Melissa over at Shakesville writes about what it’s like to speak out on the internet about women’s issues:

Women who are mothers gets threats against their children. Women who are abortion doctors get the addresses of their practices, of their homes, published and disseminated. Women are threatened according to their every individual vulnerability, and their vulnerabilities exposed to existent hate groups who might have an interest in hurting them. In any way they can.

Threats of violence. Threats of ruining one’s business. Threats of exposure. Threats to get one fired. Threats to ruin one’s life, in any conceivable manner.

And then we are told not to talk about it. We are told that we empower the people who do this to us. No. NO. Victims do not empower abusers. People who refuse to acknowledge that abuse do. People who tell victims to be silent do.

I am not going to be silent. I am tired of people being surprised. I am tired of hearing “I’m sorry this happens to you.” I don’t want shock and I don’t want pity. 

I want your fucking awareness and I want your fucking anger.

I want us to talk about the real costs of being a woman who does public advocacy. I want us to acknowledge how the costs of providing a safe space is that we stand on the line and absorb massive amounts of abuse. I want us to make noise about the people who create an atmosphere in which women are discouraged from participation.

And I want people to stop telling me to be quiet about it. 

I want this to change. And it is never, ever, going to change if the only place of which it is spoken is between the women to whom it happens.

We talk about it a lot. I talk to the moderators of this space, my friends, about the hatred directed at me, and at them. I talk to my colleagues about the shit I get, about the shit they get, about the shit we see other women getting.

We corral each other when one of us is under attack. We come to each other’s aid, as best we can. We send private messages, asking, “Are you okay?” and offering a sympathetic ear, if they need to talk. 

We talk about it amongst ourselves all the time.

And yet this thing, this shared experience of intimidation and abuse, this life we all live, remains a secret. This campaign of harassment is largely unknown, and it is dismissed out of hand as a “small but vocal group” of disconnected individuals by people who know, but can’t be bothered to care.

It’s treated as immutable, something that just exists in the world and can never be fixed. So let’s not even waste our breath talking about it. Let’s just throw up our hands in defeat.

Fuck. That.

Humor me, defeatists. Let’s give talking about it a try. Let’s push back with all our of might, those of us who are able. Let’s just try it. And then let’s see what happens.

I’m embarrassed to say I’m one of those people who hasn’t spoken out — not much, anyway. Mostly because once you start calling out online assholes for misogynist bullshit, you will never get any sleep. But I should do it more, especially with the impending wave of “progressive” Hillary hate. You don’t have to love her to be revolted by the kind of personal attacks we saw in 2008.

I don’t get them that often, but when I get the misogynist insults in the comments section, I’m going to stop deleting them. I’ll let you all see what kind of vicious comments a woman gets merely for daring to have a differing opinion. (Or being too uppity, or some such shit.) And let’s not separate it from the sexism: You simply do not see male political commentators reduced to whether the commenter thinks they’re fuckable.

How about we all call an asshole an asshole when we see it?