Women everywhere are reporting that they are suffering from online bullying, particularly on sites such as Twitter. This kind of oppression can lead to problems with mental wellness and wellbeing, and yet is generally accepted in society.
Caroline Criado-Perez was recently part of a campaign to allow women to be featured on British bank notes, and was successful, with the recent announcement that author Jane Austen will soon feature on a British banknote. Following the high-profile campaign, however, Craido-Perez was subjected to intimidation and threats of sexual violence on Twitter.
In May, Facebook was forced to change the way that it deals with any material which portrays violence towards women in a positive way after thousands of users complained about vile and hateful groups set up on Facebook which showed horrendous images of abused women. One such image showed a woman lying at the bottom of the stairs and had the caption, ‘Next time, don’t get pregnant’.
An Everyday Sexism project has been set up by a woman named Laura Bates, to highlight the problem that casual sexism is in today’s society. She accused Facebook of ‘hiding behind’ the idea of free speech, and they have recently agreed to change their policies.
Lucy-Ann Holmes, who is currently campaigning against topless women appearing in family newspapers has also reported receiving death threats on social media.
In fact, many women report that they are subjected to sexually explicit messages on the internet from a young age. People who carry out this kind of abuse online are often known as ‘trolls’ and it is not just women who have reported being targeted by online abuse from anonymous people.
Twitter is now under pressure to introduce a ‘report’ button to help people report when they have received an abusive or threatening tweet, so that they will be forced to investigate and take action against people who behave in this way online.