“Fat ugly hag probably tripped up on one of her chins.”
“Eww, saw too much Gina leg. They could have edited that out. Reminds me, I must order my xmas leg of ham.”
“My favourite Gina Rinehart memory is when she played Jabba The Hut in Star Wars.”
“If she’s broken a leg, call a vet and have her put down.”
I couldn’t make up these comments up if I tried. Why would I, when they were so remarkably easy to find? All I had to do was look at any coverage of Gina Rinehart falling at the Melbourne Cup and snatch them from the top comments.
Perhaps immaturely, watching people fall over is one of the small pleasures of my short existence. Stairs, cracks, their own feet. There’s something so wonderfully awkward at gauging the immediate reaction of someone who has just fallen over in public.
So, when I saw the coverage of Rinehart taking a tumble at the Melbourne Cup I had one overriding thought: Unfortunate, but funny. A slippery flight of stairs doesn’t discriminate, no matter how much money you have or how much power you wield.
And then I clicked on the comments and my one overriding thought became an entirely different story.
The horrific online abuse of women is no new notion. Just this year, a study conducted by digital security firm Norton found that over half of Australian women had experienced some form of abuse or harassment online. Harassment ranged from unwanted contact, trolling, and cyber bullying to sexual harassment and threats of rape and death.