Feminism, activism and non-consensual pornography: analyzing efforts to end “revenge porn” in the United States

ABSTRACT

Women endure the most severe and sustained forms of harassment on the internet. In response, activists around the world are mobilizing against conduct that endangers women online. At a time when feminist discourses are both popular and contested, this research explores the extent to which feminist ideas are influencing activism against online harassment. This research centers on a network of activists located in the United States who seek to combat one form of online sexual harassment: non-consensual pornography. Using reflexive thematic analysis, this research asks: how do activists relate to feminist perspectives, issues and approaches? Data analysis reveals among activists a flexible feminist politics that structures the scope and scale of their work. Ultimately, their caring, expansive and institutionally focused approach has enabled these activists to successfully address non-consensual pornography at the legislative and regulatory level.

KEYWORDS:

• Online harassment
• revenge porn
• non-consensual pornography
• Image-Based Sexual Abuse
• feminist social movements

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the activists who so generously gave their time to this research. I am grateful to Barbie Zelizer, Julia Ticona and the anonymous reviewers for their guidance and revisions.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support these research findings are not publicly available because they contain information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.

Disclosure of publication history

This research draws the majority of its data from a subset of interviews conducted for an earlier project published in January 2019.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Focusing specifically on U.S. respondents, one in-person interview, eight video interviews, and two written surveys from the original study were included in this research. These interviews were conducted as part of the author’s Master’s thesis in Media Studies at The New School for Public Engagement. Although the thesis did not undergo formal IRB review, the project was conducted in accordance with the ethical principles of the Belmont Report, including confidentiality protections and the use of informed consent procedures. Two follow-up interviews in December 2019 were also conducted in accordance with the ethical principles of the Belmont Report.

2. Reflexive thematic analysis requires researchers to foreground their positionality and perspective. I acknowledge that this project is motivated by my own interest in feminist politics and investment in challenging online harassment. I am not a member of the groups I seek to study, and I have not participated in specific lobbying efforts against NCP, but neither do I observe activists as a total outsider.

3. To protect relative participant anonymity in this small activist network, participants are not named, given pseudonyms, or allocated participant numbers. All unattributed quotations in the text are excerpts from interview transcripts.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sophie Maddocks

Sophie Maddocksis a doctoral student at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Her emerging research interests span cyber civil rights, gender and sexuality, youth media literacy, and popular culture. E-mail: [email protected]