Academic Definition of Online Misogyny

There currently is no consolidated definition of online misogyny or online harassment within the academic community.

Academic Definitions of Misogyny

The difficulty in defining online misogyny and sexism stems from how undefined misogyny generally. The Oxford English Dictionary revised its definition of 'misogyny' in 2002 from 'hatred of women' to 'hatred or dislike of, or prejudice against women'. However, this definition obscures the systematic nature of patriarchy. Prejudice against women is often unconscious bias and reinforced through the structures of our society as a whole.

A useful distinction between misogyny and sexism has been summarised by Kate Mann in Down Girl: The logic of Misogyny (2017):

'Misogyny should be understood as the "law enforcement" branch of a patriarchal order, which has the overall function of policing and enforcing its governing norms and expectations.'

'Sexism should be understood primarily as the "justification" brand of a patriarchal order, which consists in ideology that has the overall function of rationalizing and justifying patriarchal social relations.'

Debbie Ging argues that the 'concept of misogyny... almost always entails some form of harm; either directly in the form of psychological, professional, reputational, or, in some cases, physical harm; or indirectly, in the sense that it makes the internet a less equal, less safe, or less inclusive space for women and girls' (p.516, Ging, 2018) She goes on to reinforce that 'online misogyny becomes a punitive means of violent reinforcement of gendered power relations.' (p.519, Ging, 2018)

Academic Terminologies of Online Misogyny

Unlike legal definitions, academic terminologies of online abuse use more colloquial terms that are reflected in internet usage. For example, scholars who have analyzed the discourse of GamerGate (Jane 2017)(Penny 2015) refer to doxxing, dog-piling, rapeglish. Academic language is more able to keep up with the rapidly evolving nature of internet language.

Emma A Jane (2016) suggests that when harassment online is not coded as either 'racist hate speech' or 'harassment of children' then it is typically coded as 'flaming' or 'trolling'. However, she admits that there are problems with these terms.

'Both 'flaming' and 'trolling' are ambiguous and contested descriptors. The former is somewhat antiquated and usually refers only to heater cyber communications involving invective, insults, negative affect, and so on. 'Trolling', however, is sometimes used to refer to flame-type comments, but is also deployed more specifically to describe the posting of deliberately inflammatory or off-topic material with the aim of provoking responses.' (p.6, 2016)

Other examples of academic terminology to describe misogyny include 'technology violence' (Ostini and Hopkins, 2015), 'technology-facilitated sexual violence' (Henry and Powell, 2015), 'gendertrolling' (Mantilla, 2015).

Ging, Debbie & Siapera, Eugenia (2018) Special issue on online misogyny, Feminist Media Studies, 18:4, 515-524, Jane, Emma, Misogyny Online: A Short, 1 edition (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2016) Manne, Kate, Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny (Penguin UK, 2019) Vickery, J.R. , and T. Everbach , eds. 2018. Mediating Misogyny: Gender, Technology, and Harassment . Palgrave Macmillan