A 13 year old girl is a "Sexual Predator" because she was sexually assaulted.

This is the point we have arrived at: a 13 year old child is sexually assaulted by an adult male and the judge and prosecutor both hold the child responsible for being sexually assaulted. According to Court New UK, the judge labelled the child a "sexual predator" who "egged on" her abuser. Neil Wilson, who is 41 years old, pled guilty and received a suspended sentence despite sexually assaulting a child and being found in possession of extreme pornographic images depicting both child sexual abuse and bestiality.

A 41 year old man gets a suspended sentence for assaulting a child and she gets labelled a sexual predator.

Anyone who doubts there is a war on women in our culture is suffering from a terminal case of cognitive dissonance. 

Everyday Victim Blaming have started a petition here. Below is the text:

Yesterday, a man walked free from Snaresbrook Crown Court despite pleading guilty to ‘sexual activity with a child’ after the prosecutor Robert Colover and judge Nigel Peters described the thirteen year-old victim as a “sexual predator”. 

I'm a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I could have been that 13 year old girl who the judge and prosecutor descrbed as 'predatory'. Now, I work with other women who have survived similar experiences. I have seen first hand how this kind of victim blaming prevents women from coming forward and protects men who commit these crimes. 

It’s unacceptable that the Crown Prosecutor - the person who this young girl was relying on to help get her justice - used this kind of language in court. It’s a sad fact that this kind of attitude is commonplace within society and the legal establishment. We need to make a stand and send a clear message: It’s never the child’s fault. 

I’m calling on the Crown Prosecution Service to look at the language used by Robert Colover and meet urgently with our organisation and other groups working with victims of rape and sexual assault to ensure this never happens again.

Please sign and share this petition. We need to stand up and protect our children from the violent sexual predators who abuse them and the men support sexual predators by minimising personal responsibility.

If you think a 13 year old child is somehow responsible for their sexual abuse, then you are as guilty as the men who perpetrated the violence. You help support a rape culture which dehumanises women and children. You help make it easier for children and women to be sexually abused.

This case doesn't just demonstrate the guilt of Neil Wilson. It demonstrates the complicity of the Crown Prosecution Services and the judge in the continuing sexual abuse of the child.

You can make a formal complaint about the low crown court sentence here and a formal judicial complaint here.

POSTSCRIPT: Since i wrote this piece, the Attorney General has agreed to review this case for an unduly lenient sentence. The CPS has also announced that they will not be using this particular prosecuting attorney for any cases involving sexual violence pending a review. There also appears to be a judicial review of the actions of the judge as well.

The feminist activism of Everyday Victim Blaming project is directly responsible for this outcome. They lobbied for the national press to notice this miscarriage of justice. They started the petition at change.org and it was supporters of EVB who complained to the Attorney General and CPS. This is a victory for feminism, not that you would notice in the mainstream press who are busy congratulating themselves and David Cameron for doing absolutely nothing.

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Men Who Just Don't Get Misogyny But Think They Do

Last night, I tweeted some examples of misogynistic abuse to the new twitter account: @misogyny_online. They've been collating images of some of the abuse directed at Caroline Criado-Perez in the past two weeks. I took just 15 minutes and trawled through some of the messages Caroline received yesterday. There was the usual threats of extreme violence and abusive messages and one totally clueless man genuinely suggesting that Caroline shut down her account for a few days because that's what he does with trolls. I forwarded this tweet to @misogyny_online as a demonstration of "men who just don't get the reality of misogyny but think they do" as this group of men are as harmful as those deliberately sending abusive messages because they minimise the reality of misogynistic violence whilst simultaneously blaming women for being victims of male violence. 

I didn't screencap @Slinky_Anthony 's responses to me last night and he's since closed his account so I cannot share what he posted at me. His response to my retweet went straight through the usual male response when challenged:

• The "how dare you challenge me"whine
• The "how dare you be so aggressive" whine
• "Don't you understand I'm trying to help" whine
• The "I'm a supporter of Caroline and I was totally being nice" whine 
• "You're a bad feminist for being mean to me by disagreeing with me" whine
• "You're a feminazi because you disagree with me" range of insults
• Tweets twitter demanding I be suspended for "ranting" 
• Brings in a female friend as evidence he's not an asshole
• Tweeted Caroline to whine some more
• More tweets demanding I be suspended

At this point, I blocked him. 

