Conversations editorial

Digital misogynist harassment, violence, and disinformation are deployed to deter or punish women’s political participation. Consider how the Duterte regime in the Philippines incarcerated Senator Leila de Lima in 2017 on fabricated drug charges to punish her for her critical stance on the country’s draconian “drug war”; a social media campaign that included a fake “sex tape” helped the regime to justify her arrest and to maliciously mock her looks, human rights work, and family (Head 2016). Consider the online harassment and subsequent 2018 murder of Marielle Franco, an openly gay city councilor in Brazil, and the continued disinformation campaigns after her death to discredit her work on the behalf of marginalized communities (Hauch 2018). Doctored nude pictures, allegations about “illicit” sexual behavior, and threats of rape and violence circulate on social media to target anyone transgressing gendered expectations. In the context of emerging transnational feminist responses to digital violence, we draw attention to this issue’s Conversations piece by Altman Yuzhu Peng, which examines Chinese social media responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Peng brings nuance and complexity to the study of digital misogyny by exploring how it can be utilized to not only discourage women’s political representation and participation, but also to entrench hegemonic masculinities and to shape particular narratives about global events. As such, digital misogyny not only degrades democratic dialogues and journalism around the world, it also generates geopolitical encounters. Chinese citizens act as interlocutors to endorse, confront, or mock China’s relationship with Russia as well as to create space for political opinion in the context of state censorship. However, they do so by using disinformation, exaggeration and hyperbole, and satire that are steeped in misogynist and masculinist tropes and narratives.

Peng thus paves the way for more transnational and intersectional analyses of social media, particularly as we reflect on what feminist social media usage, intervention, or disruption could look like. Potential engagement with Peng’s piece could include discussions of the use of social media to mobilize and strategize, such as for Roma, trans, queer, and other marginalized people caught in border zones because they are not recognized as refugees fleeing Russian aggression; to find meaning and belonging by rooting for and romanticizing Ukrainian military tactics; to construct memes, often with false or misleading information, to compare the international community’s response to the Ukraine invasion against its (lack of) response to the situations in Palestine, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere; and more. Underscoring these conversations should be a recognition of the role of digital misogyny and disinformation in the relationship between social media users, masculinities, and state violence.

The Conversations section is an innovative intervention by IFJP which aims to offer space and opportunity to make strong theoretical and practical contributions to feminist debates that do not necessarily take standard academic forms. It may include interviews with prominent or early-career scholars, practitioners, and activists; narratives and short stories; photo essays, artistic pieces, and poetry; film readings; conference reports; and other “non-traditional” modes of scholarly writing.

Interested authors should submit their articles via ScholarOne: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rfjp. Please also upload a biographical note and five keywords. Make sure to edit it thoroughly for language and clarity, format it to correspond to the Taylor & Francis guidelines, and identify it as a submission for the Conversations section.

For further information, please refer to the journal’s FAQ page at: https://www.ifjpglobal.org/submit-to-us/#anchor_conversations_shortcut.

Inquiries should be directed to both Conversations Editors.