Internet Misogyny
“The Web is regularly hailed for its “openness” and that’s where the confusion begins, since “open” in no way means “equal.” While the Internet may create space for many voices, it also reflects and often amplifies real-world inequities in striking ways.” This opening quote taken from Astra Taylor’s article “How the Cult of Internet Openness Enables Misogyny” sets the stage for her position regarding the real-world inequalities — discrimination and lack of diversity — amplified from the web.
Taylor’s article dives into the culture of the digital realm and explores the inequality, discrimination, and lack of diversity that it reflects and represents. This inequality is built into the Web’s architecture and is only going to grow over time. As a reader, it (naturally) did not come as a surprise that well-off white men are overrepresented both in the tech industry and online. However, it did come to a surprise exactly how much gender plays a role into the Web and how the Internet is not heading toward equality or democracy.
Taylor first makes it clear that socioeconomic status, race, and gender all play a significant role in who’s who in the online world and men are more likely to participate than women. Not surprisingly, why well-off white men are a large percentage of the digital world. Taylor uses a study from Hargittai to explain there’s no difference in sexes online competency but women’s self-assessments were considerably lower due to self-doubt. This is important to note because the degree to which you consider yourself an online contributor influences the amount you will contribute. Taylor uses additional research to show “that people routinely underestimate women’s abilities” and then points out “women are assumed to be less competent unless they prove otherwise.” Her best example is when new programs are introduced as “so easy your mother or grandmother could use them” because apparently male figures already understand how to use it. This introduces another one of Taylor’s main points that sexism and misogyny from the offline world has continued onto the Web.
The sexism and misogyny in the offline world expanded and intensified in the online world and bullying and harassment have become ordinary occurrences. When it comes to online bullying, Taylor explains that many prominent women have spoken about scenarios of stalking, online death threats, sexual assault, and experiences where their private information, home addresses, e-mail passwords, and even social security numbers have been released. Not to mention the publisher of Cybersexism, Laurie Penny, who referred to a woman’s opinion as “the “short skirt” of the Internet. Meaning that having one and flaunting it is somehow asking a “mass of almost-entirely male keyboard-bashers to tell you how they’d like to rape, kill, and urinate on you.”
It is easy for (mostly) all women and some men to see how this is a problem. However, when women speak up against harassers they are told to “lighten up” because no matter the degree of harassment, it’s just “harmless locker-room talk” because online harassment is not real harassment. I suppose children dealing with cyber bulling should “lighten up” as well because online bullying is not “real” bullying.
Additionally, online harassment does not stop there. Taylor uses another study from the University of Maryland that revealed posts with female usernames received 25 times more malicious messages than those with masculine or ambiguous usernames. Shocking, right? What’s even more shocking is that these authors suggested parents to have their daughters use sex-neutral names online. Why is this shocking? Because they are teaching young girls that they need to hide whom they are to participate in digital life. They are teaching that females (and other minorities) are inferior to males, which introduces Taylor’s next main point.
As seen in the offline world, white male inferiority has also leaped to the online world and resulted in a lack of diversity. Taylor points out that “online and offline men are assumed to be more authoritative and credible, and thus deserving of recognition and support.” This can be seen through statistics from Matthew Hindman’s book The Myth of Digital Democracy that reveal the lack of diversity in the blogosphere. For example, out of the top 10 blogs, only one belonged to a female writer and a census for 87 sites with over 2,000 visitors a week, revealed only five were run by women and there were no “identifiable African Americans among the top 30 bloggers,” but there was “one Asian blogger, and one of mixed Latino heritage.” Taylor notes that women and people of color are doing innovative work but investors and financiers choose the familiar (white men) over them, which ties back to Taylor’s earlier statement that men are assumed to be more credible and deserving of recognition.
Taylor makes it clear that this culture of discrimination, sexism, and lack of diversity has created low rates of digital participation for women and minorities. Men do not create an easy battle for women to enter into the industry and they make it an even tougher battle to win once they enter. Sexism is one of the largest factors that push women out which explains why the women attrition rate (56%) is double that of men. To make matters even worse, women make 49 cents (yup, 49 cents) for every dollar a male makes in the digital world and in the non-digital world; women make 77 cents for every dollar. In terms of venture capitalists, over 85% are men looking to invest in other men (surprise, surprise), which explains why only 8% of venture-backed tech start-ups are women-owned. How are things going for other minorities? Software engineers in Silicon Valley are one-third Asian but the amount that make it to the top are comparable to the 6% of women chief executives. What’s even worse is that in 2010 the percentage of black founders of Silicon Valley companies was a whopping 1%. So much for the digital world being an “open” space.
In the perfect world, online communities would be the epitome of a “new, networked, open culture” but data proves otherwise. Taylor contradicts online communities as being an open culture by saying that 15% of the contributors to Wikipedia are women and about 17% of users on Reddit and Slashdot are “male, overwhelmingly young, wealthy, and white.” To make matters worse, Reddit’s misogynist culture includes “threads where rapists have recounted their exploits and photos of underage girls posted under headings like ‘Chokeabitch,’ ‘Niggerjailbait,’ and ‘Creepshots.’”
In her article, Taylor clearly makes the point that the web reflects, represents, and amplifies real-world inequality, discrimination, and lack of diversity. Before reading her article, I was unaware of the culture of the digital world and to say I was astounded would be an understatement. While reading the statements regarding the experiences of women being bullying, I was distraught knowing that men still think it is okay to speak to another human like that in the twenty first century. Disagreeing with someone’s opinion is okay and I am a firm believer in freedom of speech, but to send someone death threats, release their private information, and talk about “hate-f*cking” someone is never acceptable. Taylor mentions many instances of inequality and discrimination, but by doing this she is making us question our values of equity.
Taylor ends the article stating that the low rates of digital participation within women and minorities matter. Not only because all people are equal and deserve equal rights, but because it also “underscores the assumptions of the people who design the systems we depend on to use the Internet.” She amplifies the importance of this by explaining that programmers shape our lives cause they shape the Internet — a central aspect to our lives. “The choices they make can segregate us further or create new connections; the algorithms they devise can exclude voices or bring more people into the fold; the interfaces they invent can expand our sense of human possibility or limit it to the already familiar.” I include this entire quote because the words hold so much meaning, power, and capability for insurgence. If the tech industry continues to be shaped in the direction of the “male, pale, and privileged” how will we gain new perspectives and see more than one side to the story?
Taylor leaves no answer as to how we encourage or enforce diversity in open networks because it is not an uncomplicated solution, but she does inspire change and improvement to be made. Technological and social systems are made by human beings therefore we always have the ability to change and improve them.
