Misogynoir, a term coined by Dr. Moya Bailey, describes the distinctive form of anti-Black sexism faced by Black women. We’ve explored it in previous episodes. How does it show up in digital spaces?

The data available paints a distressing picture. UK and US data shows that racialized women are 34% more likely to be mentioned in abusive or problematic tweets than white women, and Black women are especially targeted. They are 84% more likely than white women to be mentioned in these tweets.

In Canada, 44% of women and gender-diverse people aged 16 to 30 have been personally targeted by hate speech online. Those most likely to be targeted include Black women and gender-diverse people.

Over coming episodes, we’re delving into gendered digital hate and harassment with leading experts and content creators, releasing in-depth episodes every single week. We talk about the problem and what we can do to change it. We offer practical tips to help you in your digital life, and we talk about what it means to “take back the tech” for all of us.

Our guest Yamikani Msosa (they/them) helps us understand these experiences so often under-recognized in research. Yamikani is a Black neurodivergent nonbinary award-winning activist and cultural worker on the stolen, traditional, and ancestral homelands of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation people. They are Executive Director at the Ottawa Coalition To End Violence Against Women. They co-chair the Advisory for Advancing Gender Equity for Black Women, Girls, and Gender Diverse Peoples in Canada Initiative and also founded SEEDS Yoga for Survivors.

A note about content: this episode addresses gender-based violence.

Transcript

00:00:03 Yamikani

I think about, you know, how online safety and the vitriol that so many Black folks experience, that it’s almost become a norm. That they don’t see it as a safe space. We don’t talk about the folks that are leaving because of the systemic racism and violence that they experience.

00:00:26 Andrea

What about the experiences of Black women and gender-diverse people in digital spaces?

I’m Andrea Gunraj from the Canadian Women’s Foundation.

Welcome to Alright, Now What? a podcast from the Canadian Women’s Foundation. We put an intersectional feminist lens on stories that make you wonder, “why is this still happening?” We explore systemic routes and strategies for change that will move us closer to the goal of gender justice.

The work of the Canadian Women’s Foundation and our partners takes place on traditional First Nations, Métis and Inuit territories. We are grateful for the opportunity to meet and work on this land. However, we recognize that land acknowledgements are not enough. We need to pursue truth, reconciliation, decolonization, and allyship in an ongoing effort to make right with all our relations.

00:01:21 Andrea

Whether you’re on social media, streaming platforms, dating, messaging or meeting apps, or on game sites, if you are a woman, girl or Two Spirit, trans or non-binary person, you are at greater risk of hate, harassment and violence.

Misogynoir, a term coined by Dr. Moya Bailey, describes a distinctive form of anti-Black sexism faced by Black women. We’ve explored it in previous episodes – how does it show up in digital spaces? The data available paints a distressing picture. UK AND U.S. data shows that racialized women are 34% more likely to be mentioned in abusive or problematic tweets than white women, and Black women are especially targeted. They are 84% more likely than white women to be mentioned in these tweets.

In Canada, 44% of women and gender diverse people aged 16 to 30 have been personally targeted by hate speech online. Those most likely to be targeted include Black women and gender-diverse people.

Over coming episodes, we’re delving into gendered digital hate and harassment with leading experts and content creators, releasing in-depth episodes every single week. We talk about the problem and what we can do to change it. We offer practical tips to help you in your digital life, and we talk about what it means to take back the tech for all of us.

Our guest Yamikani Msosa helps us understand these experiences so often under recognized in research. Yamikani is a Black, neurodivergent, non-binary, award-winning activist and cultural worker on the stolen traditional and ancestral homelands of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation people. They are Executive Director at the Ottawa Coalition To End Violence Against Women. They co-chair the Advisory for Advancing Gender Equity for Black Women, Girls, and Gender Diverse Peoples in Canada Initiative and also founded SEEDS Yoga for Survivors.

A note about content: This episode addresses gender-based violence.

