Aimee Vickers
Misogynistic abuse has been highlighted in the media lately, with the wonderful Dr Ashley Bloomfield using his exit to bring attention to the fact that his female colleagues often receive much worse abuse than he does.
This is not a new thing for me. The doxxing (publicly revealing personal information) and harassment started right back at my very first column when Billy TK made videos about me. He spelled my name out to ensure his cult would harass me, just right.
Now Damien De Ment . . . known for racist rants, the desire to hang public servants, and harassment of women online — he has numerous trespass notices and restraining orders against him — targeted me.
Those who know me will know that I quit nursing to focus on a degree in creative writing. Writing is not a lucrative choice of career so I run a small business, part time. As does every other business I have a website, through which De Ment attempted to dox me.
He dismissed every other piece of information on my website to focus on the fact that I offer Brazilian waxing. I’m good at it and, yes, if you would like a complete waxing of your undercarriage, I can do that for you, with minimal pain and complete discretion. Men, women, trans, non binary.
As an ex-nurse I’ve seen it all. Genitals are genitals and all are welcome at my business.
De Ment tried a feeble way of belittling and discrediting my knowledge and experience. I could have ignored him, it was pathetic after all, but I couldn’t help myself, I’m a Last Word Larry and my husband is whizzy with editing so here’s the response, which gave us much mirth!
And then my feminist column was published in The Gisborne Herald and all hell broke loose. A small percentage of the community had absolute conniptions and the outrage was palpable. The so-called “truthers” are upset because they’re being “censored” as they talk openly and publicly on social media. I thought I’d help them out by publishing their responses and providing a fact check alongside.
Here is a selection to highlight the misogynistic hate that is happening nationally and internationally, and increasingly becoming more extreme, locally.
“This chick must be on the Dark Lord’s payroll.” Incorrect. Although if the Dark Lord is paying, I’m open for writing jobs. Hit me up Satan.
“I call Aimee and Lara Jeremy’s (Gisborne Herald editor) Rottweilers! They do the dirty work for him with his full support. I also believe they work/get paid by Govt. They definitely sound like professional trolls!”
Incorrect. We are not paid. I write because I like writing and it’s good practice for my current study. Clearly the feminist piece went right over Simone’s head because she referred to two women who disagree with her as dogs. But let’s face it, Satan’s hounds probably have a better understanding of power dynamics than Simone.
“We are misogynists too, because we are anti-abortion! We should be pro killing innocent babies and pro choice for that but somehow anti-choice when it comes to rape by needle or nasal rape or suffocating ourselves with face nappies!”
This one by Simone was my absolute favourite. Bodily sovereignty and the Code of Rights is Simone’s thing. Until it’s not. She refers to immunisation as “rape by needle” and swabbing as “nasal rape”. I don’t think I need to comment further on that, but face nappies? Do you need those because you talk so much shit? I don’t know about you, but I use a face mask and just breath normally.
“Just disgusting that Aimee. Well, what can you say about her.” Well, that’s subjective. Disgusting is a bit of a stretch though. What can you say about me? The answer to that is: Whatever you like!
“Passive aggressively or indirectly calling very intelligent women stupid. A very inverse way of thinking. My Freemason radar is flashing.” Personally I’ve never known any Freemasons. But hey, if the conspiracy theorists hate them then they’re probably doing something good for the community so sign me up!
“It’s a legbeard in her mum’s basement making this up and no doubt being paid for it, or a neckbeard. Either way what a poorly composed load of absolute crap.”
Incorrect. But absolutely expected that a feminist column would attract the usual sexist comments about hairy women.
“She sounds like a rabid lunatic, all over the place, trying to pin anything she ever read in a book on us!”
Simone again, needs a face nappy.
“She’s a nasty piece of work and seems to be ranting like a lunatic, like possibly she needs professional help.” Again with the mental health theme. Mental distress affects everyone at some point. We all have hurdles, trauma and grief. Stigmatising it is silly, childish and unnecessary, but clearly these people think the lowest insult is to call someone crazy. Lunatic. Mental. Nutcase. Psycho. Which says a lot more about their own mental health than they realise.
For anyone out there suffering mental distress: you’re a valued member of society and we appreciate your contribution. There’s nothing to be ashamed of if life is hard for you right now. Seeking professional help is the sensible thing to do.
Notice that none of these comments dispute the points made in the column. Much outrage, name-calling and assumptions. A common theme that I’m a lunatic because I disagree with them. How dare the editor publish my opinions! But free speech! . . . But disgusting! Wait . . . are they cancelling me?
*Brain explodes from cognitive dissonance.