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Gender Hate Online Debbie Ging • Eugenia Siapera Editors Gender Hate Online Gender Hate Online Debbie Ging • Eugenia Siapera Editors Gender Hate Online Understanding the New Anti-Feminism Foreword by Soraya Chemaly Editors Debbie Ging Eugenia Siapera Dublin City University University College Dublin Dublin, Ireland Dublin, Ireland ISBN 978-3-319-96225-2 ISBN 978-3-319-96226-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96226-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Puwadol Paradon / Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland We dedicate this book to all women who have suffered and suffer from digital and physical violence and its effects FOREWORD BY SORAYA CHEMALY The internet and social media are seamlessly woven into our day-to-day lives. We work, play, explore study, plan, celebrate and mourn online as we do offline. This “virtual” world opens doors to information, education, markets, jobs and communities that, in the past, would have been com- pletely inaccessible to most people, particularly girls and women. Social media, information and communication technologies are vital tools for women. Being able to tap into the web gives women unparalleled opportunities to express themselves and engage in civic and public life. Simply by virtue that women are the people doing the expressing, how- ever, their online participation alone represents challenges to traditions, norms and conventional obstacles to equality. Then, almost inevitably, the manosphere, fueled by threatened masculinity and framed neatly by words like “innovation”, “community”, “revolutionary” and “free speech”, intrudes to remind women that, after all, these activities are not for them. Just as the internet has become a critical avenue for opportunities and exploration, so, too, is it a space, male-dominated, of heightened hostility to women and gender non-conforming people. Online, women encounter the same hostility, threat and abuse that they do offline when they exercise their rights and use their voices. The amplification and scope of the medium, however, creates new risks and variations on threats. Anti-feminism online is an infinitely elastic variant on age-old resistance to women who speak out loud, engage in public life, share their thoughts, compete for jobs, make political demands and express their sexuality freely. A woman, speaking, is sufficient to garner anti-feminist attention. vii viii FOREWORD BY SORAYA CHEMALY First, being online expands women’s social reach and exposure, taking them squarely outside of traditional roles and spaces to engage in public ways usually reserved for men. In virtually any sector you may think of— science, technology, finance, politics, sports, health care, literature, teach- ing—women writers, activists, scientists, gamers, economists, filmmakers and so on are making their work visible and available. They are confront- ing glass ceilings and navigating glass cliffs. They are sharing, with the use of catalytic hashtags, their experiences with harassment, violence and dis- crimination of all kinds and demanding accountability. Second, the profusion of content that women produce, regardless of its nature, in and of itself often refutes stereotypes about gender and knowl- edge, gender and authority, gender and political ambition and power. It is feminist in that women are engaging out loud and with less and less of the shame that scaffolds our silencing and inequality. In some parts of the world, just being online or using a cell phone, for girls and women, is seen as a subversive transgression. All of this is happening online, in spaces that are pervasively dominated by masculine values, speech dynamics and experiences. Third, the web enables women to find others with whom they share sentiments, political beliefs, sexual and gender identity expression and cre- ative affinities. When women organize, engage in activism and politics, and create communities that support their goals and objectives, anti-­ feminist resistance can be acute. A recent study revealed that 80% of women who report engaging in feminist discourse on Twitter, for exam- ple, have experienced related harassment.1 In the spring of 2016, the Guardian newspaper undertook a large-scale analysis of reader comments in order to determine what types of content, or which of its journalists, encountered the highest levels of reader hostil- ity and harassment in comments sections. An in-depth study of more than 70 million comments on the site found that eight of the ten regular writers who received the most abuse were women (four white and four non-­ white); the other two were black men. Three of the top ten were gay, one was Jewish and one was Muslim. Notably, despite the fact that they make up the majority of bylines, the ten least harassed writers were men, mostly white.2 Not only were the majority of targets women, often at double or 1 https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/57/6/1462/2623986. 2 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/12/the-dark-side-of-guardian- comments. FOREWORD BY SORAYA CHEMALY ix triple jeopardy, but the subjects that generated the most vicious commen- tary explicitly challenged male entitlements and questioned traditional masculine prerogatives: feminism and anti-rape coverage topped the list. The wage gap was close behind. This analysis was focused on a relatively privileged elite, in the global north, media makers with access to resources and media. However, the study reflects the experiences of women online every day, evident in trends documented in multiple global studies. Reports from civil society, free- dom of expression and technology equity advocates in Pakistan, Kenya, Poland, India, Australia, the Philippines, Columbia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mexico and multiple other countries reveal similar (intersectional) anti-feminist backlash. Women who are harassed online are frequently told that the harassment they receive is “real”, that the best course of action is “don’t feed the trolls” and that men are also targeted for abuse. Studies reveal that men and women are targeted online in near equal numbers. However, while a large proportion of people report either being harassed online or witness- ing harassment, the mechanisms of abuse differ and in substantive ways. In fact, men and women, broadly speaking, experience very different inter- nets. Within this framework, sexual, ethnic and gender identity minority women are targeted with more frequency and for overlapping reasons tied to their identities. Women’s abuse is more frequently sexualized and sustained. One study of online comments conducted in 2000, in the UK, revealed that 41% of women had been stalked, sexually harassed or been sent unwanted por- nography.3 A 2014 survey in the US buttressed these findings, revealing that women 18–24 encounter the most vitriolic harassment at dispropor- tionately high numbers, reporting high rates of physical threats and sus- tained abuse.4 In 2016, in Pakistan (where 40% of women report online harassment), the Digital Rights Foundation launched a national cyber harassment helpline where women can seek support in cases of harass- ment, “revenge” porn, cyberstalking, blackmail, defamation and more. Anti-feminism also employs socially tolerated gendered slurs, traditionally gendered shaming and normalized levels of violence against women 3 LaFortune, G. (2015). A Qualitative Study of Anti-Feminist Discursive Strategies in Online Comment Sections. Retrieved from YorkSpace Institutional Repository. http://hdl. handle.net/10315/30709. 4 http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/. x FOREWORD BY SORAYA CHEMALY offline. Women are also more likely to be targeted by mob campaigns that turn into trending hashtags. Common harassment tactics include doxing (sharing private informa- tion with malice); impersonation; hateful speech; extortion and intimida- tion; rape, lynching and death threats; photo manipulation (memes, non-consensual pornification and deep fakes); “revenge porn”; and non-­ consensual distribution of sexualized images. In extreme cases, videos of rapes in progress and other forms of violence are shared across private networks for the purpose of “warning” women not
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