The Dimensions and Implications of Gendered Racism Online
Abstract
A 2017 national survey conducted by Pew found that “online harassment” is a pervasive experience for young adults aged 18 to 29, who are most likely to encounter hate speech, sexual harassment and stalking. Inductive, qualitative studies of online harassment are scarce. An analysis of how social actors make sense of their gendered and racialized experiences provides insights into the societal impact of these interactions, as well as the interventions that would be appropriate to address them. Through interviews with 60 college students, I analyze the experience of and responses toward identity-based online harassment. Treating the everyday as a site for reproducing, enacting, and resisting racial and gender inequality, I situate online harassment as part of the recurring and familiar daily practices through which people sustain as well as resist racism and sexism. In my first article, I use the concept of “entitlement racism,” to explore how victims of racist online harassment explain, and, ultimately, justify the rights of others to target racial minorities online. I demonstrate that the colorblind racism scholars describe as a prevalent feature of the post-Civil Rights Era exists in a drastically different form online, creating a situation in which there are, essentially, “racists without racism.” The second article examines how overt sexism operates as a form of “soft repression,” silencing women in online spaces. Yet this sexism also renders postfeminism incoherent, creating opportunities for respondents to realize the systemic nature of discrimination. The final article considers both the emergence of new forms of intimate labor and the changing conditions under which it is performed. While we might expect that intimate labor would emerge in response to experiences with racism and sexism, I show that there is a less clear-cut pattern, with strategies for managing these experiences varying by race and gender. This dissertation furthers the sociological study of social inequality by demonstrating how race and gender are negotiated in online settings, particularly in response to discrimination. Using insights from structural and cultural theories of racism and sexism, I demonstrate how patterns of inequality manifest in a new site of interaction.
Citation
Ortiz, Stephanie M (2020). The Dimensions and Implications of Gendered Racism Online. Doctoral dissertation, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /192511.