Olimar Maisonet :
“72 percent of teenagers and young adults believe that digital abuse is something that should be addressed by society.” -US Department of Justice
Technology does not only have the power of connecting people, but it also has the power to reinforce and disseminate social and cultural structures and help normalize gender roles. The technology revolution has brought new types of gender-based violence, including online discrimination, cyberbullying, cyberstalking, blackmail, and hate speech. Not more than a week ago, the US Supreme Court heard a case in which a man threatened the life of his wife online, and is now challenging his conviction. Mirroring real-life behaviors, women and girls tend to be more vulnerable than men to online attacks and violence, a factor that is often exacerbated by the online disinhibition effect caused by the perceived anonymity of the perpetrator.
According to a report by Pew and Working to Halt Online Abuse, the majority of users who reported being harassed online are women (72.5 percent of claims). Furthermore, about 5 percent of these women reported that “something that happened online” led them to be in “physical danger” in the real world. In online environments, often perceived as male-centric such as online games, women are harassed at a higher degree – 63 percent of women reported being threatened with sexual assault, asked for sexual favors, or receiving stereotypical comments while playing a game online.
The mere fact of being a woman can be seen as invitation for online violence. In 2006, researchers from the University of Maryland set up various fake online user accounts and then dispatched them into chat rooms. Accounts with feminine usernames incurred an average of 100 sexually explicit or threatening messages per day. Increasingly, the women and girls that fall victim to these attacks do not know what to do to stop the abuse, or even to which organizations report these activities. Most worrisome, most countries lack laws and policies to deal with this new form of violence and in the case where such laws exist, they often fail to protect victims.
In the face of these challenges, many organizations around the world are calling on their governments to take action and reform laws so that they can address the digital protection gap and protect women. Campaigns such as #TakeBackTheTech and #16Days are crucial to shed a light into the impacts of online violence and harassment in women’s lives. IREX and its partners are also working to make the Internet safer for women and to promote gender equality. In Romania, IREX is working with information intermediaries such as libraries to teach children and young people valuable skills for being safe online and protecting their identity. Furthermore, through its Securing Access to Free Expression (S.A.F.E.) Initiative, IREX is training female journalists on how to respond to gender-based threats online.
Online harassment and violence is just a manifestation of existing cultural and social paradigms that continue to impact women negatively.
We need to work with government and civil society organizations so that they have the tools they need to protect women’s rights online and offline. Most importantly, we need to guarantee that women who are victims of online violence have access to the information they need so that they are able to raise their voices.
(Olimar Maisonet is the Guzman, Program Coordinator)
