‘She felt incredibly ashamed’: gendered (cyber-)bullying and the hypersexualized female body

Abstract

Cyberbullying has become an ever-pressing topic for young people in a time of ubiquitous media. Some of the existing, mostly quantitative studies reveal that (cyber-)bullying is gendered and that female and genderqueer young people are bullied more often and differently than males. However, there is a lack of qualitative studies that look into the specific reproduction and dynamics of gendered discourses in bullying that stretches across entangled socio-material-technological spaces. Informed by insights from digital geographies, gender(-queer) geographies, and interdisciplinary research on (cyber-)bullying, and taking a feminist perspective, this article investigates gendered discourses in young adults’ narratives about (cyber-)bullying. The analysis is based upon 42 written narratives produced by young adults attending upper secondary schools in Austria describing (cyber-)bullying they were involved in as (co-)perpetrators, targets or bystanders. (Cyber-)bullying reported ranges from early undesired reception of sexual content to hypersexualized harassment (by peers) to sexual grooming (by unknown adults). Rather than focusing on the narrators’ active or passive roles in the bullying practices themselves, through narrative analysis we reveal how, in their accounts of (cyber-)bullying attacks, our participants—often unintentionally—reproduce gender roles and ideals of femininity and masculinity, and therewith deeply ingrained heteronormative discourses that prevail in Austrian society. For female young people, the persistent and complex ‘sexual double standard’ is particularly harmful in serving to legitimize undesired hypersexualization of their bodies online while simultaneously prohibiting their right to self-determined sexual practices online.

Keywords:

• Bullying
• cyberbullying
• feminist digital geographies
• gendered ‘sexual double standard’
• narratives
• young adults

1. Introduction

Today, digital media are an integral part in the lifeworlds of young people. They fulfil many different and fundamental functions, from entertainment, learning, and information-gathering to socializing and sexual exploration (Thulin and Vilhelmson 2019; Thulin, Vilhelmson, and Schwanen 2020). Digital media have become central to the formation of young people’s opinions and knowledge, their values, their relations, and their negotiation of identities, self-representation, and self-affirmation (Cover 2016, 2019). They co-shape young people’s perspectives on and acquisition of gender roles, and produce ‘important social spaces of experiences—including for partnerships and sexuality’ (Dekker, Koops, and Briken 2016, 3, translated). They influence the formation of individual desire structures and the establishment of (intimate) relationships with other (young) people, and further the formation and detachment of families and the positioning of young people within prevailing gender images (Valentine 2006). Digital media can have a positive influence on the (sexual) identity development of young adults, while at the same time increasing the pressure on young people to align with ingrained ideals of heteronormativity, femininity, and masculinity in Western societies (Cover 2016, 2019).

Due to the spread of digital technologies among young people cyberbullying practices have become a socially pressing issue (Bork-Hüffer, Mahlknecht, and Kaufmann 2020a; Betts 2016). Some of the existing, mostly empirical and quantitative studies reveal that (cyber-)bullying is gendered and that male, female, and genderqueer young people are attacked differently (see Sec. 3). By taking a feminist perspective on gendered (cyber-)bullying, this article seeks to advance existing mostly quantitative insights through qualitative research on the role of discourses on heteronormativity, femininity, and masculinity in a reproduction of the blaming of the targets of bullying and a hypersexualization of their bodies. We ask: What role do gendered discourses play in (re-)producing and affirming (cyber-)bullying among young adults? Why and how are bodies becoming gendered and hypersexualized in narratives of (cyber-)bullying? Our analysis is based upon 42 written narratives produced by young adults attending upper secondary schools in Austria describing (cyber-)bullying attacks, in which they were involved as (co-)perpetrators, targets or bystanders. Rather than focusing on an analysis of the practices per se (which we have done elsewhere, Bork-Hüffer, Mahlknecht, and Kaufmann 2020a), we analyse how, while reconstructing the practices of (cyber-)bullying in their narratives, the young adults themselves fall back into deeply ingrained gendered and heteronormative discourses that are one of the fundamental factors producing bullying in the first place.

In Austria, long handed down social traditions such as the ideal of a heterosexual nuclear family, the gendered division of labour within families, and androcentric political institutions, were slowly challenged since the 1970s, as a result of democratization, the extension of social welfare institutions and the politicization of gender inequalities (Sauer 2019). However, significant gender inequalities persist until today, especially in the areas of income, education and working hours (Geisberger and Glaser 2017; Schönherr 2020)—not least because women still majorly are responsible for care work. Although shaken by equality policies and anti-discrimination directives, Sauer (2019) concludes, norms of binary gender, heterosexuality and traditional gender hierarchies have by no means eroded until today.

Austria in particular lacks qualitative research on gender and identity negotiations among young people while having to watch children increasingly being confronted with the negative consequences of today’s ‘digital throwntogetherness’ (Leurs 2014, see also Sec. 2), particularly in the form of cyberbullying (ECRI 2015; Livingstone et al. 2011; FRA 2020; OECD 2015). Some of the existing studies suggest that female young people worldwide are more affected by sexual violence in online spaces than, for example, male peers (State of the World’s Girls Report 2020). Simultaneously, a series of quantitative studies reported high rates of bullying and violence directed towards adults identifying as LGBTQIs in Austria as a whole (OECD 2015; FRA 2020), Graz (Hart and Painsi 2015) and Vienna (Schönpflug et al. 2015). Thus, we see an urgent need for qualitative methodologies that recognize the central importance of young adults’ experiences, practices, and negotiations of both difference and sameness and related (cyber-)bullying in entangled socio-material-technological spaces.

