Online harassment of female journalists is real, and it’s increasingly hard to endure

“Attention is clearly a weapon — or can be,” Wong told me. “When there’s a threat, it feels like a physical threat.”

I know what she means. I’ve experienced just enough of this abuse — viciously misogynistic name-calling and sexualized fantasies about dismembering me — to understand it a little. Most of mine came when I criticized former president Donald Trump or his media allies, but the subject matter isn’t really at the core.

It’s simply an unhinged rage that women dare to have a voice.

Unless you’ve been there, it’s hard to comprehend how deeply destabilizing it is, how it can make you think twice about your next story, or even whether being a journalist remains worth it.