Online Violence Against Women: The Limits & Possibilities of Law

Online forms of violence against women are frequently perceived as ‘not real’ due to the fact that abuse happens in the online sphere, including social media. This dichotomy between ‘offline’ and ‘online’ is not only incorrect when it comes to combatting online violence against women, but it also fails to take into account the fact that boundaries between ‘online’ and ‘offline’ aspects of everyday life are increasingly disappearing in the context of modern societies

More than Just a Teacher”: Anticipatory Advocacy as Vision and Defense in Urban High-need Schools

Specialized teacher preparation programs are graduating teachers with commitments to advocacy. This expanded definition of teaching stands in opposition to traditional expectations for the role of teachers that have developed during the history of U.S. education into organizational and social frames that reinforce tradition and work against reform. These influences constitute forces of professional weathering that may wear down teachers’ visions and actions for their work. This multicase study focused on four graduates from an intensive two-year teacher preparation program that included initial certification along with induction support in the second year of the program as they completed master’s degree requirements. The inquiry sought to understand how they envisioned their roles as teacher advocates and how they enacted and sustained their visions, resisting traditional teacher roles. Participants were graduates of the same cohort of the preparation program who were completing their second year of teaching in urban high-need schools and who had been nominated and confirmed as effective teachers of diverse students by faculty members of the university program and of local schools. Program materials were analyzed as background material to establish context. Primary data that were inductively and iteratively analyzed included extant course assignments, three individual interviews with each participant, three school-related observations, and three focus group interviews. Findings provide insight into the ways in which the teachers enacted a vision of anticipatory advocacy. Anticpatory advocacy includes intervening actions that are the result of a dual awareness of students’ immediate and future needs and have implications beyond boundaries of time and space in an effort to positively influence students’ lives in the immediate as well as distant future. The teachers, each of whom held beliefs that aligned with the culturally relevant foundations of the program prior to their selection, employed tools related to responsive classroom management, ambitious teaching strategies, and professional collaboration that they acquired and honed during their program. By working backward from the classrooms of effective teachers, the study links classroom practices with teacher preparation, providing direction for stakeholders concerned with the development and retention of high quality teachers for all children, especially in challenging school contexts

Online violence against women as an obstacle to gender equality: a critical view from Europe

Online violence against women operates – in an increasingly digital society – as an obstacle to gender equality. The 2018-2023 CoE Gender Equality Strategy sets a benchmark for the initiatives and policy changes across Europe to achieve gender equality. The strategy not only recognizes that ‘violence and sexual harassment of women in public space are strongly condemned [by the Istanbul Convention]’ but also notes a number of obstacles to gender equality which are rooted in online behaviours such as violent and degrading online content (including violent sexual threats online) and sexist online hate speech. Most recently, the EU Parliament highlighted the need to tackle online forms of VAW, including online misogyny and online harassment. Despite growing recognition at the European supranational level that violence against women is increasingly happening online, few steps have been taken in terms of law and policy making to combat these practices in a meaningful and cohesive way. In particular, limited attention has been paid to textual threats, harassment, and text-based abuse online, with the emphasis of legislators and policy makers falling predominantly on online image-based sexual abuse. Furthermore, fragmented approaches across European institutions and across EU member states compound this problem resulting in the current policy framework embodying the antithesis of equality when it comes to OVAW. This article critically examines the shortcomings of the current approaches to law and policy, highlighting the failings to date in enacting changes to address gender inequality at the European supranational level. It concludes by proposing practical solutions to addressing OVAW, especially online forms of gender-based harassment and hate speech

Online violence against women: addressing the responsibility gap?

The Internet is a place without challenge nor disruption, and increasingly instances of online abuse and harassment are targeted at women. Kim Barker and Olga Jurasz argue that little has been done to address the issue of responsibility for such acts, both at a domestic and international level, but also by the platforms themselves

Hate Crime Legislation in Northern Ireland – An Independent Review: Consultation Response

We are responding to the Northern Irish Independent Review of Hate Crime consultation in our capacity as experts on social media abuse, online abuse, and online misogyny. We have in the past made significant contributions to UN calls for evidence on online harassment, and to the Bracadale Review on Hate Crime in Scotland, The One Scotland Hate Crime Legislation Review of the Scottish Government, and various UK Parliament inquiries addressing aspects of violence against women, gender-based hate, and online misogyny. In addition, we have made representations to the Scottish Government as to the need to amend legislation to cover a wider range of harassing and abusive behaviours online. We have recently published a world-leading volume Online Misogyny as a Hate Crime: A Challenge for Legal Regulation (Routledge 2019). We have been working on issues relating to harassment of women and girls in online spaces since 2013. We are possibly your only evidence respondents that have experience of the wider issues surrounding online harassment, and who take a holistic approach to the legal problems posed by such harassment, merging criminal law, gender, human rights, and internet law expertise. We are only responding to selected questions from our expert perspectives, focussing on: • Gender as part of the hate crime framework • online harassment and abuse • online misogyny • social media abuse • online violence against women • responsibilities of social media platform providers