Tag Archives: cyber VAW

16 Activists and Organisations Working Online To Stop Violence Against Women

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With the 21st century in full swing, the internet has become an integral part of everyday life for much for the world. From shopping to social lives, we have become increasingly reliant on the internet to get things done, as well as to communicate with other people. The younger generations, starting with Millenials, have never grown up in a world without the internet. With the increasing affordability and ubiquity of portable technology such as laptops, smartphones, and tablets, even the most remote of locations are getting online and getting connected. Indeed, the UN has even declared internet access a universal human right.

The internet, however, is a double-edged sword. While it has helped everything from business to education take massive leaps forward faster than ever, online communication platforms and communities such as blogs, social media networks, chatrooms, and forums have also helped amplify some of the worst aspects of humanity including misogyny and Violence Against Women (VAW). According to UN Women, “cyber VAWG already exists in many forms, including online harassment, public shaming, the desire to inflict physical harm, sexual assaults, murders and induced suicides”.

The anti-VAW movement has taken on the cyber VAW fight in two major ways. They use social media and other online platforms to educate, raise awareness, raise funds, and to turbo charge the fight against VAW and sexism. Crucially, anti-VAW activists are also finding ways to effectively tackle the tidal wave of cyber-VAW using tactics ranging from rallying individuals and organisations to unite against VAW to pushing social media companies to become more accountable for taking action to stamp out VAW in their communities.

The 16 activists and organisations listed below have been at the frontline of digital anti-VAW activism in the last decade as social media started its unstoppable rise to prominence. From providing an anonymous blog platform for survivors to tell their stories to creating viral educational videos to working with Facebook and Twitter to stop VAW on their watch, each of them have stepped up to take on this new frontier in the fight to end VAW. We hope their work inspires you to do so too.

Written and compiled by Samantha Carroll and Regina Yau. Introduction by Regina Yau.

Call To Action: Help us reach the $25,000 fundraising milestone for our Celebrity Male Role Model Pixel Reveal campaign this holiday season by giving generously to our “16 For 16” fundraiser (which also includes #GivingTuesday)! Find out more and donate to get awesome book and music goodies at http://is.gd/16DaysGT2015 

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Recommendation #1: Aimee Smith

Aimee Smith_croppedAimee Smith is the pseudonym of a blogger who shares her story of rape survival.  On her blog One Woman, Smith inspires women to come forward (anonymously if preferred) and share their stories of survival too.  “If we can help even one woman deal with her pain, we will be succeeding”, says Smith.  When she’s not helping others, Smith is teaching, parenting, playing the piano and being nominated for the One Lovely Blog Award.

Recommendation #2: Anita Sarkeesian

Anita Sarkeesian_croppedAnita Sarkeesian is the pop-culture media critic who made headlines when she launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to support her production of a video Web series called Tropes vs Women in Video Games, which explores female stereotypes in the gaming industry. Her feminist critique of the gaming industry has garnered an ongoing vitriolic online backlash, including threats of death, sexual assault and rape, most recently escalating to hounding her out of her home and forcing her to cancel an event at Utah State University due to the threat of a mass gun massacre.

Recommendation #3: Breakthrough

breakthroughBreakthrough is a global human rights organisation based in both the U.S. and India. They work to make violence and discrimination against women and girls unacceptable via cutting-edge multimedia campaigns, community mobilisation, agenda setting, and leadership training equip men and women worldwide to challenge the status quo and take action to address and end violence against women and girls. Online campaigning is one of their key strengths – one of their best known online campaigns is their “Bell Bajao” campaign featuring YouTube videos that encourage the viewer to take action to stop domestic violence by ringing the bell. “Bell Bajao” has been adapted by domestic violence organisations in other countries including China and Vietnam.

Recommendation #4: Caroline Criado-Perez

Caroline Criado PerezCaroline Criado-Perez is a freelance journalist and feminist campaigner who successfully campaigned to persuade the Bank of England to include a prominent woman (Jane Austen) among an otherwise all-male group of British luminaries on the back of British currency. The success of the campaign made her and other women the target of numerous threats of rape and murder on Twitter from the day of the Bank of England’s announcement in July 2013. She fought back against the abuse publicly, which resulted in Twitter’s general manager in Britain, Tony Wang, announcing a one-click option on all posts enabling users to easily report abusive tweets, where previously there was no recourse for victims of online harassment on Twitter.