I've screencapped my tweets to him so you can decide for yourself whether or not I was acting like an aggressive, mean feminazi by challenging him. 

This dude may not have tweeted Caroline rape or death threats but what he did was support those men who did by silencing Caroline. And, frankly, considering yesterday was #shoutingback, it was somewhat ironic that this dude started the day by suggesting Caroline log off twitter so the trolls would stop.

Telling a woman to be quiet in the face of harassment serves only to support their abusers. It tells abusive men that it is acceptable to shut a woman up by threatening to rape or murder her. This is not the action of a man who understands the reality of the misogynistic abuse women face every single day. It's the actions of a man who equates multiple threats of rape with some whiny teenagers being rude to him.

If you are genuinely a male feminist ally, tell the abusive men to shut up and leave twitter; not the women they are abusing. 

If you are genuinely a male feminist ally, listen when a woman tells you you're actions are silencing.

If you react to a woman calling you on your behaviour with whinging, insults and threats to have their account suspended, you aren't a male feminist ally. It really is that simple.

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Twitter, Trolling and Misogynistic Abuse (trigger warning for content)

This was originally published on the Feminist & Women's Studies Association of the UK blog.

Violent threats of physical and sexual violence and general abusive messages are a common occurrence for women online. Identifying as a feminist makes women more visible targets for abuse. As a member of Mumsnet, I have received a death threat from a member of Fathers4Justice who suggested I needed to be shot in the face for questioning a libellous ad F4J had published. Through my personal blog, My Elegant Gathering of White Snows, I have received numerous threats of rape from misogynist rights activists. A man objected to my post on Pixar and their problems with gender stereotyping by suggesting I needed to be “gang-raped by Congolese savages”. I have been called stupid, insane, unfuckable, fat, ugly, and a Nazi. In terms of online abuse, the threats I have received have been few and on the low end of the spectrum of violence. I am one of the lucky feminists, which is a ridiculous statement to make having received a death threat. It’s just that abuse is so common that the abuse that I have personally received isn’t even worth mentioning. I certainly never reported it to the police as I assume they would ignore it.

Social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, have simply made it easier for women to be targets for abusive behaviour as these sites are frequently unwilling to take responsibility for the abuse posted on them. Soraya Chemaly and Laura Bates recent Facebook campaign followed their refusal to remove images of sexual violence. In the face of the campaign, Facebook has removed advertising from pages encouraging and posting images of sexual violence. The pages themselves should have been removed but targeting advertising is a good start. Removing the pages themselves is the next step.

It was almost inevitable that a similar campaign would target twitter. It started two days ago, sparked by the vitriolic abuse targeted at feminist campaigner Caroline Criado Perez who runs The Women’s Room UK. Criado Perez’ crime?: a successful campaign on cultural femicide forcing the Bank of England to follow the legislation in the 2010 Equality Act which requires every public body “pay due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination and equality.” The campaign began after the Bank of England chose to remove the only woman on English banknotes and replace them with another white male. The banknotes campaign was small with a specific outcome, which they achieved: in 2017, Jane Austen will be the face on the new £10 note.

Criado Perez has been receiving abuse since the campaign started, frequently by men calling her stupid for not noticing that the Queen is on banknotes. The difference between being on a banknote via an accident of birth and being on a banknote because of personal achievement has been missed by a lot of the usual trolls. The abuse got worse when the Bank of England announced the decision for the new £10 note. Criado Perez reported one rape threat to the police who took the threat seriously. The response from twitter: a massive 24-hour backlash of misogynistic slurs, threats of physical violence and rape:

@FatTonyCologino : Everybody jump on the rape train … is the conductor.@SultanofPing You wanna rape with me
@Beccas43 : RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE JEW JEW JEW RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE JEW JEW JEW@VizFoSho If you force sex on a prostitute is it rape or shoplifting? @VizFoSho what do 9/10 people enjoy? Gang rape.