2. The norms of femininity and masculinity and the negotiation of gendered and sexual identities in entangled socio-material-technological spaces

In this article, we attempt to deconstruct gendered and sexualized discourses in the context of (cyber-)bullying. In this section we argue that the norms of heteronormativity, femininity, and masculinity continue to be deeply ingrained in the everyday doing of gender in Western societies. We furthermore discuss how digital technologies have influenced this process and co-produced entangled socio-material-technological spaces in which young people negotiate their (gendered) identities today.

Butler (1993) has prominently argued that gender becomes ingrained as part of a performative and iteratively (re)produced (bodily) practice. Through the internalization of everyday gender representations, classifications, and interactions children learn from birth to conform to only one gender category, through the practice of ‘doing gender’ (West and Zimmerman 1987, 24). The narrative of heteronormativity becomes subconsciously and habitually anchored in bodies and knowledge, taken for granted, as unquestionable normality, as ‘natural fact’ (Villa 2006, 165, translated). This iterative process permeates and (re)produces the social and creates gendered and binary subjects, who are granted privileges and powers; it also rigorously rejects, denies or discriminates against deviating identities and practices as socially unacceptable (Butler 2011 [1990]; Hubbard 2008; Persson et al. 2020). Thus, a person who is categorized as a woman must compulsorily adhere to specific norms and values in their practices and presentation in society in order to gain validation as a female person in the classic female role and thereby become subjectified. Butler understands the term subjectification as the interplay of subjection and power. A person must submit to certain power relations in order to exist within a socially accepted framework of norms and values, which ultimately grants the person power. At the same time, subjects take resistance to these norms by playing with non-conformist practices, to be able to break through these power relations (Butler 2012, 7). It is precisely this interplay that is elaborated through the analysis of written narratives in our article, which allow us to understand whether norms are questioned and reworked, or whether stereotypical understandings of roles are unnoticedly (re-)produced. Butler is concerned with breaking down existing classifications, which can counteract discrimination or gender-specific attributions of characteristics (Strüver 2005, 102).

With reference to Butler, Cover (2016, 106) stressed that today the human body is increasingly becoming a project that has to be managed and organized under (hetero-)normative claims of ‘regulating ideals’. Eventually such ideals differentiate humans into those conforming and those not conforming to the ideals: ‘stereotypes work to bind the figure of the human by producing particular sets of borders that articulate some subjects as more patently human than others, and thereby more worthy—in ethical terms—of having a liveable life’ (Cover 2016, 113). Young people are confronted with norms of feminine and masculine (un-)desirability in entangled socio-material-technological spaces, where the appropriation of a gender role is constructed through everyday practices.

As Bansel (2018) and Cover (2019) pointed out, digital technologies have had a fundamental impact on young people’s processes of growing up and negotiating their gender and sexual identities, and have significantly pushed the negotiation of abundant identities beyond the binary of female and male. The self-experienced practices our study participants described reflect the perceived and experienced state of ‘digital throwntogetherness’ against the backdrop of a ‘micropolitics of presence, encounter, and cultural difference’ in digital space (Leurs 2015, 48). On social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram, young people need to manage and communicate their own biographical ‘project of the self’ (Livingstone 2002, 300) and to ‘participate in explicit discourses about identity and identity construction’ (Livingstone 2002, 301). Thereby Cover (2016, x) also argued that ‘identity is always online [… and] even when we are nowhere near a digital communication device’ digital media actively contribute to producing elements of our identity, taking control from individuals.

Whereas previously a disembodied cyberspace, allegedly free of constructions and ascriptions of race, class, gender, and religious identifications was assumed, there is now wide agreement, as our empirical data also clearly show, that online relations often link to, reproduce or even strengthen offline discourse and power hierarchies (also Leurs 2014). As Karen Barad (2007) has noted, it is crucial to understand how gender, bodies, and other social variables are produced through technoscientific practices. She has argued that it is necessary to regard spaces, bodies, and technologies as entangled and inseparable—as always intra-acting (rather than interacting). Through the Internet of things, objects, and ‘wearable’ technologies, the body and digital technologies have merged more closely than ever before (Sumartojo et al. 2016). Due to the entanglements of people, materialities, and technologies, it is more appropriate to conceptualize young people’s spaces of intra-action and negotiation of identities as entangled ‘socio-material-technological spaces’ (Bork-Hüffer, Mahlknecht, and Kaufmann 2020a; Bork-Hüffer, Mahlknecht, and Markl 2020b, 139).

Through digital media, stereotypes and thus beauty ideals of masculine and feminine material bodies are implicitly reproduced—e.g. through the posting of ideal-male or ideal-female selfies that emphasize the heteronormativity of the sender. Images of idealized female and male body images are digitally produced by individuals and viewed, judged, and evaluated by others; so-called ‘objectification’ takes place that encourages competition and stereotyping of female faces/bodies in particular (Ringrose and Coleman 2013; Dobson 2011). This gender performance is part of the existential mechanism of gendered attributions that is maintained and reproduced through the ongoing staging of constructed gender norms of femininity and masculinity (Butler 2012).