00:03:23 Yamikani

So my name is Yami, I use they/them pronouns and today I’m calling in from unseated unsuspended Algonquin Anishinaabe territory. I’m a visitor on these lands by way of forced migration, so my people are the Angoni and Zulu people of Southern Africa. They are people of the water and in many ways I carry a lot of that in my lineage. And then how I move through the day, reflecting that of fluidity and openness and life giving, but also, you know, engaging in some good trouble and some destruction of patriarchal, racist, white supremacist structure.

In my day-to-day job, I am the newly appointed executive director of the Ottawa Coalition To End Violence Against Women. The gender-based violence movement has been part of my feminist politicization for the last 15 years and I’m grateful to be of service to the movement in in good ways.

In terms of what’s bringing my heart joy, definitely plants and trees and the water. I’ve been super intentional of just spending time with the land and expressing gratitude because right now the land and Mother Earth is communicating quite loudly with us in terms of shifting what’s needed, in terms of the climate crisis and yeah, it’s been really bringing me joy to, like, hug trees, just be out in nature and find that grounding and listening to what Mother Earth has to say to me. So I know that sounds so like shi shi fru fru. But you know it is what it is, I am who I am so.

00:05:13 Andrea

What have you found in your research about Black women and gender diverse people in digital spaces?

00:05:18 Yamikani

You know I don’t necessarily see myself as a researcher. It’s not kind of the ministry or the paradigm that I operate from. I think much of what I’ve been engaged with is an exercise of deep listening and noticing within community and being part of the movement that historically has erased and forgotten intentionally through systemic violence, through epistemic violence, which I’ll talk about in a bit from the experiences of Black women, girls and non-binary folks.

There’s been an acute interest around the discourse of online hate and its connections to misogynoir as well as trans misogynoir, which are transparently, you know, on in here on Turtle Island, you know, here in Canada, they’re not conversations. And, you know, there’s very little research actually on the experiences of Black folks online, but yet we see the way that Black folks impact culture, digital culture online, profoundly means to the language that’s used, you know, in terms of AAVE or American, African American vernacular, and how that gets, like, co-opted online. But the violence that’s experienced by Black women, Black femmes and non-binary people is not part of the larger discourse and conversation around digital hate and online hate and so given my positionality, it’s been something that I’ve been really passionate about talking about and really highlighting the gaps that exist systemically, you know, within our feminist, gender-based violence movement.

00:07:05 Andrea

What are the underappreciated stories and experiences of Black women and gender-diverse people in digital spaces?

00:07:11 Yamikani

You know, when I think about the circulation of like when there is an experience of police brutality against Black women or Black femmes or non-binary folks and those stories are circulated without critical pause of the the level of violence, that the secondary violence that’s experienced in those images being seen as like a news story. And the impact that it has on community and I think that that’s something that has been articulated, has been noted, but you know the mental health impact of that is, is dire. And I think that’s why it’s so critical for us to consider online misogynoir as a public health issue.

I think about, you know, how online safety and the vitriol that so many Black folks experience that it’s almost become a norm that they don’t see it as a safe space. You know and there’s been tons of folks that do amazing resistance work in the gender-based violence movement that have completely removed themselves off the platform and we don’t talk about that. We don’t talk about the folks that are leaving because of the systemic racism and violence that they experience. But how it’s also the space of connection and how that gets taken away from folks.

I think about the ways in which young Black girls are being impacted by the images that they’re seeing online, what’s being reflected to them. There’s a study that was done in the UK and it looked at the US. at the UK and looked at misogynoir online. The most prevalent images, and they did a number of focus groups, and some of the most prevalent images that young Black girls were seeing were the tropes like the tropes that we often hear see around the angry Black woman, Black women being called ugly, Black women not being protected. We can think of Megan Thee Stallion. We can think of kind of those contemporary examples, the messaging of of dehumanization. While those stories are not necessarily like,like unheard, I think that the way that they land on the body, like we talk about embodiment when we’re scrolling, when we’re looking at all of this content, I think has a unique and unique experience on Black folks.

