Samantha Bee Makes An Epic Stand For Female Politicians Who Were Abused For Doing Their Job

Continuing her stellar run on speaking up about incredibly common yet woefully underreported problems women face, Full Frontal host Samantha Bee spent a segment of her latest episode discussing online harassment — a topic she knows a little something about.

“Being a woman on the internet means receiving frequent bouquets of chivalrous offers to tear you in half c**t first,” she said. “Especially if you have the nerve to run for President, or talk about politics on TV, or criticise literally any video game.” (Shoutout to the men who tweet me literally any time I write the words Anita Sarkeesian).

Surprising no one, that rule also carries across to women who are involved in politics at any level. Female Australian politicians routinely suffer gendered insults from both their colleagues and constituents; they’re occasionally even meowed at in Parliament. And, as Bee reported, even women in local city councils have to suffer a shitstorm of abuse for simply doing their jobs.

Earlier this month, five female members of Seattle City Council voted against building an arena for the men’s basketball team which would compromise the city’s port and waterfront industry while costing taxpayers more than $200 million. The vote fell along gendered lines with the four male councillors supporting it, and this led to an avalanche of mad internet bros threatening to assault the “stupid bitches” who wouldn’t let it happen.

As Bee notes, unfortunately they had to blur the names of the trolls so “you can’t find them to offer them oral sex for being so cool.”

It’s interesting to see this relatively brief and casual discussion of online harassment in comparison to that given by male late-night hosts such as John Oliver. In a great Last Week Tonight segment last year, Oliver unpacked the failures of the US legal system to protect women from this increasing abuse and remained rightfully shocked about the problem. The monologue was long and broad-ranging and delivered with his distinctive barbed outrage.

That’s great! The more people talking about it the better! But with this abuse being so extensive and unrelenting, it’s important to call it out on a case-by-case basis too. Thank god the late-night circuit now has a space for “a fellow stupid bitch” to vent a little.

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Full Frontal With Samantha Bee is fast-tracked from the US at 8pm Tuesday nights on SBS2. Get on it.