Addressing online gender violence requires both culture and policy change

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Addressing online gender ********* requires both culture and policy change

by Jaigris Hodson, Esteban Morales, Kaitlynn Mendes and Yimin Chen,

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Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

More and more of our lives are being spent on digital platforms. And, as we spend more time online, we are more vulnerable to a wide range of risks. This fact is particularly true for women and ******.

A

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found that women are more likely than men to experience any type of risk online. And 25% of teen ****** reported experiencing ******* risks in their online lives, compared to 19% of teen boys.

When online ********* or ****** occurs to people because of their gender or gender presentation, it falls under the umbrella term gender-based online ********* and ******, also known as tech-facilitated gender-based *********. Unfortunately, incidents of

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.

Appropriate responses need to be created within this dire landscape.

Some governments are creating policies to address gender-based online ********* and ******. For example,

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mandating dating apps to update and enforce codes of conduct that address instances of ******* ******.

The ********* government tabled the

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in February 2024, which, if passed, would introduce a regulatory framework that demands social media platforms moderate violent content. These legislative acts aim to hold digital platforms accountable for creating methods for reporting and deleting violent content by requiring them to assume full responsibility.

Governments must hold digital platforms accountable for the ********* that happens on them, but are such approaches enough?

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suggests that some men might not even recognize if and how they are complicit in gender-based online *********. Cultural ideas, like ***** myths, may influence their spheres of understanding. And, in these cases, they may not be compelled to follow a code of conduct set up by government or platform policy.

***** myths

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are prejudicial and false beliefs that shape societal attitudes towards gendered *********. Examples of such myths are seen, for instance, when blame is put on the victim, the ******* is excused, and the ***** is minimized and even sometimes justified.

In our study, we took a validated psychological scale for measuring the presence of ***** myths and adapted it to understand how myths about gender-based online ********* might influence behaviors that cause it, or at least prevent people from intervening.

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shows the degrees to which people accept certain myths that normalize ******* ********* (such as, “she was asking for it” or “he didn’t mean to”). This scale is used to show how taken-for-granted assumptions contribute to cultures where victims of ******* ********* are blamed or subject to disbelief when they come forward.

We adapted the ***** myth acceptance scale because responses to it can reveal the cultural narratives that normalize many forms of gendered *********.

Indeed,

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points to the fact that we cannot fully address the acts of gender-based ********* without first addressing these narratives. And gender-based online ********* and ****** is not an exception.

What we found

Once we had adapted the ***** myths acceptance scale to account for gender-based online ********* and ******, we used it in a survey of 1,297 ********* men between 18 and 30 years old.

We used a

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to determine the degree to which young men agreed with statements like “claims of online gender-based ********* are often weaponized against men” or “people who post about gender are sexuality are looking to start arguments.” We found that certain toxic myths and cultural narratives are prevalent among some respondents.

In particular, we found four myths that were more strongly endorsed: 1. It wasn’t really gender-based online ******; 2. he didn’t mean to; 3. gender-based online ****** is a deviant event, and 4. she lied. These myths trivialize the impact of the *********, minimize the blame of those enacting the harm and discredit the voices of targets.

We noticed that as many as 30% of our survey respondents agreed with many of these myths—a significant number of young ********* men taking these regressive attitudes towards gender-based online *********.

As we looked to other research to explain the prevalence of these ideas, we also found that similar ideas are found in

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—people like Andrew Tate, who are a

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about women and gender-nonconforming people.

Thinking ahead

We cannot address gender-based online ********* and ****** by simply reporting and deleting offensive content. It also won’t stop by simply mandating that platforms have codes of conduct in place. In order to tackle the problem, we must address the cultural narratives that sustain it.

Everyone—from academics to policymakers to the public—needs to think about how we can address toxic beliefs to create long-lasting change and foster safer online communities. We can aim for such change in multiple ways.

We can create educational initiatives that promote inclusive and accessible narratives about the nature and importance of gendered *********. We can encourage citizens to engage in

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when they encounter these narratives. And finally, we need to understand why some young men take comfort in ideas that promote toxic expressions of masculinity.

Practitioners and researchers must keep exploring the nature and prevalence of myths surrounding gender-based online ********* and ******. We need to spend time with young men and ask them questions about what they think it is to be a man, and we need to provide positive examples of masculinity in order to make manosphere-style ideas less attractive.

Provided by
The Conversation

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Addressing online gender ********* requires both culture and policy change (2024, October 18)
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