We need to take that not just intersectional lens, but nuanced lens within intersectionality.

00:09:49 Andrea

What are the health impacts of this misogynoir and trans misogynoir online?

00:09:54 Yamikani

I think that we need to be looking at this issue the same way that we look at overall, you know, gender-based violence and looking at the social determinants of how the impacts on mental health, the impacts on physical safety. While I can’t speak to every individual experience because of someone that exists in a body that you know identify as non-binary, my experience is going to be very different than that of a Black trans woman, in which we know that Black trans women are not only targeted in person, but also online as well. Even in death, even in the ways in which femicide happens.

You know, when I think about the impact on the body, it’s the heightened sense of and its connection to to social determinants of health and and the ways in which violence just operates on a day-to-day basis, I think about the lack of safety, the literal lack of safety, the disconnection from community, not knowing how to trust folks, like the anxiety, like I can’t tell you how many of community members that have engaged with that have talked about the heightened sense of unsafety, and even going outside and even going to community events because they don’t know, you know, what’s going to happen. And they don’t know if they’re going to be attacked. Whether or not that is a reality or a perceived sense of fear, I think it speaks to the impact of the violence that’s experienced online, there isn’t that digital divide that you know of in person and online anymore. And we know that, that’s not new. It’s critical for not just frontline workers, and not just folks that are interested in these issues, but like everyday citizens to recognize the material impacts on the body that contributes to it’s like the way that anti-Black racism operates within the health system, right? Like these have impacts on our body is, you know, how do you explain to your doctor like I’m having anxiety because of online? And what does that look like and what is the cultural competence around accessing, you know, support if you can even get a doctor that won’t be problematically racist or counselor as well. And also linking it to the ways in which systems can respond to support survivors and how that capacity building needs to happen.

Because there’s not a lot of research, there’s a trickle effect in terms of service provision on all fronts. Just as we look at the symptoms of it on survivors and those who are impacted by digital hate, how do we also look at the systemic responses that support that knowing that there’s not a lot of research on it, but that this is a key issue and a key indicator of the way that folks are experiencing gender-based violence online.

There is a push within the feminist movement to really reform the way in which tech companies respond to digital hate and online misogynoir, you know, whether it’s having policies or practices or not using that like lens of, oh, it’s an afterthought in terms of the violence that folks experience online. But we need to be able to connect that to other systemic responses that are anti-carceral. It’s not about creating additional punitive measures that are just going to criminalize survivors who do come forward in other ways.

00:13:15 Andrea

What are some systemic solutions you’d like to see when it comes to ending online misogyny more?

00:13:21 Yamikani

When it comes to philanthropic institutions that are looking to fund this work, whether it’s Public Health Canada or whether it’s CWF or other philanthropic institutions, there needs to be a key indicator that looks at anti-Black racism and misogynoir when looking at prevention methods and looking at online digital hate. That’s point #1. What are the, how are we funding the work and how are we funding the people that are doing this work?

Government has a responsibility in that as well to look at taking a public health approach to talk a bit about this earlier, but taking a public health approach to gender-based violence and online misogynoir. I think that the overall feminist movement, and it doesn’t, you know, I I wanna be very conscious when I say that because I know that there’s been frontline workers and and some of whom are my mentors. who have been engaged deeply because you know online hate towards Black women is not new. When the Internet was created like the 90s, you know that’s what we’re talking about, we saw the impacts of misogynoir while it wasn’t named as that at that time. Which I also wanted specifically named that misogynoir as a term that was coined by Moya Bailey in the early 2000s to look at the ways in which Black women, trans and the non-binary folks experience the unique realities around hatred towards Black women and violence towards Black women and and non-binary folks.

When we’re talking about prevention, the digital divide cannot exist.

You know I know that we’ve moved into discourses where we don’t take a one size fits all model, but we need to move beyond just talking about intersectionality. We really need to get nuanced in our prevention methods, in our community methods, in our community public education methods around how we talk about these issues.

