Politician Receives Degrading, Unsolicited Fashion Tips From Strangers: ‘Were You Wearing a Bra on Thursday?’

Michelle Rempel, a member of the Canadian Parliament, is pulling back the curtain on the sexism she endures regularly at the hands of faux-concerned citizens. The politician tweeted a photo on Tuesday of an icky letter she received regarding her appearance. In the letter, an anonymous stranger tried to shame Rempel by implying that she dresses in a way that’s distracting to men, and suggested that she be more like “the Queen” (of England, probably) or that she “take a page from Michelle Obama.”

“Nobody will notice your bare neck or your décolletage if you wear a blouse and necktie as do your make [sic] counterparts,” the creepy letter reads. “If we can see it, you can see it, and don’t be surprised that hetero males will look. Hide the skin and people will look you in the eyes. ” Then the bold writer steps directly across the line by asking, “Were you wearing a bra on Thursday?” Cue skin-crawling.

The letter closes with, “I’m a girl watcher, I’m a girl watcher and you are not that bad looking. What was it that you were talking about…?”

Rempel captioned the tweet, “Wherein a creepy weirdo anonymously writes my office to tell me that it’s my fault that he’s a creepy weirdo.” As if the letter weren’t gross enough, Rempel claims to receive letters like this “on a weekly basis,” according to the Telegraph. She told the publication she gets “loads of this sort of fan mail all the time,” and that this time it “got under [her] skin,” hence the tweet.

Think the creepiness ends there? It doesn’t. Rempel told BuzzFeed that she even receives “death and rape threats,” according to the Telegraph. By tweeting this particular correspondence, she’s not looking for attention or playing the victim, but rather “wanted to highlight the sort of treatment female MPs face.” She says, “It’s just more like, come on, really? Like this person actually thought this was appropriate to send to me.”

Rempel, who’s been in office since 2011, told the publication that she’s shielded from such harassing letters when they arrive in the mail. The staff usually intercedes and throws out correspondence like this. But on social media, she’s a direct target, and it’s impossible not to let messages like this affect you in some way.

“This is absolutely awful, Michelle. I don’t know how you deal with this constantly It’s not okay at all,” one commenter reacted to Rempel’s letter on Twitter. “‘I’m a girl watcher’ has got to be the creepiest thing I’ve read today,” another woman commented. “I could say ‘I do look at attractive women’ but that just wouldn’t sound serial killer-y enough!” another defender snarked. “So sorry you deal with this garbage just to do your job. Not much in common politically but on this, I stand in solidarity,” someone said to the politician.

Other female Canadian politicians have come forward with similar tales of nasty comments. Sandra Jansen, who “recently crossed the floor from her longtime home in the Progressive Conservative party to the ruling NDP,” according to CBC News, came forward in November to say she has received messages including, “Sandra should stay in the kitchen where she belongs,” “What a traitorous bitch,” “Now you have two blond bimbos in a party that is clueless,” and “Dumb broad, a good place for her to be is with the rest of the queers.” (Jansen has backed legislation that supports the LGBTQ community.)

Jansen read the messages aloud in Parliament; she claims to have received the vitriol after switching political parties. As part of a panel on CBC television’s The National, a group of female members of Parliament read some of the hateful messages they also have received on social media. “Green Party Leader Elizabeth May received one tweet that was the repetition of “c**t,” according to the CBC. Others shared messages in which they were called “bitches” and threatened with violence.

Meanwhile, male Conservative MP Deepak Obhrai read a chilling message from a person who called him a “brown piece of s***.” Not that it makes it any better to level the playing field of hate and harassment. It just goes to show that everyone is fair game, and politicians are shining a light on this tragic phenomenon.

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