3. Sexual exploration online, the gendered ‘sexual double standard’ and (cyber-)bullying

Aigner, Theo Hug, and Tillmann (2015) see digitally mediated experiences of children and young people as an absolutely significant factor for their sexual socialization. In line, in this section we further debate the role of digital technologies for young people’s sexual exploration online and argue that due to the persistent norms of heteronormativity, feminity, and masculinity, young people are confronted with a complex ‘sexual double standard’ online that is often the trigger of gendered and sexualized (cyber-)bullying. We close the section with a definition of gendered and sexualized (cyber-)bullying.

Overall, sexual online practices can have an identity-defining function for young people and adults (Vogelsang 2017, 76–77). Digital media serve multiple purposes for sexual information, communication, interaction, and experience; they can be a way to obtain anonymous and free sexual information, entertainment, and contact services regardless of time and place (Matthiesen and Dekker 2018). Digital media can be the sites of becoming sexual for young people and adults (Vogelsang 2017), of their first sexual contacts and experiences, and also of establishing thoroughly intimate romantic relationships with others (Matthiesen and Dekker 2018). Regulating ideals (see above) connected to norms of femininity and masculinity, such as binary sexual codes of attractiveness, sexiness, and gender-specific characteristics can be challenged but also (re-)produced (Vogelsang 2017).

Empirical studies on gender-specific differences in sexual online practices have yielded different results. First of all, according to a study by Reißmann (2010), sexting and sexualized selfie posting are among the most common forms of sexual identity-finding processes among young people. While some studies comparing gender differences in sexting found no differences (Dake et al. 2012), other results show that girls perform so-called sexts more frequently than boys and, accordingly, that boys receive more sexts than girls (Mitchell et al. 2012; Strassberg et al. 2013). Furthermore, Dekker, Koops, and Briken (2016, 45) found that sexting is also more widespread among genderqueer young people.

When it comes to the expression of sexuality, Derek Kreager and Staff (2009; quoted after Dekker, Koops, and Briken 2016, 51–52) argue that girls and boys are exposed to so-called ‘sexual double standards’: open sexual practices by girls, such as the creation, sending, and forwarding of sexts, is constructed to be gender-atypical, a ‘social and sexual norm violation’ (Döring 2012, 23) and is associated with negative attributions (‘cheap’ or ‘sloppy’) (Grimm et al. 2007, 113) and a careless use of social media (Karaian 2012; Salter, Croft, and Lee 2013). Hereby, it is particularly active female sexual desire that becomes scandalized and portrayed as inappropriate (Döring 2012; Hoffmann 2012). In turn, when boys share sexual material online, this is perceived as ‘gender-compliant’ (Döring 2012, cited after Dekker, Koops, and Briken 2016, 51–52). It even heightens their acceptance and perceived masculinity in the peer group (Ringrose et al. 2013 and Cooper et al. 2016 cited after Dekker, Koops, and Briken 2016, 51–52). Possessing images of female bodies, particularly their breasts, and showing them around and sending them on can be understood as part of an ideal, culturally specific expression of masculinity (Ringrose and Coleman 2013, 312). The images received are seen as evidence of masculinity and the ability to gain access to female bodies and the associated use of sexual services by the young women depicted (Ringrose et al. 2013, 210).

However, the ‘sexual double standard’ becomes more complex by what Ringrose and Coleman (2013) describe as new norm of female online desirability. By the young women it is taken as a sign of attractiveness and recognition when they are asked for a ‘special photo’, with body images becoming ‘interchangeable, differently valued commodities’ (Ringrose et al. 2013; Ringrose and Harvey 2015, 210). Still, the images serve as tools of a binary gender system that contribute to a pornographic, patriarchal, and sexualized image of women. In the wake of the ‘sexual double standard’, young females here make decisions about their sexual reputation and find themselves caught up in a moralized gendered discourse. According to Butler (2012, 208), this is a strategy of concealing the performative nature of gender and a tool for reproducing gender identities within the framework of male dominance and ideals of femininity and masculinity.

Overall, whereas digital technologies offer various opportunities for the sexual exploration, expression, and practices of young people they pose different types of risks. Digital media have increased the number of possible contacts, the speed of interaction, and the degree to which immediate sexualization of communication can take place. As a result, the boundaries between consensual sexual practices, different types of sexualized transgressions, and violence are fluid and more quickly crossed online (Dekker, Koops, and Briken 2016). Various studies have by now emphasized the high risks of digital media for promoting sexualized violence, the targets of which are not only, but considerably more often, female subjects as well as persons identifying as genderqueer (Mishna, McLuckie, and Saini 2009; Kärgel and Vobbe 2019, 10; State of the World’s Girls Report 2020, 21; Dekker, Koops, and Briken 2016; Livingstone et al. 2011; MiKADO (Missbrauch von Kindern: Aetiologie, Dunkelfeld, and Opfer) 2015).

