Social networks are fully integrated into the daily lives of millions of women around the world. According to Statista, a German portal specializing in statistics and market research, in the first month of this year women were the main active users on Snapchat and Instagram.
According to the German agency, the main activities of netizens on these channels are family and friendship communication, watching videos and playful content, and searching for recipes and ideas for the home, investing an average of 2.08 hours a day in this, in contrast to the 1.81 hours that men dedicate.
About, Jenny Teresita Guerra González, a researcher at the Institute for Library and Information Research (IIBI), explained that The social networks-women binomial entails so many possibilities for social, academic, political, cultural and labor development; as well as challenges translated into terms of vulnerability and risk at different levels.
“The digital space is usually perceived in a first approach as friendly and full of virtues, but the truth is that it can transform into a hostile environment in which censorship
violence, harassment and lynching become the norm ”.
The case of Mexico
Mexico —exposed the specialist— it is an important stage in the escalation of digital violence against women in social networks. The cases of distribution of nudity or videos with sexual content, the so-called revenge porn by former romantic partners, led to a series of legislative reforms synthesized in the “Olympia Law”, which punishes anyone who disseminates intimate content with up to nine years in prison. without the consent of whoever appears in the image.
“However, social media and the web as a whole are not completely safe spaces for women, so there is still a long way to go in terms of education and legality,” added the also member of the Internal Commission for IIBI Gender Equality.
In defense of themselves
For Guerra González, these platforms are seen as the media of infocommunication
more open and plural; however an x-ray on the wild universe of the networks
patent in several scientific studies, has revealed that women
Afro-descendants and indigenous people receive twice as many attacks when they express their
political opinions.
“The recognition algorithms on Facebook censor images of young people with
menstrual flow stains on their clothes or accounts of activists promoting the
abortions that are denounced by pro-life groups ”.
The specialist pointed out that against this media system, it is the same women who
create resistance by opening accounts that promote reproductive rights, circulating
toolkits and guides on security and digital care, making mobilizations
against sexual offenders and organizing workshops and training on issues of
feminism, health, justice and psychological support.
Vanity, influencers and complexes
Jenny Teresita Guerra also referred to another negative aspect of digital media that
affects the mental and even physical health of the girls who frequent these pages: “It is
manifests the influence of social networks on the self-image of users, the contempt
by a body that does not align with the standards and recommendations of influencers and
celebrities”.
The phenomenon “is forging a whole generation of insecure, anxious and
depressed whose immediate solution is to resort to retouching and filters in their photographs or
video calls. Added to this is a considerable increase in eating disorders,
objectification and discrimination ”, he concluded.
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