Online gender-based violence

Online gender-based violence is targeted harassment and prejudice against women through technology. The term is also similar to online harassment, cyberbullying and cybersexism, but the latter terms are not gender specific. Gender-based violence differs from these because of the attention it draws to discrimination and online violence targeted specifically against those who identify as female. Online gender-based violence can include unwanted sexual remarks, non-consensual posting of sexual media, threats, doxing, cyberstalking and harassment, and gender-based discriminatory memes and posts among other things. Online gender-based violence derives from gender-based violence but it is perpetuated through electronic means.

A graphic created by UNESCO to demonstrate some of the forms of harassment that women experience online

Forms

Since the introduction of the internet, the presence of online gender-based violence has grown exponentially. While online gender-based violence can target anyone, it disproportionately targets hose who identify as female. This violence and targeted harassment comes in many forms. One common space where online gender-based violence occurs is in the blogosphere. This is a male dominated space where female bloggers are criticized at a higher rate than male bloggers. There are frequently comments under female written blogs which are sexually violent in nature.[1] Another common place where online gender-based violence takes place is in the form of trolling. This includes derogatory comments and sexist, inflammatory comments. This is online gender-based violence masked as a harmless, aimless activity. It also includes cyber-sexism played off as humorous and harmless when in reality it reinforces harmful stereotypes, violence, and gender-based power structures that dominant both the offline and online world.[2] Memes are another form through which online gender-based violence is spread. These are images created to present sexist jokes, sexual violence, and gender stereotypes while playing it off as simply something humorous. Hashtags are used in order to make sexist commentary and topics go viral, which then inserts sexist ideology into the mainstream social media.[3]

Types

Within the broader definition, there are various types of online gender-based violence. One type is online domestic violence, where perpetrators use the internet to exploit the intimate and private knowledge that they have of their partner in order to hurt them. They also use intimate photos and videos to assert power and violence over their partner.[4] Cyberstalking is another type of online gender-based violence. It has been reported that 26% of women aged 18–24 have reported being stalked through the use of telecommunication tools afforded by the internet and social media.[4]

Causes

Online gender-based violence emerges from misogyny in physical spaces and the cultural norms that guide our lives. Accepted forms of gender-based violence include in-person contact such as: intimate partner violence, street harassment, rape, and others described in violence against women. All of these have resulted in the creation of online forms of gender-based violence. Other causes of violence include the practices of Online communities and lack of regulations that address gender specific harassment and violence in these communities.

Cultural

The societal acceptance of norms that are deemed ‘misogynistic’ has a large impact on the prevalence of gender-based violence online. Cultural norms and beliefs are carried from physical communities into online spaces by actors who engage in this behavior in person or who already agree with misogynist ideas. People who engage in physical violence against women also are likely to engage in online forms of violence.[5] Through cultural causes, scholars claim that rather than technology creating violence online, it simply provides a new platform which users adapt to suit their desired action, some of which may include acts such as doxing, threatening, or stalking women.[6] Culture also can influence the popularity of violent activity against women when these behaviors are perpetrated or normalized by celebrities. This is also true when acts of gender violence are normalized against female celebrities and public figures.[7] These cultural causes can have large or small impacts depending on the identity of the victim or the context. For instance, acts of gender-based violence may be more common in fields such as politics where strong ideologies about women's roles and misogyny are already present. This would include cases where the victim is working in politics or the threats and violent behavior came as a response to a political post.[8]

Algorithmic

While cultural norms are one cause of gender violence that can attract some actors to perpetrate these behaviors, online algorithms and behavior can bring about another factor that causes violent behavior. Public comments on social media applications like Twitter and Facebook can lead to other users agreeing with and adding their own additional comments. In cases of online harassment, these additional users actions are caused when the original threat or internet troll comment is perceived as acceptable or when they become normalized and more common in the users feed.[8] These threads of gendered trolling can be inflated from algorithm behaviors; in many cases online systems “boost” negative posts leading them to reach a larger audience and gain more violent responses.[9] Cases where the violence is instigated and grows due to perceptions of lawlessness as well as cases where online algorithms are responsible for the growth in harassment are both examples of how gender-based violence can be instigated online.

