Online hostility rots debates in our society. However, an unprecedented study has just been published on this phenomenon, which fits broader into the “dark landscape of violence against women” with “deep roots in the breeding ground of sexism and misogyny”.
This study by the Conseil du statut de la femme (CSF) is extremely relevant and based on extensive research. She examines this societal problem of online hostility, which is still very poorly documented.
The whole thing was ordered by the Minister for the Status of Women, Isabelle Charest, following a 2019 National Assembly motion. He shows how online hostilities, which include online violence, cyberbullying and cyberstalking, are taking their toll.
It affects men and women of all ages, but the path is different for women, through sexist and misogynist comments that can have a huge impact. To the point that some women withdraw or don’t venture out of public life.
Publicity
The portrait painted in the study “dispels the notion that online misogyny can be marginalized without imputing major consequences and privacy.”
In politics and the media, for example, many women admit to being victims. I am, like almost all my colleagues, who publish their ideas in the media. Many testify to this regularly.
This violence is predominantly male, the report notes. I see that too, especially when my work pushes me to write about divisive issues like vaccinations, COVID, the streetcar, or the third link. Anti-Tram and Pro-Third-Link focus specifically on this form of violence. It is sad.
According to the study, many scientists argue that online hostility towards women is aimed, consciously or unconsciously, at impeding their participation in the public sphere and in places traditionally reserved for men.
There is a desire to “put women in their place” by relegating them to privacy or the role of sexual partner, the report explains.
form of abuse
The study shows that online hostility is actually a form of violence. “It’s more underground, sometimes hidden, like other forms of violence,” notes Me Louise Cordeau, President of the CSF.
In any case, there is a form of loneliness, Me Cordeau notes. Victims will wonder what means to use to stop them, how to denounce and what resources we can have.
“These are all questions about violence,” she notes.
As Mélanie Julien, Director of Research and Analysis, points out, “In Quebec, however, we have made great strides in terms of societal acknowledgment of domestic violence […] and sexual assault, but it’s as if all paths have been crossed on this matter, online animosity needs to be done as well.”
The phenomenon remains trivialized, so the study calls for mobilization so that this form of violence, in turn, is “recognized, denounced and combated”.
The study evokes various possible solutions that are neither simple nor unique, recall Ms. Cordeau and Julien. But the levers, legal or not, and the will to act are there, particularly through education.
Now it’s time to act and implement.
