Online violence against women and children, a term that encompasses harassment, cyberstalking, non-consensual image sharing, deep-fakes, doxing and more, is a modern manifestation of age-old gendered power dynamics, now amplified by our increasingly digital world. As the scholar Emma A. Jane observes in her article “Online Abuse and Harassment”, gendered cyber-hate is “substantial, tangible, and embodied.”
It’s a horrible, inexcusable phenomenon that is increasingly a problem for female journalists, especially.
73% of women journalists have experienced online abuse ranging from personal insults posted online to online threats of real-world violence. The cumulative effects of ongoing online harassment can lead to burnout and drive journalists out of the profession. In extreme cases, targeted online attacks can lead to physical threats and danger.
In another piece by UK-based writer Laurie Penny, she describes the victim-blaming that comes with women daring to have an opinion online, and that it has become the “short skirt of the internet” in that “having [an opinion] and flaunting it is somehow asking an amorphous mass of almost entirely male keyboard bashers to tell you how they’d like to rape, kill, and [degrade you].”
So today, I’m unpacking this mess for understanding. How did we get here as a country let alone a western civilization? So many women are tired of being victim-blamed for trying to protect themselves.In the paragraphs below, I explore how these harms operate, why they disproportionately target women and children, and most importantly, what we could actually do about it.
What Is Online Violence Against Women and Children?
Here are some of the core forms this violence takes:
- Harassment & threats: Persistent or targeted messaging, including rape threats, intimidation, or stalking. Consider online impersonation campaigns that culminated in physical assault.
- Image-based abuse: This includes non-consensual sharing of intimate images (sometimes called “revenge porn”), deep-fakes, and synthetic intimate imagery. Even the U.S. government acknowledges this as part of “tech-facilitated gender-based violence.”
- Child-targeted harms: Children are uniquely vulnerable, as horrible as that is. Cyberstalking, exploitation, threats, sextortion, non-consensual imagery of minors, and grooming, all fall under this broader definition.
- Structural & platform dynamics: These harms aren’t just individual incidents. As Jane writes, “while the technology is new, the threats of sexual violence, victim-blaming, and institutional inaction … sit squarely in far older traditions.”
Why Do Women & Children Face Disproportionate Harm?
Unfortunately, there are several intersecting factors to help explain the disparity:
- Pre-existing gender inequities: Online violence is often an extension of misogyny, sexism, and power imbalances offline. Many cyberbullies believe they can overpower “weaker” victims.
- Platform design & visibility: The internet can amplify harassment by enabling rapid spread, anonymity, and coordinated attacks. The U.S. Task Force report states: “the design and function of the internet amplify and intensify the scale and spread of gender-based violence (GBV)”. Facebook for example, has some of the absolute shittiest reporting mechanisms. Prolific abusers who have been on the platform for years know this, and exploit it. That’s why bad actors typically stick to just one platform. They think they can get away with it because they have many times before and have learned to “work” the system.
- Children’s developmental & power vulnerabilities: Children may lack digital literacy, support networks, or capacity to defend themselves against complex online harms, so opportunist abusers will intentionally target them and intentionally create threats to their safety.
The Impacts: From Emotional Harm to Real-World Consequences
The consequences of online violence are real and serious. It NEVER just stays online and there is real harm that happens. 74% of Web Index countries (western nations, like the US) are failing to take appropriate responses to gender-based violence online. Instead, women are told to “take a break” from the internet; to make themselves small.
This “hands-off” mentality makes zero sense, as human interactions increasingly take place online; we shop, pay our bills, attend school, talk to real-life friends. It is impossible to stay offline, and even less likely that the behavior won’t spill over to your real life when you have friends and family being targeted and harassed by that same cyberstalker, too.
That’s especially problematic, as studies have confirmed harms carried out in the “virtual” world have very real bodily and psychological effects, and “at least as much impact on a personal as traditional harms occurring against the physical body.”
Things that happen online have real world implications. Period.
- Mental health effects: Anyone who claims it’s not traumatic or downplays it should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. Victims report anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, self-harm or suicidal ideation. Targets describe emotional responses like anxiety, sadness, shame, isolation, vulnerability, unsafeness, distress, pain, shock, terror, and violation.
- Economic and professional costs: Online abuse can lead to job loss, reputational damage, or self-censorship. Women’s livelihoods are undermined by cyberhate, “affecting women’s ability to keep and find jobs, market their personal brands and their businesses, and to network socially and professionally.”
