Feminist Caroline Criado-Perez says:

When Holly Brockwell wrote an article for the BBC about her attempts to get sterilised, she expected to be called selfish. After all, she’s been called that for as long as she’s known she doesn’t want kids. She expected to get messages from people telling her she was wrong, she was too young to know, that she’d change her mind, regret it. She’d heard all that before.

What she hadn’t expected was the abuse. The rage. The messages that flooded her twitter, her Facebook, her Instagram, her email, even her LinkedIn page, telling her that she was sick, that she needed psychological help.

One man called her a “media whore”; another helpfully told her he wouldn’t want to “fuck her” — so that’s at least one impregnation she’s ducked. People told her they were glad such a “horrible, self-righteous, don’t give a toss about anyone else woman” hadn’t reproduced (in which case their anger seems rather misplaced — surely they should have been happy?).

People were taking this very personal decision, made by a person they didn’t know, extremely personally. That much was clear. But why?

“Women who don't want kids are seen as unnatural” Caroline Criado-Perez on the right to be child-free