Appearing on Question Time last Thursday, Cambridge professor Mary Beard debated the effects of immigration with a disgruntled audience member. In the days that followed the programme, Beard was bombarded on Twitter and other sites with what she describes as “truly vile” abuse.
Men and women are both victim to trolling. One of the most violent critiques of Beard's appearance on Question Time came from website Don't Start Me Off, which named the Cambridge don its 'Twat of the week'. Most previous recipients of the much-coveted award are male, including Keith Vaz, Tony Blair and Nick Clegg. The language used to describe them is not the stuff of Disney films (Ed Balls: “This cretin is one of 160bn reasons not to vote Labour.”) But when applied to women, online abuse often takes on a more sinister facet; on Mary Beard, the same website speculated on the size of Beard's vagina, length of her pubic hair and whether she needed 'rogering'. The abuse the faced on Twitter focused as much on her appearance, as the things she actually said. One man suggested she get her 'roots done'.
But this reaction to Beard was not a freak event, it is part of the widespread phenomenon, that a woman cannot be judged without reference to her sexuality or gender. Take, for example, this week's coverage of Barack Obama's inauguration. Whilst the media covered Mr Obama's rousing speech on social equality and national pride, Harvard law graduate Michelle Obama was reported to be “the talk of the town” thanks to her bold decision to rock a fringe. This was not the Mail Online's coverage, this was BBC News. For a woman in public life, gender is never irrelevant. A successful woman isn't just a successful person, but a 'career woman; if a female is assertive she is a 'strong woman', never just a 'strong person'. And this misogyny exists everywhere and at every echelon of society: a distinguished Cambridge don is equally part of it as the thirteen year-old girl in her school uniform who gets honked by a van man on her way home.
Many women feel that they are not in a position to shout back. However, Beard was so angered by the abuse that she decided to speak to the press about it; she told Radio 4 today that she didn't want to “shut up and take the abuse”, in the way that women have been told to do for “millennia”. As a result of Beard's speaking out Don't Start Me Off has been shut down. Whilst this is great news, it is not so easy to shut down the sentiment that fuels abuse like that suffered by the academic. What we must take from his debacle is the value of saying, in Beard's words, “No mate, that's not on”. Above all else, women should not be put off being opinionated in public, it is only through seeing intelligent, successful females that the thirteen-year-old school girl will learn to validate herself by more than honks from passers-by. Question Time should be full of opinionated, knowledgable, powerful people, who just so happen to be women.
To read Funny Women founder Lynne Parker's Huffington Post article about Mary Beard from April 2012 click HERE
Hannah Meltzer. Follow Hannah on Twitter HERE
