Thread by @philipoconnor

If you’re a man and you have been tweeting in support of #Ibelieveher, here’s a simple concrete thing you can do to change things.
If you’re in a WhatsApp group like the one the Ulster Rugby lads had & someone says something like they did, mark their card. You don’t have to …

... go nuts, just "Lads, a bit of respect" will do it. Doing things like this is hard, and some will tell you to lighten up, or call you a faggot, or whatever.
You might even feel you have to leave the group - but do you really want to be friends with people like that?

As a man, this will cost you - you'll have to spend your time explaining this shit to people, and you may lose a few friends along the way.
But that price is an awful lot less than the one paid by any woman taking the witness stand and telling a court that she did not consent.

The dynamics in groups of people usually work in that a certain few people set the tone, and the group follows - but if the "leaders" do something the rest of the group disagrees with, their tacit support disappears and they either backtrack or are replaced.

The media cannot tell us what to think, only what to think about - by far the most powerful people in our lives are our families, our friends and our team mates. They mean a lot to us, and us to them, and this is where we need to start the process of change.

Though I am hugely grateful to @roemcdermott and @SineadOCarroll for taking a lead, women can't do this for us.
The @SecondCaptains lads can do some of it.
But it's up to the rest of us to take that food for thought that they have given us and convert it into action.

By talking respectfully about women as people, rather than objects to be spit-roasted, and by not being silent when others round us casually use disrespectful terms like slut and whore and bitch, we can change things for the better.