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Joe Vesey-Byrne
Jun 09, 2017
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John Phillips/Getty Images
For critics who call Theresa May a 'wh*re', the Harry Potter author and Twitter ruler has this warning.
After a heated election, in which the spectre of threats of violence and rape on social media has grown darker and larger, Rowling had this to say:
If your immediate response to a woman who displeases you is to call her a synonym for her vulva, or compare her to a postute, then drop the pretence and own it: you are not a liberal.
Her argument wasn't directed at misogynists who claim to be liberal opponents of May's conservatism.
Rowling concluded:
You're a few short steps from some guy hiding behind a cartoon frog.
The statement came at the conclusion of a 14 strong thread of tweets posted on Friday:
Just unfollowed a man whom I thought was smart and funny, because he called Theresa May a whore. 1/14— J.K. Rowling (@J.K. Rowling) 1497023973
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 (@J.K. Rowling) 1497023995
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 (@J.K. Rowling) 1497024017
associated with femaleness, act like old-school misogynists and then preen themselves as though they’ve been brave. 4/14— J.K. Rowling (@J.K. Rowling) 1497024040
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 (@J.K. Rowling) 1497024063
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 (@J.K. Rowling) 1497024087
‘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 (@J.K. Rowling) 1497024112
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 (@J.K. Rowling) 1497024174
rooted in an apparent determination to humiliate or intimidate her on the basis that she is female. 9/14— J.K. Rowling (@J.K. Rowling) 1497024198
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 (@J.K. Rowling) 1497024221
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 (@J.K. Rowling) 1497024249
femaleness is not a design flaw. If your immediate response to a woman who displeases you 12/14— J.K. Rowling (@J.K. Rowling) 1497024273
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 (@J.K. Rowling) 1497024326
You’re a few short steps away from some guy hiding behind a cartoon frog. 14/14— J.K. Rowling (@J.K. Rowling) 1497024347
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