A Feminist watches Love Island: Maura say F*CK off to slut-shaming

Yes Maura! Standing up to rape culture and sexism!!

The chance to be in the Hideaway has come up, everyone is excited.

Then the boys go and ruined it all with sexism.

Watching the boys objectify Maura and egg each other on was so disgusting, especially since they were all happy to act that way on national TV.

Then in the best moment of Love Island so far, Maura  overheard Tom questioning if she's "all mouth or not" to the boys. And, in a response that made me cheer at the TV, she promptly told him to “fuck off,” smacking him down on the casual sexism of his bragging.

I love that she didn’t laugh uncomfortably in an attempt to be ‘one of the lads’. She was very clear, this is not ok.

When Tom sheepishly insisted he was only repeating the other boys' joke, she replied: "Maybe you should have been a gentleman. You shouldn't have said that about me."

Yes Queen!

Maura then called off the Hideaway date as, in a gratifying show of solidarity, the other girls rallied around her and chastised Tom about why it's never okay to speak about anyone in such a disrespectful manner.

I have previously said women should feel forced to be friends with other women, but it is moments like these when you need other women because only they will understand.

As Maura said, it’s 2019: women can talk about sex, women deserve respect and talking about sex DOES NOT mean you have consented to sex. To say a woman “is all mouth” if she doesn’t sleep with you after talking about sex is perpetuating the idea that women owe you sex after ‘acting’ a certain way, this is rape culture!

To his credit, Tom realised pretty quickly that what he said wasn’t ok. A lot quicker than the other boys.

This moment exposed the sexism of every man in that villa and how many men are in-denial about it, not just in the villa but in wider society. Even ‘nice guy’ Curtis struggled to understand that this was serious matter, not just a bit of ‘banter’ to be laughed off. I wonder how many men watching understand why it wasn’t ok?

Their defensive stuttering of ‘double standards’ showed how little they understood the sexism the women could immediately spot a mile off. Even women could might hesitate to call a man out on his sexism could see what was happening, because it happens to us everyday.

I am so glad that Maura didn’t let him down easy:

"Like even if we went in the Hideaway, I wasn't going to jump on the man… It's more about the craic, I'm not some sort of sex addict," she pointed out.

Maura also stated in the Beach Hut: "He needs to know that you can't disrespect a girl like that. It isn't nice."

With the Hideaway date never going to happen, Maura finally agreed to talk it through with Tom the next morning so he could apologise.

"I'm not going to try to justify or make up excuses, I straight up apologise," he told her.

Tom initially said he was just "in his mouth" a bit with the comments, with Maura setting him straight: "Me talking about sex doesn't mean I'm going to jump on top of you!"

Maura decided to forgive him in what will undoubtedly be just one of many times a woman in the villa has to explain sexism to a man.

I hope that Tom learns from this as does every man and woman watching. Next time the men watching are in a ‘laddy’ disrespectful chat, I hope they will put the other men straight. And I hope the women watching learn how to tell men who don’t to “fuck off”.