Credit to Black for taking on cowards

MHAIRI Black is not the first politician to use the C-word in the Houses of Parliament – but perhaps she’s the most effective.

The Paisley and Renfrewshire South MP resorted to strong language yesterday as she read out the list of insults she is subjected to on an almost daily basis as a woman in politics.

As Black pointed out, she has the status and the influence – and it should be said the courage – to hit back at her tormenters.

Many women for whom this kind of sexist hatred is also a daily experience do not.

Today is International Women’s Day and Black has done us a service to highlight the horrendous abuse that many suffer simply because of their gender and because they have put their head above the parapet.

The list of insults does not make comfortable reading but it is the lived experience of too many women.

Words are powerful and Black was perfectly entitled to use their force to repel the trolls.

The gratuitous language, and remember she was only repeating part of the daily barrage that comes her way, is the work of cowardly and unimaginative men.

These are anonymous cowards who, having failed to turn the old poison pen letter into an online art form, end up throwing a digital turd. In doing so, they forget the first hands they dirty with their insults are their own.

Shame on them and all credit to Black for taking them on.

Speaking of plaudits, the honour, such as it is, for first using the C-word in Parliament goes to Tory peer Baroness Jenkin in the House of Lords.

She used it describing much the same kind of behaviour that Black detailed yesterday.

From a peer of the realm to a Paisley woman, that kind of misogynistic abuse is unacceptable.