"Now the time has come to say enough" - Top TV presenter Laura Whitmore has penned a powerful article calling for the end of slut-shaming, pressurizing women, normalizing abuse, and the degrading way they are treated in the media.
Laura Whitmore has opened up about the demeaning way women are treated both by men who know them and by newspaper reporters.
The County Wicklow native wrote a personal essay for Hotpress Magazine which recalled far too many painful memories.
Reflecting on the recent verdict of the high profile Irish rugby players who were found not guilty of raping a then-teenage girl at a party, Whitmore bravely revealed her own experiences as she demanded women learn that it's time to say "enough".
The TV presenter and model spoke of instances where she was harassed in public, grabbed, and heckled by men whom she did not know. She spoke at length about
the paparazzi who lurk outside her home, eager to pounce and take photos of her underwear as she gets in and out of cars.
"I now worry: will a man put a camera under my skirt? How is this the world we live in? How is this legal?"
Whitmore told of her close friend who was raped by a colleague, and shamed into silence.
Frustrated, the Dublin City University graduate also opened up about the way she is written about in the media.
She writes, "I’ve spent most of my career, in the little limelight I’ve experienced, reading about my so-called dalliances with men. Pretty much every man I’ve ever crossed paths with, I may as well have been photographed straddling – from friends, to work colleagues, to actual boyfriends. This is supposed to be a measure of my worth? Not the fact that I have a first class honours degree in journalism; that I was selected as an MTV host ahead of thousands of applicants; that I have worked bloody hard in this industry and made a successful career, bought a house, supported my family, been a faithful girlfriend and lived a life as best I could, trying to be a kind person and standing up for others when I could?"
Comments