I briefly touched upon this earlier, but also within tech companies, making misogynoir an afterthought, being really strategic of the creation of online safety policies and practices that respond to the unique needs of Black folks online, because as we are in an age of disinformation and in strategic, the co optation of movements, when we even think about that, and and the ways in which the language around wokeness, the language, like it’s Black women, it’s Black folks who have come up. The targets are it’s it’s like a clear line rather than like this ambiguous rooted line. The violence towards even the ideologies that are our own, that then get co-opted and used against us. Tech companies have a role.

The other kind of solution that I wanted to talk about is one that I haven’t seen engaged with quite a bit, but it’s something that, you know our members have brought to my attention- the ways in which when folks who are doing this work, the safety mechanisms for them. So I think about Black public educators that are experiencing unique violence online, as they’re trying to talk about the issues of misogynoir. So what are the mechanisms around like decent work that we need to be thinking about?

Continued engagement and understand I’m not just talking about like academic research, but continuous engagement around the discourse of these issues is key and should be at the forefront rather than an afterthought. The playbook against trans women online like that, we can learn a lot from the violence that’s experienced, which is like a difficult thing to even say in itself because it’s like we can learn from and we need to interrogate that in itself and I think it’s critical that we we center those who are impacted and who often don’t occupy positions of power even within our movements, to learn what are their experiences and how can we bridge those gaps in terms of solutions.

00:17:17 Andrea

And how about individual users in digital spaces, what safety tips and tools would you recommend for them?

00:17:23 Yamikani

Individual folks that maybe listening and thinking like OK, thank you, Yami, for all of those systemic underpinnings and solutions that you have shared. And I am one person and I need it safety and the here and now what are some things that you can suggest because I’m isolated and I may not know who talk to. Because logging off is not always the solution. What are the the cultures of care that you want to cultivate for yourself? Your online experience? It’s it’s not necessarily about creating a safety plan, but engaging in ways that are generative for you.

You know I think about the NAP ministry online and the messages that Tricia Hersey has to offer us around rest is resistance. Also, the reminders that she offers us around the ways in which misogynoir and taking care of ourselves, so she has a whole plethora of resources and practices that, if you’re not familiar with, I encourage you it’s something that I use in myself for myself, because she is often at the crux of that online hate and and misogynoir where she gets vitriol. Those experiences lend itself to everyday folks that are online and the things that we witness. You know, having an accountability buddy, you know, to be able to connect with with the things that you’re seeing online, someone to connect with to just shoot the gosh damn ****. You know, and be like, Can you believe this?

We do not exist in vacuums of individualism. As Black folks, we’ve always existed in, in, in, in spaces of community. And so leaning into that online and offline.

Digital surveillance for survivors and and I’m just kind of pivoting now, being able to engage in ways that will make you feel safe. So whether it’s consistently changing your passwords, whether it’s you know the thing, Andrea I’m really struggling with is like not not victim blaming, right? Like not being like, do these things to keep yourself safe, that’s the kind of tension you’re hearing me work out in real time.

And I think it can be helpful for some folks to know like, alright, I should be changing my password because I don’t know who has access to it, right? Like maybe you know, posting stuff in real time isn’t a good option because you know, I know that someone is potentially surveillancing me and it doesn’t feel safe for me to do so when I have the agency and can do that as part of what I need to do to keep myself safe, you know, alright, I can tell people not to post **** of me online. Those consent-based practices with our, with our people, those are some things that I think on an individual level can can support survivors is taking the agency of what you do want and what you don’t want. And and how you want to engage with these tools because that’s what they are, tools.

00:20:30 Andrea

Alright, now what?

As Yami recommends, do check out Tricia Hersey’s resources at triciahersey.com and on social media at The NAP Ministry. Get the facts on gendered digital hate, harassment and abuse by visiting our fact page on canadianwomen.org.

While you’re there, read about our new Feminist Creator Prize to uplift feminist digital creators advocating for gender justice, safety, and freedom from harm.

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The series of podcast episodes has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada.

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