Presentation of EOM

1. Alison Boydell, co-founder of:

2. Feminism is hated because women are hated. Anti-feminism is a direct expression of misogyny; it is the political defense of women hating.
Andrea Dworkin

3. Why and when we started
http://www.endmisogyny.org/
Twitter: @misogyny_online

4. Mission
♀ We want to see an end to misogynistic abuse online and everywhere
♀ We want to highlight the prevalence and violent nature of online misogyny and abuse and bear witness to the women's experiences of being targeted
♀ We report to Twitter or if necessary the police anyone, regardless of sex or gender, who issues misogynistic threats or intimidating/abusive behaviour designed to frighten
♀ We recognise that women can also display misogynistic behaviour
♀ We encourage women to #SHOUTBACK at abuse and threats. We encourage everyone to #SHOUTBACK and stand with women who experience misogyny
♀ We understand that not all women feel they can #SHOUTBACK using their real names or twitter handles, we bear witness to their abuse, regardless of whether we agree with them or not

5. Language
•Trolling – we do not use this term as it minimises the behaviour as well as the impact
•We refer to this behaviour a misogynistic abuse and harassment as it is vicious and mostly targeted at women, especially feminists.
•Online sexual violence
•Online vs 'real life' - online is real life

6. Continuum of misogynistic abuse
•Sub-tweeting - where other tweeters are talking about you in a way in which makes you feel uncomfortable, without @-ing you into the conversations but you are aware of what is being said and it is being done so openly. Often deliberately with that intention in mind

7. Continuum of misogynistic abuse
•ElevatorGate - this was a so called 'investigative journalist' who constantly storyfied mostly women and transwomen.

8. Continuum of misogynistic abuse
•'The Blockbot' - which started out to protect subscribers from abusers & harassers but is now a political tool to silence certain non-abusive feminists
•EOM is level 3! Caroline Criado-Perez is level 2

9. Continuum of misogynistic abuse
•Objectification and sexual harassment
•This ranges from 'slut shaming' to misogynistic slurs, being called names, belittled, trivialised, feminist hating language (such as feminazi, man haters, misandrists, witches), why aren't we focusing on the 'real oppression' of women, gaslighting, told we're bigots, crazy, deluded, ugly, too ugly to rape, prudes, have no sense of humour, trying to censor freedom of speech

10. Continuum of misogynistic abuse
•Women of colour, lesbians, transwomen and disabled women are especially targeted
•Users also send unsolicited graphic and obscene images (some illegal) to women and feminists

11. Continuum of misogynistic abuse
•The so called Parody Account

12. Continuum of misogynistic abuse
•Threats of doxxing - women threatened with doxxing either directly or being sub tweeted about. This can leave women feeling extremely vulnerable and exposed. Some/ many need their privacy and anonymity preserved as they have left violent and abusive relationships, may be SWs etc.

13. Continuum of misogynistic abuse
•Actual doxxing - where private and personal information, including address and real name are placed on public social media

14. Continuum of misogynistic abuse
•Implied threats - this can be to the woman and/or her children and is extremely frightening. It can also take the form of implied rape and death threats, rape and death 'wishes' such as 'I hope you die slowly and painfully in a fire', 'I wish you would die painfully of breast cancer'

15. Continuum of misogynistic abuse
•Actual direct threats - which are sent to the woman. Rape and death threats to her and her family. Threats of ‘revenge’ porn

16. Twitter limitations
•Twitter does not allow you to report abuse targeted at another person
•This presented problems for our campaign and we were unable to change it
•You cannot report a parody account for impersonation unless you are the person or their legal representative

17. Direct threats

18. Reactions to EOM

19. Reactions to EOM

20. Reactions to EOM

21. Reactions to EOM

22. Source: collectiveshout.org

23. Sample tweets

24. Sample tweets: rape culture in action

25. Sample tweets: rape culture in action

31. Some statistics about Twitter
Harassment on social media in general is on the rise. The Metropolitan Police received around 2,000 complaints last year about online harassment
The Centre for the Analysis of Social Media conducted some research in January 2014
In one day, they found 30,000 tweets using the word rape, or 0.006% of the 500 million tweets that are produced on Twitter every 24 hours

32. Rape culture on Twitter
The most common use of 'rape', around 40% of the time, seemed to be in serious, sober discussions – talking about news stories (especially the Delhi rapes), how victims are treated, and how to combat it
The second most common (just under 30% of the time) was the casual use of 'rape', as either metaphor or as part of what seems to be an attempted joke

33. The most worrying category were those 12% of Tweets where rape was contained within a threat or insult, or as part of a very sexist or misogynist comment: "I'm gonna rape ur [sexual detail]"
Most common derogatory words used about women in social media are 'slut' and 'whore'
This report also suggested that women are almost as likely as men to use the terms 'slut' and 'whore' on Twitter, and that women are increasingly inclined to use the same derogatory language that has been, and continues to be, used against them
Source: http://www.demos.co.uk/files/MISOGYNY_ON_TWITTER.pdf?1399567516
EOM response: http://www.endmisogyny.org/our-reaction-to-the-recent-demos-report- about-abusive-behaviour-on-twitter/

35. Impacts
•Fear
•Trauma
•Withdrawal and isolation
•Public humiliation
•Silencing
•Not engaging at all in social media
•Disengaging/not engaging with feminist activism

36. Questions?
Alison Boydell and Cat Hernandez
@misogyny_online
Alison Boydell and Jill Saward
@UnderstandingSV