Ciberviolencia en la red. Nuevas formas de retórica disciplinaria en contra del feminismo

Cyber violence on the Web: New forms of disciplinary rhetoric against feminism Cyber violence against women and girls is emerging as a global problem. The increasing cases of feminist YouTubers suffering online harassment prove that this kind of aggression intensifies when the victim is a woman and a feminist. This paper aims to explore the scope and strategies of antifeminist cyber violence embedded within the YouTube comment section. In order to achieve the research goal, this work draws from a case study: the comments on the video Why I’m… a feminist, posted by the American YouTuber Laci Green (2014). A qualitative content analysis is undertaken of these comments, whose interpretation takes as a reference Cole’s theory (2015) based on Foucault’s model of disciplinary rhetoric (1975). According to the results, “insult”, “sarcasm”, “imposition”, “wish to hurt”, “sexual objectification”, “criminalization/ defamation” and “threat” (both general and sexually explicit) constitute coercion mechanisms that are systematically applied to silence feminist women. Likewise, the misconception of feminism, that is, the advocacy of a mistaken and stereotyped version of this concept, represents a common pattern with high potential to promote future situations of cyber violence. The progressive normalization of cyber violence against women and girls requires an urgent response. In addition to measures of social awareness, a more rigorous online regulation would be essential for ensuring the predominance of respect and empowerment instead of violence and discrimination in the virtual world.