And this has echoes within universities, too, when academic freedom becomes a testing ground of what is acceptable and what isn't. We need to use our own academic freedom to assess what can happen to that of academic women when digital misogyny passes unchecked. But when women academics are subjected to online misogyny, which is a common response when they exercise academic freedom, we are talking about a different kind of threat. It is to the credit of women academics that the misogynists frequently fail. Men who engage in online misogyny almost always speak from an (unacknowledged) position of privilege.

Source: New Zealand Herald April 27, 2022 08:57 UTC