Digital Gender-Sexual Violations
This groundbreaking book argues that the fundamental issues around how victim-survivors of digital gender-sexual violations (DGSVs) are abused can be understood in terms of gender and sexual dynamics, constructions, positioning and logics. The book builds upon Hall and Hearn's previous work, Revenge Pornography, but has been substantially reworked to examine other forms of DGSV such as upskirting and sexual deepfakes, as well as the latest research and debates in the field.
Facilitated by developments in internet and mobile technologies, the non-consensual posting of real or fake sexually explicit images of others for revenge, entertainment, homosocial status or political leverage has become a global phenomenon. Using discourse and thematic analytical approaches, this text examines digital, survey and interview data on gendered sexual violences, abuses, and violations. The words of both the perpetrators and victim-survivors are presented, showing the impact on victim-survivors and the complex ways in which phallocentric power relations and existing hegemonic masculinities are reinforced and invoked by perpetrators to position girls and women as gendered and sexualised commodities to be traded, admired, violated or abused for the needs of individual men or groups of men.
Hall, Hearn and Lewis explore their research in a broader social and political context, evaluating and suggesting changes to existing legislative frameworks, education, victim support, and practical and policy interventions against DGSV, along with wider political considerations. This is a unique resource for students, academics and researchers as well as professionals dealing with issues around digital gender-sexual violations.
Matthew Hall is Associate Professor at the British University in Egypt and Editor at the Journal of Gender Studies. As an interdisciplinary scholar he has published in areas as diverse as health; new, mediated and cyberspace identities; cognitive enhancement; body modification; disability; and image consciousness. Since 2017 his research has largely focused on digital gender-sexual violations.
Jeff Hearn is Professor of Sociology, University of Huddersfield, UK; Professor Emeritus, Hanken School of Economics, Finland; and Senior Professor, Human Geography, Örebro University, Sweden. He has worked on sexuality and violence for over 40 years, and on digitalisation since the late 1990s. He is co-managing editor of the Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality book series.
Ruth Lewis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Sciences, Northumbria University, UK. Her research focuses on gender-based violence – particularly online and image-based abuse, GBV in universities, intimate partner violence, and lethal violence, as well as legal remedies – and feminist activism in response to these and other forms of misogyny.