This is only a small selection of what was tweeted at Criado Perez and some of the least offensive tweets More examples are available at the blog I will not put up with this. The trolls have since targeted Laura Bates’ organisation Everyday Sexism for similar abusive threats.

Numerous people have suggested that Criado Perez ignore the trolls and their threats of sexual violence, however this does not stop abusive behaviour from trolls. If anything, it encourages them to attack others with the knowledge that no one will stand up to stop them. Ignoring trolls only serves to silence their victims. It gives them a platform for them to continue abusing women. Whilst it is considered “conventional wisdom”, it is not helpful to ending violence against women and girls.

What did help was the feminist #shoutback and #fightback which immediately started with women standing up to the misogynistic abuse and mass reporting abusive tweets to twitter. While it remains heartening to see so many women refusing to be silenced in the face of serious threats of sexual violence, twitter’s response has been deeply disappointing. A senior member of twitter closed his account when activists tweeted him links to the rape threats. The twitter “how to report abusive behaviour” page has been closed most of this morning, whether that is due to mass reporting or their choice to take down the page remains to be seen but the point is the only way to report abuse was not functioning.

Of course, people can only report abusive behaviour if they know where to find the information. Twitter’s “how to report abusive behaviour” page is notoriously difficult to find and is quite time consuming. It is very difficult to keep up with reporting when facing an onslaught of abuse. Whilst many women did take the time to screencap and report the abuse, the process of reporting resulted in numerous hours of abuse from specific people before their accounts were suspended. Criado Perez is collating and reporting all of the abusive messages to the police, who are taking the threats seriously. Twitter, however, is unwilling to take responsibility for the abuse they are hosting.

The violent threats and misogynistic abuse that Criado Perez has been subjected to over the past few days are similar to the abuse all women experience online and in real life. What has been different is the number of women (and men) who have stood beside Criado Perez and refused to be silenced. Hopefully, this one event will be the catalyst which forces twitter to install a “report abusive behaviour button” similar to that of their spam button as well as help change all social media so that threatening violence is considered an immediate banning offence. 

Frankly, it already should be.

There is a petition here requesting that twitter install an “report abusive behaviour” button. 

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Silent Sunday : Inspiring and Thought Provoking Blogs Written by Women

Someone White suggested that an "Honest Conversation" on Race can't include Racism at Gradient Lair

Quick Fixes like Changing Gun Control Laws would not have made a difference for 13 UK women killed through suspected male violence in 2013 by Karen Ingala Smith

The Silencer: An Open Letter to those quick to defend but slow to reflect at Everyday Victim Blaming

Whites being "Not Racist' is NOT Enough by Gradient Lair

Is anger always bad? by Respectfully Raising

White, Cis and Silenced at Bottomface

Rape Threats: It's a Free Speech Issue at Quite Irregular

On the pain of Violent Men, or, Why I'm not sorry about Max and Montle at Africa is a Country

Divide and Conquer by Feminist Borgia

Not that girl at Belle Jar Blog

On Becoming a Radical Feminist by Carrgonnen

I Support You at One Women's Thoughts

A Family Secret at Filthy Freedom

Online Misogyny and Magic Buttons by Bottomface

I am a Black Radical Womyn : guest post at Danielle Paradis

Why this disabled woman no longer identifies as a feminist at Disability and Representation

10 thoughts ... on mental illness, abuse and survivors at Are Women Human Too?

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Gradient Lair on Rape Culture

I very rarely reblog preferring instead to link directly to the blogs I admire. I think it's important to read women's words where they were originally published. This is a personal choice based on my political understanding of cultural femicide. I have chosen to reblog the image below from Gradient Lair because she is a prolific writer and I don't want this brief piece lost within the rest of her excellent writing [and if you aren't familiar with her blog, you really should take some time to read it].

