Full Paper Submission for National Seminar on Gender

Equality, Problems, Strategies and Solutions

Sub Theme : Women and Media

Women And Social Media :A Partnership For Women

Empowerment Or A New Mode For Exploitation
Ms. Sharon S.V.

4th Year B.A., LL.B

Government Law College

Thiruvananthapuram

Email ID : sharonsv123@gmail.com
INTRODUCTION

It is commonly believed that the modern feminist movement began on July 19th and 20th,
1848, in Seneca Falls, New York. It popularly became known as the Seneca Falls
Convention. Whereas the first recognizable social media site, Six Degrees, was created in
1997, an almost 150 years of time gap between the two most revolutionary events in the
history of humankind. Both the events have ushered in a complete makeover of society as we
know it.

The feministic movement has resorted to many mediums to empower women, from creating
literature to demanding for women empowering legislations. In the 21st Century, social media
has risen up as a global medium enabling the voices of women to be heard on a global scale,
something which was not possible through the previous channels. On the other hand, there
are incidents of cyber bullying, extortion, social media conditioning adding to the list of
countless woes that women already have to face on a daily basis.

THE DARK SIDE

Over the years, as more and more people are getting connected via the Internet, there has
been a rise in new generation crimes- cybercrimes, one which the legislators are unable to
keep up with and the perpetuators are well aware about this fact. Due to the technical nature
of these overt acts, not only is it difficult to trace it back to the perpetuator but even if the said
offender is caught, the legal machinery is not equipped to deal with the technicalities. Adding
to the troubles is that owners of social media giants like Facebook, Twitter and Google do
not co-operate with investigating officers easily. As a result less incriminating evidence can
be found . With a conviction rate of 0.5 per cent in cyber crime related cases and 90 per cent
of the cases resulting in acquittal due to non-cooperation from website owners, the battle
ahead is a very tough one.1

Cyber bullying

Cyber bullying can be defined as “The use of electronic communication to bully a person,
typically by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature.”2 In India, there is no

1
National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 2014
2
Cyberbullying, Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. (8th ed. 2010).
specific legislation which deals with cyber bullying but there are provisions like Section 673
of IT Act which partially deal with such matters. Though, originally it was made to deal with
matters related to e-commerce. The lack of a cyber bulling specific provision in India has
already given rise to many incidents across the nation, but in majority of the cases nothing
concrete could be done

The first reported case of cyber-stalking in India and the reason for the 2008 amendment to
the IT Act,4 the Manish Kathuria case involved the stalking of a woman named Ritu Kohli.
Kathuria followed Kohli on a chat website, abused her by using obscene language and then
disseminated her telephone number to various people. Later, he began using Kohli’s identity
to chat on the website “www.mirc.com”. As a result she started receiving almost forty
obscene telephone calls at odd hours of the night over three consecutive days. This situation
forced her to report the matter to the Delhi Police.5 As soon as the complaint was made, Delhi
Police traced the IP addresses and arrested Kathuria under Section 509 of the Indian Penal
Code. The IT Act was not invoked in the case, since it had not come into force at the time
when the complaint was filed. While there is no record of any subsequent proceeding, this
case made Indian legislators wake up to the need for a legislation to address cyber-stalking.
Even then, it was only in 2008 that Section 66-A was introduced.

Eventually even this slow paced development (Section 66A of the IT Act) of the legislation
was struck down by the Supreme Court for being “open ended, undefined, and vague” and
the words used in the text of the provision being “nebulous in meaning”.6

Social Conditioning

Social conditioning is the sociological process of training individuals in a society to respond

in a manner generally approved by the society in general and peer groups within society. 7

Women have long been subjected to impossible standards whether it is about appearance or
what their roles are. Social media has undoubtedly given a platform for social conditioning

3
Publishing of information which is obscene in electronic form. Whoever publishes or transmits or causes to be
published in the electronic form, any material which is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest or if its
effect is such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant
circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it.
4
P. Shah, Cyber Stalking & the Impact of its Legislative Provisions in India, http://www.legalindia.in/cyber-
stalking-the-impact-of-its-legislative-provisions-in-india (last visited Nov. 4, 2012).
5
D. Halder and K. Jaishankar, Cyber Crimes against Women in India: Problems, Perspectives and Solutions,
3(1) TMC ACAD. J. 48, 55 (2008).
6
Shreya Singhal v. Union Of India [AIR 2015 SC 1523]
7
Durkheim, Emile (1982). The Rules of Sociological Method. New York: The Free Press. pp. 52–59.
and stereotypes, which are being projected at a much larger scale than ever before.
Traditionally, women have been suppressed from expressing their opinions freely. Now if a
women expresses her opinions online, she is met with harsh criticisms and many a times
threats of violence

