Emily Atack: Asking for It?

During lockdown, the abuse Emily received escalated dramatically, and she began to share the things she was receiving to understand whether she should be just accepting what was happening to her. To her surprise, many other women from all walks of life came forward to say it was happening to them too, and that they also just thought it was normal.

In the documentary, Emily tries to understand why she, and the women contacting her, have normalised this for so long, and questions why the blame for unwanted male attention is so often put on the victim of the abuse.

The film follows Emily as she continues the debate that took her to Parliament in February 2022 to try and make cyber-flashing illegal. She explores whose responsibility it is to make this behaviour stop, whether enough is being done to protect young women and girls online, and what needs to change.

She looks to men themselves, trying to understand the psychology behind this behaviour, and she also reaches out to try and speak with some of the men directly who routinely send her sexually explicit content.

She also delves deep into her own story, unpicking things that have happened to her as a result of attracting unwanted sexual attention from a very young age. She speaks to her parents about this for the very first time and reflects on how these incidents have shaped her, in the hope that she can finally stop blaming herself.