- Physical safety risks: Harassment online can quickly translate into offline violence, stalking, assault, and more.
- Silenced voices & democracy weakened: When women and children withdraw from online spaces out of fear, public discourse suffers and patterns of power reinforce themselves.
- Burn-Out. There is an absurd amount of time, energy, and potential costs involved in “blocking attackers, attempting to secure one’s technology, reporting individual instances of abuse to platforms, dealing with police, attending court appearances, arranging either formal or informal security in offline contexts, and explaining the situation to employers and so on.”
Practical Strategies: What We Can Do
So, with law enforcement being mostly useless (unless you’re rich or powerful), what can do we do? Here’s a breakdown of actionable steps from individuals to systems.
For Individuals & Families
- Digital literacy & awareness
- Teach children and young people about privacy settings, recognizing grooming behaviors, and safe online practices.
- Help women and girls understand how to report abuse, preserve evidence (screenshots, URLs) and seek support.
- Safety-by-design
- Use strong unique passwords, enable two-factor authentication, review platform privacy settings (especially for children’s accounts).
- Consider limiting revealing personal information and location data in profiles.
- Evidence-collection & reporting
- Keep records of harassment (screenshots, dates, links). Helpful both for platform reporting and law-enforcement.
- Use platform “report” tools and escalate if necessary. Guides such as this one from the Seattle-Times outline good practices.
- Emotional support & boundaries
- Recognize the trauma of online violence; encourage seeking counselling, peer-support networks or helplines.
- Set healthy boundaries: step away from escalating situations, mute/block harassers, limit time in triggering spaces.
For Schools, Community Organizations & Employers
- Develop clear policies on online harassment, including tech-facilitated abuse, for students and staff.
- Incorporate digital-safety curricula and training for educators, parents and youth.
- Create safe reporting pathways and designate trusted adults or supervisors who can act.
- Promote culture change: emphasize respect, consent and ethical online behavior as part of organizational values.
- Protect employees who are being stalked and harassed; stand-up for them. Don’t ostracize them when they’re already being isolated due to harassment.
For Platforms & Technology Providers
- First off, Facebook, fix every single thing about your awful platform.
- Design with safety in mind: stronger moderation, reporting mechanisms, faster takedown of non-consensual images etc.
- Invest in research and transparency: understanding how harassment develops, how platforms respond, and what works.
- Prioritize voices of victims and marginalized groups in governance decisions.
For Policy-Makers & Governments
- Recognize online violence against women and children as the public-health and human-rights issue that it is.
- Update legal frameworks: ensure tech-enabled harms (deep-fakes, sextortion, digital threats against children, image-based abuse) are addressed effectively.
- Foster multi-stakeholder collaboration: between tech companies, civil society, law enforcement, educators and survivors.
- Fund research, prevention programs and victim-support services, especially for children and vulnerable women.
Barriers & Challenges
While the strategies above are promising, there are obstacles:
- Victim-blaming and minimization: As Jane notes, many still treat online harassment as “not real” compared to offline violence or act like women “deserve it.”
- Jurisdiction & enforcement gaps: The borderless nature of the internet makes legal accountability difficult.
- Resource constraints: Many schools, organizations and governments lack funding or expertise to build digital-safety programs.
- Technology arms race: As platforms adopt protections, harassers adopt new tactics (bots, AI deep-fakes, coordinated campaigns).
- Silencing effect: Fear can drive victims out of online spaces, reducing visibility of the problem and limiting advocacy.
Call to Action
All that sounds nice, but you’re probably wondering how you can help, so here’s what you can do right now:
- Review your own online presence and privacy settings.
- Talk with children or teens about their online behaviors and experiences, ask how they feel, if anyone’s made them uncomfortable.
- If you see harassment (of a woman, a child, anyone), don’t sit around and do nothing. Document it, report it, and where safe, offer support.
- In your workplace, school or community group, ask: “Do we have a policy on tech-enabled harassment? How do we respond?”
- Advocate for stronger protections: write to your representatives, support legislation, push platforms to take action.
Pulling It All Together
Online violence against women and children is not just “cyberbullying” or “nasty comments.” It is a very serious extension of gender-based violence, just adapted to digital spaces. It absolutely impacts lives, livelihoods, and communities, but we are not powerless. Through individual vigilance, institutional policy, technology design, and public-policy action, we can build safer digital spaces.
As we do, we uphold the dignity, rights and safety of women and children, and reinforce that justice must extend into the online arena.