Rape Culture, The Internet and Privacy

• Canadian underage girl: "Someone is posting nude photos of me on the internet. This is dissemination of child pornography and is causing me to be harassed in school!"
• Cops: "Sorry, it's the internet! There's no way to track them!"
• Midwest football players: "Someone leaked a video of us gang-raping a teenage girl! This invasion of privacy caused us to have to take responsibility for our actions!"
• Cops: "Don't worry, sons! We've tracked their IP and are demanding a 10-year sentence for their egregious crime!"

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Fathers4Justice, Mumsnet and Me: #shoutingback

I haven't written too much about my experience of online abuse with Fathers4Justice last year, mostly because I don't want a swarm of their buckethead members descending on me. Again. However, the recent violent abuse directed at feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez has made me change my mind on this issue. 

My first personal encounter with Fathers4Justice was on Mumsnet. F4J members troll the relationships and feminist board on Mumsnet all the time. They are tedious and completely lacking in self-awareness. They frequently come on threads started by women who are experiencing domestic violence and blame the women for being victims. Members also start threads whining about how they aren't allowed to contact their children due to the hateful mother. A quick google invariably finds that the man has been denied contact after criminal convictions for violence against the ex-partner and/ or drug and alcohol abuse. Their trolling isn't restricted to attacking women survivors of domestic violence but also victims of sexual violence and rape. They deliberately misrepresent what is being said on a thread in order to discredit women. It is safe to say I have no respect whatsoever for their organisation.

The incident last year started with F4J announcing a new campaign targeting Marks & Spencer's because of their advertising on Mumsnet who "promote gender hatred" and labels "men and boys as rapists, paedophiles and wife beaters". F4J members trolled both Mumsnet's talk boards and Mumsnet's Facebook wall making unsubstantiated and libellous statements about Mumsnet. The also attempted to publish the ad below in a variety of newspapers although only the I-Independent actually published the ad in the end.

There were numerous conversations on the Mumsnet talkboards and FB wall between members of Mumsnet and members of F4J. There was rudeness on both sides but Fathers4Justice members went beyond rude and straight to intimidation tactics and threats of violence. They told outright lies about what was written on Mumsnet, took quotes out of context and tried to silence criticism with threats of violence dressed up as 'concern'. The F4J FB wall was a disgraceful example of male privilege and violence.

In the end, I posted a link to the Advertising Standards Agency's complaint form on Mumsnet's wall. I did so because the ad below is clearly in breach of ASA standards. I received hundreds of abusive messages from members of F4J on Mumsnet, Mumsnet's FB wall and F4J's FB wall. One member of F4J responded to my post by stating that I deserved to shot in the head.

According to the senior members of F4J posting on the wall, this does not count as an actual threat of violence because the member didn't say he was going to shoot me in the head. Instead, this man suggested he'd help pay someone to shoot me in the head. But, this isn't a "violent threat" and I was told I was over-reacting, whining and being a drama queen for demanding that this man remove his post. Mumsnet staffers deleted the whole wall post at my request. They also deleted almost the entirety of my personal posting history on Mumsnet at my request.

I had my posting history deleted because I don't trust men who think its acceptable to threaten, intimidate and abuse women online. I don't trust F4J to remove violent men from their organisation and I don't trust the police to have taken the threat seriously. 

A member of F4J threatened to shoot me in the head after a week of harassment and intimidation by other F4J members. Numerous members got in line to congratulate the man who threatened to have me shot. I have never received an apology from the organisation. Nor have they ever taken responsibility for the threats of violence and abuse made in their name against other members of Mumsnet. 

My experience with F4J is commonplace. This is the abuse that all women face online. It was my first experience with a potential death threat [and by no means the last, even from F4J members]. In retrospect, I should have screencapped the threat and reported it to the police. But, at that point, it never even occurred to me. I just wanted the threat gone and my posting history deleted for the safety of my children [which MN did despite the fact that deleting a history as huge as mine was time-consuming and difficult!].*

As awful as that weekend was, I was also very lucky. I was surrounded by a thousands of women members of Mumsnet who stood with me. This is true feminist activism: standing up for other women. Being surrounded by women who have your back is a truly powerful and amazing gift.

