Self-Expression in the Cyber World: Challenges for a Woman

Abstract

Apart from offering a platform to express opinions, social networking sites also enable people to maintain anonymity and express hatred. Women, particularly strong and opinionated ones, often fall prey to such revulsion. This investigation explores why and how women’s self-expression is curtailed in the virtual domain. To answer this question, thematic analysis has been carried out of Facebook comments and messages received by an Indian woman over a period of two years. Findings indicate that men responding to women’s online self-expression can fall into any of three emergent categories: self-proclaimed well-wishers, admirers turned abusers and the toxically masculine. While the first group silences women discreetly and typically by moral policing or invading women’s personal space, the latter two groups do so more blatantly. However, the three groups share a common patriarchal bias, believing that self-expression is a masculine privilege and women who try to democratise this privilege are cultural deviants.