I am trying to stay hopeful because so many people don’t agree with this awful persecution of a lesbian academic just for having some opinions and speaking facts but I understand just how you feel giraffe.
It’s bloody terrifying that women are being threatened because they think and say certain things. Truths- as it happens- but she should be just as free to say legal non violent wrong or subjective opinions.
It’s terrifying because there have always been reactionary woman-hating nutters out there but now social media allows them to gather and normalise and amplify their actions. At the same time, because institutions are so reliant on PR, and scared of social media critics, they seem to have stopped doing their jobs properly and so far do nothing a actually robust to stop this outrageous behaviour. And women will always come off worst in that.
It feels like (to me anyway) this issue has exposed a breakdown in a really important part of our social fabric which leaves women very vulnerable. Maybe there never was much of a legal safety net but in days gone by, surely a social one- those in authority would have said to such harrassers that they couldn’t impose their politics on everyone else like that with threats, and then they would have expelled or otherwise sidelined the bullies from within their institutions? Not doing that probably from a anti-misogyny angle probably but at least from the pro-freedom of speech side?
I also can’t imagine what all this is doing to Professor Stock personally and really feel for her. All she did was her actual job, and speaking up for women at a time when our rights are under huge threat.