Furthermore, young female and genderqueer people are more often targets of gendered and sexualized (cyber-)bullying. As Olweus’ (1996, 266) had noted, a person is bullied when they are ‘exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions’ by one or more perpetrators. With the spread of digital media, a variegated array of cyberbullying practices such as flaming, harassment, impersonation, outing and trickery, cyberstalking, happy slapping, photoshopping, and more (Schultze-Krumbholz et al. 2012, 12–15; O’Sullivan and Flanagin 2003, 70) has emerged. These forms have complemented existing traditional bullying practices, which have been delimited into relational, verbal, and physical practices as well as ‘bullying with objects’ (Woods and Wolke 2004; Stassen Berger 2007). Such practices can be characterized as gendered (cyber-)bullying when subjects are harmed by others ‘based on their sexual or gender identity or by enforcing harmful gender norms’ (Hinson et al. 2018, 1). Bullying practices might also involve the undesired hypersexualization of subjects as part of sexualized (cyber-)bullying. As bullying today enfolds through entangled socio-material-technological spaces, such practices can often no longer be distinguished as either cyberbullying or traditional bullying in material space. Hence, we are using the construct of gendered and sexualized (cyber-)bullying to denote the intra-actions of bullying practices that are related to gender and practices of hypersexualization in entangled socio-material-technological spaces.

Based on the ‘sexual double standard’, girls and women who have participated in sexting or other online sexual activities are particularly often becoming the targets of gendered (cyber-)bullying. This is often legitimized by holding the victims responsible for e.g. the possible dissemination of image material on the Internet, even if it is distributed without their consent and thus violates their rights regarding their own image (Dekker, Koops, and Briken 2016; Vogelsang 2017), or for sexual online practices not deemed in line with ideals of femininity. According to Salter, Croft, and Lee (2013, 312), this leads to victim blaming ‘similar to the ways women have been held responsible for protecting themselves from sexual assault’.

4. Materials and methods

Collecting data in the context of (cyber-)bullying requires a highly sensitive and ethically reflective approach that respects and integrates the specific perspectives, needs, and feelings of the young adults involved (Bond 2014). Hence, written narratives were chosen as a method. They have proven to be a suitable qualitative method for exploring potentially sensitive and hurtful experiences as well as for studying processes of identity formation in individuals (Laughland-Booÿ, Skrbiš, and Newcombe 2018, 731). Narratives give participants room for subjective descriptions and keep ‘the presentation of the life story in the words of the person telling the story’ (Atkinson 1998, 2; see also Pabian and Erreygers 2019). The extensive time available to the participants to reflect, structure, build, and revise their thoughts distinguishes narratives from interviews (Schulze 2010) and thus counteracts established power structures in interview settings, which is particularly relevant in school-related research (Heinzel 2010, 711). Research subjects alone produce the data.

However, among the disadvantages of the method, researchers cannot ask the participants to refine, elaborate or redirect their accounts towards research-relevant aspects. Consequently, only the contents that the study participant describe and communicate can be analyzed and used. As our written narratives show, this includes attributions of female/male identities to the subjects described as part of the stories by the narrators. These gender categories were thus not ascribed by us, as we understand gender identities according to Butler (2012, 9) as constructs of norms, values and attributions of characteristics that are embedded in social and institutionalized power relations and cannot be detached from them. However, when presenting the results of the narratives, we are bound to refer to the categorization of subjects that narrators used in their stories also in regard to ascribed male/female identities. As further disadvantages of the narratives, it is not possible for the researcher to determine whether the contents of written narratives actually correspond to the truth. Described practices might as well have taken place faster or slower than described.

The basis for this article are two (cyber-)bullying studies conducted by the first author. In both studies written narratives were collected from adult pupils (18 years or older) from two classes of two colleges for higher vocational education (upper cycle, A-level equivalent) in Innsbruck (Tyrol, Austria). Data collection I included 24 pupils (December 2017) and data collection II 61 pupils (December 2018) (N = 85). The participants were asked for their consent to participate and for the academic use and publication of the narratives; for this purpose, the data were subsequently translated from German into English. Both the participation in the narrative writing exercise and the submission of the finalized narratives were voluntary. Out of 85 submitted narratives 42 were selected for this analysis: these included accounts of (cyber-)bullying that the narrators had actually experienced. Excluded were narratives that debated general fears of (cyber-)bullying without reference to actually experienced (cyber-)bullying practices, narratives that were too short and therefore lacked possible contextually relevant information for their interpretation, and narratives that did not conform to our definition of (cyber-)bullying. Although we touch upon the topic of intersectional bullying in Sec. 5.1, the reader will note that the narratives focus primarily on (cyber-)bullying in the context of gender and sexuality but hardly touch upon questions of race, class, or religion. The under-representation of questions of race, class, and religion in the narratives may be due to the particular group of study participants with little diversity in the chosen schools (academic secondary school [upper cycle] and the college for higher vocational education).

Two consecutive school hours each were used during regular school hours for data collection. To ensure anonymity, care was taken during data collection to arrange the participants in the room so that sufficient space was left between the subjects. In order to assure that they had no influence on the data collection, no teachers were present. In a storytelling prompt for the narratives, the participants were asked to describe their individual perspectives on, experiences with, and practices of (cyber-)bullying. There was no consistent self-identification present that allows us to differentiate narrators’ roles in (cyber-)bulling clearly into (co-)perpetrators, bystanders, viewers, or targets of (cyber-)bullying in all cases. This was partly complicated by described mixed and fluid forms of role-taking and switching. The bullying incidents described extended back to different stages of the narrators’ pasts; the longest as far back as elementary school. The pupils’ strong voluntary support and their surprisingly open descriptions of their feelings and experiences in the studies are an expression of their great interest in and desire for more research and knowledge-building in the field of (cyber-)bullying.

