Online Harassment of Feminists: The New Frontier of Inequality and Mobilization

• In Event: 3570 - Gender, Social Movements, and (In)Justice

Abstract

Online feminism has advanced the feminist movement in a number of notable dimensions, including creating community, disseminating feminist ideologies, and perpetuating the movement broadly. At the same time, online harassment against feminists is pervasive. While online bullying and harassment is rampant online, there is a particularly gendered component to online harassment. There has been insufficient empirical investigation about the relationships between online feminism and online harassment, and the interplay between the two. In this paper, I draw on women’s movement and online harassment scholarship to examine whether and how online harassment is stunting women’s voices on the internet, and in particular, feminist voices. Using qualitative interviews, I find that women and feminists are leaving many social media platforms due to perpetual and often vitriolic harassment. I argue that unless harassers are stopped and solutions are put in place online harassment will ultimately harm the advancement of women and feminists. I also argue that this research raises new questions for social movement activists and scholars.

Author

• Alison Dahl Crossley, Stanford University