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Threats, intimidation and misogyny have long been a reality for\u00a0women in public life<\/a>\u00a0around the world, and the pandemic appears to have amplified this toxic reality.<\/p>\n Aotearoa New Zealand is led by one of the world\u2019s best-known female prime ministers, Jacinda Ardern, and was the\u00a0first country in the world<\/a>\u00a0to grant all women the right to vote.<\/p>\n Yet even here today,\u00a0attempts to silence, diminish and demean<\/a>\u00a0the prime minister, female MPs and other prominent women have plumbed new depths, leading to calls for more robust policing of violent online and offline behaviour.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, the phenomenon extends well beyond\u00a0elected representatives<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0public health professionals<\/a>\u00a0into most workplaces, including academia.<\/p>\n Women working in universities<\/a>, including those in positions of academic leadership, are also routinely subjected to\u00a0online vitriol<\/a>\u00a0intended to shut them down \u2013 and thus to prevent them exercising their academic freedom to probe, question and test orthodox ways of making sense of the world.<\/p>\n One of the commonest defences of abusive or threatening language (online or not) is an appeal to everyone\u2019s right to free speech. And this has echoes within universities, too, when academic freedom becomes a testing ground of what is acceptable and what isn\u2019t. Threatened scholars warn that online harassment risks academic freedom. Rebekah Tromble and Patricia Rossini feared for their safety when the conservative online world turned against them last summerhttps:\/\/t.co\/FZYo1e8Qzf<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/WLPGRRzIe0<\/a><\/p>\n — Times Higher Education (@timeshighered) February 15, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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