Narratives were subjected to two analysis steps. First, a qualitative content analysis following Mayring (2000, 2014) using the software MaxQDA was conducted, aiming at a selection of relevant narratives and excerpts focusing on issues of gender and sexuality. Second, narrative analysis (Wiles, Rosenberg, and Kearns 2005; MacKian 2010) was applied to relevant narratives in order to analyse how the narrators are reproducing gendered discourses in their descriptions of (cyber-)bullying. Narrative analysis aims to preserve the complexity, density, and layers of narrators’ descriptions, and in particular seeks to connect the ‘intimate details of experiences, attitudes and reflections to the broader social and spatial relations of which they are a part’ (Wiles, Rosenberg, and Kearns 2005, 98). We also try to reveal which discourses and ideas, such as value attributions, legitimize (cyber-)bullying practices. Among the challenges of the two selected analysis steps (and qualitative analysis overall) is that analysis choices (e.g. categories formed) and interpretations made are highly subjective. Hence, we conducted a double analysis, in which both authors separately analyzed the data and afterwards discussed their findings and interpretations. In addition, the categories formed were repeatedly questioned and reviewed to avoid losing nuances in the original material.

5. Results

This section critically reflects upon how the writers of narratives in our study (re-)produce discourses of gendered and sexualized (cyber-)bullying and thereby implicitly legitimize (cyber-)bullying practices in their stories. Although we are not able to give a full account of all aspects touched upon in the narratives, we highlight three aspects that surfaced when analysing pupils’ portrayal of gendered (cyber-)bullying in the following three subsections: first, narrators in various instances seek to speak out for the young people that were the victims of (cyber-)bullying in their accounts. In doing so, however, they do not manage to bridge gendered and heteronormative discourses, which the authors themselves grew up with, but lapse into reproducing and therewith deepening these discourses. As a result, they unnoticedly legitimize the (cyber-)bullying practices that they ostensibly criticize in the narratives. Second, in this process, our narrators particularly scandalize self-determined sexual practices of young female people. Third, non-sexual practices portrayed as not confirming to ideals of femininity are also taken to justify (cyber-)bullying practices that hypersexualize female bodies.

As there was only one instance in our study in which a male body was the focus of gendered and sexualized (cyber-)bullying, the findings focus mostly on bullying acts aimed at female young people and their bodies. Although it must be noted that this is a qualitative study with a specific sample (see Sec. 4), this disparity is also in line with existing studies that emphasize that female young people are more often the targets of bullying and suggests that this is even more so when it comes to gendered and sexualized bullying.

5.1. Reaffirming instead of reworking heteronormative discourses: narrators’ failed attempts to speak out in defence of (cyber-)bullying targets

In the narratives that we collected, many narrators tried to critically discuss and reflect upon the (cyber-)bullying practices they had conducted, experienced, or witnessed. In several instances, narrators thereby made attempts to defend and speak out for the subjects that had been the targets of (cyber-)bullying in their accounts. However, mostly they lapse into reaffirming the very heteronormative discourses of ideal feminine and masculine bodies and their expected performativity that were the foundation of (cyber-)bullying in the first place rather than managing to counteract them, as we will exemplify with two cases.

The first example is the narrative written by Alex. It is also one of the few narratives that included accounts of intersectional bullying (see also Sec. 4). As the burgeoning research on intersectionality (Valentine 2007; Marquardt and Schreiber 2015) has argued, the social construction of identities and related processes of exclusion are seldom aligned with one category alone. Alex’s female friend became the target of a so-called ‘flame-war’ (see O’Sullivan et al. 2003, 70) by unknown young male perpetrators via Instagram. The girl's appearance, body, and weight, and also her origin, faith, and culture were cited by Alex as reasons for the perpetrators’ online practices, which is an example of the intersectional ‘othering’ (Harmer and Lumsden 2019) of the girl online through textual and visual means:

A former friend of mine was bullied on Instagram. About 4 years ago she put in normal pictures where you only see her head and a part of her (covered) upper body. She was a bit chubby at that time, but not fat at all. Nevertheless, there were comments from boys I don't know: “look how fat she is” and “woah yeah, she is really fat” and other things. In addition, my friend was Turkish, she didn’t wear a headscarf, but you could already see her oriental origin through her hair and eye color. Reason enough for a couple of guys to write very racist comments under her pictures. Jokes about her, her family and her faith were written in the comments. (Alex)

In regards to the point we want to make, the narrative reveals how Alex’s account of the incident, unnoticed by the narrator, reproduces and affirms the gendered and racialized discourses that were the roots of bullying in the first place: By emphasizing from the start that the friend uploaded only ‘very normal’ pictures, the narrator simultaneously reproduces what that ‘normal’, i.e. feminine ideals, for girls and women should be: a ‘covered’ body. By judging that her body shape might be ‘a bit chubby at that time, but not fat at all’ Alex actually gets into juggling whether her body shape could have justified bullying. According to the narrative’s author ‘her oriental origin through her hair and eye color’ was ‘[r]eason enough’ for the racialized flaming. Here, Alex actively participates in othering his former friend by constructing and ascribing to her an ‘oriental origin’—delimited by Alex through bodily features (hair and eye color). Overall, although Alex tries to support the friend, the account is permeated by a reproduction of heteronormative discourses that portray white, slim bodies performing as what is deemed feminine as ideal.

