stopandimaginelove:

Just unfollowed a man whom I thought was smart and funny,
because he called Theresa May a whore. If you can’t disagree with a woman
without reaching for all those filthy old insults, screw you and your politics.
I’m sick of ‘liberal’ men whose mask slips every time a woman displeases them,
who reach immediately for crude and humiliating words associated with femaleness, act like old-school misogynists
and then preen themselves as though they’ve been brave. When you do this, Mr
Liberal Cool Guy, you ally yourself, wittingly or not, with the men who send
women violent pornographic and rape threats, who try by every means possible to
intimidate women out of politics and public spaces, both real and digital. ‘Cunt’,
‘whore’ and, naturally, rape. We’re too ugly to rape, or we need raping, or we
need raping and killing.

Every woman I know who has dared express an opinion
publicly has endured this kind of abuse at least once rooted in an apparent
determination to humiliate or intimidate her on the basis that she is female. If
you want to know how much fouler it gets if you also happen to be black or gay,
ask Diane Abbot or Ruth Davidson. I don’t care whether we’re talking about
Theresa May or Nicola Sturgeon or Kate Hooey or Yvette Cooper or Hillary
Clinton: femaleness is not a design flaw. If your immediate response to a woman
who displeases you is to call her a synonym for her vulva, or compare her to a
prostitute, then drop the pretence and own it: you’re not a liberal. You’re a
few short steps away from some guy hiding behind a cartoon frog.

[J.K. Rowling]