A teenager on how misogyny is even more damaging than we imagine

“I was raping a woman last night and she cried.” This was how a fresher’s week event at Cardiff Metropolitan University was advertised to students in 2013. Last year, a Durham University rugby club played a drinking game called “It’s not rape if …” and for female students starting at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, the student newspaper reported on a leaked email encouraging members of an all-male drinking society to “smash it”. The “it” they were referring to, in case the subtleties were lost on you, were the girls.