Meet Holly Brockwell, a tech blogger and the editor of Gadgette — a popular blog about “smart women talking tech, style and life.” Why should you know who Brockwell is? Because she wrote an article for the BBC about not wanting to have kids, and the mostly-male Internet lost its collective mind. The response was so vitriolic, in fact, that she had to temporarily shut down her Twitter account and accompany a BBC security guard for protection at an event.
Brockwell’s not wanting kids wasn’t the sole reason for the backlash. Rather, it was her article’s argument for sterilization — a procedure more permanent than traditional forms of contraception — that incited the fury of trolls online and on social media. Turns out most doctors refuse to do the deed, so Brockwell took her argument to the BBC’s main page.
You may wonder why I don’t choose another, less drastic, form of contraception but the pill has been making me sick for years and the only other option is the coil, which I’m not willing to have because I know two people who’ve experienced horrendous side-effects.
I don’t need reversible contraception. There’s a 10-minute keyhole operation that can solve this problem for good, and I can’t believe that at the age of almost 30 in 2015, I’m still having to fight to get it.
We can choose to get pregnant at 16 but not to decline motherhood at 29. It seems our decisions are only taken seriously when they align with tradition.
Needless to say, the response was less than kind.
https://twitter.com/holly/status/669126994240606208
https://twitter.com/holly/status/669654513926725632
https://twitter.com/holly/status/669670807283630080
https://twitter.com/holly/status/670265479274065920
https://twitter.com/holly/status/669332814131822593
Brockwell said she received several positive messages of support. However, the negative ones were unrelenting.
“There was a lot of nice comments as well I should say. But the sort of nastier ones were, ‘you’re really naive, you’re ignorant, you’re young, you’re stupid, you don’t know, you don’t know your own mind, you might change your mind, why should I have to pay for this, why shouldn’t sick children get treatment on the NHS because of you, why don’t you keep your legs closed.'”
In addition to hateful tweets, Brockwell was also received Facebook posts, LinkedIn requests and other social media messages from readers and trolls who didn’t like the article. So when she participated in a Facebook Q&A about the post, the BBC had a security guard escort her as a precautionary measure.
Internet flak aside, Brockwell reopened her Twitter account and brushed off the trolls like it was nothing.
https://twitter.com/holly/status/669102985952276480
(Via Business Insider)