This is a speech from Caroline Criado-Perez, a journalist and feminist activist. She is the co-founder of Week Woman, which you can find here.
Warning: This post deals with the topic of sexual assault and online harassment, and may be distressing for some readers.
Before I begin, I just want to warn you all, that I will be quoting some of the abusive messages I have received. They include offensive language and references to sexual violence, which may be triggering for some.
So I’d like to start off by giving you a bit of background into what led up to the harassment I received for over two weeks in July and August, because I think it’s important to see how little it takes to provoke this kind of abuse – it’s important to face up to how much of a problem we still have with widespread misogyny against any woman who dares to use her voice in public.
So some of you may have heard of a campaign I ran from April to July this year, asking the Bank of England to review its decision to have an all-male line-up on banknotes. (note to media, I really didn’t campaign for Jane Austen’s face on a banknote, please stop saying I did, thank you!) The campaign received quite a lot of media attention, and I spent much of my time rehearsing arguments about the damage a public culture saturated with white male faces does to the aspirations and achievements of women and young girls.