Cover not available
Part of
Social Media and Society: Integrating the digital with the social in digital discourse
Edited by Majid KhosraviNik
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 100] 2023
► pp. 167–186

Sexism in digital discourses of women

Connecting the digital and social dimensions when comparing the #Sendeanlat and #Metoo campaigns

| Marmara University

The chapter points to implicit sexist codes in digital discourses inadvertently produced by women while supporting cyberactivist movements. Drawing on research on feminism and guidelines in Social Media Critical Discourse Studies, the chapter concentrates on the discursive practices of both Turkish and global cyberactivist movements. It tries to show the roots of micro-power produced by users in the context of cultural differences by comparing two campaigns. #MeToo and #SenDeAnlat hashtags have been chosen and analysed by CDS, considering the impact of a digital interface. The analysis includes using sexist language, e.g., degrading words for the female body; reproduction of traditional unequal social roles, e.g., men as protectors and punishers; victim-perpetrator reversal, e.g., victim-blaming through their physical appearance, dress code, and drinking; and developing strategies for adaptation to a sexist order in public spaces.

Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Social media and discursive practices
  • Social media: Critical Discourse Studies
  • CDS, gender, and digital feminist movements
  • Analysis and discussion
    • Using man-made language: Sexist swearing and degrading female bodies
    • Recirculating unequal social roles
    • Victim-blaming: Physical appearance, dress and drink seen as provocative
      • Physical appearance
      • Dress
      • Drink
    • Adaptation to the sexist order: Advice on how to avoid sexual harassment
    • Spiral of silence or “name and shame!”
  • Conclusion
  • Post-script developments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 April 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.100.09sah
References
Agamben, Giorgio
2009 What is an Apparatus? And Other Essays. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Altekin, Serap
2015 “Şiddet rastgele yaşanmaz, planlı, sistematik ve politiktir.” Interview by Nihan Bora. Diken. Accessed 24 February 2015.Google Scholar
Barton, David and Lee, Carmen
2013 Language Online: Investigating Digital Texts and Practices. Abingdon: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre
1991 Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Butler, Judith
1993 Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cameron, Deborah
1992 Feminism and Linguistic Theory. London: Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Castells, Manuel
2010 Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
2015 Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements In The Internet Age. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
[URL]
2015 “Kadına karşı işlenen suçlarda erkeklere verilen iyi hal indirimi kalksın!” Accessed 30 September 2019. [URL]
Chicago, Tribune
2018 “#MeToo: A timeline of events.” Accessed 11 December 2018. [URL]
Colleoni, Elanor, Alessandro Rozza, and Adam Arvidsson
2014 “Echo Chamber or Public Sphere? Predicting Political Orientation and Measuring Political Homophily in Twitter Using Big Data”. Journal of Communication 64: 317–332. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cortese, Anthony
2006 Opposing Hate Speech. Westport: Praeger.Google Scholar
Davidson, Helen
2015 “Rape and murder of young woman sparks mass Twitter protest in Turkey.” Accessed 11 December 2018. [URL]
Dede-Özdemir, Yeliz
2015 “Taciz Anlatılarında Cinsiyetçi Söylemlerin Yeniden İnşası: #sendeanlat.” Moment 2 (2): 80–103.Google Scholar
Djonov, Emilia, and Theo van Leeuwen
2018 “Social media as semiotic technology and social practice: the case of ResearchGate’s design and its potential to transform social practice” Social Semiotics 28 (5): 641–664. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dogan News Agency
2017 “Turkish man sought over attacking woman on bus turns out to already have prison sentence.” Accessed 14 December 2018. [URL]
Durna, Tezcan, and Çağla Kubilay
2010 “Söylem Kuramları ve Eleştirel Söylem Çözümlemeleri.” In Medyadan Söylemler, ed. by Tezcan Durna, 47–81. İstanbul: Libra.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman
2006 Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel
2008 The Birth of Biopolitics – Lectures at the College de France (1978–1979). ed. by Michel Senellart, (Graham Burchell, trans.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Fuchs, Christian
2014 Social Media: A Critical Introduction. London: Sage. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ghaffari, Soudeh
2020 “Digital Discourses of Celebrities, Perfect Femininity and new Affordances for Representation and/or Hate Speech”. Journal of Critical Discourse Studies 1–18.Google Scholar
Girit, Selin
2015 “Turkey rallies over murder of woman who ‘resisted rape’.” Accessed 11 December 2018. [URL]
Goldsmith, Samuel
2010 “Jury acquits accused rapist; woman’s skinny jeans so tight, she must have helped remove them.” Accessed 14 December 2018. [URL]
Goodwin, Marjorie Harness
1980 “Directive/response speech sequences in girls’ and boys’ task activities.” In Women and Language in Literature and Society, ed. by Nelly Furman, Ruth Borker and Sally McConnell Ginet, 157–173. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Hall, Stuart
2003 “The Work of Representation.” In Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, ed. by Stuart Hall, 13–75. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Han, Byung-Chul