Recommendation #5: Jessica Valenti

Jessica_Valenti_in_March_2014_croppedJessica Valenti is the founder of Feministing.com and the author of four books on feminism, politics and culture, and. Her newest book, Sex Object, will be out in 2016. She is also a daily columnist and staff writer for Guardian US where she writes about violence against women and gender inequality. The Guardian has named her as one of their “top 100 women” for her work to bring the feminist movement online. Her work has also appeared in Ms.,The Nation, The Washington Post, TPMCafe, and Alternet.

Recommendation #6: June Eric-Udorie

June Eric-UdorieJune Eric-Udorie is a 16 year old campaigner against female genital mutilation, writer, and member of  Plan UK’s Youth Advisory Panel where she sits on the Board of Trustees. She advocates for women’s rights and is passionate about ending violence against women and girls. Udorie protests (both online and offline) against victim blaming, supports the empowerment of girls, blogs for New Statesman, and has written for Girls’ Globe and the Telegraph. In April 2015, Udorie petitioned against Sussex Police after they produced objectionable anti-rape posters. The posters were taken down within 72 hours. She was nominated for the Red Women of the Year Award 2015.

Recommendation #7: Meltem Avcil

Meltem Avcil_croppedIn 2007, at the age of 13, Meltem Avcil was placed in the Yarl’s Wood immigration centre, Bedfordshire, UK, with her mother. There she witnessed women (like her mother) who had fled their home countries due to VAW, and were placed in a prison-like space. In a Cosmo article, Avcil is quoted as saying that, “These women have experienced torture, rape, violence, sexual abuse. They have been tortured mentally and physically. So when they come to this country to seek refuge, they’re being tortured again by being put in prison.” As a result of her experience, Avcil has started a change.org petition and called on the UK’s on Home Secretary Theresa May, to end the incarceration of abused women seeking asylum.

Recommendation #8: Nuala Cabral

Nuala Cabral_croppedNuala Cabral created a short film in 2009 called Walking Home, to address street harassment. The film was uploaded to YouTube and was watched by tens of thousands. After Walking Home went viral, the film won the Speaking Out Award at the non-profit Media That Matters Film Festival.  Cabral is a cofounder of FAAN (Fostering Activism and Alternatives Now), a media literacy and activism project that focuses on transforming the way women of colour are depicted in the media. To achieve this and as part of their community engagement, FAAN offers and facilitates a range of workshops, presentations and professional development around media literacy, social media activism and creating media for social change.

Recommendation #9: Raquel Evita Saraswati

Raquel Evita Saraswati is the first woman under the age of 30 to receive a Durga Award for dedication to ending gender-based violence, FGM and forced and child marriages. Saraswati has spoken out publically against honour killings all over the world and has written for prestigious media outlets while campaigning vigorously online via her blog and Twitter where she has over 20,000 followers. Her new initiative is called Adalah: Ending Gender-Based Violence and will focus on “a holistic approach to ending gender-based violence”.

Recommendation #10: Soraya Chemaly

Soraya Chemaly is a feminist media critic and activist whose work focuses on women’s rights, freedom of speech, and the role of gender and violence in politics, religion and pop culture. She is a contributor to Salon, CNN, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, The Nation, Ms. Magazine, and Time and her work is also regularly published in gender-focused media. In May 2013, she teamed up with Women, Action, and The Media (WAM!) to organise a successful global social media campaign demanding that Facebook recognise misogynistic content as hate speech. She works regularly with social media companies to address gender-based inequalities.

Recommendation #11: Stop Street Harassment

SSH-New-LogoStop Street Harassment (SSH) is a non-profit organisation dedicated to documenting and ending gender-based street harassment worldwide. It started as a blog in 2008 by founder Holly Kearl and quickly went from strength to strength over the last 7 years as Kearl built a fast-growing community to push back against street harassment. Today, SSH runs the highly successful International Anti-Street Harassment Week every Spring, using social media, their website resources, and their mailing list to organise groups and tens of thousands of people around the world to take action against street harassment in their community. SSH also continues to collect and document stories of street harassment submitted by women and girls worldwide.

Recommendation #12: Take Back The Tech

Take Back The TechTake Back The Tech! was initiated in 2006 by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) Women’s Rights Programme and was created as a call to everyone, especially women and girls, to take control of technology to end violence against women. It’s a global, collaborative campaign project that highlights the problem of tech-related violence against women such as cyberstalking, together with research and solutions from different parts of the world. The campaign offers safety roadmaps and information and provides an avenue for taking action. The collective runs several campaigns every year, and their biggest annual campaign takes place during 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence (25 Nov – 10 Dec).