Structural

Some forms of gender-based violence online are caused by the availability of online spaces for communities with misogynistic and violent ideas about women. Systems which provide online formats such as Reddit or Tor can often become popular among groups with violent ideas or who would like to remain anonymous.[10] Anonymous online spaces allow subcultures like incels to grow. In many of these spaces, misogyny and rape fantasies are commonly discussed and these spaces can teach individuals that violent acts and behavior is acceptable. In some cases, incel forums have had a role in encouraging violent behavior among members.[11] The spread of violent and gendered rhetoric is not isolated to one sub-culture and can be normalized and taught in a variety of groups.

Impact

Gender-based violence online can impact the development and mental health of victims in similar ways to physical forms of violence and bullying. Unlike those physically attacked, online formats make it much possible for victims to receive hundreds or thousands of threats and violent comments in a short span of time. This can lead to different effects than would be expected in cases of physical assault or violence.[12]

Youth experience

Among victims who are minors, these experiences and the impacts are similar. Along with the experiences of cyberbullying, young people can experience specific impacts from gendered violence online. This more commonly appears as difficulty forming healthy relationships or trust after receiving violent threats.[13] Young people may also fear for their safety following events of online violence and many become less involved in online communities or in activities out of fear that these actions could lead to further violence against the victim.

Adult experiences

Acts of violence and harassment online can lead victims to withdraw from social environments, both online and in person.[14] Young women aged 18–24 are far more likely to experience online harassment than older women, most likely due to their level of access and involvement with online communities and causes them to be more likely to experience the negative impacts of online gendered violence.[5] Other impacts victims may experience depression and other mental health issues.[15]

Gamergate

One of the most notorious instances of widespread gender-based violence is the Gamergate controversy. Beginning in August 2014, this controversy evolved into a widespread harassment campaign against female-identifying internet users. Proliferated through the hashtag #Gamergate, this controversy shows how at risk female identifying internet users and content creators are to harassment, death threats, and sexually derogatory attacks among other things. These online threats translated into the personal lives of the women being attacked; many were forced to relocate, stay in close contact with the police, and cancel scheduled in-person events. The Gamergate controversy shows how widespread and damaging online gender-based violence is, and how quickly this sort of harassment and abuse is able to spread online.[16] This is also an example of online gender-based violence where women were attacked who were attempting to raise issues regarding online gender-based violence.

Addressing gender-based harassment

In the United States

The United States Department of State currently has policies which address gender-based violence, but do not have develop policies regarding online gender-based violence. The United States has not addressed online gender-based violence on a legislative level[17] despite there being a push from activists and internet users for more concrete policies that denounce and decrease the pervasiveness of online gender-based violence.

Internationally

There are organizations across the world seeking to address the problem of online gender-based violence. These include United Nations organizations such as the UNESCO[18] and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.[19]

The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency or SIDA is an agency of the Swedish government working to bring awareness to online gender-based violence in the hopes of increasing regulations. They have also published a report which found that over the last few years, online gender-based violence has garnered acknowledgment within the international community. The SIDA report serves as a source of information to further regulation process. It also noted the role of organizations such as the Women's Rights Programme of the Association of Progressive Communication in pushing for an increase in substantive policies regarding online gender-based violence. This report also points out the discrepancies between international regulations and state implementation.[20]

The Association for Progressive Communications or APC has been working since 2005 to end violence against women in the online space by strengthening women's rights organizations and activists working to end online gender-based violence.[21] One of their projects in particular, "End violence: Women’s rights and safety online" focuses on strengthening women’s safety and security “by preventing the growing violence against women through ICTs.” is being carried out in seven countries worldwide. Countries are: Bosnia Herzegovina, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Mexico, Pakistan, and the Philippines. Some other APC projects include websites such as Take Back The Tech! and "GenderIT.org" which focus on providing tools for coping with receiving online gender-based violence and defend against online internet users who are spreading online gender-based violence.[22]

