To think 'toughen up' is not a good enough solution?

[stripeyjimjams]

I'm guessing quite a few MNers will have read about the sexist heckling of female members of visiting debating teams by male members of Glasgow University Union's team. These women were subjected to very nasty, personal criticism, which had nothing to do with their capabilities as speakers, and everything to do with their gender. Here's a link:
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mobileweb/2013/03/07/sexist-heckling-guu-students-cambridge-debate_n_2827070.html

I'm doing my doctorate at Glasgow and teach here also. I was so, so chuffed yesterday to see how many students turned out to protest against nothing being done to address the issue of misogyny at the GUU. A woman I know who also studies here took to Facebook yesterday to mock the people 'getting wound up' about the issue. She said the whole thing is basically a 'primary school playground' issue and that, if the women who were heckled were 'so smart,' then they'd be able to give as good as they got and not get upset. She says women should accept that men are 'cheeky bastards' and accept that that's what life is like.

I'm livid. Basically, she undermines her own argument: if you think it's so easy for me to change my deeply held belief that sexism is wrong, then it should, logically, be just as easy for someone who doles out sexist abusr to change their beliefs?

An honest question here: I've known this woman since school, she has always been a streetwise type who wouldn't think twice about fighting back. I had a pretty pleasant, quite sheltered childhood, committed leftie parents and now work in academia. Tell me if I am just a PITA hand-wringing leftie feminist who's been up an academic ivory tower too long and that I should accept that misogyny exists and get on with it. Or please tell me if you think that it's the people who sit and do nothing, like her, that are partly responsible for anyone (perpetrator or victim) thinking misogyny's just part of life.

I tank you may have to accept that misogyny exists but not that there is nothing you can do about it!
It is an odd attitude for a woman to have.
The whole incident sounds awful and utterly embarrassing for the GUU!

Ask her if she would have said the same if they had been shouting racist abuse. People did use her 'argument' about racism in the past.

That's a shocking story. It's great that so many students at GUU and elsewhere are protesting against it. Yanbu to want misogyny to be challenged but there are always people (m&w) who are threatened by the idea of equality and they are hard to reason with, especially via fb. Hopefully they will come to see how much better the world could be without women being discriminated against, harassed and threatened.

I also had a relatively sheltered childhood but from a right-wing Tory background, however I am delighted that people I met at school, university & in life opened my eyes and mind to the injustices in the world and the satisfaction that comes from seeing social progress. So I don't think you're up an ivory tower at all, just a right-thinking person with a conscience.

Yes, hit back in any sensible way possible