Gender Inequality Online

Women Harassment on Twitter 

As the use of social media has become an intrinsic part of our everyday lives, so also, has the visual presence of abuse. As a result, the violent and persistent harassment of prominent women online has been covered substantially in the media. This harassment is neither recognized as sexual harassment nor as a societal problem, as it is often viewed as an unfortunate side effect of the anonymity offered by the internet. This harassment should be seen as an example of gender inequality as it discredits and silences women’s voices online and halts the process towards equality by creating a hostile and misogynistic environment, which renders the online sphere, solely available to men.                                                To find out in what ways sexual harassment online could be seen as evidence for gender inequality, the study used critical discourse analysis on fifteen Twitter tweets judged to be sexual harassment. By looking for representations of self/other and the use of governmentality, studies found that the tweets conjured up a discourse of patriarchy which adhered to stereotypical gender definitions, only leaving one subject position for females – that of a sexual object.