Why The Reaction To The Daily Mail's Front Page Gives Me Hope

Yes, it's an abhorrent front page. Yes, it's deeply frustrating, it's offensive and it's outdated. But I'm not alone in my anger. Thousands and thousands of people are furious about it.

I could barely sleep last night after winding myself up into a fury about the Daily Mail's front page.

In case you missed it, here's the offending splash...

Lazy portmanteau and questionable punctuation aside, I'm just so tired of this sort of thing. Everyday sexism grinds you down. Women are faced with a barrage of this stuff every time they leave their house, switch on their computer or even pick up their phone. It gets exhausting.

Overnight I managed to turn my white-hot rage down a few degrees into more a gently simmering fury, and I've had chance to take a proper look at the reaction to it.

Unsurprisingly, a huge number of people clearly share my outrage. From MPs to journalists to the general public, Twitter, Facebook, even my Tube carriage was full of people expressing their anger and frustration.

It's this reaction that gives me hope.

Yes, it's an abhorrent front page. Yes, it's deeply frustrating, it's offensive and it's outdated.

But I'm not alone in my anger. Thousands and thousands of people are furious about it. This kind of everyday sexism is not accepted as the norm any more and people simply aren't prepared to just brush it off.

The outrage wasn't just from women either. Most men also seemed horrified by the coverage. For every "calm down dear"-type response, there were countless comments slamming them.

I know some people would argue that we shouldn't give the Mail the publicity they are so clearly craving with an attention-seeking front page like this. I know, I know, don't feed the trolls.

But the more we call it out, the more we hammer home the message that this isn't acceptable. It's blatantly sexist tripe. It's not even a story. "Never mind Brexit"? Really? Because Article 50 is being triggered tomorrow, so perhaps that might be more useful to feature on the front page of the "newspaper of the year", rather than the fact the prime minister and her Scottish counterpart are in possession of two fully functioning lower limbs?

This treatment of women in this way isn't new. It's actually really old. The Daily Mail isn't giving some insightful hot take here. They're using the same hackneyed approach they, and other tabloids, have used for decades. "SHOCK REVELATION: Woman Has Body!"

Snooze. We've seen this a thousand times. Frankly, it's kind of embarrassing. It's not appropriate and the Mail knows it. We all know it. We're all speaking out about it.

Let this be a message to every editor. It won't go unnoticed. It won't slip under the radar. We will call you out.

Today's backlash shows the reign of the sexist front page is coming to an end.

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