Recommendation #13: The Pixel Project

Pixel Project ThumbnailThe Pixel Project is a global virtual non-profit working to raise awareness, funds, and volunteer power for the cause to end violence against women (VAW) worldwide. They focus on online campaigns which combine social media, new technologies, pop culture, and the arts. Their campaigns span a range of online tools and social media including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google Hangouts, YouTube, and blogs, tailoring these online platforms to reach, involve, and mobilise a wide range of social demographics for the cause including VAW survivors, fathers, music artistes, authors, geeks and book lovers, pet lovers, and foodies. Their flagship campaign is the Celebrity Male Role Model Pixel Reveal campaign – a crowdfunding campaign which aims to get donors worldwide to reveal a million-pixel collage of 4 celebrity male role models by donating a dollar a pixel.

Recommendention #14: UN Women

UNwomen-Logo-Blue-TransparentBackground-enThe United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), is a United Nations entity working for the empowerment of women. One of their key focal issues is violence against women (VAW) and in the last decade, they have successfully leveraged the power of the internet and social media to rally the global community to take action to stop VAW. In 2009, they launched the SayNO – UNiTE to end Violence Against Women campaign which aimed to raise at least 1 million actions to stop VAW (and succeeded). In 2014, they launched the #HeForShe campaign with Harry Potter star Emma Watson as the ambassador to get men and boys to step up to end sexism, misogyny, and VAW.

Recommendation #15: Women, Action, and The Media (WAM!)

WAM! states that they are a “nonprofit dedicated to building a robust, effective, inclusive movement for gender justice in media”. Founded by feminist activist Jaclyn Friedman, WAM! runs a variety of campaigns that aims to change the way online and traditional media treat and portray women and girls. WAM! has broken new ground with getting social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter to become more pro-active in addressing online harassment and misogyny that take place on their sites. In November 2014, WAM! collaborated with Twitter to address the online harassment of female Twitter users. In May 2013, WAM! took on Facebook with an open letter signed by more than 100 anti-Violence Against Women organisations demanding that Facebook recognize misogynistic content as hate speech. They won.

Recommendation #16: Yas Necati

Yas NecatiYas Necati is an 18 year old activist who describes herself as a “full-time patriarchy-smasher”. In 2013, she launched a campaign called #BetterSexEducation due to the UK’s Sex and Relationships Education out-dated curriculum. Nescati helps run the Campaign4Consent, which aims to make consent and information about sexual assault part of the UK’s Sex and Relationships Education curriculum. She is managing editor of Powered By Girl and a member of No More Page 3. And if all of the above isn’t enough, Necati is also writing a book on feminism for teens.

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16 Ways The Men Can Help Stop Online Violence Against Women

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Social Media Logotype BackgroundWith the rise of social media and smartphones in the last decade or so, Facebooking, tweeting, pinning, blogging, and vlogging have become a default part of many people’s professional, personal and social lives. Communities are no longer limited to face-to-face interactions, but also flourish online in the form of Facebook pages, Twitter followers, YouTube subscribers and blogger networks.

Through these online communities, the Internet has become a conduit for the free-flow of ideas, opinions, thoughts, beliefs and values. As online communities become more ubiquitous and entrenched in our lives, the boundaries have long-ago blurred between our offline behaviour and online conduct and in many cases, the Internet acts to amplify anti-social, criminal and bigoted behaviour because of the anonymity it gives to participants and commentators who frequently engage in hurtful behaviour with impunity.

In the case of Violence Against Women (VAW), the Internet and social media has given misogyny an incredibly visible platform with almost no controls in place to check their behaviour towards women and girls online. As Laura Bates, the founder of The Everyday Sexism Project, says:

The internet is a fertile breeding ground for misogyny – you only have to look at the murky bottom waters of Reddit and 4Chan to see the true extent to which it allows violent attitudes towards women to proliferate. But, crucially, it also provides a conduit that enables many who hold those views to attack and abuse women and girls, from what they rightly perceive to be an incredibly secure position.

Indeed, from Anita Sarkeesian to the Steubenville rape case, cyber VAW has been on the rise over the past decade, with the most recent high-profile case being the horrendous Twitter attacks on feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez after her success in getting the Bank of England to include a woman on a UK currency note.

