Stand together to fight online abuse
What steps could newsrooms take to help create safe digital spaces for women?
What if all the women who have faced bullying and harassment in online spaces stood together and decided we will not take it anymore? What if all the women — and men — who know that this “cyber misogyny” is wrong stood with them in protest and solidarity?
What if together we found a way to name and shame those “deplorables” who harass and aim to intimidate women in public platforms online?
What if this pressing problem was truly taken seriously? Could we finally find solutions that go beyond simply telling women to ignore online hate?
It is depressing that in 2017 we must still ask these “what if” questions, that we are still seeking solutions to the soul-destroying reality of online harassment of women. Numerous studies over the past decade have made clear this is a critical problem, with the most vile personal attacks directed at racialized women.
Of course, online harassment affects men as well. But as a recent report entitled Online Harassment, Digital Abuse and Cyberstalking in America concludes, “Women experience a wider variety of online abuse, including more serious violations.”
As well, “Women were more likely than men to be angry, worried or scared as a result of online harassment and abuse.”
Not surprisingly, given that our work gives us a public voice, women in media are prime targets for online harassment that seeks to silence our voices. And too often, we are silent and stoic about harassment that targets us as women.
That reality was the focus of a Canadian Journalism Foundation “J-Talks” event held on the eve of International Women’s Day. “No safe space: Online Harassment of Women in Media” brought together more than 100 people — mostly women — to explore this issue.
“Many women experience online hate for simply doing their jobs,” moderator Piya Chattopadhyay, host of CBC Radio’s Out in the Open, said. “How can our newsrooms help create safe digital spaces for women?”
The panellists, Toronto Star columnist Heather Mallick, Vice.com senior writer Manisha Krishnan, and Globe and Mail business writer Janet McFarland shared their experiences of harassment online.
Mallick struggles not to allow online hate to silence her strong voice but now no longer tweets her views and accepts few public-speaking engagements, fearful of the large amount of online hate she receives crossing into her real world. “I isolate myself. My work is not harmed but it has harmed me personally,” she said.
Krishnan, who writes widely on race and gender issues, receives “the most heinous slurs you can imagine,” including having “the n-bomb” hurled at her.
“There are memes of me being hanged, a 20-minute YouTube video of a guy reading my columns in a southern accent,” she said. And, she told the group, the hate isn’t limited to the digital world. Once she picked up her phone and received a voicemail stating, “You’re gonna die, bitch.”
McFarland said she experiences gender-based online harassment only when she reports on women in business. “I hear the b-word, the c-word exclusively when I write about women’s issues.”
As the Guardian reported recently, an Australian study conducted last year found that harassment of women online is at risk of becoming “an established norm in our digital society.”
This is not acceptable, a reason why this event aimed to go beyond sharing stories of harassment and hate to empower us to explore solutions. How can individual women deal with online verbal abuse, beyond blocking abusers, ignoring hateful postings and being determined not to let anyone silence our voices? Beyond urging women to “develop a thick skin” what should or can news organizations do?
Given that most news organizations now expect their journalists to participate in online platforms, there was a consensus that newsrooms should determine policies and practices around such harassment. All agreed that begins with news organizations taking this issue seriously and listening to female journalists to understand how such harassment on public platforms can cause mental distress and affect our work.
And, to understand that the harassment women face online is considerably different than what men face. Women are most often harassed because they are women. As a 2014 Time magazine piece on this issue arguing that there is no comparing male and female harassment online stated, “For girls and women, harassment is not just about ‘un-pleasantries.’ It’s often about men asserting dominance, silencing, and frequently, scaring and punishing them.”
Practical steps news organizations might consider include maintaining a database of instances of online harassment and making sure one person in the organization is alerted when journalists are bullied online. When that harassment could constitute possible hate crime, police may need to be brought in (as has happened at the Star in cases of online harassment involving both male and female journalists.)
The panellists and audience talked of measures to fight back individually and collectively, including “outing” the nastiest of harassers to their employers and others through public means. The reality that we must do something drew strong support from the crowd and from longtime journalist Sally Armstrong, a Canadian feminist icon who has long battled for women’s equality.
“Shouldn’t we be taking some action? My feeling is we are being too passive,” Armstrong said.
Indeed, the time for silent stoicism must end. publiced@thestar.ca