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British MP Tracy Brabin fires back after being flooded with sexist abuse over an off-the-shoulder dress

British MP Tracy Brabin has fired back at online trolls after being flooded with abuse because her shoulder was visible in Parliament.

British MP Tracy Brabin speaks in the House of Commons
Source: UK Parliament

British Labour MP Tracy Brabin has taken to social media to condemn a flood of sexist abuse she received after daring to bare her shoulder in Parliament.

After Brabin appeared in the House of Commons on Monday wearing an off-the-shoulder dress, she was flooded with tweets questioning whether her dress was "appropriate attire for Parliament" and calling her a "slag".

On Wednesday, Brabin responded with a tweet listing a selection of the criticisms she had received.

"Sorry I don't have time to reply to all of you commenting on this but I can confirm I'm not a slag," she wrote.

"Who knew people could get so emotional over a shoulder..."

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As of Thursday morning, Brabin's response has been liked more than 100,000 times, with many sharing the tweet as an example of the everyday sexism women face.

Meanwhile, Brabin's critics have doubled down, arguing that the presence of a shoulder suggests that she has "no respect for Parliament".

In response, other users have circulated photos of male MPs sleeping in Parliament.

In an interview with the BBC on Wednesday, Brabin slammed the "anonymous people, often keyboard warriors, often sat in their mum's back bedroom, eating pot noodles and having a pop at people that they don't know anything about."

"Women are judged continually by how they look," Brabin said. "Girlguiding UK did a survey a couple of years ago interviewing young girls about their confidence and so on, and one in six said they were ashamed about how they look."

"This is unacceptable. We are raising our daughters to be looking inward rather than outward."

"Listen to what we say, not what we wear."

Speaking to Sky News, Brabin said she plans to wear the dress again.

"I think it was really important that I could call it out because there are women across the country and world in work who have to put up with this sort of judgement every day of the week," she said.

"It's about being sexualised - and a lot of the comments were sexualised - and that's where it steps over the line."


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2 min read

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By Sam Langford


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