See also

References
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  2. Poland, Bailey (2016-11-01). Haters. Potomac Books. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1fq9wdp. ISBN 978-1-61234-872-8.
  3. "Perpetuating online sexism offline: Anonymity, interactivity, and the effects of sexist hashtags on social media | Gender Action Portal". gap.hks.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2020-04-16.
  4. Suzor, Nicolas; Dragiewicz, Molly; Harris, Bridget; Gillett, Rosalie; Burgess, Jean; Van Geelen, Tess (2018-09-29). "Human Rights by Design: The Responsibilities of Social Media Platforms to Address Gender-Based Violence Online". Policy & Internet. 11 (1): 84–103. doi:10.1002/poi3.185. ISSN 1944-2866.
  5. Cuenca-Piqueras, Cristina; Fernández-Prados, Juan Sebastián; González-Moreno, María José (2020-02-01). "Face-to-Face Versus Online Harassment of European Women: Importance of Date and Place of Birth". Sexuality & Culture. 24 (1): 157–173. doi:10.1007/s12119-019-09632-4. ISSN 1936-4822. S2CID 198915190.
  6. Henry, Nicola; Powell, Anastasia (2018-04-01). "Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence: A Literature Review of Empirical Research". Trauma, Violence, & Abuse. 19 (2): 195–208. doi:10.1177/1524838016650189. ISSN 1524-8380. PMID 27311818. S2CID 3590981.
  7. Vickery, Jacqueline Ryan; Everbach, Tracy (2018), Vickery, Jacqueline Ryan; Everbach, Tracy (eds.), "The Persistence of Misogyny: From the Streets, to Our Screens, to the White House", Mediating Misogyny: Gender, Technology, and Harassment, Springer International Publishing, pp. 1–27, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-72917-6_1, ISBN 978-3-319-72917-6
  8. Cheng, Justin; Bernstein, Michael; Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, Cristian; Leskovec, Jure (2017). "Anyone Can Become a Troll". Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing. CSCW : Proceedings of the Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. 2017. pp. 1217–1230. doi:10.1145/2998181.2998213. ISBN 9781450343350. PMC 5791909. PMID 29399664.
  9. Rozin, Paul; Royzman, Edward B. (November 2001). "Negativity Bias, Negativity Dominance, and Contagion". Personality and Social Psychology Review. 5 (4): 296–320. doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr0504_2. ISSN 1088-8683. S2CID 4987502.
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  12. Vitak, Jessica; Chadha, Kalyani (25 February – 1 March 2017). "Identifying Women's Experience With and Strategies for Mitigating Negative Effects of Online Harassment". University of Maryland, College Park: 1231–1245. doi:10.1145/2998181.2998337. ISBN 9781450343350. S2CID 18959864.
  13. Hinduja, Sameer; Patchin, Justin W. (2007-10-09). "Offline Consequences of Online Victimization". Journal of School Violence. 6 (3): 89–112. doi:10.1300/J202v06n03_06. ISSN 1538-8220. S2CID 143016237.
  14. Nadim, Marjan; Fladmoe, Audun (2019-07-30). "Silencing Women? Gender and Online Harassment". Social Science Computer Review: 089443931986551. doi:10.1177/0894439319865518. ISSN 0894-4393.
  15. Vitak, Jessica; Chadha, Kalyani; Steiner, Linda; Ashktorab, Zahra (2017). "Identifying Women's Experiences With and Strategies for Mitigating Negative Effects of Online Harassment". Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing. pp. 1231–1245. doi:10.1145/2998181.2998337. ISBN 9781450343350. S2CID 18959864.
  16. Burgess, Jean; Matamoros-Fernández, Ariadna (2016-01-02). "Mapping sociocultural controversies across digital media platforms: one week of #gamergate on Twitter, YouTube, and Tumblr" (PDF). Communication Research and Practice. 2 (1): 79–96. doi:10.1080/22041451.2016.1155338. ISSN 2204-1451. S2CID 148244313.
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