'How Dare She?' Female Journalists Face Threats For Just Doing Their Jobs

Women in media face online threats of physical and sexual violence their male coworkers rarely face.

Female TV reporter presenting the news. Photo by milanvirijevic/Getty Images.

Bringing the news of the day to the masses was once an almost exclusively male profession. Not so any longer. Today it is rare to find any television or print newsroom without female journalists. 

But despite their decades long presence in the field, predating the internet, female journalists find themselves the targets of sexist and misogynistic attacks on social media.

The threats and harassment, mostly by White men, often include DMed threats of sexual or physical violence. The issue is so prevalent that the United Nations sponsored a study on the safety of female journalists.

The abuse female journalists face for just doing their jobs is our focus on today's The Big Picture.

— George Takei

I didn't start out planning to become a writer, but rather stumbled upon it while doing a favor for a friend. My first piece was about the Standing Rock movement to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline from cutting through Oceti Sakowin treaty lands, endangering the water supply.

After my first piece went online, I experienced what the majority of women journalists endure: online harassment and threats. I'm a writer, not a journalist, but our experience after producing online content was the same.

I received comments on the article as well as direct messages from random men—or perhaps boys as age is difficult to verify online—focused primarily on the fact I was female, Indigenous and dared write something.

The article wasn't an opinion piece—it was backed by verifiable facts. 

But it still elicited a strong, vitriolic response from primarily White men.

I received DMs with messages including:

"Shut the fuck up you prairie [n-word] bitch."

"Go back to your reservation and find a man to beat you and knock you up."

"I know where you live you fucking whore. When I'm done [redacted explicit threat of sexual and physical violence]."

They called me every racist or sexist slur they could dream up and made threats of physical and sexual violence. But even the racism was gender focused.

But my experience wasn't unusual—it was typical.

A recent PersVeilig review of specific threats received by female journalists in the Netherlands found messages that included:

“If we had lived in the Middle Ages, I would have thrown you at the stake first!” 

“Filthy lying whore. Find a tree and a rope.” 

“I hope you get properly raped once.”

Almost 3,000 miles apart and we were getting the same kind of online feedback for just doing our jobs.

The United Nations Recognized the Threat

In 2022, The Chilling: A global study of online violence against women journalists was published as a report of a three year research project led by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and commissioned by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). 

The 300-page result was the "most geographically, linguistically and ethnically diverse scoping of gender-based online violence to date." 

It included the testimonies of more than 1,000 international women journalists and generated multiple newsroom and government policy responses as well as international media coverage.

However for many women in the news media, the report confirmed what we already knew. 

The internet is not a welcoming place for women who tell the truth.

Women journalists surveyed in a less extensive study for the Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly said they saw online harassment as so pervasive as to be a "part of the job."

Academics who interviewed over 1,000 female journalists in 15 countries found the vast majority suffered from online abuse and threats of physical and sexual violence in response to their TV or print news reports.

These threats are not idle.

Researchers say threats led to female reporters being murdered like Mexican journalist María Elena Ferral Hernández.

Pakistani journalist Gharidah Farooqi stated:

"I see my male counterparts—they’re also abused, but not abused for their bodies, their genital parts."

"If they’re attacked, they’re just targeted for their political views. When a woman is attacked, she’s attacked about her body parts."

Research found almost 75 percent of female journalists experienced online violence. Threats of physical violence including death threats were identified by 25 percent and sexual violence by 18 percent.

Direct messages were used to harass 48 percent. In addition, 13 percent received threats of violence against their family including children.

No Escape

Journalists surveyed for the studies—especially in the United States, India and the United Kingdom—felt pressured to "engage online as part of their job and often felt they had no choice but to face the harassment."

But while modern newsrooms require their personnel to have an online presence, few provide support or training for online threats or harassment.

The report found:

"The women sometimes felt a lack of freedom to report abuse or felt that their news organization saw it as their personal problem."

What Is Behind The Threats

For years, activists and advocates have decried rape culture.

Rape culture is defined as:

"A society or environment whose prevailing social attitudes have the effect of normalizing or trivializing sexual assault and abuse."

Abusive language passed off as locker room talk, a President who brags about sexual assault, and rapists whose swim times and future potential factor into their sentences for sexual violence—these are all examples of rape culture.

An American online journalist stated:

"Women have to deal with the sexual comments that males never have to deal with. You’re viewed more often as sexual objects."

"I’ve been told I need to get laid… they’re so much worse than what my male colleagues have to deal with."

The internet also gave rise to new cultural movements based on imaginary concepts like alpha males and incels. Both view women as vending machines for sex.

While the alpha male movement brags about the manipulation of women, incels—involuntary celibates—view themselves as "nice guys" from whom women unfairly withhold sex.

Both movements display their contempt for women as a badge of honor. Denigrating and objectifying women is highly encouraged. 

One of the best ways to show out and show off is online. The anonymity allows boys and men to attack and threaten women.

Any woman with a visible online presence is a target. The greater their audience, the more likely they are to be attacked and threatened.

Journalists reported attacks were most virulent while covering stories on topics stereotypically associated with men such as "automobiles or video gaming." Social issues such as immigration, race and feminism or politics also garnered more abuse.

As an online editor in India reported: 

“Sex is used to intimidate us. Rape is used to frighten, intimidate, and stop us… from doing our work, but at a deeper level it is actually about stopping us from having opinions, showing any semblance of independence.”

How Do We Combat Such Threats

The authors of The Chilling called for governments, the news industry and tech corporations to do more to tackle "a crisis of online violence towards women journalists."

Passage of laws to address online threats and harassment—which often include language prohibited when sent by letter or phone—was one suggestion. The lack of consequences was cited as a factor.

More stringent moderation of online comments by news agencies—instead of the individual female journalist—and more oversight of professional journalists' social media pages were identified as possible solutions.

The study noted:

"Overall, the results of the interviews [with journalists] point to a need for more support from news organizations as well as a need for training on how to handle online harassment as part of journalism schools and professional development courses."

The study also called upon tech corporations behind social media sites to examine their algorithms and their responses to targeted online threats against female journalists.

To this end, we in the public sphere can pressure these entities to do more to protect women online.

But the threats are bolstered by a feedback loop from other boys or men.  

The individuals making such threats online have already demonstrated a lack of respect for women. Any request coming from women—especially the victim of their attacks—is likely to fall on deaf ears.

However if their online behavior is met with disapproval from other men, it can have an impact. 

Men can respond to threatening or harassing comments they see online. We as a society can also teach boys that "locker room talk" isn't acceptable in person or online.

While many men condemn online harassment of women, they may remain silent when a friend engages in the behavior, but that is the most important time to speak up.

No one believes implementing some or all of the recommendations of the studies is going to stop online harassment of women journalists altogether. 

But we can still focus on diminishing the problem and keeping the issue top of mind for news organizations, social media platforms and within the culture at large.

~~~~~~~~~~

In addition to writing for The Big Picture, Amelia writes

Auntie Mavis’ Musings