Youngest female MP ‘was asked about OnlyFans more than manifesto in election’
The youngest female MP in the House of Commons has said more people asked her if she had an OnlyFans than asked about the Labour manifesto during last year’s election.
Rosie Wrighting, 27, spoke up about her experience running for office last summer in a debate marking International Women’s Day this afternoon.
She said the initial online post where she announced her candidacy for the Kettering seat attracted a large number of demeaning and offensive comments.
After being elected, she described being called ‘Barbie, a stupid girl, a child playing politics and many more creative things I can’t say in this House’.
Many women MPs make themselves read ‘daily online comments which criticise our appearance, question our intelligence and threaten our safety’, she added.
But Wrighting said the misogyny and abuse she sees on the internet ‘also translates to real life’.
Her voice breaking with emotion, she continued: ‘When I walk back to my flat tonight, I won’t have my headphones on so I can hear if someone is following me.
‘And when I go out with my friends, I won’t put my drink down because I’m worried I might be spiked.
‘And when a man asks my number on the Tube, all I’m thinking is how I can let him down gently, because I’m worried how he might take it if I say no.’
Wrighting served as the chair for the Westminster North Constituency Labour Party and worked as a buyer for fashion company Asos before she was elected to Parliament three weeks ahead of her 27th birthday.
She was one of many MPs, female and male, who stood up in the chamber today to both celebrate the achievements of women and raise the challenges they still face – particularly in issues of health and justice.
The debate ended with the now-traditional listing of the names of women either suspected or confirmed to have been killed by men in the past year, by Labour MP Jess Phillips.
It took five minutes for her to finish reading the list, which was her first since being appointed Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls last year.
