DIGITAL MISOGYNY

DIGITAL MISOGYNY

“Gender-based violence (GBV) is a notable form of human rights violation. It is rooted in gender inequality and involves any form of violence against a person on account of their gender. Men and women experience GBV, but the majority of victims tend to be women and girls. Women experience some form of cyber violence since the age of 15. Men experience ‘relatively’ mild forms of cyber violence “name–calling and embarrassment, women (especially 18-24) face severe cyber crimes such as stalking and online sexual harassments”. Dr. Aparna Sharma, Associate Professor – World arts and cultures/dance, UCLA, India added her introduction during the virtual training session on ‘Digital Misogyny’ was held on September 24th 2021.

In this training, 76 students were participated from University of Peradeniya, University of Sri Jayewardanapura, University of Jaffna and South Eastern University.

Before the commencement of the session Mr. Mohamed Azad – Program director of SDJF, Ms. Chandula Kumbukage – Project manager / HELVETAS were addressed, participants. Mr. Mohamed Azad said, “The overall objective of this program is to create an innovative, socially responsible network of 350 future journalists and media professionals in Sri Lanka. This intervention was designed by HELVETAS and implemented by Sri Lanka Development Journalist Forum (SDJF) based on collective engagement and experience in the domain to activate youth. Under InPIRE project, we have been implementing many activities to provide skills and knowledge for future journalists which are not covered in their regular curriculum”.

Dr. Ankuran Dutta from University of Guwatti, India gave an introduction to the session. He mentioned, “A Tale of Two Cities is a historical novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. He started his novel as ‘it was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us’. During this covid crisis people had everything before them but they have nothing before them. People cannot move or engage with regular activities. Countless miss information and falls information are flooding around the society. Research shows that a fake story can spread fifteen hundred people six times faster than a true story. It means it is six times faster than the truth”.  

The training session was facilitated by Dr. Aparna Sharma on Gender-based violence (GBV), Forms of online gender-based violence, impacts of online GBV and cyber misogyny. Dr. Aparna Sharma added, “Racism and other forms of violence against vulnerable minorities’ leads to the perpetuation of gender disinformation that turn impedes women’s participation in public spheres that is partially inimical to democracies”.

The activity was implemented as a part of Incubator Spaces for Promoting Information Rights and freedom of Expression (InSPIRE) project implemented by Sri Lanka Development Journalist Forum (SDJF) in partnership with Helvetas Intercooperation and funded by the European Union.

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