Violence against Women in Politics: Latin America in an Era of Backlash

Sanín, Juliana Restrepo

doi:10.1086/704954

Cited by 27 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The second tweet is a clear incitement to feminicide violence toward protesters. The threads of vio lence are strategies to exclude women from the political arena (Sanín, 2020). The #TheyDoRepresentMe set of tweets, on the other hand, denigratingly insults men who are more outraged by the graffitied monuments than by the murdered women.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toxic Social Media: Affective Polarization After Feminist Protests

Suárez

Juarez

Piña-García

2022

Social Media + Society

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The objective of this article is to conceptualize affective polarization beyond partisan politics to instead analyze the ways in which women’s affective political participation is subject to toxic discipline. While a lot of focus has been placed on affective politics as mechanisms for governance, little has been done regarding affective polarization after feminist protest. In this article, we bridge two bodies of literature—affective politics and political polarization—by proposing the notion of affective polarization. We focused on the case of a series of feminist mobilizations that took place to fight back against the impunity of police violence in Mexico. We conducted a mixed-method approach that combines, on one hand, quantitative analysis of data strand tweets encompassing #EllasNoMeRepresentan (TheyDoNotRepresentMe) ( N = 17,698) and #EllasSiMeRepresentan (TheyDoRepresentMe) ( N = 6700) and, on the other hand, a qualitative analysis of 500 tweets of each hashtag. The results of the study revealed the existence of polarization that aims at disciplining the affective political participation of women. Almost half of our data contain negative sentiments. The toxic tweets include corrective threats, such as incitation to sexual violence, murder, hate against feminism, and patronizing discourses about how women should protest. We thus conclude that while it is true that social media has amplified feminist mobilization, it has also led to an increase of digital violence. With these findings, the article contributes to a better understanding of both feminist affective politics and its disciplining governing mechanisms in a patriarchal social media.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toxic Social Media: Affective Polarization After Feminist Protests

Suárez

Juarez

Piña-García

2022

Social Media + Society

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“…Sociologists, political scientists and scholars of management observe changes in men's behavior in male-dominated organizations in response to women achieving a 'critical mass' of around 30%. Although a critical mass of women can yield substantive policy changes [73], it can also prompt resistance, opposition, and backlash among men, absent corresponding shifts in power structures [62,71,[74][75][76].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Having female role models correlates with PhD students’ attitudes toward their own academic success

2021

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Research indicates that increasing diversity in doctoral programs can positively affect students’ academic success. However, little research examines students’ responses to female scholars’ representation. The two studies presented here examine how students’ exposure to female academic role models shapes students’ attitudes toward their own academic success (i.e. self-efficacy). Such attitudes are critical because they predict student retention rates. In our first study, we randomly exposed 297 Ph.D. students in one academic discipline to either a gender-diverse (i.e. 30% female authors) or non-diverse syllabus in research methods (i.e. 10% female authors). We examined the effect of the intervention on students’ perceived likelihood of succeeding in the hypothetical course. Contrary to expectations derived from the literature, we found that increasing women’s representation in syllabi did not affect female students’ self-efficacy. Rather, male students expressed lower self-efficacy when evaluating the more gender-diverse syllabus. We also found that students’ attitudes toward diversity in academia predicted their reactions more strongly than did their own gender: gender-diverse syllabi reduced self-efficacy among those students unsupportive of diversity. In our second study, we analyzed non-interventional survey questions to examine the relationship between female role models and long-term academic self-efficacy. Analysis was observational and thus did not assess causality. We found that students with more role models have higher academic self-efficacy, irrespective of student and role model gender. Nonetheless, results also suggested that some students actively seek female role models: namely, female students, and particularly those valuing diversity. Our results ultimately suggest that exposure to female role models relates in surprising ways to Ph.D. students’ self-efficacy. Having more female role models correlates with greater expectations of academic success among certain groups of students, but with diminished expectations of academic success among other groups.

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“…For instance, activists working against gender violence received images with mutilated bodies following a feminist protest that took place in August 2019 after members of the police raped minors in Mexico City (Internet es Nuestra, 2019). Such digital violence has the objective of silencing women and disqualifying them from participating in the political realm (Sanín, 2020). Considering the intensity of this digital violence and the limited power the Mexican government has for making online platforms assume their responsibilities in the face of it, criminalization has little chance of really tackling this problem.…”

Section: The Olimpia Law: Feminist Struggles Over the Governance Of D...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This argument from the organizations reveals the necessity to carefully assess the extent to which access to justice is also available for women engaged in political activities. They are typically subjected to thousands of online attacks based on gender stereotypes, such as that women should be not involved in politics, which could lead to them refraining from further political engagement (Sanín, 2020). This makes it very difficult for such women to benefit from the Olimpia Law, because this type of violence is related to structural causes that criminal laws cannot tackle.…”

Section: The Olimpia Law: Feminist Struggles Over the Governance Of D...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Feminist struggles against criminalization of digital violence: Lessons for Internet governance from the global south

Suárez

2021

Policy & Internet

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Why have feminists in Mexico been arguing with women's groups and against the state over the criminalization of digital violence, and what do these struggles mean for its governance? This article analyzes the social struggles surrounding passage of the Olimpia Law of 2019, which criminalizes digital violence in Mexico. Although criminalization of digital violence as a means of governing online behavior has recently attracted much attention globally, this study proposes that such measures can, at the same time, put at risk the human rights of women actively participating in the political realm (human rights defenders, activists, and journalists). I further contend that governing digital violence is not so much a regulatory question but should, rather, be understood as a field of struggle among diverse collective projects. Thus, I argue that there is a need to further reconceptualize digital violence against women in politics as a way to address the multiplicity of actors and perspectives involved in internet governance. Following textual analysis of documents from feminist organizations arguing against the criminalization of digital violence, I conclude by proposing public policies to fight this phenomenon beyond criminalization.

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Violence against Women in Politics: Latin America in an Era of Backlash

Cited by 27 publications

References 17 publications

Toxic Social Media: Affective Polarization After Feminist Protests

Toxic Social Media: Affective Polarization After Feminist Protests

Having female role models correlates with PhD students’ attitudes toward their own academic success

Feminist struggles against criminalization of digital violence: Lessons for Internet governance from the global south

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