A lot of women use social media. In fact, women starting to use Facebook happened in front of our generation. Some of us are part of the group of women who started blogging and social networking. As this form of online women’s writing and expressing opinions in public gained momentum, women who were unfamiliar with technology also started learning, quickly, and started expressing themselves. Some of our parents belong to this group. It is worthwhile to note this fact because it is peculiar. How?
If you have paid attention to women in history, you’d know that it has never been easy for women to ‘get entry’ into male dominated spaces. And all spaces are male dominated. Women had to fight for the right to vote. They had to fight for equal wages. Don’t you remember Vinaya, the police officer who fought for the right to wear pants to work? Here is the difference. Internet welcomed women in a manner which had no precedent.
This is not to say that internet is a safe space for women. We all know it is not. I’ll come to that later but first let’s look at why internet became a space for women without having to fight for it.
Internet offered anonymity. A woman whose husband would not agree to her raising her voice or pointing her finger while speaking could go online and write about. Without her husband knowing. A college student could talk about her first smoke, first kiss or the time she went to the movies bunking class. Without her parents suspecting. This is true not just about women but queer persons, dalits, dalit women, sex workers and other marginalised people.
Women who did not need to use anonymity also flocked to internet because of the nature in which it allowed them to express themselves. Paintings, cooking, writing, parenting, depression … anything that was previously known only by a few people around her, now had the whole world as audience. Women in internet started bonding and led movements together.
You know what that was? It was the marking of a space, a new space, called the internet with their presence. Women marked this space, joyfully littered it even when they were keeping their houses spic and span. Or thought aloud, not bothered about who was listening. Other women listened and they kept the chain alive. Women claimed this space and getting entry into it could be done by anybody.
The online harassment that women face is a direct result of this. Here now was a platform which could not be regulated. There was a new thing in the market and women were able to easily buy it. Without seeking permission, without taking money and out of control by patriarchal power. Patriarchy could not stand this. They realized that they had not been able to contain the growth of this women’s space. So like in workplaces, they tried to shut us up, give us the friendly advice and threatened us. Just to make clear that this space isn’t ours. You could enter it, perhaps but thriving there? Oh no.
If you’ve watched the film North Country, you’d remember a scene in which the ladies’ bathroom was smeared with shit and semen everywhere. To work there, women had to clean men’s shit and semen. Literally. In the same manner, men started smearing the spaces that women were using freely. ‘We get to decide who thrives and who perishes. We are the godfathers of all people and technology’, they said. It can be called ‘virtual male shit/semen’, in that sense.
Every day we see one post or the other by a woman. They’d be screenshots of shit and semen which were thrown at them online. Some of them are men asking for sex. Some send women pictures of their penis. Recently an unsolicited vulva was sent to one of my friends. Some swear and threaten. Gaming world has come out with accounts of online harassment. All this, in an effort to tell women that we don’t belong here. This is a male space. Your intrusion shall not go unpunished.
Sexual harassment and swearing are not the only means by which men do it. Heard of cyber warriors and the purported war they are waging against women who do not adhere to the rules of social media? This is not to mention the self-proclaimed saviour brothers and cousins who report the woman’s activities on Facebook to parents, threaten them. In discussions women are ‘baby’d’ and tone policed.
That’s when the trend of publicly shaming these offenders came to be. It had to be a woman who started it. Women started uploading pictures of their ‘other’ messages, unsolicited dicks etc. with the name of the people who were doing it. In a perfect world, making public a private chat would be a violation of privacy. But like what one of my friends once told me, ‘privacy ceases to exist when there is abuse’. Today the naming and shaming transcends the virtual-real borders.
I saw a post today of a man who had jerked off looking at a woman using public transport. When she called the police, they laughed it off. The woman clicked his picture and put it up on Facebook. The incident happened in the real world. The woman had sought help from the police. When they found her harassment amusing, she shamed him online. Online, she would be heard. There would be virtual police officers too but she will be heard. Exactly what men fear.
Every time I have put up such a post or have seen such name and shame/show and shame posts, I feel guilty. I think, what if someone decides to lynch this person. Then again, the thought of going to the police or courts make me nauseous. I used to hesitate every time I did it. I don’t do it anymore but I am not sure if I have stopped it for good. Should a woman hesitate before doing it? I am willing to stop it but is there any other means?
While taking sexual harassment which happened online to the police, one realizes that there exists no specific mechanism to tackle it. My experience many years ago was horrible. The police even said that speaking in sexually connoted manner was not sexual harassment. They said that they would write to Facebook and wait for reply. That never happened. In any case, Facebook doesn’t have adequate policies to handle sexual harassment. Recently, a woman who had gone to police regarding harassment on Facebook received ‘brotherly’ advice from the police officers.
You see where this is going? Exactly where men wanted it to go when women were not allowed education, right to equal wages, right to work. Workplace harassment stems from the belief that women do not belong to the workplace. When a journalist is attacked online and given rape threats for doing her job, the abuse is multi-faceted. Why are you a woman and a journalist? Why are you using internet for publishing your work?
Power is the reason and feminism is the solution.
This power is derived not just from the positions of power (your boss, your professor) that they hold. Someone who is not your boss could harass you just because you are a woman. I used to think that if I reached positions above that of people who have harassed me then maybe I would stop getting harassed. That never happens, for the power derived is from patriarchy, from being a ‘man’. People who are junior to you could pass obscene remarks at you. You could be harassed by absolute strangers. In families, your younger brother could have command over where you go and when you return home.
Every act by a woman who makes public a private chat is because of patriarchy still clinging on to the belief that that online spaces are not for women. Every time a woman uploads a picture of the person who stalked her in real life, it is because the system is patriarchal. Masturbating looking at a woman in public doesn't have anything to do with sex. Nor does 'how much do you charge' messages in inboxes. Sexual frustration is a male jargon primarily. It is a usage defined to advocate sexual violence. You will have to let go of that belief. Let go of the power. Spaces shall remain women’s as it shall everyone’s. If you think it can be controlled, women will use the same space to expose you. There is no stopping it until you dismantle the misconceptions about ownership.
-Ithi K
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