Four-time Olympic swimming champion Cate Campbell has revealed the terrifying rape threat she received this week from a caller in the middle of the night. The 30-year-old has been very open about her struggles with mental health and the impact of online abuse directed at athletes.
‘[The caller] left a message saying that if I didn’t pick up the effing phone they were going to effing rape me. ‘I think that that experience isn’t unique to me, it’s not unique to many female figures online and the scary thing is how threatened I felt about it and that my personal safety was in danger.’
On Wednesday the swim star shared a particularly disturbing threat she endured – and it wasn’t through social media this time. ‘I had a scary experience just the other day, I released an article talking about the online abuse that I had received and that night I received a phone call at 1am,’ she said on Nine’s Today.
‘I’m not saying that online abuse is unique to females, I know that we have seen some pretty horrific racial abuse levelled in the NRL and AFL. ‘But I think that the nature of the abuse when it is directed at females is much more predatory and feels a lot more threatening because by nature we are a bit more vulnerable.’
‘Just as we think that women should be able to walk home at night, women should be able to exist safely on social media. ‘So, if you’re pointing this out, you’re victim blaming and you are part of the problem because you are pointing at the victim and not at the perpetrators.
Campbell has stated that social media provides an important revenue stream for athletes particularly for some Olympic sports and female professional codes so to just not participate isn’t a viable option. ‘For those people who say, “Just get off social media”. You are victim blaming,’ she said.
‘Which is then really awful because I know that there’s so many wonderful people out there who want to send me messages, and who send love and support, but unfortunately there’s a small minority of people who will send pretty disgusting things.’
‘It’s not fixing the problem.’ Campbell stated that she’s had to change the way she uses social media because of trolls, explaining that she no longer engages with comments. ‘It’s been incredibly tough. It’s made me completely switch off from feedback with social media,’ she said. ‘So I’ve just kind of had to kind of switch off from it all.’
