Does the structure of the internet itself amplify any issues such as sexism or bullying?

Is the internet produced by and for men? These are general questions, often asked by women, the majority of whom have had a traumatic experience on the internet and live to say the tale. The case of online bullying has been on the rise in recent years, and the blame falls squarely on the system of the internet, which has built male dominance and the sex exclusion of its workers, having a profound and negative effect on women's protection and freedom of speech around the world. Although both men and women get harassed online, the womens scope of harassment is more wide and persistent. Therefore most of the media companies fail to deal with this issue because they don’t acknowledge that most women are harassed online as compared to men (Nasi, 140). It is beyond doubt that most of the ladies whether prominent or obscure have gone through traumatizing online experience that easily assimilates with their real life. However, it is not clear that the harassment is female specific but it is eminent that this form of experience deters most women from participating from online. Since of all the cases of online bullying that have been reported the major percentage of the victims are the ladies while the male counterpart makes a mere percentage. This clearly shows that the internet is slowly becoming a no-go zone for females. In this paper, we are going to base on a few case studies just to elaborate more that it is true that the structure of the internet enhances online harassment and sexism.
To begin with the workforce in the internet business is sex segregated and insignificantly male. For instance, there is a significant gender gap in Google, Twitter and Facebook just to name but a few. At Google, the male gender makes up a whopping 70% of the staff while 83% of them are in the tech department. There is similar gender parity at Facebook in which 85% of the tech department is men while in general, 69% of Facebook staff are female. The situation is not different at Twitter where 70 per cent of the entire staff is male while in the leadership bracket the male gender makes up a total of 79 % and a massive 90 per cent of the engineering workers. From this statistics, we truly see the tech industry is massively populated with male labourer and that gives a clearly a picture of deep epistemological disparity which leads to inadequate tech solutions to problems that concern the female users.
On her article on the Pacific standard, Amanda Hess proclaims that women are not welcomed on the internet. From research all over the world show that it is clear that women are thrice likely to be stalked online and more than twice as likely to be bullied and sexually harassed online. Amanda Hess supports her declaration by describing the evidence of her own traumatising experience of sexual harassment and online stalking amongst which she lists unpleasant occurrences and gives statistical evidence that females on the internet be it bloggers, journalist or public users are sustainably bullied mainly because of their gender (Hess,6). On her piece, she describes the feeling she had after realising that there is a group on Twitter specifically created to bully and sexually harass her. She received rape and death threats, and in addition to her case, she cites other ladies who face the same predicaments. Amanda’s case is an example that proves that women are a target of online harassment. Male bullying is not as damaging or sustained as that of ladies. In most of the cases it is not based on their gender and it mainly includes embarrassing and names calling which most of the time it is ignored.
Of all the cases of online harassment in more that ninety percent of rape and death threat are women. More so the violence against the female gender in online is overcoming real world violence. Mostly the victims are terrorised and threatened by abusers either on social media emails, texts or phone call (Lindsay, 1375). On her article “ A female writer new milestone: Her first Death threat” Annie Gaus after receiving her first rape and death threat her experience is so traumatising to the point that she can’t forget. Although this comes after several other forms of harassment for which she was used to and could easily rubbish. Her case strongly cements the fact that women have a daily tuning to general harm. She writes that after consulting with her friends in tech, gaming journalism and science she realised that these events although annoying are so common and are perceived as a rite of passage. To prove this statement she continues by saying that some of her peers she knew personally have received threats similar to hers whether by a phone call, in comments or on Twitter.
In conclusion, the fact that the internet does not preserves one's privacy and ends anonymity it becomes easier for potential offenders to mark their targets. Simon Jenkins contemplates that despite the internet being an amazing thing that has changed and liberated human beings it also has endangered the view of people as private beings. He believes that the internet must be regulated since it has become a mask worn by rapist, weirdoes, fools and murderers. Although all the genders experience online harassment it is the women who are mostly the victims.



.

Work Cited
Hess, Amanda. "Why women aren’t welcome on the Internet." Pacific Standard 6 (2014).
Lindsay, Megan, et al. "Experiences of online harassment among emerging adults emotional reactions and the mediating role of fear." Journal of interpersonal violence 31.19 (2016): 3174-3195.
Näsi, Matti, et al. "Association between online harassment and exposure to harmful online content: A cross-national comparison between the United States and Finland." Computers in Human Behavior 41 (2014): 137-145.