I just thought I'd re-post this so that people will find it for this week's discussion. ;-) Hope, that's alright.
This text by Alison Adam introduces the newly-emerged phenomenon of online harassment and cyberstalking. Without wanting to give too much of a summary here I just want to point out the fact that, to me, the way the topic was addressed here was unique and very interesting – probably because I never saw it in connection to feminist ethics before. The whole idea of the fact that there are “major inequalities running throughout the whole of computing” really triggered some kind of re-thinking in my attitude towards the whole subject. Now, I should point out that I am a woman who is very much involved with computers and especially with what you would probably call cyberspace and the ‘online world’. So in that sense, to me the question of gender or a gendered surrounding never really came up since I never saw myself in an unequal position or found myself in a male-dominated community online (or at least I never noticed it in a negative way). I guess this is what made Alison’s text and insights so interesting to me.
Sexual harassment and stalking have always been gendered issues in the ‘real world’, with generally a lot more women being victimized and more men being the perpetrators. So it comes as no surprise that these phenomena, when taken to a ‘virtual’ basis (which in the end is really not so virtual anymore), show the same characteristics. I found it quite interesting that the presented case study about a man being a victim seemed to actually prove that to him it was more a question of winning a fight against the Internet Service Provider than anything else, whereas the stalked women had to fear about their (sexual) integrity and were very much put in an inferior position. While researching the topic online I came across a very interesting website[1], especially designed for helping victims of online harassment and cyberstalking. I especially want to point out the statistics about cases and victims, because they show and confirm very well that this phenomenon is clearly a gendered one.
I would now like to raise some central points of this text for discussion in the following, mainly ideas or concepts that I felt were worth thinking about more thoroughly. Firstly, there is the idea about liberal traditions as introduced by Adam: liberals usually vouch for a clear separation between the private and the public sphere and since the womens’ role has traditionally been more located in the private sphere, intervention or even simple recognition of a violation of the womens’ rights has naturally been a difficult matter. I would like to pose the question whether you think that this is the core of the matter? Since Adam claims that we need to know the reasons for women becoming victims and men perpetrators, could we maybe deduct that it is simply just too easy for men to violate womens’ rights without having to fear any consequences? Is this fact even made worse by the anonymity of cyberspace? Alison concludes that feminist ethics could be helpful to find a solution for that problem. Do you agree, and if yes in what way exactly?
[1] Htichcock, Jane (1996-2008). 'WHOA. Working to Halt Online Abuse'. http://www.haltabuse.org/resources/stats/index.shtml (accessed 25 August 2008)
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9 comments:
Does anyone have an opinion on the whole cyberstalking issue? Discuss, people! ;-)
Or am I asking the wrong questions? ^-^
Not at all Katy – you bring up some good issues! To get the ball rolling I shall give my thoughts on two of them…
Consequences
There seems to be a difference in the likelihood of consequences in different jurisdictions, as something in the UK where there service providers are supposedly liable for content, at least one potential consequence is the offensive behaviour can be monitored and removed, perhaps in the aftermath of the Godfrey case. In the US this doesn’t seem to be the case, and I was curious as to the situation in Australia. I found that Queensland had enacted specific cyberstalking legislation. It was interesting that in the three examples there had been citizen policing of sorts where the victim or their friends tracked the stalker down through their online activity; I wondered if other people thought that a duty of “self protection” should require going that far? The ensuing discussion about feminist ethics raised an interesting issue – rather than try to stop it when it happens, perhaps we should be looking at why it happens? I definitely think that looking at gender relations and how gendered behaviours are socialised would help in promoting a more respectful treatment of others, particularly in potentially anonymous situations.
Anonymity
The potential for anonymity in cyberspace, as well as through other forms of communicative technology, does seem to facilitate cyberstalking but, another interesting point from the article was that in all the examples of cyber stalking that the author gives, the stalker impersonated the victim online. I think the gendered dynamic of this is interesting, as putting the victim at risk of real-like harassment by others came from “some kind of pornographic invitation” (218).
[Until i work out if a you can do a hyperlink in a comment, here's a site about QLD's legislative response to cyberstalking]
http://www.nswscl.org.au/journal/48/Sullivan1.html
Interesting insights, Alice. I was just thinking about the question as to what extend the service providers should be responsible for what other people post. I mean, they must have some kind of responsibility for their sites, but they definitely can't watch everything 24/7. Germany has the follwoing rule: the providers are responsible if they do not make a note somewhere saying that they're distancing themselves from everything that is posted by others.
I think the idea of socialisation that you brought up could really be the core of the matter when trying to find reasons for the clearly gendered behavior in stalking.
Also, the stalking seems to be less "thrilling" for the stalkers when their victims are anonymous, hence the attempt to publish the victims' names on the net. Do you agree?
Yes perhaps it is more "thrilling" but also, having the victim's name published, especially in cases where their personal contact details were published to the web opens female victims up to online harassment by others who were not the original cyberstalker - thus allowing the stalker to have others effectively working on his behalf.
I think the point raised about gendered stalking was really interesting. The fact that the traditional gender relations of men and women (dominance of males over females)reasonates even in cyberspace is concerning. According to Adam's article, hacking is largely a masculine phenomenon. So, why is this so? Is it the idea that men are more 'connected' to technology? Or, perhaps the cultural ideals that generate patriarchal structures in society are generating patriarchal structures on the net. This is even evident through the visible human family, who reflect a patriarchal, nuclear family. Jernigan would obviously be considered the patriarch as her was made first. If this is the case, the idea that cyberspace breaks down gender barriers is flawed. Or is it?
I think with cyberstalking, it is very easy to actually stalk people, as the internet has so much readily available information about people. Although, cyberstalking i think ranges from the extreme which is similar to stalking in reality, or to 'stalking' people on facebook. Either way, it is abit scary the amount of information you can find out about someone online.
I really enjoyed the readings this week, in particular the first one. With this article, I found the first paragraph the most interesting, as I could relate exactly to it. People in today’s society rely on their personal computer for everything, from keeping in contact with friends, writing reports or essays, storing photos, addresses, music, important documents, keeping a calendar, and the list goes on and on. If a computer crashes, it feels as though the whole world has collapsed. This is also because the whole world can be accessed from the computer.
This article was particular interesting in that Lupton made the connection with the computer and human, as the computer being an extension of the human. I also think this can be vice versa, as humans have become so depedant on technology that the computer is also an extension of the human. There is definitely an emotional connection involved, as Lupton said.
Does everyone else have a connection to their computer and feel somewhat reliant on it?
Oh, I am very connected to my computer, i.e. laptop. :-) I try to do backups of my files as often as possible...I would go crazy if everything was lost!!!
Tell that to my grandma, she'd probably laugh and wonder what the world has come to... ^-^
I think Nikki's point about the nature of cyberspace being flawed in terms of the equality of gender was a good one. However I never quite came to terms with the way in which cyberspace or technology or whatever it was actually affected the removal of social constructs, such a gender. Does anyone want to help me out?
It also struck me as obvious though that people are going to read online profiles (in terms of gender stereotypes) in the exact same way as they do in the external world. If it says that the user is a 'woman' online then people are going to use the same set of principles as they do when not online, are they not?
I think ideally, the net could be this utopian environment where you are not defined by your gender, as you do not have the face-to-face contact. This may actually occer on the net, to a degree. Not that I'm an expert, but I think many of the blogging sites provide a forum for everyone to debate issues in a not so confronting way. This has given a voice to those who have felt disenfranchised by gender (or race etc..) barriers in society. However, obviously, with the issue of cyberstalking, these utopian ideas are not in fact existent on the net.
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