Holly BrockwellA journalist who opened up about her desire to be sterilised and lack of desire to have children was so heavily trolled online that she was forced to step away from social media, and the BBC was forced to send her security to protect her.
Holly Brockwell produced an article where she spoke about women who choose not to procreate, and it enraged many internet trolls who could not get their heads around the concept.
In the article she said:
As a woman, there are four little words I can say that invite more condescension than almost any others: “I don’t want children.”
“But why?” people ask, as if there’s a simple answer to why you viscerally, instinctively reject something that’s considered a fundamental part of humanhood.
The fact is, there’s nothing about creating another human that appeals to me. That’s an emotional thing, and translating it into rational reasons takes something away from its strength.”
Her prediction was right, and a tidal wave of abuse soon followed, to the extent that when arriving at a Q & A session she had to be escorted into the building by trained security staff.
I'm doing a BBC Facebook Q&A at 3pm about the article. They did indeed get me a security guard to meet me from the car ???
— Holly Brockwell (@holly) November 24, 2015
Holly took the option of deactivating her Twitter account for a period of time in the hope that the issue would calm down.
THIS IS ALREADY AMAZING. I've been called "ignorant" "selfish" "stupid" "an attention seeker" and "in need of psychiatric help" ?
— Holly Brockwell (@holly) November 24, 2015
But even after returning to social media she was forced to repeatedly defend her choice.
I'm not asking for an operation for the lols, y'know :P
— Holly Brockwell (@holly) November 25, 2015
Holly, who is the editor of Gadgette, highlighted that most of the abuse came from men, and suspects it also had roots in her role as a woman writing on technology.
She said:
I am used to trolling as I run a women’s tech website but even I was affected this time because it was so vitriolic, so personal and nasty, and so specific about me and my professional life – not even about the issue of having children which I had been writing about.”
Adding:
There is a very small section of technology enthusiasts who know me because I’m a tech journalist and really decided to tear me to pieces.
Those people specifically don’t like having women in technology, they don’t like women writing about it. Automatically, as a woman, you have to work so much harder to get any recognition at all, there’s hardly any of us in it, I’m not surprised.
One man said he’d like to “crowdfund a laryngectomy for me so I wouldn’t be able to speak anymore. That really got to me.”
New BBC article about the trolls who tried to silence me this week https://t.co/dTh8eNIRtn pic.twitter.com/yVtJeGQzGe
— Holly Brockwell (@holly) November 25, 2015
But for every idiot out there online there were people ready to fight her corner.
@holly I understand that some people decide not to have kids, often after watching The Apprentice. I respect your decision..
— Dave Edwards (@RealDaveEdwards) November 25, 2015
That is food for thought.
