The Aussie rules football community has rallied around AFLW player Tayla Harris after a photo of her was the subject of disgusting comments online.
Channel Seven’s 7AFL Twitter account posted the photo by Michael Willson of Tayla right after booting a footy during Carlton’s win over the Western Bulldogs on Sunday.
But within hours, it had attracted dozens of awful comments, some mocking the Carlton forward, the worst sexualising her.
The administrator behind 7AFL decided to take down the photo on Tuesday and release a statement.
"Recently we published an image of AFLW player Tayla Harris," the statement read.
"The original purpose in publishing the image was to celebrate the power, athleticism and skills on show in Carlton’s thrilling win over the Western Bulldogs.
"The image attracted a number of comments, some of which were inappropriate and offensive. As a consequence, we have removed the image and the comments."
It's likely they thought they were protecting Tayla by doing this.
But Tayla quickly set them straight: she didn't need protecting.
The 21-year-old reposted the image on her own account with the message: "Here’s a pic of me at work... think about this before your derogatory comments, animals."
And it wasn't long before others in the AFL community took notice, deciding to rally around Tayla by sharing the photo on their own accounts.
Reposters included Geelong Cats player Patrick Dangerfield and broadcaster Gerard Whateley.
Thankfully, Channel Seven got the message, issuing an apology and reposting the image on their footy account.
"We're sorry. Removing the photo sent the wrong message," it read.
And that, my friends, is how you take a stand against sexist trolling.
Top Comments
I just want to know what the comments were.
I mean, sure, I get that if they're derogatory then why perpetuate them, but my problem is there is an arsehat on youtube suggesting that he saw women sexualising David Beckham all the time but there was no outcry over it so this arsehat concludes it's all a storm in a teacup. Just the women getting their knickers in a twist. Now I strongly suspect this is a false equivalence. That the comments made about about Tayla's photo were (very) likely rapish, or sexually demeaning. But how can I point out how crap this arsehat's comparison is if I don't actually have anything to compare it to?
All I can find is articles about how derogatory the comments were, but I can't find the actual comments.
On a football field in Australia the garden of Eden tayla Harris a beautiful woman kicked the leather off a sherran the timing and execution was non other than perfect well done tayla.also the person person who took the photo