re: Men read abusive comments made to women sports writers to their face

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A few weeks after I inexplicably agreed to be in a video about online harassment — produced by a bunch of guys I’d never met — I found myself standing in a warehouse on Chicago’s West Side. I wasn’t sure what to make of the crew from Just Not Sports; the guys looked like standard bros or standard hipsters, basically.

Don’t tell us to find a different career, to get a thicker skin, or to ignore the trolls. You have no idea how much we ignore. We already ignore mountains of garbage, threats and innuendo each and every day. When you see us get upset over a seemingly tame insult, it’s likely because we’ve already been attacked dozens of times that day. That tweet, the one that seems so harmless, was probably just a bridge too far.

The reality is that we wouldn’t be in the industry without an unusually thick skin. The thin-skinned fell by the wayside a long time ago. We didn’t get where we are in the industry by being shrinking violets. For many of us, not standing up to a bully is against our very DNA. We’re fighters. We’ve crawled through mountains of shite to get where we are. We still get shite on every single day. Telling us it’s our duty to absorb the trash people send our way without fighting back is cruel. No one should have to go through what we go through just to do our jobs. We’re the ones that endure it, we don’t need your advice on how to handle it.

As for our male allies, we adore them. But that doesn’t mean we want them to speak for us. Most of us abandoned the idea of white knights long ago. Want to help change the world for the next generation of women in sports media? Scoot over and give us a seat at the table. We’re smart and capable and are perfectly willing to speak for ourselves. We don’t need rescuing. Speaking on our behalf is just another way of silencing us.

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