who backed Andrea Leadsom for the Tory leadership, appeared alongside anti-feminist bloggers who have likened the activist Malala Yousafzai to Osama bin Laden and called single mothers “bona fide idiots”.

Thus demonstrating that they don’t know what “bona fide” means. (Hint: it’s not another word for “genuine” or “authentic.”)

J4MB is led and was founded by Mike Buchanan, a former business consultant who retired at 52 and launched campaigns such as the Anti-Feminism League and the Campaign for Merit in Business, which actively fights against initiatives to improve gender diversity in the boardroom.

After thanking Buchanan at the conference, Davies delivered a speech on “the justice gender gap”, arguing that the British justice system favoured women and discriminated against men.

“In this day and age the feminist zealots really do want women to have their cake and eat it,” he told the conference. “They fight for their version of equality on all the things that suit women – but are very quick to point out that women need special protections and treatment on other things.”

J4MB issues awards for “lying feminist of the month”, “toxic feminist of the month” and “whiny feminist of the month”, and promotes inflammatory articles on its website including a piece titled 13 reasons women lie about being raped.

Abusively misogynist, in short, like Paul Elam’s nasty outfit. It’s disconcerting to see an MP cozying up to them.

Davies has voted against equalities legislation, argued against equality targets in the workplace and once tabled a private member’s bill that would have repealed the Sex Discrimination Act 2002.

He once claimed that men struggled to be heard in parliament, a view for which he was publicly criticised by the Labour MP Jess Phillips.

Davies told the conference: “I don’t believe there’s an issue between men and women. The problem is being stirred up by those who can be described as militant feminists and the politically correct males who pander to this nonsense.

“It seems to me that this has led to an ‘equality but only when it suits’ agenda that applies to women. The drive for women to have so-called equality on all the things that suit the politically correct agenda but not other things that don’t is of increasing concern to me.

Trump envy.

Janet Bloomfield, a supporter ofWomen Against Feminism – a social media campaign featuring photos of women with pieces of paper listing reasons for rejecting feminism – also addressed the conference. She has called single mothers “bona fide idiots” who don’t care about their children’s wellbeing, and writes blogposts with titles such as “Why Don’t We Have a Dumb Fucking Whore Registry? Now That Would Be Justice”. She has dismissed the concept of “rape culture” as “a giant rape fantasy”.

So now, in a salute to his claim that “the feminist zealots really do want women to have their cake and eat it,” there’s a Facebook group of Feminists eating cake. It’s photos of women stuffing their faces with cake. WE WIN.

More on the endless loop of misogynist abuse of women who campaign against misogynist abuse:

Melanie Jeffs and Lydia Rye led research into hate crime in Nottingham which resulted in the city’s police becoming the first in the country to recognise street harassment as a hate crime earlier this month.

Both have since been subjected to personal threats, claims they were “not attractive enough” to talk about street harassment and posts telling them to “get cancer” at the rate of up to 100 messages a day.

One commenter told the pair he wanted all women to feel like “the retarded gutter trash that they are”, after a BBC reporter had sexual obscenities hurled at her while reporting on sexism on Nottingham’s streets.

Another loop.

Rye, the head of Nottingham Citizens which is the city’s branch of Citizens UK, [is] shocked at the lengths people went to to attack her online.

“I was stunned people went to the effort of finding me on twitter and even going via the Citizens UK website comment box to point out that I really wasn’t attractive enough to speak on this issue so I should just shut up.”

One user, apparently from America, posted on the Citizens UK Facebook page that if he ever visited England he would “make sure every woman I see there is treated like shit”.

He allegedly wrote: “I will make them cry for even looking at me. I will make them run away with no regard to their feelings. I will purposely make them hate every day this law remains in effect… If this ever becomes law in America, I will make every woman, not just the ones who want this law feel like the retarded gutter trash that they are. There will be no peace.”

Why “allegedly”? The user isn’t named, so why “allegedly”?

Jeffs and Rye were involved in the ‘No Place For Hate’ report, the largest piece of peer-led research into hate crime ever carried out in Britain. It was commissioned by Nottingham Citizens and backed by three MPs, and found that 38% of women reporting a hate crime explicitly linked this to their gender.

Police followed its recommendation and recorded misogyny as a new category of hate crime this year, alongside abuse directed at people because of their religion, disability or sexual orientation. Nottingham Citizens is calling on other forces around the UK to do the same.

It’s funny to think it’s a “new” category. It’s a very god damn old category, is what it is – but the powers don’t like to recognize it, because it’s so very pervasive and commonplace. There’s irony for you.

Both agree the abuse was a ‘power play’ reaction from men who do not like women who speak out or challenge them.

“Some men expect women to maintain their position in society as subordintate and public spaces, whether in real life or online, as men’s space,” said Jeffs. “When women speak up and try to threaten that, of course there is a comeback.

“No one in power willingly gives up that power – and we have to remember that men still have that sort of power in our society. And of course the fact that I don’t look ‘feminine’ or try to attract male attention is also threatening and disruptive to the status quo – hence why this is what they focused on.”

“I think trolling is seen as sport, and there’s a whole group of men in particular who see this as a game and a power play,” said Rye.

“It feels like there’s a belief that we’re not equal or perhaps even fully human to them so it’s legitimate for them to treat us this way. Plus its online so its easier to hide who you are which is why I think its often threatening sexual violence rather than the broader – but still unwelcome – sexual comments you might get whilst out and about.”

It’s self-feeding and self-perpetuating. They have contempt for women, so they broadcast their contempt, which feeds and nourishes their contempt. It keeps growing and growing, like something in a horror movie.

The circle of abuse. There’s no escape, because if you try to do anything about abuse, the abuse intensifies. The abusers are busy demonstrating that to Melanie Jeffs in Nottingham.

A woman who helped launch a police campaign to record misogyny as a hate crime has received hundreds of abusive messages.

Melanie Jeffs said one person “threatened to put a machete” through the back of her head.

Nottinghamshire Police has received 22 reports and made two arrests since recording misogynistic hate crimes.

They included verbal abuse, threats of violence, assault and unwanted physical contact.

Ms Jeffs, centre manager at Nottingham Women’s Centre, said she was “stunned” by the volume of tweets and messages posted on Twitter and Facebook.

I hope she paused to appreciate the irony though. She says misogynist abuse is a hate crime, so the misogynist abusers ramp up the misogynist abuse. It’s enough to make a cat laugh.

She said: “They ranged from the ridiculous to some that were quite aggressive.

“One person said I should get cancer, I had somebody threatening to find me and tie me up and lots of comments about my appearance.

“There is one that I’m having discussions with the police about, but most of them I just brushed off.”

She said “people think it’s completely acceptable to target women in this way”.

They do. A truly astonishing number of people think that.

Ah look, she did pause to appreciate the irony.

(Notice how very far from ugly she is. She’s not the slightest bit ugly; the difference between the photos is that she’s not self-consciously performing Hawt, and she hasn’t dressed and shaped her hair with a view to being that which is currently deemed Hawt. Merely not performing Hawt doesn’t make a person ugly.)