Read This

Take a moment to read this piece by lawyer and feminist writer Jill Filipovic on online harassment for women. I read it quickly yesterday when we published it but read it more carefully today. It’s bracing and upsetting. I’d like to say it’s shocking but I’m not sure I can. I get all sorts of flak in my line of work. And though I have developed an extremely thick skin there is a level of toxicity in it that enters your system no matter what you do. But in more than ten years of doing this I think I can count on one hand the number of times someone has even suggested they might do me some physical harm. And only in one of those cases did I think it was even remotely serious. Clearly, Jill’s experience – and that of many other women – has been quite different. And the point of her piece is that for women this harassment often skip off the rails of the virtual world into real life.