In the article “The Unsafety Net,” we learn about the violent content and hostility targeting women on the internet (Buni &Chemaly). The authors support this by examining multiple social networking sites and telling the true stories of women who have been victims of cyberspace harassment. The authors bring light to the dark realities pervading the internet from derogatory comments, violent threats, pedophilia, and even graphic rape videos. The fear and unsafe feelings women harbor in cyberspace often follow them to reality. Social media companies are doing little to monitor or stop the spread of sexist and abusive content. A report showed that between December 26, 2013, and February 9, 2014, the words “slut” and “whore” were used in 6 million instances on Twitter alone. They conclude that the lack of content monitoring and regulation leads to more and more women being put at risk to be harassed and discouraged from being members of online communities.
The article “Rape Threats & Revenge Porn: Defining Sexual Violence In The Digital Age” is also about how the misogyny and abuse that takes place online almost always transfers to the offline world (Fairbairn). In this article, the author shows how sexual and psychological violence online encourages the idea that the victimization of women is inevitable and ultimately supports the “rape culture” we live in. The author supports this by examining laws that were created to protect victims from online crimes like cyberbullying and “revenge porn.” Fairbairn describes the effects of cyberbullying and the harm it does offline. She tells the story of Amanda Todd, a 15-year old girl who committed suicide in 2012 after being profusely cyberbullied after a man posted a picture of her breasts on the internet. Fairbairn concludes that in order to stop the online harassment of women, society has to reject the idea that women being marginalized victims is inexorable.
Throughout a woman's life, she is taught what to do and what not to do to best avoid situations where they might be put in danger. Although the internet may seem like a safe space, it is probably the place where women are abused the most. In the article “The Unsafety Net,” Buni & Chemaly describe the various ways in which women are in danger of persecution online. The authors explain how rapists threaten their victims by filming the rape and threatening to put it online if they tell anyone. “The Unsafety Net” directly relates to “Rape Threats & Revenge Porn” because both articles analyze how the internet can cause harm in a person’s real life. The internet gives us infinite knowledge at the touch of a button which is both incredibly powerful and powerfully frightening.
Society has normalized the idea that women are always going to be at risk for violence or harassment and should not put themselves in situations where it is likely to occur. I have tried to explain to a few men in my life about the ceaseless fear most women feel in situations where men might never feel unsafe. For example, when walking to a car at night or being anywhere alone at night for that matter. Most people acknowledge that women are more likely to be victimized than men. However, what some fail to realize is that it is not just when women are alone at night that they are susceptible to violence or abuse, it is everywhere all the time. According to the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network or RAINN, 90% of adult rape victims are women. The notion that harassment and hostility in cyberspace are innocent or not as serious as they are offline is naive to say the least. In order to make the internet safe for everyone, people need to be made aware of the harm being done.
References
Catherine Buni, Soraya Chemaly. “The Unsafety Net: How Social Media Turned Against Women.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 6 Jan. 2015, www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/10/the-unsafety-net-how-social-media-turned-against-women/381261/.
Fairbairn, Jordan. “Rape Threats and Revenge Porn: Defining Sexual Violence in the Digital Age.” EGirls, ECitizens: Putting Technology, Theory and Policy into Dialogue with Girls’ and Young Women’s Voices, edited by Jane Bailey and Valerie Steeves, University of Ottawa Press, 2015, pp. 229–252. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt15nmj7f.13. Accessed 22 Apr. 2020.
“Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics.” RAINN,
www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence.
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