By DANIELLE CORCIONE
Thursday, October 23rd, 11:28 p.m.
The Internet can be a tough realm for female writers. Several prominent female journalists suffer from a form of inadequate criticism: trolling.
Trolling refers to when users (the trolls themselves) provoke arguments and upset others by posting inflammatory, irrelevant, and excessive messages within a comment thread, forum, or other type of online community. Studies show that women are targeted more often than men. WHOA, or Working to Half Online Abuse, compiled a list of thirteen years worth of research. The list revealed 72.5 percent of online harassment victims were female, out of 3,787 people who reported harassing incidents.
This is not a coincidence. Women experience more vulnerability to feedback and comments from trolls more often than men. This growing inequality between men and women contribute to a new kind of digital divide revolved around gender.
Galo, a Ramapo College Class of 2013 alum, wrote a response for Mic last October to Slate’s article on why girls shouldn’t get drunk. Her story included her own experiences as a survivor of sexual assault. However, despite her open heart and supplemental research, critics were harsh. “I found two comments left by an anonymous user directed at me, accusing me of fabricating my story. ‘I hope you look in the mirror and hate yourself every day. You’re not a real survivor. I am an actual survivor and your lies discredit us.’” Another user commented, “Sarah just felt guilty for fooling around and tried to ruin a very nice boy’s life.”
Statistics reveal women are more vulnerable than men to online trolling. In January, Amanda Hess laid out what it’s like to be a woman on the Internet through a series of studies in an essay for Pacific Standard Magazine. Hess illustrates an example: “In 2006, researchers from the University of Maryland set up a bunch of fake online accounts and then dispatched them into chat rooms. Accounts with feminine usernames incurred an average of 100 sexually explicit or threatening messages a day. Masculine names received 3.7.”
After these incidents of continual trolling, women are hesitant and less eager to publish in the future. “Writing as a woman, who uses personal stories, can be terrifying. After that happened to me, I didn’t write until the following April. I was afraid of being trolled again. I was afraid it would get worse,” Galo adds.
Galo is not alone. Alison Kinney, an online journalist, had a similar experience. Salon published her personal essay about racism, sexism, and how political comedians influence the media agenda.
“It attracted a huge amount of really ugly, nasty stuff, some of it racist, some misogynist,” says Kinney. “I purposely didn’t read the Salon comments, but my friends did and told me a little more than I wanted to hear.
Women also face a label that never leaves their online presence. Kinney adds, “I’d much prefer the top hit on my name to be my essay on German performance art and the operas of Richard Wagner.”