As the second example that reflects a failed attempt to bridge the deeply rooted heteronormative discourses in Austrian society, we use excerpts from a narrative written by Billie. Notably, this is the only case study in our data that focuses on a male bullied body; the female bullied body was otherwise always the focus:

In the lower cycle, a video was circulated throughout the entire high school where a classmate from my class was (apparently) seen. He was said to have been naked with another boy, but you could never see his face. The video was distributed throughout the school via WhatsApp and it was claimed that the boy from my class was in the video. After the video was distributed, every other pupil pointed their finger at him and hurled wild abuse in his direction. I didn’t really notice it at first and I never saw the video myself. The pupil kept denying that it was him in the video and I believed him. I never watched the video because I thought it was unfair to my classmate and I thought it was unfair that a video was distributed and everyone just assumed that he was in the video just because someone claimed he was. I and a few other girls from my class tried to support the boy and protect and defend him from verbal attacks. (Billie)

Although neither the boy nor any clear sexual practices could be identified for sure, the rumour spread that the target of bullying, a boy, had engaged in sexual practices with another boy. The deep embedding of heteronormative ideals is most clearly reflected in the narrators attempts to ‘clear’ the image of the boy by claiming it was not the boy who was in the video—rather than advocating respect for ‘whatever practices’ were being engaged in by ‘whoever’ was seen in the video. While attempting to advocate for the target, the narrator unnoticedly disaffirms non-heteronormativity.

5.2. The scandalizing of female sexual online practices

The following narratives on (cyber-)bullying that the young adults in our study submitted shed light on bullying attacks that targets faced for practices allegedly not conforming to ideals of femininity and masculinity. Thereby, self-determined online sexual practices by female young people were focal points of (cyber-)bullying attacks that were reported in the narratives. Thereby, in the narratives our narrators often turned to scandalizing these self-determined online sexual activities once more—rather than the (cyber-)bullying attacks associated with them.

The following excerpt of a narrative by Ida should serve as an example. In it, she describes how consensual intimate sexting by a young woman led to her public humiliation and exposure in front of the entire school when the boy to whom the photos were sent privately forwarded them via social media. Furthermore, the account shows how the girl’s act was hypersexualized by other boys, when the victim in her story was offered money by other boys in exchange for sex:

In the 2^nd class of a college for higher vocational education (upper cycle) a new pupil came. I also became friends with her and she had her eye on a boy in the class. But unfortunately, he was not as serious about her as she was [about him]. She sent him a nude picture of her upper body and within a few days the whole school got to see it. Everyone knew about it, classmates, teachers, parents, but there was never more than a conversation between the two of them and a teacher. She was left alone for the most part afterwards, but from time to time she was insulted and laughed at, and she was often asked if she would send such pictures to other people. The boys also offered her money so she would do it or asked her if she could be paid for sex. When I heard about this, I was shocked. I couldn’t believe that she would send such a thing and even less could I believe that this boy would send them forward. I couldn't help her, I told myself that it was her own fault. But what I find worse is that although teachers and parents knew about it, nothing was actually done. (Ida)

We would like to guide the reader’s attention to how the narrator strongly disaffirms the online sexual practices by the female target of bullying: Ida expresses how she was ‘shocked’ and ‘couldn't believe that she would send such a thing’. Although also expressing disbelief at the boy’s act of forwarding the images, she concludes that nothing could be done to help the bullied young woman and that ‘it was her own fault’.

This is a typical case in which the actual target of bullying is being blamed for the sexual online activity instead of the bullies—those forwarding the image and bullying and harassing the girl about it. This in line with Dekker, Koops, and Briken (2016, 9, translated) argument that often, ‘the responsibility is exclusively attributed to the persons concerned’ whereas ‘[t]he role of the actual perpetrators is hardly addressed’. Here we wish to note that quantitative research has shown that a disproportionately high number of images sent purposefully by women to individual recipients are forwarded to third parties or shared in digital space (Powell 2010): four out of five of those affected are female, according to Leicht and Sørensen (2011).

Sarah’s narrative shows another case; one that involves cybergrooming. According to Wachs, Wolf, and Ching-Ching (2012, 628), cybergrooming is the establishment of a relationship based on trust between minors and, usually, adults who use digital media for the systematic recruitment and exploitation of minors for sexual purposes. Sarah’s friend was prompted to engage in sexting practices online by a ‘boy’ she thought was her peer but was eventually revealed to be an older man:

A good friend had to go through a bad experience via Facebook. […] In the mistaken belief that she was sending naked pictures to a young guy, she did so. I thought that was very bad and, in the process, I also realized what social media requires for caution. The two chatted on and on, he wanted more and more pictures and luckily my girlfriend ended the chat at some point. He continued to press and thus tried to demand more pictures of my girlfriend. […] When my girlfriend definitely did not send any more pictures, at some point the old man revealed his secret. For her it was a complete shock. She cried a lot and felt incredibly ashamed. (Sarah)

Sarah underlines how she thought her friend’s practices were ‘very bad’. She spends much of her narrative pointing out how ‘she [her friend] cried a lot and felt incredibly ashamed’ in the aftermath, thereby emphasizing a conviction that her friend indeed should feel ashamed. Her narrative, similar to other narratives written by female young people, also reflect the narrators own fear of such humiliation, which unveil the deep ingraining of norms of what is deemed as appropriate and inappropriate feminine comportment.