This is why I am saddened by those attacking Caroline Criado-Perez as "attention-seeking" and insinuating that she's over-reacting. I had one serious death threat in a 2 day period of intense harassment and intimidation. Caroline has had literally hundreds; not to mention the sheer number of rape threats. We should all have her back, as we should have the back of every single woman threatened by male violence.

The only people responsible for male violence are the men who perpetrate it and those who minimise it.

Criticism is unsisterly and divisive and it does nothing to destroy the patriarchy. It also ignores the perpetrator.


*A huge thank you to smallwhitecat and HelenMN for their personal support that weekend.

Mumsnet statement about Fathers 4 Justice

Written by Justine Roberts, CEO of Mumsnet, on Saturday 17 March

Some of you may have noticed that a group called Fathers 4 Justice has been saying some pretty unpleasant things about us over the last couple of weeks. In an 'advert' which appeared first on Facebook and then in Friday March 16th's edition of the I, the group claims Mumsnet "promotes gender hatred", and labels "men and boys as rapists, paedophiles and wife beaters". It calls on advertisers to suspend advertising on Mumsnet.

Most people, I'm quite sure, will see the adverts and the 'campaign' behind them for precisely what they are: a naked attempt to court publicity by a group of people who, for whatever reason, appear to have tired of climbing cranes in superhero outfits. (And, just coincidentally, in the run-up to Mother's Day). In fact, it feels a bit like having a particularly irritating toddler repeatedly prodding you with a stick to get some attention.

By and large, it seemed most sensible to ignore them, not least because we've had our hands quite full with stuff that actually matters, like Mumsnet's We Believe You campaign to dispel rape myths.

But since Fathers 4 Justice appear to have attracted some grown-ups' attention, we thought we should tell you a bit about the background to this attack, the truth behind their allegations, and how they are trying to bully us and other organisations.

Here are 10 things you should know...

1. On 3 March, a Mumsnet user started a conversation about a poster campaign being touted on Mumsnet's Facebook wall by Fathers 4 Justice, and the fact that Fathers 4 Justice was bombarding a number of sites with this troubling image.
2. A conversation then ensued on Mumsnet about Fathers 4 Justice and their tactics, which some members of Fathers 4 Justice joined. Some Mumsnetters said some pretty harsh things.
3. We deleted a number of posts that broke our forum guidelines regarding personal attacks. In total, we deleted 70 posts from the thread, which went on over the next few days and reached 1000 posts in total. Sixty of the deleted posts were posts were made by regular Mumsnet members; ten or so were made by new joiners we believed to be from Fathers 4 Justice. Our community managers reminded users to follow forum guidelines on nine separate occasions, and at least one prolific Mumsnetter left the site in protest at our deletion policy.
4. On 7 March and 8 March, MNHQ received a series of emails from the Campaign Director of Fathers 4 Justice containing threats of legal action and a threat to contact our advertisers. At the same time, comments on the Fathers 4 Justice Facebook page describing Mumsnetters as "barking mad harridans", "weird sex obsessed paranoid perverts" and "child-abusing contact blockers" were left unmoderated. As were comments that described me variously as a "dried up old hag", "an evil woman" and having an "IQ that would return a negative score".
5. On 11 March, Fathers 4 Justice posted another attack ad this time accusing M&S of "sponsoring hateful, bigoted and prejudiced comments about men and boys on Mumsnet" and demanding that M&S withdraw all advertising on Mumsnet or face a boycott. It accused the company of "serving up gender hatred for Mother's Day".
6. Other organisations have experienced similar bullying tactics. In recent weeks, Fathers 4 Justice have targeted the lone parents' support charity, Gingerbread, jamming up its telephone helplines. Senior NGO staff have told us they felt too intimidated to speak out against them.
7. The suggestion that Mumsnet encourages gender hatred would be funny if it were not so offensive - and plain silly. The central aim of Mumsnet is to make parents' (mothers' and fathers') lives easier. There are many and varied opinions on the site and no one Mumsnet party line prevails, save for the view that we respect diverse opinion. We do not pre-moderate or vet comments made to our discussion boards, of which there are around 30 000 every day.
8. Men are and always have been extremely welcome on Mumsnet - and we have a Dadsnet forum for Dads to talk directly with other men, should they wish. We estimate that around 5 to 10% of our 2 million odd monthly users are men. Of course you can always find plenty of Mumsnetters whinging about their male partner's shortcomings - more than there are whinging about their female partner's shortcomings - but generalisations are swiftly pounced on and we do not tolerate gender hatred, or any other kind of hatred for that matter (save maybe hatred of Fruitshoots). We encourage people to be civil and supportive and, in the main, most people are.
9. Fathers 4 Justice campaigns for fathers to have access to their children following separation or divorce. Its founder, Matt O'Connor, says parents have "fewer rights than a terrorist". The organisation was temporarily disbanded in 2006 after it emerged that some of its members had plotted to kidnap Tony Blair's son Leo. Fathers 4 Justice boasts that it is "the most controversial and high profile pressure group of modern times" but it has struggled to win public attention since abandoning its eye-catching tactic of scaling tall structures in superhero costumes. In recent weeks, it has targeted Cafcass, the body responsible for protecting the rights of children in court proceedings, Gingerbread, the charity for single parents (which it claimed supported "the abuse of children"), and Mumsnet. It has also, somewhat mysteriously, branded London 2012 "the fatherless games".
10. We believe that the issue of a father's access to his children is important and needs to be discussed. We understand that many Fathers 4 Justice campaigners are driven by intense personal anger over what they feel is injustice they have suffered in their own cases. But the recent actions the group have taken against Mumsnet and others constitutes plain and simple bullying and intimidation, and only harms its cause.
11. Reading this as a Mumsnetter, you may well already be spitting tacks by now. Please do remember that's precisely what Fathers 4 Justice want. If you post on the subject, please keep it civil. We won't be bullied, but we don't want to be dragged into the mire either.