Anti-VAW activists and nonprofits and online women’s rights communities are now fighting back with campaigns aimed at getting social media networks, governments and law enforcement agencies to take cyber VAW seriously and to take action to prevent and stop it. As with all aspects of stopping VAW, support of men and boys is crucial to this fight and in this “16 for 16” article, we present 16 ways in which men can help stop cyber VAW

Introduction by Regina Yau; Written by Rashad Brathwaite and Regina Yau; Edited by Jerica Nonell and Regina Yau.

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Men Helping Stop Cyber VAW – Tip #1: Acknowledge the violence. There are 3 important ways in which men need to effectively acknowledge cyber violence against women. The first step is to be aware of and accept the fact that it definitely exists. The second step is to acknowledge that in the rough-and-tumble on online interaction, women and girls face a different, more extreme, and more insidious kind of backlash than men including a disproportionate number of threats of physical violence, name-calling, reputation assasination, death threats, sexual assault threats and rape threats. The third step is to publicly recognise cyber VAW when it happens and to intervene.

Men Helping Stop Cyber VAW – Tip #2: Educate yourself. The first step towards effective online bystander intervention is developing the ability to recognise the signs and manifestations of cyber VAW within online communities. These run the gamut from rape joke Facebook pages to mass misogynistic trolling in the comments section of opinion pieces written by women. Check out online resources that provide information online online bullying and cyber VAW, including What Men Can Do. Knowing what cyber VAW looks like will enable you to take timely action to intervene to stop the violence.

tnc_logoMen Helping Stop Cyber VAW – Tip #3: Educate the next generation. One of the most effective ways of helping stop cyber VAW is to educate the next generation of boys and youth about the issue and to equip them to deal with it. For example: That’s Not Cool is a public education campaign that raises awareness about teen dating violence by sharing examples of unhealthy, controlling, and abusive behavior. The campaign teaches youth risk factors for “textual harassment,” “pic pressure,” and other signs of unhealthy relationship behavior. “That’s Not Cool” also provides resources and information on ways to intervene if a young person has a friend, family member, or acquaintance who is being verbally, emotionally, or sexually harassed via technology.

Men Helping Stop Cyber VAW – Tip #4: Educate your peers. When engaging online with your male peers, friends and co-workers, look for opportunities to steer the conversation towards discussing why cyber VAW is not acceptable. These opportunities can include talking to them when you see them exhibit disrespectful or bullying behaviour towards women and girls in the online community; or when discussing high profile cases of male celebrities committing VAW. You can also invite your male peers to join you on liking anti-VAW Facebook pages, following anti-VAW Twitter accounts and participating in online discussions about the importance of stopping VAW.

Men Helping Stop Cyber VAW – Tip #5: Lead by example. Make sure that your website, blog, social media profiles, and behaviour in forums, comments sections and chatrooms are free from any form of misogynistic behaviour including mansplaining, dismissing women’s opinions, sharing tasteless VAW jokes that blame the victim, sexist name-calling, putting up pictures extolling the ‘virtues’ of the rape and battery of women etc. Be self-aware about your own behaviour and treat women and girls as equals when engaging in online discussions or interactions with them. Step up to intervene when you see cyber VAW happening.

Men Helping Stop Cyber VAW – Tip #6: Make Amends When You Make a Mistake. As an ally, you will make mistakes. Anything new that is being internalised has a learning curve, and learning to question societal norms certainly is no exception. Being an ally involves constantly learning and re-learning, constantly questioning your own attitudes and language. If you find that a view you hold or a post that you have shared is problematic, apologise. If you are called out on problematic behaviour, listen. Do not become defensive or feel as if you are being attacked when called out – it is the only way that you can learn and change.

Men Helping Stop Cyber VAW – Tip #7: Call ’em out! People who perpetuate cyber VAW need to be called out on their behaviour IMMEDIATELY because many aggressors and trolls are empowered by the silence of bystanders and the protection of online anonymity. Make sure that they know that what they are doing is wrong. Even if you are the only voice saying so, your intervention may get them to reconsider their behaviour. Even if the the perpetrator declares that he means no harm, it is important to disrupt incidences of cyber VAW while it is happening by.publicly and calmly pointing out that cyber VAW has hurtful consequences for the victim, and reflects badly on the perpetrator.

Men Helping Stop Cyber VAW – Tip #8: Be Specific. When you engage cyber VAW perpetrator about their behaviour, be specific about the exact behaviour that you are addressing, be it name-calling, victim-blaming, death threats, or rape threats. Having to defend their specific behaviour and tactic may cause some attackers to rethink what they are saying to try and having to think through their actions could trigger a change in their attitudes towards women online. Ask them questions you would like them to ask themselves: Would you issue this threat if it was a man expressing the same opinion?

