This presentation contributes to understanding the phenomenon of online abuse and harassment toward women scholars. We draw on data collected from 14 interviews with women scholars from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and report on the types of supports they sought during and after their experience with online abuse and harassment. We found that women scholars rely on three levels of support: the first level includes personal and social support (such as encouragement from friends and family and outsourcing comment reading to others); the second includes organizational (such as university or institutional policy), technological (such as reporting tools on Twitter or Facebook), and sectoral (such as law enforcement) support; and, the third includes larger cultural and social attitudes and discourses (such as attitudes around gendered harassment and perceptions of the online/offline divide). While participants relied on social and personal support most frequently, they commonly reported relying on multiple supports across all three levels. We use an ecological model as our framework to demonstrate how different types of support are interconnected, and suggest that support for targets of online abuse must integrate aspects of all three levels.

1. I Get By With a Little Help
From My Friends:
An Ecological Model of Support for Women
Scholars Experiencing Online Harassment
Chandell Gosse, Western University
Jaigris Hodson, Royal Roads University
George Veletsianos, Royal Roads University
Shandell Houlden, McMaster University
#AoIR2018

2. Hodson, J., Gosse, C., Veletsianos, G., Houlden, S. (2018 ). I Get By With a Little Help
From My Friends: The Ecological Model and Support for Women Scholars Experiencing
Online Harassment. First Monday, 23(8). doi: https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v23i8.9136

4. Gendered online
abuse serves
to silence, humiliate,
and disempower.

5. What types of support do
women scholars use
after they experience
online abuse and harassment?

6. In the Workplace and in Online Spaces
Abuse, Harassment, and Sexism:
❏ Impacts mental health & productivity
❏ Creates self-doubt, shame, & self-loathing
❏ Hampers performance-based self esteem
❏ Chills participation & engagement

7. When women experience
online abuse, the type of
abuse they receive is often
gendered, taking aim at their
physical appearance, bodily
agency, sexuality, and
intellect.

8. ❏ Recruitment: email & Twitter
❏ Purposive sampling for diverse cohort
❏ 14 interviews
❏ with self-identified women scholars
❏ Multiple iterations of Inductive
coding
❏ Three major categories emerged:
❏ Affect; Impact; & Response
Methods

9. Ecological Model of Support
Macro-Level
Meso-Level
Micro-Level

10. Ecological Model of Support
Micro-level Meso-level Macro-level
Personal
● Situational awareness
● Resiliency
● Personality
Technological
● Platform settings & TOS
● Blocking & reporting
Attitudes Toward Gender
● Misogyny & sexism
● Equality/solidarity
Social
● Friends Family
● Colleagues and peers
Organizational
● Institutions & Institutional
policy
Perceptions of Digital Dualism
● Log off/turn it off
---
Sectoral
● Government policies
● Law/law enforcement
Media Representations of online
abuse
● “Don’t feed the trolls”

11. “My husband became my designated comment
reader [...] he would actually go to the articles and
read the comments for me and say, ‘Oh, this one
person really liked your article […] This person
said something really stupid about how your
a r t i c l e i s d u m b . ’ H e b e c a m e m y
intermediary” (Jessica).
Micro-Level Support
Micro-level
Personal
● Situational awareness
● Resiliency
● Personality
Social
● Friends Family
● Colleagues and peers

12. “[It’s] Pretty hit or miss. My local precinct, if they
knew it was someone they knew was local, has been
pretty good. They document it and give me a report
number and it’s just kind of, you know, okay we’re
just going to file this away […] In other cases, they’ve
been really dismissive. You know, ‘oohhh you got in
a fight on FB and now you’re expecting me to do
something about it? Get out of here, I’ve got
important stuff to do’ kind of attitude” (Abby).
Meso-Level Support
Meso-level
Technological
● Platform settings & TOS
● Blocking & reporting
Organizational
● Institutions & Institutional
policy
Sectoral
● Government policies
● Law/law enforcement

13. “You just pissed off feminist Twitter. You’re
never gonna hear the end of this. You’re gonna
have to change your name, because feminist
Twitter is a thing, and it’s huge. It’s glorious.
Twitter really looks after itself” (Jasmine).
Macro-Level Support
Macro-level
Attitudes Toward Gender
● Misogyny & sexism
● Equality/solidarity
Perceptions of Digital Dualism
● Log off/turn it off
Media Representations of online
abuse
● “Don’t feed the trolls”

14. ❏ No ‘one size fits all’ solution
❏ Micro-level support is most common
❏ *This is a public issue, not a private issue
❏ Complex relationship to support
❏ Solutions that work can work better
❏ Especially institutions and social media platforms
Findings

15. 1. Determine if micro-level support indeed dominates.
2. Look at the contexts and influences that shape
support networks.
3. Analyze each level on its own terms.
Future Directions

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