online sexual harassment
Understand Online Harassment, Cyberbullying, and Cyberstalking
Do you know almost 70% of women experience online harassment, cyberstalking, and cyberbullying on a day to day basis? And, according to the report by the Plan International children’s rights organization, the rest has either decreased their online time or stopped using it altogether for the same reasons.
Not to say, men are not harassed online. But men only abuse women and other men online. In most cases of stalking, off and online, men are mostly offenders, and the targets are women. Records from the Justice Department show that 70% of those stalked online are females. Over 80% of the defendants involved in cyber-stalking are male.
The point is the online harassment by men is not just a difference of opinions and little unpleasantries. Instead, it’s about men claiming superiority over women, silencing them, and most often than not, scaring, abusing, and threatening them. Threats of rape and death by strangers are disproportionately common for women.
Men only are such intelligent creatures who can threaten to rape strangers online and get a high out of it. Uh, poor souls!
5 ways Men show a sense of entitlement online!
- Sliding into DMs and messengers of random women online only to send them nonstop messages to express their desperation to have sex with them. Men feel entitled to a woman’s time and affection as if they are their pets. And, god forbid, if, within their set time frame, there is no response, women wake up to trails of violent, sexist, and racist slurs. The unwanted comments to seek attention are appalling. How can such intelligent creatures be so dumb to take a hint that she is not interested?
- Apparently, cyberbullying and cyberstalking are their birthrights. Any image of a woman in whatever amount of clothes must have some unwanted, sexually suggestive, violent, and mansplaining remarks. Women owe them attention because duh! Men have blessed us with their existence. If only men had some common sense, they would know that women will see the sun the next day even without their unsolicited opinions or dick pics. We’re going to live, Bruh!
- The dude who “knows” what he deserves, because his mama told him so, can only accept friendzone if it is his choice. Her explanations are not substantial enough. When it comes to hearing a strict “no,” he’s deaf. But ever ready to plan an acid attack.
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Telling women what to post, what not to post, what language to use, what not to use, what to comment, what not to comment, what to wear, what not to wear, how much is too much, how much isn’t interesting enough, how many filters to use, how many not to use, when she asks for it, when she’s too ugly to ask for it, too thin to have sex with, too fat to even talk to, is a common occurence. And, of course, in their minds, women would cease to exist without their opinions.
- Threaten to rape at the very moment a woman calls them out on their objectification and dehumanization of women is a sign of the fragile ego. Men generally think that the worst thing they can do to a woman or another man is to rape her or his mother, sister, or even child.
The problem is bigger than we think it is. The digital environment needs cleansing because what’s out there is a toxic, lethal, and abusive environment to silence women in the most agnostic ways. We have to now take it seriously because it takes one acid attack to turn online harassment into a real-life incident. It can happen to our child tomorrow. It can happen to someone in the family. The sole obligation lies with the people to create an environment free from sexual abuse or harassment online.
Report, Condemn, Abuse, Chide, Speak up, Block, do whatever works for you. Every Country has cyber laws to protect online dignity. We are not powerless in the face of online harassment.
Shut those assholes down. And, don’t calm down.
