I wrote this on @owenjones84's facebook page about the last few days re #Assange and I think I want to share it on Twitlonger, even though it will invite yet more abuse:

What has disturbed me most is the speed at which certain Assange supporters have so easily lapsed into using the worst types of rape myths. They accuse the women of having suspect motives, of being sluts and liars, and that they're more mendacious and prone to lying than those who accuse others of any other type of crime.

And what's more worrying is that these supporters do it apparently with no awareness of the fact that their slurs against these women aren't just unique to this case, but are the same slurs that are trotted out every goddamn time a woman accuses a man of rape. Just look at the DSK of Ched Evans cases for further proof of that.

I am deeply concerned and depressed that there seems to be a certain branch of the left (yes, mostly male) that sees misogyny, not as a deep-rooted form of oppression which must be opposed by both men and women, but as a tool to further their own arguments in support of certain politics and the figureheads attached to them. "What this woman is saying doesn't chime with my world view. Thank God misogyny allows me to totally invalidate it!"

After getting literally hundreds of abusive and misogynistic messages over the last few days, I started feeling totally hopeless about the struggle of feminists. But perversely, it is almost a source of luck that I have been on the receiving end of misogyny in my life (in fact, last weekend I ended up running into a garage for cover because I was being followed by a man down the street who kept shouting at me to stop - thank God he wasn't a prominent left-wing activist eh, or I might have been asking for it). My own personal experiences have taught me that this is a fight feminists must continue, no matter how exhausting it gets.

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