Young author and leading feminist commentator Laurie Penny is entering the debate on Twitter, women and trolling with Cybersexism, a new essay that explores how the political map of human relations has been recently redrawn by feminism and changes in technology.

Cybersexism is from Laurie Penny's forthcoming book Unspeakable Things: The New Sexual Counter-Revolution, publishing in early 2014.

Penny is exceptionally well placed to write about this contentious issue in a way that adds genuinely new and nuanced views; she was one of several female journalists in the UK to recently receive a bomb threat on Twitter, along with campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez, MP Stella Creasy and historian Mary Beard. A proud 'nerd, nomad and activist', Laurie Penny explores how the internet can be liberating as well as limiting.

Cybersexism asks why threats of rape and violence are being used to try to silence female voices, analyses the structure of online misogyny, and makes a case for real freedom of speech- for everyone.

Bill Swainson, Laurie Penny's editor, said: ‘Bloomsbury is delighted and proud to publish such an articulate, thought-provoking and brilliant young writer as Laurie Penny. Cybersexism will make a key contribution to the all-important debate on sexism on the internet and free speech. It will also give a taste of the excitement that her first full length book, Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution, will generate when we publish it next spring.’

Cybersexism is published on 22 August as a Kindle Single for £1.49.