J K Rowling's Twitterstorm

Author JK Rowling let loose a Twitterstorm on 9 June in response to the sexist nature of comments on female politicians. When you look at the news headlines and listen to commentators you will hear tones of it, whether meant consciously or unconsciously.

Women still have a hard time getting to the top and when they do, attacks on them tend to be personalised rather than an analysis and questioning of what they are saying or doing. Now, my political opinions differ from JK’s, but she is bang on the nail here.

If you can’t disagree with a woman without reaching for all those filthy old insults, screw you and your politics. 2/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

I’m sick of ‘liberal’ men whose mask slips every time a woman displeases them, who reach immediately for crude and humiliating words 3/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

associated with femaleness, act like old-school misogynists and then preen themselves as though they’ve been brave. 4/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

When you do this, Mr Liberal Cool Guy, you ally yourself, wittingly or not, with the men who send women violent pornographic images 5/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

and rape threats, who try by every means possible to intimidate women out of politics and public spaces, both real and digital. 6/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

‘Cunt’, ‘whore’ and, naturally, rape. We’re too ugly to rape, or we need raping, or we need raping and killing. 7/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

Every woman I know who has dared express an opinion publically has endured this kind of abuse at least once, 8/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

rooted in an apparent determination to humiliate or intimidate her on the basis that she is female. 9/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

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. 10/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

I don’t care whether we’re talking about Theresa May or Nicola Sturgeon or Kate Hooey or Yvette Cooper or Hillary Clinton: 11/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

femaleness is not a design flaw. If your immediate response to a woman who displeases you 12/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

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. 13/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

You’re a few short steps away from some guy hiding behind a cartoon frog. 14/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

Undoubtedly forthright words from somebody who is known for her trenchant views. I have to agree with her. Calling a female politician a ‘witch’ is peculiar. Would we call a male politician a ‘warlock’? ‘Witch’ is meant to denigrate, to reduce, to put outside the community. It’s also a word used by the ignorant, the frightened and the uneducated who have little generosity of spirit and no wish to go beyond the obvious communal baying. And falling back on the old ‘woman is a whore if not a madonna’ is laughable. It’s a demonstration of fear, superstition and envy.

So what to do? Call it out as JK has done, as Michele Obama does, as we all do in the #everydaysexism  campaign on Twitter. Educate your own children, question what people say, discuss or debate rationally, live the life that doesn’t accept there’s a difference. Your call.

As we say in Roma Nova, cura te ipsum*.

*Attend to your own defects rather than criticising defects in others.

Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers INCEPTIO, PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA and INSURRECTIO. The sixth, RETALIO, came out in April  2017. Audiobooks now available for the first four of the series

Find out more about Roma Nova, its origins, stories and heroines… Get INCEPTIO, the series starter, for FREE when you sign up to Alison’s free monthly email newsletter