2015 The Burnout Society. California: Stanford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Herman, Judith Lewis
1997 Trauma and recovery: the aftermath of violence – from domestic abuse to political terror. New York: Basicbooks.Google Scholar
Jovanovic, Danica, and Theo van Leeuwen
2018 “Multimodal dialogue on social media”. Social Semiotics 28 (5): 683–699. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kantor, Jodi, and Megan Twohey
2017 “Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment Accusers for Decades.” Accessed 11 December 2018. [URL]
KhosraviNik, Majid
2017 “Social Media Critical Discourse Studies (SM-CDS).” In Handbook of Critical Discourse Analysis, ed. by John Flowerdew and John Richardson, 582–596. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2019 “Populist Digital Media? Social Media Systems and The Global Populist Right Discourse”. Public Seminar.Google Scholar
2020 “Digital meaning-making across content and practice in social media critical discourse studies”. Critical Discourse Studies 1–5.Google Scholar
KhosraviNik, Majid, and Eleonora Esposito
2018 “Online hate, digital discourse and critique: Exploring digitally-mediated discursive practices of gender-based hostility”. Lodz Papers in Pragmatics 14 (1): 45–68. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
KhosraviNik, Majid, and Nadia Sarkhoh
2017 “Arabism and Anti-Persian Sentiments on Participatory Web Platforms: A Social Media Critical Discourse Study.” International Journal of Communication, 3614–3633.Google Scholar
KhosraviNik, Majid, and Johann W. Unger
2015 “Critical Discourse Studies and Social Media: Power, Resistance and Critique in Changing Media Ecologies.” In Methods of critical discourse studies, ed. by Ruth Wodak and Michale Meyer, 205–233. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Lazar, Michelle M.
2007 “Politicising Gender in Discourse: Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis as Political Perspective and Praxis.” In Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis: Gender, Power and Ideology in Discourse, ed. by Michelle M. Lazar, 1–31. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Lerner, Melvin J.
1980 Belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion. New York: Plenum. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lynn, Theo, Pierangelo Rosati, and Binesh Nair
2020 “Calculated Ad Hoc Publics in the #Brexit Discourse on Twitter and the Role of Business Actors” Information 11 (9): 435–455. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mendes, Kaitlynn, Jessica Ringrose, and Jessalynn Keller
2018 “#MeToo and the promise and pitfalls of challenging rape culture through digital feminist activism.” European Journal of Women’s Studies 25 (2): 236–246. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Morozov, Evgeny
2010 “Digital Dictatorship”. Interview by David Golumbia. (20 February 2010).Google Scholar
Ozcetin, Hilal
2015 “Dressing Up Ahlak: A Reading of Sexual Morality in Turkey.” PhD Dissertation. Simon Fraser University.
Poulsen, S. Vigild, Gunhild Kvale, and Theo van Leeuwen
2018 “Social media as semiotic technology”. Social Semiotics 28 (5): 593–600. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rheingold, Howard
2002 Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Cambridge: Perseus.Google Scholar
Schulz, Muriel
1975 “The semantic derogation of women.” In Language and Sex: Difference and Dominance, ed. by Barrie Thorne and Nancy Henley, 64–75. Rowley: Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Secor, Anna J.
2002 “The Veil and Urban Space in Istanbul: Women’s dress, mobility and Islamic knowledge.” Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 9 (1): 5–22. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sev’er, Aysan, and Yurdakul, Gökçeçiçek
2001 “Culture of Honor, Culture of Change A Feminist Analysis of Honor Killings in Rural Turkey.” Violence Against Women, 7 (9), 964–998. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Spender, Dale
1987 Man Made Language. London: Pandora.Google Scholar
Tuik
2019 Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu. Accessed 30 September 2019. [URL]
Unger, Johann W., Ruth Wodak, and Majid KhosraviNik
2016 “Critical Discourse Studies and Social Media Data.” In Qualitative Research, ed. by David Silverman, 277–295. London: Sage.Google Scholar
van Dijck, Jose, and Thomas Poell
2013 “Understanding Social Media Logic”. Media and Communication, 1 (1): 2–14. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Leeuwen, Theo
2005 “Multimodality, genre and design”. In Discourse in Action. ed. by Rodney H. Jones and Sigrid Norris, 73–93. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, and Norman Fairclough
1997 “Critical Discourse Analysis.” In Discourse As Social Interaction, ed. by Teun A. van Dijk, 258–284. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, and Michael Meyer
2009 “Critical Discourse Analysis: History, Agenda, Theory and Methodology.” In Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, ed. by Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, 1–33. London: Sage.Google Scholar
World Economic Forum
2020 “The Global Gender Gap Report.” Geneva.Google Scholar
Zappavigna, Michele
2011 “Ambient Affiliation: A linguistic perspective on Twitter.” Journal of New Media and Society 13 (5): 788–806. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012 Discourse of Twitter and Social Media. London: Continuum Books.Google Scholar
Zhao, Sumin, Emillia Djonov, and Theo van Leeuwen
2014 “Semiotic technology and practice: A multimodal social semiotic approach to PowerPoint”. Text & Talk 34 (3): 349–375. DOI logoGoogle Scholar