Digital intrusions: technology, spatiality and violence against women

Abstract

Technologies have transformed self-expression, interactions and relationships. Temporal and geographic boundaries have been tested and overcome by instantaneous and borderless contact, communication and monitoring. Unfortunately, this has provided new channels and opportunities to extend and exacerbate gendered violence and other forms of hate. We contend that the unique features of digital harms warrant attention, but ultimately online harms cannot be divorced from those which occur offline. Drawing on what Kelly (1987; 1988; 2012) conceptualised as a ‘continuum of violence’ (and what Stanko, 1985, refers to as climates of ‘unsafety’), digital violence is, we suggest, part of the spectrum of harm to which women are exposed throughout their life-worlds. The industries that create technologies do not exist in a vacuum, and we explore how the workforce, design and management of platforms not only reflects but reinforces ‘offline’ inequalities and facilitates violence. There are challenges in harnessing technology but, in closing, we explore ways that women can claim and create digital spaces to resist violence and seek ‘justice’.<br /><br />Key message<br /><ul><li>This paper explores digital violence against women and how women use technology to resist violence and seek ‘justice’.</li></ul>

Social Networks as a Means of Combating Gender-Based Violence

“…Such a legal vacuum leads to large-scale uncontrolled consequences and losses around the world, which have no principles: age, race, religion and gender (Salih et al, 2019). Harris and Vitis (2020) argue that society should create safe content of social networks and establish legal mechanisms for its regulation that will guarantee women's rights (Harris and Vitis, 2020).…”

Centering transgender consumers in conceptualizations of marketplace marginalization and digital spaces

“…Digital spaces can be uniquely perilous for marginalized consumers. For instance, Harris and Vitis (2020) find women are confronted with various types of digital 'spaceless violence' such as receiving threats online, being targeted by digital stalkers, and contending with known (physical) abusers digitally. Similarly, Davis (2020) finds racial trolling manifests in Black cyber-territories (e.g., African-American blogs), concluding "there are no 'safe' spaces free from hostile white intervention" (p. 9).…”

Sexual Violence in the Digital Age: Replicating and Augmenting Harm, Victimhood and Blame

“…Yet, evidence suggests that ethnic minorities and members of the LGBTIQ + community are more susceptible to sexualised online abuse, although less likely to report their harms (see e.g. Harris and Vitis, 2020). Similarly, popular, scholarly, and legal responses to image-based abuse have centred hetero-normative dynamics where men distribute images of their female partners or ex-partners (Kirchengast, 2016: 100), despite evidence that men are victimised at similar rates as women and that those from minority backgrounds are disproportionately victimised (Dodge, 2021: 449).…”