CONSIDERING we live in the 21st century some people still possess an outlook on life that shouldn’t be given the time of day in supposed civilised society.

Scottish electro pop Chvrches should be on top of the world having released their debut album, The Bones of What You Believe, and starred on Later with Jools Holland last week.

But instead of being recognised for creating a euphoric record, their singer Lauren Mayberry – who possesses a stunning, crystal clear voice that has no doubt propelled them to their current lofty position – has been bombarded with sexually explicit comments and messages online.

No one should put up with some of the disgusting and vile outbursts that were directed at her just because they happen to be a woman in a highprofile band.

Within days Lauren had penned a brilliantly written response for the Guardian but she isn’t looking for pity, far from it.

Instead she seems to be hoping to start conversations with the aim of getting people to speak up and reject the mindless status quo that allows this to happen time and time again with little changing or nothing in the way of a consequence.

The power of her words can already be found in the very origins of the abuse.

Although the band only has about 124,000 ‘likes’ on their Facebook page, their original post flagging up the abuse has gone on to reach well over 500,000 people.

Hopefully the high-profile nature of this abuse can be turned into something positive and those making a stand on the likes of Facebook, Twitter and message boards are marking a shift change in the sort of reaction cases like this provoke.

It is all well and good being up in arms about this but the number of people offering support to people like Lauren should be used as an indicator that enough is enough and those dishing out the abuse have to called up on it.

Finding a suitable punishment or deterrent is probably as big a hurdle as getting these people to even contemplate bringing themselves towards being a right-thinking member of society.

A number of people have been prosecuted for aiming abuse at footballers on social networks, so why can’t that happen with cases like this?

It can’t be a rule for one and not for the other.