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Hey Reader,

“A few days ago I saw an Instagram reel of a young woman talking about how she had been raped six years ago, struggled with thoughts of suicide afterwards, but managed to rebuild her life again. Among the comments – the majority of which were from men – were things like “Well at least you had some”, “No way, she’s unrapeable”, “Hope you didn’t talk this much when it happened”, “Bro could have picked a better option.” Reading those comments, which had thousands of likes and many boys agreeing with them, made me feel sick.”

^^This is from an article in The Guardian which is being shared widely at the moment. You may have seen it.

It was written by a 15-year-old girl.

She wrote about the vile misogyny she faces every time she goes online.

My husband doesn’t use Instagram that much; mostly for climbing and BJJ accounts, silly memes, and stuff I send him. But every now and then he has to spend a few hours bleaching his account and deleting and reporting all the thirst traps, porn, and misogynistic and hateful content that gets pushed into his feed because he’s a straight middle-aged man. He hates it.

I know another guy who set up a YouTube account recently and, without adding any information that could give the algorithm a clue about what he wants to see, it immediately pushed him Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson, and other grim, misogynistic, hateful stuff.

This is not an online problem. The online world is only part of it. It’s a symptom of what’s going on underneath.

The online world is built by predatory men. It’s built by the kind of men who are in the Epstein files or who are protecting the men in the Epstein files. The kind of men who quietly walked away from a chance to attack Gisele Pelicot rather than speak up. The kind of men who laugh in the US men’s hockey team room as Trump slags off the (more successful) women’s hockey team. And the women who are so desperate for power they enable all these men to do so.

Women founders don’t get funding, but if they did, they’d build a space that is safe for everyone, because we face this shit every single day in every single way.

Not just in the overt, violence-in-your-face way, but in the way almost every man in our lives will tut and look away and say nothing when they hear and see this stuff but will still consider themselves “one of the good ones.”

That silence is the biggest problem of all. The lack of acknowledgement. The lack of visible and audible pushback.

When we stay silent, even though we’re horrified, the perpetrators see acceptance and agreement and encouragement. And the people on the receiving end see a space that is not safe, full of people who tacitly agree with the horrors.

I’m talking women, specifically, here. But it also applies to Black people, gay people, trans people, disabled people, anyone who is deliberately and systemically othered by exploitative systems that are built to extract as much wealth as possible for as few people as possible.

Not everyone is a protest marcher. Not everyone is a political activist. Not everyone is a writer, an author, a public speaker. That’s okay.

But we all have a voice and we all have a duty to protect the safety of EVERYONE, even if it makes us feel uncomfortable.

If we’re in a room and we hear something misogynistic or violent or racist or homophobic or hateful, it costs most of us nothing to call it out. To put a stop to it. To show, loudly and clearly, that this is not okay. Not here, not in this space, not in front of me.

Certainly for people who look like me, the stakes are usually low.

We have voices, and if we use them not just to speak out about things like this, but to tell our stories, to speak up about a better, kinder, more joyful way of living, we can change things.

We WILL change things.

But it requires good people to use their brains and their voices to do so.

We don’t have to be Pulitzer prize winners or Booker finalists or published authors.

We just have to be brave enough and care enough about making a better world for that 15-year-old girl and all her peers.

And then we have to speak up.

This is why I said yes to speak at Sophie Lee’s Unapologetic Voices Marathon on Monday.

It’s free to join because Sophie knows that the more people using their voices to make good trouble in the world, the better it is for ALL of us.

I’d love to see you there.

TTFN,

Vicky 🫡

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