Safety in NumbersMen Helping Stop Cyber VAW – Tip #9: Safety in numbers. When attempting to call out the behaviour of a group of cyber VAW perpetrators or any other type of cyber bullies, form a group yourself. Talk privately to other members of the forum, page or community about what is happening and get their support to back each other up when facing down aggressive and misogynistic groups. Similarly, when you see someone courageously taking a cyber VAW perpetrator to task, chime in. This action has 3 effects: it lets the person know that someone else agrees with them; it signals to the victim that the community will not stand for the treatment she is receiving; and it lets the perpetrator(s) know that more than one person is calling out their behaviour.

Men Helping Stop Cyber VAW – Tip #10: Use that button! Most social media sites have policies against bullying and hate language by allowing for comments, threads, and users to be flagged as offensive. If engaging the cyber VAW perpetrator is impossible either because he repeats his behaviour or you are facing an entire community that actively commits cyber VAW, use the reporting tools that most social media networks set up to enable communities to report hate language and bullying to get the perpetrator removed for repeat offenses.

Men Helping Stop Cyber VAW – Tip #11: Reach Out. If you witness cyber VAW, remember to reach out to the target of the attack after you have intervened to stop the perpetrator. Provide support and engage with her to develop the best course of action. Find out how she wants to handle the situation and how she would like you to help. Online communities can easily make someone feel isolated when they are being attacked, so your outreach will help her to realise that there are people in the community who will not stand for cyber VAW and sexism and who are willing to step in to help.

Men Helping Stop Cyber VAW – Tip #12: Take it offline. If reporting cyber VAW to social media network administrators, forum moderators or website owners do not yield any action and the cyber VAW continues to escalate, begin documenting the violence with screencaps and contact an agency, nonprofit or grassroots campaign specialising in stopping cyber VAW and cyber bullying with the evidence. They will be able to assist you or advice you regarding the next steps with taking action to hold the perpetrators or the site accountable for their actions. In certain cases of cyber VAW that can be localised to a country or city, report the case to the relevant authorities such as the police. With governments and law enforcement agencies in many countries such as Canada, the UK and The Philippines starting to recognise cyber VAW as a crime, there are now increasing avenues to getting help to stop cyber VAW.

Men Helping Stop Cyber VAW – Tip #13: Create safe spaces. Whether you are a blogger, website owner, forum moderator, Facebook page administrator or are responsible for any online community, make sure you work with your fellow moderators/administrators to have a zero tolerance approach to cyber VAW and cyber bullying of any form. Make sure you are upfront with your policy on acceptable behaviour. Many major websites do this by stating on top of their comments sections or “about” sections of their websites and profile pages that while everyone is welcome, they will not tolerate bigoted, sexist, violent or disrespectful behaviour of any sort and they enforce it by moderating comments and banning those who violate their rules.

Men Helping Stop Cyber VAW – Tip #14: Size does not matter.  If an organisation, celebrity or company makes misogynistic, violent, and hateful remarks towards women and girls online, or refuses to moderate cyber VAW on their show, website and social media channels, organise or join a campaign that hits them where it hurts – their profits. This approach has been done successfully several times. The latest example is that of the #FacebookRape campaign organised by Laura Bates (founder of The Everyday Sexism Project), Jaclyn Friedman (Women, Action, and the Media) and Soraya Chemaly a prominent feminist writer. In summer 2013, they and over 100 anti-Violence Against Women organisations (including The Pixel Project) mounted the #FBrape campaign to get companies to withdraw advertising from Facebook until Facebook agreed to take cyber VAW on their social network seriously.

Men Helping Stop Cyber VAW – Tip #15: Share Your Knowledge.  One of the greatest features of the internet and social media is its ability to spread information at a rapid pace. As an ally, you have the opportunity to spread the knowledge that you gain to people who are not necessarily looking for the same information. Make your awareness viral! When you find a good article or video that puts online violence in perspective, tweet it, blog about it, share it!

Men Helping Stop Cyber VAW – Tip #16: Be a virtual volunteer. Online anti-VAW nonprofits and organisations, such as The Pixel Project, are always looking for more people to get involved in the movement to end VAW. Whether you decide to volunteer with an online support service for survivors of VAW, or with a non-profit that specifically fights cyber VAW and cyber bullying, adding your voice to their ranks and allows for more information to be published faster, reaching more people. If for no other reason, your experiences and your insights are unique and valuable.