Introduction

Women who participate in public discussions about social and political issues are often confronted with a barrage of vicious digital attacks. The abuse is a form of patterned resistance to women’s voice and visibility, as evinced by the way gender is weaponized as the central grounds for condemnation. Attacks are riddled with gendered epithets and stereotypes, and they perseverate on women’s physical appearance and presumed sexual behavior; also, the generic nature of the abuse features nearly interchangeable misogyny rather than taking substantive issue with any particular woman. Women who challenge social hierarchies face the most intense pushback, particularly those speaking in or about male-dominated fields, those perceived as feminist or otherwise noncompliant to gender norms, and those with multiple marginalized identities (e.g., women of color, LBTQ women, etc.). This often-unrecognized form of gender inequality constrains women’s use of digital public spaces, much in the way the pervasive threat of sexual intimidation and violence constrains women’s use of physical public spaces.

Conclusions

Women attacked online undertake Herculean efforts to minimize the costs of participating in public discourse, but digital abuse can only be addressed meaningfully through structural solutions. This chapter examines the gaps that render existing laws ill-equipped for online abuse and calls for platform accountability. It then addresses existing accountability-oriented initiatives put forth by governments, international regulatory bodies, NGOs, and the technology companies themselves. Finally, it argues for the simultaneous development of victim-centered support structures. Such infrastructure would (among other things) (1) name and acknowledge identity-based harassment online, (2) equip responding officers with protocols emphasizing sensitivity to the distressing nature of the attacks, appropriate responses to victims’ most common concerns (e.g., escalation, removal of defamatory content), and instruction on documenting future attacks, and (3) in cases of severe abuse, offer the services of social workers and advocates to support those targeted.

Just Get Off the Internet

Digital attacks against women are rarely taken seriously. The US legal system and the major social media platforms (where the majority of the abuse transpires) each fail women as their attacker and attack-focused accountability systems are incapable of addressing the cumulative experience of identity-based attacks online. Meanwhile, victim blaming, the privileging of physical over nonphysical harm and the imposition of a false dichotomy between digital and “real” life all minimize women’s experiences with digital hate. Interviews with women who have been attacked online show that this trivialization is so pervasive that even victims internalize it: minimizing their own experiences, even as they vociferously reject others’ attempts to do so. Struggling with this internalized trivialization and aware that few legal or platform-based recourse options exist, women rarely report their abuse. When they do, it is seldom gratifying. In the end, targets are left with the perception that they enter digital publics at their own risk.

Hostile Speaking Environment

Women who attempt to participate in public discussions about political and social issues online confront a hostile speaking environment analogous to the hostile work environments identified in policies addressing sexual harassment in the workplace. This chapter draws on interviews with women who have been attacked by strangers online, showing that the digital abuse women face is hostile (ad hominem, hateful, and discriminatory, rather than interested in promoting dialogue), offensive (riddled with obscenity, misogyny, racism, xenophobia, etc.), and intimidating (punctuated by threats of physical violence), consistent with the key characteristics of unlawful hostile work environments as outlined in US and EU social policy. What’s more, it shows that the discrete attacks coalesce into an overall climate that is more cumbersome and frightening than the sum of its individual parts.

Anger Management (Ameliorative Labor)

This chapter uses in-depth interviews with women attacked online to explore how they cope with the harassment. It shows that women employ multiple coping strategies (e.g., retreating into like-minded enclaves, constructing narratives in which the abuse does not affect them), shaped by the perceived threat and real impact of their attacks, which are—in turn—shaped by their severity, the social position of the target, and the extent to which the toxic content is supported by pre-existing stereotypes and cultural biases. More privileged women have a wider array of coping strategies available, as their social class; professional standing; membership in historically valued racial, ethnic, and religious groups; and possession of arbitrary markers of respectability (e.g., thinness and emotional restraint) work to deflect some accusations while also creating space for resistance. Regardless of how women cope, these efforts take time and sap energy, yielding costs of their own.

Personal Troubles and Public Issues

This chapter shows that digital abuse and harassment have cost some women their jobs, jeopardized their mental health, placed them at risk of physical violence, and damaged their reputations. When effective, these attacks undermine women’s contributions to public discourse, create a climate of self-censorship, and even press women out of digital publics altogether. And, based on the uneven distribution of abuse, those whose voices are most underrepresented (e.g., women of color) are likely to be the first pushed out. As a result, digital hostility has ramifications that extend far beyond the lives of those who are targeted. It impacts us all by eroding civil liberties, diminishing our public discourse, thinning the knowledge that informs policy and electoral decision making, and teaching all women that activism and public service are unappealing, high-risk endeavors to be avoided. In so doing, identity-based attacks online pose a credible threat to democratic health.

Constant Calibration (Preventative Labor)

The substance of online attacks against women is predictable—filled with long-standing sexist, racist, xenophobic, and homophobic content—but their frequency and intensity are not. This uncertainty makes participating in public discourse a gamble and leaves women struggling to crack the code: how can they enter digital publics while also avoiding abuse? Drawing on interviews with women targeted by digital attacks, this chapter shows that they engage in time-consuming and emotionally draining efforts intended to reduce the potential for harassment. They use four main approaches: tightening their digital security, consulting “mental maps” of riskier and safer online spaces, monitoring their emotional stamina to assess whether they are “up to” participation, and engaging in extensive credibility-work designed to limit attackers’ ability to discredit or shame them. In the end, as with other forms of gendered abuse, following victim-avoidance “rules” is not enough to ensure safety for women who speak out online.