Several of the narratives reflected precisely this blaming and scandalization of female sexual online activity. Those narrators, who had witnessed the sharing of images or forwarded them themselves, always scandalized the victims. In the case of the accounts of those whose pictures had been forwarded, it also reflected the revictimization it entailed for them and the potential self-blaming that could result from this.

Even in narratives which reported incidences of sexual violence and rape that had been made public online, narrators tended to (at least partially) blame the victims. This is particularly harshly reflected in a detailed narrative that was submitted by Robin, which we summarize in our own words as briefly as possible in order to provide as much background as necessary and avoid a possible revictimization of the target. Robin described an incident of what was initially supposed to be a consensual sexual act at a youth party between a girl and a boy who were in a relationship that eventually turned into rape when another boy entered the room during the act and began filming the two without the girl’s consent. The girl wanted to stop the act, but both boys continued with their practices. The video recorded in the process first circulated at the school and then spread all across the state. Robin described how, in the end, the girl and her parents moved away to protect her from the bullying that ensued following the incident. The narrator is convinced that as a result of the video going viral it ‘is probably also the best thing’ for the girl that she and her family moved away. To Robin it seems quite impossible for the girl to return to school. Implicitly, Robin advocates changing residence and leaving the previous familiar community as the best solution for the humiliated victim. Furthermore, the narrator only addresses the role and fate of the girl in the narrative, but does not further debate the actions of the two boys involved—even though one committed rape and the other a crime by recording a video that, according to Austrian law, shows pornographic material of a minor, and also shared it digitally.

5.3. The hypersexualization of female bodies not engaged in sexual practices

Besides the scandalizing of female online sexual practices, other bullying practices described involved a hypersexualization of bodies without the targets themselves being engaged in any kind of sexual practice. Thereby, perpetrators focused on alleged deviations of the targets from the feminine ideals of the physical body (shape and weight), and its expected performativity—practices, language or expression—or deviating materialities of the body, especially in terms of clothing. The physical body and its performativity in socio-material space often became placed at the centre of bullying by means of circulated digital representations of the body—images and videos—sometimes actively manipulated by photoshopping (O’Sullivan and Flanagin 2003; Schultze-Krumbholz et al. 2012) or intentionally taken to show the targets depicted from unflattering or foreshortening angles. Maria’s narrative shows typical descriptions of the female bullied body that were reflected in several narratives:

I edited photos of her, which were then sent around the class. Once my friend took pictures of her in gym class. She was very fat and ugly, and still had skin-tight leggings on, which she really shouldn't be doing! My friend then sent me the picture after class and I edited it. I added swear words and painted a penis on her face, etc. and sent the picture to many more classmates. (Maria)

In her narrative, Maria describes the bullied person as a (supposedly) ‘fat and ugly’ person who makes inappropriate claims about her sexuality by wearing skin-tight clothing. According to social norms in certain places (mostly in the Western world), people whose body weight and/or shape deviate from constructed beauty ideals are not allowed to speak positively about their bodies or affirm their sexuality. Thus, certain clothing (according to Maria, and certain dominant social norms) is reserved exclusively for people who conform to these ideals. Wearing these clothes, which she ‘really shouldn't be doing’ is the premise for the narrator to legitimize the dissemination of the image material to third parties. Besides the act of flaming by means of adding swear words to the photo, the young woman is humiliated even further by Maria drawing a penis on the target’s face before sending it to peers online. Flaming is described by O’Sullivan and Flanagin (2003) as an extremely hurtful insult or personal threat that is usually carried out through chats, online games or forums. In this way, Maria adds an explicit accusation that the target is asking for sex through her ways of dressing and acting, whereby Maria is hypersexualizing the target’s body and its performativity. Hypersexualizing the body in the practice described in Maria’s narrative, as well as similar accounts by other narrators, was thereby often part of other bullying practices. Sometimes it was the main focal point of bullying. Overall, these acts of hypersexualizing non-sexual practices emphasize the role that the ‘sexual double standard’ plays in bullying: as girls and young women are ‘not supposed to’ engage in sexual practices, by associating them with alleged sexual practices, the intention is to assault and allegedly downgrade them.

6. Discussion and conclusions

As noted above, digital media are offering new opportunities for young adults’ processes of gender and sexual identity formation and sexual exploration. Consensual and intentional online sexual practices, especially the sharing of self-determined intimate body images, are already a reality among young people and will continue to be so in the future. Feminist digital geography perspectives have underlined that particularly social change and the opportunities afforded by new technologies have contributed to an opening for non-linear and non-deterministic, and increasingly pluralized negotiations of identities. However, our research on narratives about (cyber-)bullying written by young adults in Tyrol suggests that persistent heteronormative, gendered, and sexualized discourses in Austria continue to stall this process. Our data show that (cyber-)bullying practices often stem from underlying discourses of gender difference and the persistence of the sexual double standard regarding sexuality and the bodies of young female and genderqueer people. The subjective representations and evaluations of the targets of (cyber-)bullying in the young authors’ narratives reveal deeply ingrained heterosexualized and gendered discourses and norms about female and male (un)desirability in entangled socio-material-technological spaces. The narratives suggest that the young authors are often not reflexively aware of their lapsing into the reproduction and legitimization of such harmful discourses when narrating their stories. Still, this means that such discourses, including sexism, are not only recreated by certain individuals (as, e.g. the more recent literature in regards to ‘toxic masculinity’ [Harrington 2021 for a critical reflection] suggests); in our narratives they are reproduced by all narrators—female just as much as male young adults.

