Fifteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

This paper explores the phenomenon of online harassment in the form of abuse, inflicted on women who dare to publicly articulate their opinions on the internet. The harassment of women (taking into account the intersections of gender with race, sexuality etc.) using a highly gendered and sexualized language of hate has become commonplace on the internet, as a way of driving women out. It is unsurprising these days, to witness ‘online’‘online’ communication in the form of rape and death threats. The effects of such hate is unfortunately very ‘real’. Its impact is often experienced ‘offline’ where the adverse personal, professional, and psychological consequences on targeted individuals is frequently both painful and long-lasting. Moreover, online behavior of this kind has proven to be similar across nations and cultures. By analyzing and comparing Twitter hate campaigns conducted in three countries, across continents, between 2013 and 2015, (#gamergate in the U.S., ‘Women on banknotes’ in the U.K. and #selfiewithdaughter in India) this paper highlights the ubiquity of online misogyny, - what I call ‘gendered, sexualized, online hate’- its nature and characteristics. This essentially interdisciplinary study uses approaches from primarily feminist technology studies/ feminist technoscience and digital sociology to contextualize the problem of gendered, sexualized hate vis-à-vis digital media technologies and beyond. By examining the language, both of hate tweets as well the responses of women ‘targets’ regarding the impact of hate on their lives, I shed light on a pervasive and deeply relevant social malaise that is unlikely to improve without critical intervention.