[Gendergap] FW: fembot: Digital Sexism / Public Discourse

Hello Everyone- - I have been quietly enjoying the contributions to this list for the last year, it¹s fantastic, thank you. This is only my second utterance, and it¹s a request for help (some people, right?). At any rate, I am a sociologist working on a book project on the way gender-based attacks against women online shape public discourse. The research is specifically studying women who enter public discourse ­ sharing their work or ideas (e.g., journalists, bloggers, academics, public figures, etc.) and face a distinctly gendered backlash. This digital misogyny generally includes some combination of gendered and often racialized name-calling, rape threats, hostile use of pornographic imagery, remarks about their presumed sexual behavior or interests, demeaning gender stereotypes, and unsolicited commentary about their physical appearance, among other things. My focal interest for the project is in the way this harassment shapes women¹s political voice and visibility. Members of this list are much more well aware than most of how prevalent this kind of response is, and I¹m hoping you might be able to help me. Thus far, I have interviewed a range of women ‹ some of them are low profile folks who have faced gendered hostilities in their personal use of platforms such as tumblr or twitter, but I have also interviewed women with higher visibility whose work puts them in the position of dealing with this kind of thing routinely (e.g., writers for national publications and high traffic websites), as well as a few women whose harassment itself has captured national attention. I¹m looking to interview (in-depth, semi structured, confidential) more women. If you know someone who has had to cope with digital sexism in response to their participation in public discourse (videos, tweets, blog posts, articles, media appearances, political speeches, etc.), and you think they might be open to learning more about the research, I would very much appreciate it if you could email me privately: sarah.sobieraj@tufts.edu<mailto:sarah.sobieraj@tufts.edu> Thank you in advance for your help. Sarah sarah sobieraj associate professor of sociology tufts university 617.627.2472 (o) 617.501.6357 (c) sarah.sobieraj@tufts.edu<mailto:sarah.sobieraj@tufts.edu> http://as.tufts.edu/sociology/people/faculty/sobieraj https://twitter.com/sobieraj