Fed up with being kissed, insulted and even groped on air, female sports journalists in Brazil have launched an anti-harassment campaign with a straightforward request: #DeixaElaTrabalhar, or “Let Her Do Her Job”.

Women reporters frequently receive everything from unwanted advances to violent threats as they work. Bruna Dealtry, a sports reporter for channel Esporte Interativo (Interactive Sports) was broadcasting live from a victory celebration after a football match earlier this month, when a man tried to kiss her.

Dealtry ducked swiftly and commented to the camera: “That wasn’t cool” – then carried on with her job.

But the experience left her shaken, she later wrote in a Facebook post: “Today, I felt in my skin the sense of powerlessness that many women feel in stadiums, subways, and even walking in the street.”

In the same week, a Porto Alegre reporter, Renata Medeiros, was called “a w**re” by a sports fan while reporting on the game.

For the reporters, who had been swapping experiences in a WhatsApp group since the early March, enough was enough.

“We knew we had to turn up the volume,” said Bibiana Bolson, a sports reporter for ESPN and one of the campaign’s coordinators. Bolson, who in the past has been forced to report online rape threats to the police, is adamant that progress needs to be made outside of the stadium, as well as inside.

“Independent of our individual professions – whether we’re on TV, on the radio, producing or writing – we have all experienced some form of sexual harassment,” she said. “It’s the same story in different clothing.”

The movement has already been met with an ugly online backlash, with one man tweeting: “I can’t deal with this, get back in the kitchen.”

“I think the campaign is really important. It shows that it’s not inoffensive or funny to disrespect, harass, or try to demoralize us,” said Débora Gares, a reporter for ESPN. Gares said that women are as underrepresented in newsrooms as they are in stadiums – and still rarely reach the top jobs.

Janaína García, a São Paulo-based journalist and founder of the Journalists Against Harassment campaign, said that change was possible.

“The number of men who have shared the #DeixaElaTrabalhar campaign today is, for us, an indication that things may be changing,” said Garcia. “Feminist causes are beginning to be understood as a fight for equality.”