Monday 26 September 2016

12/09/16 - What does a feminist internet look like?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/12/feminist-internet-empowering-online-harassment

Contestants on the Brazilian version of Junior MasterChef

The article talks about how with internet trolling and abusive behaviour online, the majority of targets are that of the female gender. Majority of hateful and abusive behaviour is a rising trend in online activities where people use the internet as a platform to harass, intimidate, humiliate and abuse women. The article also talks about how feminists are actually fighting against this kind of negative behaviour and trend. Feminists are focusing a lot more on how the internet as an industry is dominated mostly by men and leadership roles needs to be challenged and taken on a lot more by females. By doing this and fighting against the negative behaviour, the internet will be a place where gender and sexuality wouldn't be an issue.
  • 2015-16 saw a 10% increase in the number of prosecutions for violence against women and girls in England and Wales
  • In May 2016, 6,500 individuals had been subjected to 10,000 aggressive and misogynistic tweets over a three-week period in the UK
  • 80,000 people had been targeted by 200,000 such tweets internationally
In my own personal opinion, I believe that it is a great problem with the internet that people use it as a platform to abuse and violate others. However, anonymity and the idea of a "mob mentality" is something that has been deeply rooted into the internet as a problem and has been there since the beginning of the internet. It's something that I feel like doesn't just go out of it's way to target only females but it targets everyone, and is something that's just part of society. Although I don't agree with it, I think it's something that would be very difficult to tackle. I also believe that people for the best leadership and management roles should be picked in the industries for technology and media, having a female for the sake of having a female would defeat the purpose of the entire leadership role, and quite frankly that kind of attitude is disrespectful to the ideology of feminism.

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