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If you call another woman an "attention-seeker", I'm going to question your right to the label feminist.

I have been breaking my own rule on "not telling another woman whether or not they can call themselves a feminist" lately. I hate doing this because it is a silencing tactic. Telling women what they are and what labels they are allowed to use is a Patriarchal tool. It prevents questioning and a fundamental part of feminism MUST be the right to question everything. If we cannot challenge other feminists, we cannot grow as a movement. 

That said, I am absolutely disgusted at the "feminists" who are calling Caroline Criado-Perez an attention-seeker for demanding that Twitter and the legal system take responsibility for their perpetuation of MVAW. This is a silencing tactic and it is manifestly NOT feminism.

The feminist response to the serious threats of violence and abusive language directed at Caroline Criado-Perez is to analyse the political, social and cultural constructs which have made Caroline both a victim and a powerful spokeswoman. Then, feminism would seek to ensure that all women who experience MVAW online are taking seriously and the men [and women] who are harassing and threatening them are prosecuted. Feminist do NOT judge how a woman chooses to respond to the MVAW they are subjected to. Ever.

Do I think the fact that Caroline is white is a big reason the media is reporting this story? Absolutely. 

Do I think Caroline's gift for publicity is a big reason the media reporting this story? Absolutely.

Do I question the feminist credentials of the women calling Caroline an attention-seeker? Most definitely.

Feminism is a political movement which seeks to liberate all women. We do NOT blame women for the MVAW they experience, nor do we blame women for how they respond to that violence. If you self-define as a feminist and are calling Caroline an "attention-seeker", you need to review your definition of feminism. If your "feminist activism" consists solely of judging and insulting other women online, you need to review your definition of feminism.

I will not name names but this anti-feminist behaviour needs to stop. We need to support women who are victims of MVAW. 

I don't expect much self-reflection from the men who are minimising and erasing the MVAW experienced by Caroline. I do expect better of women who call themselves feminists. 


Glosswitch has written an absolutely brilliant piece for the Everyday Victim Blaming project on this the victim-blaming of Caroline Criado-Perez. It is a must read.

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