Alison Boydell, co-founder of:

Feminism is hated because women are

hated. Anti-feminism is a direct

expression of misogyny; it is the political

defense of women hating.

Andrea Dworkin

Why and when we started

http://www.endmisogyny.org/

Twitter: @misogyny_online

Mission

♀ We want to see an end to misogynistic abuse online and everywhere

♀ We want to highlight the prevalence and violent nature of online misogyny and abuse and bear witness to the women's experiences of being targeted

♀ We report to Twitter or if necessary the police anyone, regardless of sex or gender, who issues misogynistic threats or intimidating/abusive behaviour designed to frighten

♀ We recognise that women can also display misogynistic behaviour

♀ We encourage women to #SHOUTBACK at abuse and threats. We encourage everyone to #SHOUTBACK and stand with women who experience misogyny

♀ We understand that not all women feel they can #SHOUTBACK using their real names or twitter handles, we bear witness to their abuse, regardless of whether we agree with them or not

Language

• Trolling – we do not use this term as it minimises the behaviour as well as the impact

• We refer to this behaviour a misogynistic abuse and harassment as it is vicious and mostly targeted at women, especially feminists.

• Online sexual violence

• Online vs 'real life' - online is real life

Continuum of misogynistic abuse

• Sub-tweeting - where other tweeters are talking about you in a way in which makes you feel uncomfortable, without @-ing you into the conversations but you are aware of what is being said and it is being done so openly. Often deliberately with that intention in mind

Continuum of misogynistic abuse

• ElevatorGate - this was a so called

'investigative journalist' who constantly

storyfied mostly women and transwomen.

Continuum of misogynistic abuse • 'The Blockbot' - which started out to

protect subscribers from abusers &

harassers but is now a political tool to

silence certain non-abusive feminists

• EOM is level 3! Caroline Criado-Perez is

level 2

Continuum of misogynistic abuse

• Objectification and sexual harassment

• This ranges from 'slut shaming' to misogynistic slurs, being called names, belittled, trivialised, feminist hating language (such as feminazi, man haters, misandrists, witches), why aren't we focusing on the 'real oppression' of women, gaslighting, told we're bigots, crazy, deluded, ugly, too ugly to rape, prudes, have no sense of humour, trying to censor freedom of speech

Continuum of misogynistic abuse • Women of colour, lesbians, transwomen

and disabled women are especially

targeted

• Users also send unsolicited graphic and

obscene images (some illegal) to women

and feminists

Continuum of

misogynistic abuse • The so called Parody Account

Continuum of misogynistic abuse • Threats of doxxing - women threatened

with doxxing either directly or being sub tweeted about. This can leave women feeling extremely vulnerable and exposed. Some/ many need their privacy and anonymity preserved as they have left violent and abusive relationships, may be SWs etc.

Continuum of misogynistic abuse

• Actual doxxing - where private and

personal information, including address

and real name are placed on public social

media

Continuum of misogynistic abuse

• Implied threats - this can be to the woman

and/or her children and is extremely

frightening. It can also take the form of

implied rape and death threats, rape and

death 'wishes' such as 'I hope you die slowly

and painfully in a fire', 'I wish you would die

painfully of breast cancer'

Continuum of misogynistic abuse

• Actual direct threats - which are sent to

the woman. Rape and death threats to

her and her family. Threats of ‘revenge’

porn

Twitter limitations

• Twitter does not allow you to report abuse targeted at another person

• This presented problems for our campaign and we were unable to change it

• You cannot report a parody account for impersonation unless you are the person or their legal representative

Direct threats

Reactions to EOM

Reactions to EOM

Reactions to EOM

Reactions to EOM

So

urc

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llecti

vesh

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Sample tweets

Sample tweets:

rape culture in action

Sample tweets:

rape culture in action

Some statistics about Twitter

Harassment on social media in general is on the rise. The

Metropolitan Police received around 2,000 complaints last year

about online harassment

The Centre for the Analysis of Social Media conducted some

research in January 2014

In one day, they found 30,000 tweets using the word rape, or

0.006% of the 500 million tweets that are produced on Twitter every

24 hours

Rape culture on Twitter

The most common use of 'rape', around 40% of the time, seemed to

be in serious, sober discussions – talking about news stories

(especially the Delhi rapes), how victims are treated, and how to

combat it

The second most common (just under 30% of the time) was the

casual use of 'rape', as either metaphor or as part of what seems to

be an attempted joke

The most worrying category were those 12% of Tweets where rape was contained within a threat or insult, or as part of a very sexist or misogynist comment: "I'm gonna rape ur [sexual detail]"

Most common derogatory words used about women in social media are 'slut' and 'whore'

This report also suggested that women are almost as likely as men to use the terms 'slut' and 'whore' on Twitter, and that women are increasingly inclined to use the same derogatory language that has been, and continues to be, used against them

Source: http://www.demos.co.uk/files/MISOGYNY_ON_TWITTER.pdf?1399567516

EOM response: http://www.endmisogyny.org/our-reaction-to-the-recent-demos-report-about-abusive-behaviour-on-twitter/

Impacts

• Fear

• Trauma

• Withdrawal and isolation

• Public humiliation

• Silencing

• Not engaging at all in social media

• Disengaging/not engaging with feminist activism

Questions?

Alison Boydell and Cat Hernandez

@misogyny_online

Alison Boydell and Jill Saward

@UnderstandingSV