Digital platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook and online communities on reddit, are increasingly used by victim-survivors across the world to post about their experiences of sexual violence. Emerging research suggests a variety of reasons why victim-survivors discuss their experiences online. This article contributes to this developing area of research by exploring the underlying motivations for victim-survivors using an online rape survivor community on reddit.This article questions how and why victim-survivors of sexual violence engage with digital technologies through content analysis of narratives posted to a public rape survivor forum on reddit. Overall, the study found that there are three primary motivators prompting survivors to access online communities: to find a supportive community; to seek advice; and for storytelling. The article uncovers some of the broader implications of online storytelling, suggesting that this is an important framework to consider online disclosures of sexual violence. Online communities like /r/rapecounseling might be conceptualised as spaces where counter-narratives of sexual violence are collectively shared.
Street harassment represents one of the most pervasive forms of sexual violence. While it is commonly understood as a gender-based harm, it also intersects with racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, and other forms of abuse. Although it is rarely responded to through government policy, research illustrates that street harassment can have profoundly negative impacts of those who experience it. This article provides a comprehensive review of the current “state of the field” of street harassment research. We undertook two extensive searches of the EBSCO Discovery database in 2015 and 2020, followed by the use of reference snowballing and a Google Scholar search in order to triangulate results. Studies included in the sample were published in English, peer-reviewed and centrally focused on street harassment. Dissertations and nongovernmental organization reports were also included due to the small number of studies in this field. One hundred eighty-two sources were included in the final sample. Findings show that publications on this topic have increased substantially across the two reviews. We provide a thematic overview of key research findings to date and argue throughout that current research suffers from conceptual and typological slippage and does not consistently take into account the need for an intersectional analysis. We close with suggestions for future directions in research and practice, given the emergent nature of the field.
This article examines why victim-survivors of sexual violence disclose their experiences online. Drawing on findings from qualitative interviews conducted with victim-survivors, the discussion expands upon scholarly framings of ‘speaking out’ in digital spaces. The proliferation of the #MeToo movement has led to significant interest in digital activism surrounding sexual and gender-based violence, and disclosures are often articulated within feminist scholarship as constituting a political act. Findings reveal that victim-survivors understand their own digital practices with nuance and complexity, and their disclosures address a range of needs that are often apolitical. Participants primarily saw their disclosures as a way to connect with peers, to provide and receive support, and to share their stories ‘safely’. These motivations influence how and where victim-survivors disclose online, and complicate scholarly notions of digital activism as a response to sexual violence. The discussion presents important implications for how digital space and disclosure practices are understood, highlighting the significance of considering the diverse needs that victim-survivors have when speaking about their experiences online.<br/><br/>Key messages<br/>There are myriad digital practices in which victim-survivors engage when disclosing online, some of these are public-facing (‘speaking out’), but many survivors disclose in private, secret digital contexts.<br/><br/>Victim-survivors do not always view their online disclosures as political, and disclosures fulfil a range of needs, including therapeutic and justice needs.<br/><br/>If ‘speaking out’ online refers to the digital modes of anti-rape activism, then by contrast, ‘speaking in’ encompasses the ways that victim-survivors disclose in online communities of peers.
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