There were even times when they nearly convinced me that they were right and I wasn’t worthy of the position I’d fought so hard to be in. Even now, as a 36-year-old federal senator with more than a decade’s experience in the parliament, there are still members of the media who would rather hurl insults at me than refer to me by my correct title. Paul Murray of Sky News, strangely, refers to me as "The Hyphen", due to my double-barrelled surname, a name he took straight from the trolls on Twitter. Others simply call me a "silly girl" or, the Trump-devotee favourite, a "nasty woman". Rather sickeningly, Michael Smith at radio station 2UE once referred to me as the "small but perfectly formed Sarah Hanson-Young" before playing a "skit" featuring an actor who was supposed to be me, loudly orgasming. Loading There is a particularly dark and angry section of our national media that needs to be called out and held to account. Sky News, The Australian newspaper and the News Corp tabloids, all of which are owned by Rupert Murdoch, as well as the shock jocks on the Fairfax-owned 2GB and 2UE radio stations are regularly the worst offenders when it comes to attacking and belittling women in public life who they don’t agree with. There are, it must be said, others who work within those organisations who are fine, talented and fair journalists. But I’m talking about a very specific type of political and social commentator here. They wield enormous power in shaping our national discourse, and they almost exclusively represent an ageing, angry and overwhelmingly male audience.

Over the years, Daily Telegraph columnist and blogger Tim Blair alone has written dozens of articles and opinion pieces about all aspects of me and my work. Throughout these, he has referred to me, or highlighted other’s references to me, as "Sarah Hanson-Dumb", the "Swamp Sow" and a "cry-girl". He has insinuated that in the future I would be transgender, have no fixed sexual identity and would be too fat to walk down the aisle of a train. Another man in the media who has an abiding fascination with me and everything I do is Ray Hadley, a shock jock from radio station 2GB. In one four-minute segment, he called me "a dingbat", "as mad as a meat axe", "as silly as a cut snake", "a dolt", "a silly, silly woman" and, for some reason, said that I wear "a cannabis frock with no stockings on". There are countless more examples of things of this nature: such as the time a national lads’ magazine photoshopped my head onto a bikini model’s body to try to bully me into posing semi-naked for them. I don’t mention these insults to elicit sympathy. Instead, I raise them to illustrate a broader social problem, of which these examples are just a symptom. The reality is that this is the sort of treatment you can expect if you’re an outspoken woman at the intersection of Australian media and politics in 2018 — and it’s a bloody shame. These broadcasters and columnists to which I’ve been referring do, from time to time, attack men as well. They then use that fact to attempt somehow to prove that they aren’t sexist. The undeniable truth, though, is that they save their most personal, vicious and hateful treatment for women. Senator Sarah Hanson-Young with then Greens leader Bob Brown in 2009. Credit:Glen McCurtayne

‘There goes the Green Kardashian’ From Cleopatra to Mary Magdalene, Hester Prynne to Rachel Jackson, and Anne Boleyn to Monica Lewinsky, history and fiction are replete with women shamed, brought down and diminished because of a phenomenon we’ve only recently started to name, but with which women have been grappling for millennia: Slut-shaming. Loading Many women know what it is like to have nasty rumours and sexist gossip used against them, inside and outside of politics, but very few have been prepared to call it what it is. This is partly because the word itself is confronting and is routinely written off as resulting from feminist hysteria. Even within feminist discourse and among feminist activists it is a loaded phrase with complicated and contested meanings.

In its simplest form, it is the shaming of someone due to their sexual behaviour — real, imagined or made up. Whether it’s done via rumours, slurs or innuendo, and whether it’s whispered or shouted, the effect is the same. This kind of shaming is almost exclusively reserved for women and, like most forms of sexism, is about power and control. It keeps women in rigid behavioural controls, and can be deployed to bring us down for reasons that have nothing to do with sex. The real reason, though, that women struggle to name what is happening to them is not because we don’t know what to call it but because the great power of slut-shaming as a weapon is that it is intrinsically self-concealing. We don’t name it, because naming it makes the ‘slut’ part true in many people’s minds. This works both to bully and intimidate women to stop them from stepping out of line and to silence powerfully any complaint about its use. Slut-shaming works because admitting you are being smeared with sexual innuendo can be the greatest shame of all. And the consequence of speaking out is the spreading of more innuendo. In my own experience, male colleagues have used it as a weapon to play with my head, put me off my game and shut me up. Other times, it’s been deployed to ridicule me in front of my peers, undermining my credibility while I do my job. One day, a government senator, well known for his sexist remarks, yelled out in the middle of question time, "There goes the Green Kardashian" as I walked over to greet members of the Afghan embassy who were visiting the parliament. Kim Kardashian has been routinely slut-shamed, so much so that her name is now synonymous with the insult. There I was, paying my regards to our visitors and a fellow senator had effectively called me a cheap slut as I was shaking their hands. I felt humiliated.

Despite our reluctance to name it, slut-shaming happens so much that it is normalised to the point where, often, only the victim knows it has occurred. Others around them are seemingly unaware of the crippling effect of such comments, rumours and taunts on the woman’s confidence and ability to keep going, her head held high, pretending nothing has happened. En Garde by Sarah-Hanson Young. Women know that to acknowledge they have been victims of sexual slurs and rumour is to bear the brunt of them. The consequence of speaking out is more shame and the spreading of more innuendo. It is a horrible dilemma. Before my critics accuse me of being a "feminazi" or a wowser, let me be the first to say that slut-shaming and harassment are not the same as flirting with or showing a person affection. It is designed to hurt or punish, while flirting, on the other hand, is fun. There’s a Coalition senator who calls me "babe", and "Ser-bear", a name friends at high school called me that was, and is, endearing. It’s friendly, it’s affectionate, and his use of it has never been demeaning or predatory.

Mature adults know the difference between being friendly and flirting, and the difference between flirting and sexist put-downs. This isn’t actually hard; it’s called civility. Women can instantly tell the difference between a sleaze and a gentleman. Decent men can too. In the case of Cleopatra, and other historic figures, their power, intellect and political cunning are diminished as their legacies are reduced to speculation about their sexual relationships. Diminishing these legacies adds to the normalisation of men being the only real leaders and erases women’s history. In the case of Mary Magdalene and Monica Lewinsky, we see clearly the different standards applied to men and women, where, for one gender, sexual relationships are viewed as heroic conquests or, at least, titillating, excusable foibles; and, for the other, they can be life destroying. The power of slut-shaming has long been its ability to hide in plain sight while demanding the silence of its victims. When something doesn’t have a name, it’s very hard to talk about and to resist. Calling out slut-shaming is still a momentous and perilous task, and not everyone who has experienced its chilling effect is able to speak up. Those of us in the privileged position to do so can and should. Naming it breaks the silence it creates and calling it out breaks its power.