Bitch, slut, skank, cunt: patterned resistance to women’s visibility in digital publics

ABSTRACT

Resistance to women’s public voice and visibility via street harassment and workplace sexual harassment have long constrained women’s use of and comfort in physical public spaces; this gender-based resistance now extends into digital arenas. Women face extreme hostility in the form of digital sexism in discussion rooms, comment sections, gaming communities, and on social media platforms. Reflecting on two years of in-depth interviews with women who have been on the receiving end of gender-based digital abuse (n = 38), conversations with industry professionals working in content moderation and digital safety, the extant literature, and news stories about digital attacks against women, I offer a lens to think through the prominent patterns in digital sexism, showing (1) that aggressors draw upon three overlapping strategies – intimidating, shaming, and discrediting – to limit women’s impact in digital publics, (2) the way femininity and femaleness are used to undermine women’s contributions, and (3) men call attention to women’s physicality as a way to pull gender – and the male advantage that comes with it – to the fore in digital exchanges. Finally, I argue that when digital sexism succeeds in pressing women out of digital spaces, constrains the topics they address publicly, or limits the ways they address them, we must consider the democratic costs of gender-based harassment, in addition to the personal ones.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• digital harrassment
• political discourse
• inequality
• bodies
• public sphere

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Sarah Sobieraj is Associate Professor of Sociology at Tufts University, where she directs the Digital Sexism Project. Email: [email protected]

Notes

1 The full PEW study explains that

women ages 18-24 are more likely than others to experience some of the more severe forms of harassment. They are particularly likely to report being stalking online (26% said so) and sexually harassed (25%). In addition, they are also the targets of other forms of severe harassment like physical threats (23%) and sustained harassment (18%) at rates similar to their male peers (26% of whom have been physically threatened and 16% of whom have been the victim of sustained harassment). In essence, young women are uniquely likely to experience stalking and sexual harassment, while also not escaping the high rates of other types of harassment common to young people in general. (2014, p. 3)

2 Of course, the irony is that the same attributes – low cost, the chance to be anonymous if one chooses, and the limited oversight and regulation in many of these arenas – that render these platforms accessible to those from marginalized groups, also open the floodgates for those who may abuse them.

3 On these inequities see Benhabib (1996), Fraser (1990), Mansbridge (1990), and Young (2002).

4 Aronowitz (1995), Burrows (2010), Eckert and Chadha (2013), Graham and Smith (2016), Gregory (1994), Jacobs (2000), Simone (2006), and Squires (2000) all provide illustrations.

5 Of course, these marginalized views are not always pro-social. Jessie Daniels’ work on white supremacist groups online serves as one powerful example (Daniels, 2009a).

6 The suicides of young teens Rehtaeh Parsons and Audrie Potts, both of whom took their lives after being humiliated by digital images of their sexual assaults, stand out as examples from the headlines.

7 Digital life is, of course, rife with gender. Niles Van Doorn uses three case studies to show the way ‘online articulations of gender, sexuality, and embodiment are intricately woven with people's physical embeddings in everyday life, as well as in the new media technologies they employ … ’ (2011, p. 532). The gendered body is often visible in digital publics through photos and videos, but gender remains a focal point even when it is not visually referenced. Research suggests that rather than using online spaces as a way to ‘change’ or conceal our gender or racial identities, we use them to reach out to others, seek affirmation, and build relationships (Daniels, 2009b). What's more, many of the most popular platforms build gender relevance into their architecture, requiring registrants to identify by gender. For example, Facebook requires that you choose a gender category (either male or female) when you register. Since 2013, members have been able to then change their gender to a custom option, and choose a preferred pronoun. This more inclusive turn has broadened the range of options, yet not reduced the salience of gender categorization (see Bivens, 2017 for a discussion of misgendering in Facebook).

8 Interestingly, this dis-ease may not be necessary. Jenny Korn's work on PLATO in the 1970s shows the way even ‘genderless’ online spaces are rife with gender inequality.

9 See Wallace’s (2014) op-ed for the New York Times: ‘Life as a Female Journalist: Hot or Not?’.