Online misogyny is ‘perpetrating a tradition of abuse and violence in opposition to girls’
Picture this: It’s a normal work day. You put on the coffee, open up your work emails and start to plan for the hours ahead…
An email sent overnight catches your eye with its subject line: “Do better fat b****h”. Clicking on it there is a torrent of abuse finishing with the words: “I’m going to ruin you”. Your name is included in the rant multiple times. The sender remains anonymous.
You sigh, click ‘block’ and delete the email. After all, it’s definitely not the worst you’ve had and since it appears to come from an anonymous account, what’s the point in reporting it to anyone? Who would be able to do anything anyway? It’s just another day at the office.
In a society where there are strict laws about workplace harassment, sexual violence, threatening behaviour and hate crime, it’s hard to believe that for many working women the situation outlined above is so normal that the decision to dismiss and delete is a standard response.
But it’s more than realistic.
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Click here to watch Occupational Hazard: The War on Women Online
I’ve been researching hundreds of similar real-life reports collected over the past five years and my findings are laid out in a documentary published by the Mirror today, in which four women speak of online abuse connected to their work as journalists.
In the film, titled Occupational Hazard: The War on Women Online, I unpick how specific, gendered language is part of a playbook of abuse aimed at women working in the public eye. Together with an expert in online harm and psychology, I investigate how women are targeted with a specific type of online violence that men simply do not face.
Now, I imagine there are some people already flexing their fingers in preparation to ask why, with all the problems in the world, is this really the one to focus on? If we can’t cope with hurty words on the internet, then perhaps the problem is us.
Some may think the media is responsible for discord in our society and journalists shouldn’t complain when people don’t like what they do.
And what about the men, do they not also receive terrible abuse?
I’ll answer that last question first.
Yes, men do receive abuse and not all online abuse is sent by men. However, my research shows the abuse sent to women in the workplace by online users who appear to be men, is reported much more highly and is more threatening, violent, personalised and sexualised than that received and reported by their male colleagues.
Moving briefly onto the media issue. Women in politics, business, science and health, education, academia and the media have all reported similar events. My research happens to look at journalists because they are the people I work with. However, other research shows that when any woman’s work requires her to be publicly visible, she is more likely to receive this kind of threatening communication.
And while journalism of all kinds should be scrutinised, critiqued and held accountable where necessary, there is no profession where it is acceptable to make threats, harass or intimidate anyone for simply doing their job.
Finally, the issue of online abuse and why we should care.
The stories I investigate for the documentary show why this matters on an individual level.
One young woman talks of ceaseless, daily harassing emails from a man who was fixated with her work. His messages berated her for her professional performance and abilities, talked of the shame her parents must feel, the fact she could and should be so much better.
When she blocked his email address, he set up another and also found her on social media. She feared he would escalate his behaviour further by turning up at her workplace or contacting her family. As a journalist in the public eye, she worried she would be easy to find.
Another three women spoke of online backlash which escalated into violent death and rape threats and attempts to share personal details such as addresses online.
In two of the cases police investigations either faltered or failed.
All four women expressed ongoing worries about personal safety, took steps to make themselves less visible in public and online and spoke of changing jobs or changing their behaviour at work. In short, the online abuse changed them and their lives in a negative way.
The women I spoke to all said they wanted to see platforms and big tech take more responsibility for the violence targeting women and the racism and xenophobia running rife online.
They called for improved protections, greater transparency and a quicker response to help women and girls reporting online violence.
They also said they wanted to see more being done by the government, police and regulators.
As one woman said: “There needs to be more responsibility and the burden should not be put on the victim.”
Now to the wider issue of why should we care.
Recent research published in Australia revealed a clear link between online misogyny and real-world violence, with the report recommending governments recognise misogyny as part of their counter extremism measures.
In the case of the documentary, all but one of the incidents featured in the film was sparked by coverage of stories which involved or depicted Black people or migrants in the UK or Ireland. Along with the misogyny there was strong evidence of racist, antisemitic, and Islamophobic violence.
In each of these cases, social media platforms were slow to act and despite being reported, many of the threats and messages exist online to this day.
Experts can demonstrate the clear link between online harm and real-world events which see women and people of colour subjected to higher and increasing rates of physical violence.
In October, the National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection (NCVPP), pointed to the significant influence of online environments when it declared a ‘national emergency’ due to the rates of physical violence and harm against women.
Rose Capdevila, a professor of psychology at The Open University who specialises in gender and social media agrees that online violence points to a wider discord in society.
She said: “These behaviours reflect the kinds of behaviours we see offline.
“It is unacceptable, but somehow the online environment is a sphere of the world where it is acceptable to do this.”
Examples like these are exactly why Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has made it clear she will be looking into technology facilitated violence against women and girls (TF-VAWG).
The Online Safety Act regulator, Ofcom, today (November 4) closes a call for evidence to investigate the scale of the issue, its impacts and what needs to happen to make women and girls safer online. The Department for Science and Technology also closes a similar call for evidence today.
A spokesperson for the regulator said tackling abuse towards women was a priority, adding: “If content on a site amounts to a criminal offence, the law is clear that tech firms must take it down when they become aware of it and we’ve shown we’ll take action if evidence suggests companies are falling short.”
A government spokesperson told the Mirror: “These abhorrent acts are perpetuating a culture of abuse and violence against women that has no place in our society,” adding: “This government won’t stop until every woman in this country is safe online.”
Professor Capdevila said it was clear greater regulation of platforms is desperately needed, adding: “They [the platforms] have allowed this to happen, they’ve allowed it to go on in ways no other industry has been allowed to do.”
Click here to watch Occupational Hazard: The War on Women Online
