- Toronto, Canada
Shandell Houlden
McMaster University, English and Cultural Studies, Graduate Student
- Royal Roads University, Centre for Teaching and Educational Technology, Department Memberadd
- Critical Studies, Animal Ethics, Animal Rights/Liberation, Animals in Philosophy, Speciesism, Critical Posthumanism, and 31 moreAnthropocentrism, Intervention in Nature, Ecology of Fear, Media Studies, Cultural Studies, Critical Theory, Ethics, Social Sciences, Political Philosophy, Political Economy, Political Theory, Phenomenology, Social Movements, Postcolonial Studies, Marxism, Economic History, Colonialism, Discourse Analysis, Philosophy Of Law, International Relations Theory, Continental Philosophy, Human Geography, War Studies, Dogs, Militarism, Material Feminisms, Social Media and Higher Education, Feminist Theory, Critical Animal Studies, Comics Studies, and Internet & Societyedit
This article contributes to understanding the phenomenon of online abuse and harassment toward women scholars. We draw on data collected from 14 interviews with women scholars from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and... more
This article contributes to understanding the phenomenon of online abuse and harassment toward women scholars. We draw on data collected from 14 interviews with women scholars from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and report on the types of supports they sought during and after their experience with online abuse and harassment. We found that women scholars rely on three levels of support: the first level includes personal and social support (such as encouragement from friends and family and outsourcing comment reading to others); the second includes organizational (such as university or institutional policy), technological (such as reporting tools on Twitter or Facebook), and sectoral (such as law enforcement) support; and, the third includes larger cultural and social attitudes and discourses (such as attitudes around gendered harassment and perceptions of the online/offline divide). While participants relied on social and personal support most frequently, they commonly reported relying on multiple supports across all three levels. We use an ecological model as our framework to demonstrate how different types of support are interconnected, and recommend that support for targets of online abuse must integrate aspects of all three levels.
