Morales, E., Hodson, J., Chen, Y., Gosse, C., Mendes, K., & Veletsianos, G. (2024). “You did it to yourself”: An exploratory study of myths about gender-based technology-facilitated violence and abuse among men. Sex Roles
Link: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-024-01514-w
Open access: Yes
Notes: As many scholars have long noted, what allows online abuse against women to flourish is not necessarily a large amount of people willing to do harm to others. Instead, it is about how we—as a society—let these instances of harm occur, often unpunished. Well, we set out to explore these cultural narratives—aka the myths—that allow gendered online abuse to flourish. To do this, we adapted the rape myths into what we are naming “gender-based online violence myths.” To see its value, we surveyed 1,297 Canadian young men. More specifically, we explored these seven myths: (1) She Asked For It, (2) It Wasn’t Really Gender-Based Online Abuse, (3) He Didn’t Mean To, (4) She Wanted It, (5) She Lied, (6) Gender-Based Online Abuse Is a Trivial Event, and (7) Gender-Based Online Abuse Is a Deviant Event. While they were all present, we found four myths to be particularly held among the young men: It Wasn’t Really Gender-Based Online Abuse, He Didn’t Mean To, Gender-Based Online Abuse Is a Deviant Event, and She Lied. Through this work, we aim to provide a vocabulary to better grasp the impact of online gendered violence. Indeed, we argue that the prevalence of these myths shows the extent to which manosphere vocabulary shapes how we—as a society—think about gendered violence.
Abstract: Gender-based technology-facilitated violence and abuse (GBTFVA) is a common experience for those engaging with digital technologies in their everyday lives. To better understand why GBTFVA persists, it is necessary to understand the false beliefs and cultural narratives that enable and sustain them. Drawing on the literature on rape myths, this paper explores the prevalence of seven gender-based online violence myths among Canadian men. To achieve this, we adapted the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance (IRMA) (Payne et al., in J Research in Personality 33:27–68, 1999) to assess GBTFVA, and surveyed 1,297 Canadian men between 18 and 30 years old on their GBTFVA beliefs. Our results show that GBTFVA myths and cultural narratives are prevalent across participants, though endorsement levels vary. Four myths were more strongly endorsed: It Wasn’t Really Gender-Based Online Abuse, He Didn’t Mean To, Gender-Based Online Abuse Is a Deviant Event, and She Lied. Overall, these findings help to name and thus begin to address the narratives that sustain and perpetuate gender-based online violence.