The recent case of Gurmehar Kaur in 2017 were a college student was cyber bullied and
received death and rape threats for expressing her opinions online is a tell- tale sign of how
the online community has little to no fear of consequences, what is alarming is the only
solution left to her was to quit social media and no conclusive action could be taken against
these perpetuators.

Incidents like these have created a social conditioning of how women are to remain passive
and not express their opinions.

THE BRIGHT SIDE

With the late 20th century, women have gained increased access of the web and this has
allowed women to empower themselves by using various tools on the internet.

Through online activism, women are able to empower themselves by organizing campaigns
and voicing their opinions for equality rights without feeling oppressed by members of
society.8 For example, on May 29, 2013, an online campaign started by 100 female advocates
forced the leading social networking website, Facebook, to take down various pages that
spread hatred about women.9

With the easy accessibility and affordability of e-learning (electronic learning), women can
now study from the comfort of their homes.10 By empowering themselves educationally
through new technologies like e-learning, women are also learning new skills that will come
in handy in today's advancing globalized world.

8
Churchyard, N. (2009). "The Question of Empowerment: Women's Perspective on Their Internet
Use". Gender, Technology and Development. 13 (3): 341–363
9
McVeigh, T. (June 6, 2013). "Online Feminist activists of the digital age". Taipei Times.
10
Radovic-Markovic, M.; Nelson-Porter, B. & Omolaja, M. (2012). "The new alternative women's
entrepreneurship education: E-learning and virtual universities" (PDF). International Women Online Journal of
Distance Education. 1 (2): 46–54
Online Support Groups

According to a study done by the University of California, Los Angeles, medical patients
who read and write about their disease are often in a much happier mood and more
knowledgeable than those who do not. By reading others' experiences, patients can better
educate themselves and apply strategies that their fellow bloggers suggest.11

With social media, women around the world can connect with each other, exchange ideas and
experiences and these online support groups have much wider reach than any other form of
support groups.

Reclaiming freedom of Speech and Expression

Although freedom of speech and expression is an integral right guaranteed to citizens in

majority of the nations, Women have been curtailed from exercising this right from time
immemorial, but social media has succeeded in giving them a platform where not only can
they express their voice freely but engage with their peers who have had similar experiences

Social Media Movements

Due to the popularity of social media, innumerable movements are taking place on a global scale. In
the era of hashtags, women have been able to lead various movements in their fight against injustices
and usher in a new era of women empowerment.

Women’s March #DayWithoutAWoman was one such popular campaign on social media. It is
aimed to support women’s rights by showing how much women accomplish every day and how
successful they can be regardless stereotypes about them.

A social media movement against Upskirtng in UK and Wales led by a young woman has led to
measures being taken to amend laws to include Upskirting as a criminal offence.

There have been various movements in India including the 2003 Blank Noise Project against eve-
teasing, the 2011 SlutWalk protest against victim-blaming but these were limited in its reach but
social media Campaigns such the 2011 , Why Loiter project on women’s right to public spaces, the
2015 Pinjra Tod (Break the Cage) movement against sexist curfew rules in student halls and the

11
Stephan, P. (August 13, 2013). "Breast cancer patients blog their blues away". breastcancer.about.com.
2017 Bekhauf Azadi (Freedom without Fear) March was able to resonate with a much larger number
of women than ever before turning this social media-led phenomenon into a true feminist movement.
Hence symbolizing how social media has played a vital role in women orientated movements.

THE SYNTHESIS

In conclusion, the age of social media has brought out its own problems but it has also
equipped women with tools they never had access to, including a platform to voice their
concerns and ideas, a means to connect with those with similar experiences, a forum to
collectively act against injustice and a way to educate themselves. While social media has its
own evils, it also provides women with the support system to combat them. Hence it is safe to
conclude, the partnership between Women and Social media is undoubtedly a major step
towards women empowerment.