This morning I opened my email account to find another death threat. The sender said they knew where I live and work. They said they would be waiting. Within two months they would cut off my head and place it in a plastic bag, and my head would be their prize possession. My head – my body – their possession. My offence? Last week I refused to accept a sexist and demeaning message sent to me by a senior lawyer via LinkedIn. I tweeted it, along with my response. I believed I had the right – as I believe any woman has the right – to challenge sexism in the workplace and on professional social media.

Calling out a single instance of sexism in a professional space hit a nerve far deeper than I ever imagined. Why has one tweet that sought to challenge the objectification of women in professional spaces caused a furore? The truth is, I have committed a double transgression. Not only have I refused to passively accept being objectified; I have also refused to apologise for having the temerity to take a stand. What I did therefore was doubly threatening to vested power. It is a tragic irony that the misogynist abuse I have endured is an attempt to reassert the patriarchal status quo, in which women in the public space are to be seen but not heard.

The abuse and threats will not deter me. They encapsulate what's wrong with the way women in the workplace are viewed

My tweet sought to assert that I refuse to be seen through my body. But instead my body, my image, my physical appearance, were micro-analysed and displayed. I was dismissed as a “glam lawyer”. Trolls described me as an “ugly ball-busting bitch”, a “munter”. You can imagine the rest. With depressing inevitability, people enjoying the privilege of an imbalance of power felt threatened by one (minor) attempt to argue for social change. It has played out in lurid Technicolor across the national media: the “most toxic debate of the year”, claimed the Daily Mail. “Where do YOU stand?” it asked readers.

The backlash has included the classic manoeuvre: reframing sexist messaging as innocuously harmless compliments. Why all the fuss? Should women not be grateful that they’re being complimented on their looks by strangers, particularly by powerful, senior men? Let me be clear: the compliments I receive from friends or family, and those I choose to give, are a private matter. I do not welcome unsolicited remarks about my body from someone I don’t know and who, in a professional context, is in a position of authority over me. Sexist comments are part of the process that seals and cements women’s subordinate position to men in the workplace.

Yet many professional women believe that because of their relative disempowerment they simply have to tolerate such intrusive and oppressive behaviour. After all, it is just casual, everyday sexism – just a bit of “fun”. Properly understood, however, it constitutes social policing, gender control, and – in its darker manifestations – a hidden form of social violence. We have to fully recognise this fact and take it seriously before we can change it.

Instead of addressing the insidious nature of sexism in the workplace, the rightwing media attempted to ridicule, berate and attack me. They created their very own Charlotte Proudman. That Charlotte is a man-hater. And yet the real Charlotte had never uttered a word of hatred towards men. I was dubbed a “feminazi”. Consider the term’s core components: femi (half a feminist) and Nazi. They raked over my private life, published untruthful material about me and my family, and harassed and distressed my relatives and friends. After the negative coverage came the barrage of misogynistic abuse and death threats from trolls. But you can do these things with impunity to a feminazi. As the subliminal messaging goes, the feminazi deserves it. Why? Because she did not stay silent. My future silence would be their victory.

Feminazi: the go-to term for trolls out to silence women Read more

But the abuse and threats will not deter me. They perfectly encapsulate what is wrong with the way women in the workplace are viewed. And I am more determined than ever to fight for progressive social causes. I hope that the backlash I have endured will not deter other women from challenging sexism. No one should be silenced for fear of standing up for what they believe in.

I have received countless messages of support from women and men across the world. I was touched when a father contacted me to say, “thank you … on behalf of my daughters”. Another man told me I was a role model, and he would be proud if his daughters would take a stand like me. One woman thanked me for inspiring her and for giving her confidence. Another said she received sexist messages all the time, and I have encouraged her to go public about the abuse.

A woman messaged me to say that a man in a senior position at her work made sexist comments about her physical appearance. When she informed her boss, she was told not to take it seriously. Other women are contacting me to ask how they can call out sexism without fear of recrimination.

I can’t sugar-coat this. I would never want any woman to face what I have endured in challenging sexism. But if we genuinely want to eradicate everyday sexism at work, we need a zero-tolerance policy. And I encourage women and men to support one another in identifying and challenging sexism in all professional contexts. We will only get the equality we fight for. It will not come easily, and it will not be painless. But if we are to value and respect women in the workplace, that fight is ahead of us.