In(cel)doctrination: How technologically facilitated misogyny moves violence off screens and on to streets

This qualitative study explores how technological affordances of the digital space, facilitate the anti-feminist discourses which characterise the digital community Incel (Involuntarily Celibates). The data in this article are drawn from a variety of sources, including video ethnography and an analysis of long-form interviews drawn from a year-long documentary project, to examine the experience of young men in Incel communities, and the process of indoctrination into misogynistic extremism. Results reveal that contrary to the ‘lone wolf’ narrative that surrounds Incels, there is a sophisticated community that contributes to a 5-step pattern of behaviour, converting the lonely, into the angry and potentially violent. A rich toxic cultural tapestry, the Internet echo-chamber and the celebration of Incel mass murderers (Incelebrities), create a continuous loop that transforms digital hate speech into physical violence. These patterns of indoctrination can, and should, be monitored, and intercepted for the purposes of personal and public safety

Workplace Trauma in a Digital Age: The Impact of Video Evidence of Violent Crime on Criminal Justice Professionals

High-quality video and audio recordings of violent crimes, captured using now ubiquitous digital technologies, play an increasingly important role in the administration of justice. However, the effects of exposure to gruesome material presented in this form on criminal justice professionals who analyze, evaluate, and use this potentially traumatic content in the context of their work, are largely unknown. Using long interviews and constructivist grounded theory, this qualitative study sought to explore experiences of exposure to video evidence of violent crime among Canadian criminal justice professionals. Sixteen individuals including police, lawyers, judges, psychiatrists, law clerks, and court reporters volunteered to participate in qualitative long interviews asking about workplace exposures to violent videos. Themes identified address the ubiquity of video evidence of violent crime; proximity to violence through video; being blindsided through lack of preparedness for violent content; repeated exposures through multiple and protracted viewings; insufficient customary methods for self-protection; and the enduring impact of exposure to videoed violence. We determine that criminal justice professionals are increasingly and repeatedly presented with deeply disturbing imagery that was once imperceptible or unknowable and thus previously held at a greater distance. Elements of what is newly visible and audible in video evidence of violent crime create a new emotional proximity to violence that potentially increases the risks of secondary trauma and underscores the need for improved safety measures

Technology facilitated re-victimization: How video evidence of sexual violence contributes to mediated cycles of abuse

With the ubiquity of technological devices producing video and audio recordings, violent crimes are increasingly captured digitally and used as evidence in the criminal justice process. This paper presents the results of a qualitative study involving Canadian criminal justice professionals, and asks questions surrounding the treatment of video evidence and the rights of victims captured within such images. We argue that loss of control over personal images and narratives can re-traumatize survivors of sexual violence, creating technologically-facilitated cycles of abuse that are perpetuated each time images are viewed. We find that the justice system has little to no consistent policy or procedure for handling video evidence, or for ameliorating the impact of these digital records on survivors. Subsequently, we assert that the need for a victim-centred evidence-based understanding of mediated evidence has never been greater

Play Doh Vulvas and Felt Tip Dick Pics: Disrupting Phallocentric Matter(s) in Sex Education

In this paper, we explore our experiences working as team comprised of researchers, teacher, and founder and director of a sex education non-profit organisation, who have formed an intra-activist research and pedagogical assemblage to experiment with relationship and sexuality education (RSE) practices in England’s secondary schools. We draw upon phEmaterialism theory and socially engaged, participatory arts-based research methodologies and pedagogies to explore two examples of arts-based activities that have been developed to de-center humanist, male-dominated, phallocentric, penile-oriented RSE. We also demonstrate how these practices enable educators, researchers, practitioners and students to revalue and rematter feminine genitalia, and resist and refigure unsettling experiences of receiving unsolicited digital dick pics

Feminist Counterpublics and Public Feminisms: Advancing a Critique of Racialized Sexualization in London’s Public Advertising

Following public outcry over a body-shaming advertisement in the London transport network in 2015, the mayor of London commissioned a multimedia documentary-style study that involved sixteen interviews with women as they commuted throughout London; two “talk-back” art projects with twenty-two schoolgirls; and a survey of 2,012 Londoners. This paper explores our experience of undertaking this project as a mixed-methods, intersectional feminist research process. We discuss the complex relationship between feminist counterpublics and public feminisms and how we negotiated working with a range of stakeholders in our attempt to reshape public debates over gender and advertising. We explore a shift in advertising where women, once positioned as passive props for the male gaze, have been reimagined as postfeminist modes of confident address and forms of “femvertising”, which challenge women to live up to new hybrid forms of racialised, sexualised bodily ideals. Our statistical findings demonstrate an overwhelming public dislike of sexualized advertising, and our in-depth interviewing, focus groups, and collaging methodologies show how diverse women experience new forms of racialized sexualization as problematic rather than as evidence of diversity and inclusion. We argue that by explicitly adopting a feminist intersectional lens, we can foreground the racist and sexist force of ads and their impact on a range of diverse women and girls, documenting the nonconsensual and assaultive nature of public advertising and, therefore, the need for greater accountability from corporate and government stakeholders

Let Them Satisfy Their Lust on Thee: Titus Andronicus as a Window into Societal Understanding of PTSD

Titus Andronicus in which the young Lavinia is raped and then brutally mutilated, is arguably Shakespeare’s most explicit and complex play involving rape. A range of theatrical, feminist, and performance literature examines the character of Lavinia and the representation of her assault. Yet, the representation of rape, like rape itself, is socially and historically constructed. This article reviews societal, legal, and medical views of rape from Shakespeare’s late 16th-century London to the present. By applying a temporal lens to productions of Titus Andronicus staged in varying time periods, performance can be seen to explicate historical stages in the understanding of rape victims and their subsequent trauma. Thus, a 400-year-old play continues to reflect modern reality by depicting a contemporary understanding of rape and trauma, shaped by social mores, legal structures, and scientific knowledge

Pink Ribbon Pin-Ups: photographing femininity after breast cancer

Many treatments for breast cancer are traumatic, invasive and harshly visible. In addition to physical trauma, breast cancer is often associated with a variety of psychosocial issues surrounding romantic relationships, sexuality and feminine identity. Pink Ribbon Pin-Ups was a pin-up girl calendar wherein all the models were women who were living with, or had survived, breast cancer. The project's purpose was to raise funds and awareness for breast cancer research and to create a space where survivors could explore and express their post-cancer sexuality. This study uses an observational approach, paired with semi-structured interviews, to explore the ways that breast cancer survivors perceive their post-cancer body and the subsequent impact on relationships and feminine identity. By examining contemporary discussions regarding breast cancer, body image and the objectification of women, it is concluded that although this photographic approach may be at odds with some modern breast cancer activism, it does appear to meet the expressed needs of a particular group of women living with the disease