The gendering of discourses about (cyber-)bullying, including the hypersexualization of, particularly, female bodies, was reflected in three ways in the narratives: First, the failure to overcome gendered discourses even when trying to speak out for the targets of (cyber-)bullying. By reproducing norms of feminine and masculine bodies and their expected performativity, the narrators in our study partly legitimize the very practices that at least some of them seek to critique. Thus, while the young narrators criticize the (cyber-)bullying practices which they witnessed, this does not result in a non-conformist telling of their stories that would actually question the underlying power relations in Butler’s (2012, 7) sense. Second, the scandalization of female sexual practices: Our findings highlight contradictions in the gendered discourse in the context of sexting that particularly affect young females. On the one hand, girls are encouraged to sext by boys, while on the other hand they are condemned and shamed for their self-determined online sexual practices when they do so on their own initiative. Behind this are strict gendered moral values that regulate girls’ (but not boys’) sexual expression and acts, and determine how female bodies may and may not be publicly displayed. Self-determined sexual practices by women are constructed as strongly deviating behaviour that must be regulated, and ultimately sanctioned. The analysis of our data shows that female young adults have to fear being sanctioned with (cyber-)bullying and shaming, as well as physical, psychological, and sexual violence on the Internet in the case of non-consensual publication of (partially) naked body images. This is in line with Renold and Ringrose (2011) finding that girls who send sexts are viewed problematically from two perspectives: first, as sexually uncontrolled agents of ‘self-sexualization’, and second, as targets of exploitation and shaming by males. We want to point out here the still persisting gendered sexism that normalizes the forced, unauthorized showing and sharing of images of female bodies, whereby the fact that the body images have gone viral is blamed on the people depicted therein (Hasinoff 2014). Girls are often simplistically categorized by narrative authors as ‘sexting subjects’ who are portrayed as careless in their use of social media (Karaian 2012; Salter, Croft, and Lee 2013).

Third, the affirmation of (cyber-)bullying that involved the hypersexualization of female bodies not engaged in sexual practices: As our data show, young female people in particular are punished with hypersexualized (cyber-)bullying due to what their bullying peers see as a disregard of or deviation from general prevailing norms of femininity (particularly in regards to body weight, body shape and clothing). Bullies’ hypersexualizing of female bodies thereby intends to downgrade the targets, as, according to the ‘sexual double standard’ it is not appropriate for girls and women to engage in sexual practices. In the respective narratives that reported such hypersexualization of female bodies, the narrators simultaneously affirmed underlying ideals of femininity, thereby legitimizing the respective (cyber-)bullying practices.

We point to the urgent need to continue to address problematic gender (in-)equality and raise awareness, especially among young people, in order to break down traditional gendered discourses and sexual and moral hierarchies that especially female and genderqueer people suffer from. Public discourses (Karaian 2012; Salter, Croft, and Lee 2013) warn that young girls need to be rescued from sexting. We want to make a clear case for not prohibiting young people from self-determined sexualized practices in entangled socio-material-technological spaces. However, we strongly advocate for a continuous reworking of the underlying gendered discourses that create asymmetrical constructions of power, where the mere sharing and publishing of (intimate) body images leads to the shaming and humiliation of the people depicted.

Only if heteronormative gendered discourses that negate the sexual freedom of, particularly, female and genderqueer people are deconstructed can society begin to accept consensual online sexual practices that young adults engage in of their own accord. Open discourses and education must inform young adults of the risks involved in using digital media, but importantly must also focus on gender-sensitive educational programmes, and on supporting young adults’ self-confidence and perceptions of their own limits, desires, and needs (MiKADO 2015). Particularly the position of girls, young women, and genderqueer persons in society, and therewith their self-assertion, must be strengthened. This can only occur in combination with educational work and also extracurricular programmes on the problematic role of traditional gender concepts. In Austria, targeted, binding minimum preventive standards in schools that are anchored in the curriculum would be desirable—such as are already embedded in the curricula in countries such as Great Britain, the USA, New Zealand, and Canada (Dekker, Koops, and Briken 2016). A collaboration should be sought with education and awareness-raising measures for young adults, parents and teachers. In schools, intensive work with all three groups together is necessary to strengthen the role of female and genderqueer young people, including beyond questions of gender and sexuality.

Acknowledgements

We especially thank the study participants for sharing their stories; the Transient Spaces and Societies team members and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Our research was financially supported by the University of Innsbruck (PhD scholarship) and the FWF—The Austrian Science Fund (Project beYOND: 34691-G).

Notes on contributors

Belinda Mahlknecht

Belinda Mahlknecht is a PhD student at the Institute of Geography at the University of Innsbruck. Her research focuses on the negotiation of difference of young people in socio-material-technological spaces using qualitative and smartphone methods.

Tabea Bork-Hüffer

Tabea Bork-Hüffer is Professor of Human Geography at the Department of Geography, University of Innsbruck. She is head of the Research Group Transient Spaces and Societies and her fields of expertise are digital, urban and young people’s geographies.