‘Who unlocked the kitchen?’: Online misogyny, YouTube comments and women's professional street skateboarding

Abstract

Abuse and harassment of sportswomen has become a global issue. And while the sportification of skateboarding has increased professional opportunities and media visibility for women athletes, it has also resulted in misogyny and gendered abuse on online platforms where competition coverage is posted. This study examines comments that collectively target competitors in YouTube streams of major professional women’s street skating competitions. Examined through the lens of ‘virtual manhood acts’, it demonstrates how gender boundaries of skateboarding are policed online through masculine acts such as gendered language, comparison, sexualisation and stigmatisation of non-normative femininities. In undertaking these virtual manhood acts, perpetrators delegitimise women skaters collectively and engage in strategies that elevate male membership in both the sport and fandom. The pervasive presence of abuse and misogyny highlights a need for further sport-specific research into behaviours which may impact athletes’ emotional and mental well-being, and create further barriers to participation, particularly in male-dominated sports cultures.

A Scoping Review of Research on Online Hate and Sport

“…These publications have identified aspects of the nature of its impact on athletes. For instance, the targeting of female athletes is cited frequently as a potential barrier to female participation in sport (McCarthy, 2021). Indeed, expressions of online hate directed towards athletes or their representatives are characterised by researchers as a gatekeeping exercise in which perpetrators attempt to delegitimise the participation of particular marginalised groups (Doidge, 2015; Litchfield et al, 2018; Kavanagh et al, 2019; Duvall, 2020).…”

“…In these, perpetrators feel comfortable espousing hate as it attracts support and admiration from peers even if it earns condemnation from others (Stick et al, 2021). Hate, it is argued, is exacerbated in online environments which rely on user-reported moderation (e.g., McCarthy, 2021).…”

“…In these, perpetrators feel comfortable espousing hate as it attracts support and admiration from peers even if it earns condemnation from others (Stick et al, 2021). Hate, it is argued, is exacerbated in online environments which rely on user-reported moderation (e.g., McCarthy, 2021). Others argued that anonymity was key in fostering an environment in which users felt empowered to espouse online hate in a manner regarded as taboo offline, in mainstream society (Sanderson, 2010;Love & Hughey, 2015;Page et al, 2016).…”

Hockey Dads, Party Boys, and Devoted Players? Digital Representations of Men and Masculinities amongst Norwegian and Swedish Ice Hockey Players

“…Such “alignments” are absent in our data, as is the online exposure of sexualisation, ridicule and aggression towards men who play ice hockey (cf. Kavanagh, Litchfield, and Osborne 2019; McCarthy 2021). Put differently, men who play ice hockey portray other types of characteristics that, in turn, contribute to the maintaining of men’s superior positions in the prevailing gender order.…”

El neoconservadurismo religioso en Twitter: La campaña #ConMisHijosNoTeMetas y el discurso contra la igualdad de género

“…En los últimos años, la investigación sobre antifeminismo se ha ocupado en detectar y analizar la misoginia como discurso de odio hacia las mujeres (Meneguelli y Ferré-Pavia, 2022), también online, sobre todo enTwitter (Askanius, 2021;García-Díaz et al, 2021;McCarthy, 2021; Simões, Santos y Amaral, 2021) y Youtube (Pibernat, 2021). En el caso de Twitter, algunas investigaciones han correlacionado la presencia de violencia verbal en línea con la violencia real contra las mujeres (Blake et al, 2021) y la generada después de sucesos violentos (Park y Kim, 2021).…”