Of Mr. Men and Monsters (A Modern Cassandra)

On the 17th November, I did a tweet. Shortly after, all hell broke loose.

In a gift shop, I saw a book from the popular children's franchise Mr. Men, called Mr. Men go to Scotland. In it, there was a scene where Little Miss Curious asks a simple question, and Mr. Clever takes a lot of pleasure in explaining the answer and making her seem like an idiot. I tweeted a picture of the scene, with the caption 'Mr. Mansplain #EverydaySexism', and thought no more about it.

That is, until a reporter called me asking for a comment. I thought I had made some quite good points about how I really didn't know enough about Mr. Men to make a generalisation, but that this one scene in one book is an example of how regressive gender roles are enforced on children. The scene was telling children that girls are meant to be stupid, and that boys should be exasperated and condescending when explaining things to these idiots.

This interview was actually pretty accurately represented when it ran in The Telegraph.

I was pretty happy about this little story, and the handful of incels people who got angry and took to Twitter to call me names were a source of amusement.

The next day, the story was picked up by the right-wing news outlet The Daily Mail, where they absolutely slammed me, calling me a snowflake, naive child, feminist idiot, and much worse.

Their readers took to Twitter, and thousands of rape and death threats started flooding in. I had people sending me pictures of themselves outside the English department at my university, saying that they were coming to find me. I not only had people saying I was everything that was wrong with universities, but I had people actively contacting the university and demanding that they kick me out. I had people detailing exactly how they would physically punish me for trying to "ban Mr. Men" (which, for the record, I never suggested).

I was scared to go outside, I was scared to check my social media; I was more scared to stay indoors, I was more scared not to check the comments.

Just as the vitriol was dying down, The Daily Mail ran another story. They had an illustrator create the characters Mr. Mansplain and Little Miss Woke, and they used their massive platform to share mean little doodles about me.

You'll notice that I've not linked The Daily Mail stories here, and it's not because I'm unwilling to share viewpoints that disagree with me, but rather because I don't want to promote and help fund such petty, right-wing bilge masquerading as journalism. If you want to read the stories, I recommend that you use an adblocker, because why pay people who write such shit?

I was contacted by The Metro, and asked to write a piece about my experiences with the online trolls. I really appreciated the chance to get my account out there - to clarify that my critique was against reductive gender roles in children's media, not Mr. Men specifically, and to point out that, no matter how much you may disagree with me, rape and death threats are never okay, especially over something so inconsequential.

I was also interviewed by The Independent. I did a few radio interviews, and appeared on what transpired to be a right-wing news podcast. The podcast was particularly odd, because they downplayed how aggressive they were going to be to me, but when I quickly rallied and made some very valid points, the host hung up on me. Perhaps most disturbingly, I was invited on Good Morning Britain with Piers Morgan. I really considered appearing on the show, and listing to his gammon face all of the things that I loathe about that man, but I ultimately decided that I would never be given a fair chance to speak, and I refuse to pose as a punching bag for everything I am against regarding right-wing sensationalism in the news.

It was an absolutely horrifying experience, and I was completely unprepared and unequipped to deal with the volume of online trolls, and their abuse that often bordered on doxxing.

***

In the midst of the drama, a very good friend asked me if there were any myths I knew of which reflected my situation. I laughed at first, saying that there was no ancient god of online abuse, but then I had an idea ...

Maybe what I went through, and what women go through daily when they have the nerve to voice an opinion, isn't that different to what happened to Cassandra.

Cassandra by Evelyn De Morgan

Cassandra was a Trojan princess, daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, sister of Hector (who deserved better) and Paris (who did his thinking with his dick). Like many women of Greek mythology, Cassandra was dealt a crappy hand.

Apollo was the Olympian god of many things, including the sun, medicine, music, civilisation, and prophecy. He was also the patron god of Troy. In an attempt to seduce Cassandra, he gave her the gift of prophecy. Rather than raping her when she rejected him, which would have been pretty on-brand for the Greek gods, he cursed her. While he couldn't revoke the divine gift of prophecy he had bestowed upon her, Apollo could - and did - curse her to always have accurate prophesies that no one would ever believe.

Essentially, Apollo, with his reputation of being "unlucky in love", acted true to form.

In some of the accounts of this myth, Apollo cursed Cassandra by spitting into her mouth ... which doesn't really supplement my argument at all, I just wanted to share that with you.

Cassandra foresaw the fall of Troy but, of course, no one believed her.

She predicted the Trojan Horse, and suggested that her countrymen should look the gift horse in the mouth; she prophesied Odysseus' 10-year journey home; she foresaw Agamemnon's death at the hands of his wife, Clytemnestra; she saw her mother's future, being enslaved and raped by Achilles' son. She even saw Aeneas' exodus from the burning wreckage of Troy.

Now, why do I identify Cassandra with the online abuse suffered by women?

It's not so much the accurate prophesies, although of course I do believe in the accuracy of what I said. But what is particularly similar, to me at least, is the way Cassandra is treated for speaking up.

In particular, there is one account of the fall of Troy that I am thinking of. In it, the Trojans are celebrating because the Greeks have left their shores. They've brought the big wooden horse inside, and they're feasting and celebrating. Cassandra is all: "hey pals, Apollo gave me the gift of prophesy and I think you're preemptively celebrating can we please remove this wooden horse &c. &c."

In response, the Trojans call her: evil, immodest, ruinously mad, scornful, traitorous, presumptuous, shameful, and slutty. I am, of course, paraphrasing.

It's this response from the celebrating Trojans that really resonates with me.

There's no other way of saying it: They are gaslighting her (calling her crazy, or 'raving tongue of evil [...] with ruinous madness'); doxxing her (using information about her to further discredit her, i.e. 'Daughter of Priam [with] No maiden modesty'); and generally abusing, insulting, and threatening her.

If Cassandra had Twitter, I bet we would have similar looking inboxes right about now.