Online Violence against Lesbian Women. An Exploratory Investigation on Facebook in Italy

Abstract

From an intersectional perspective, being women and lesbians can give rise to multiple discriminations and forms of violence that are distinct from those experienced by heterosexual women and girls or homosexual men. One form of verbal violence against lesbians consists of reactions on social media directed at women who have disclosed their homosexual orientation. In this essay, adopting a hermeneutic approach and leveraging concepts developed in Gender and Queer studies as well as in the Symbolic Interactionism framework, a corpus of comments from haters on Facebook is analyzed to shed light on the definitions, values, and stereotypes underlying these often offensive and/or threatening statements. For instance, the wish for a woman to be raped reveals that, in certain contexts, male sexual acts are an expression of possession and dominance (rather than desire). Moreover, in this case, rape emerges as a "punishment" for lesbian women, as they threaten a model of hegemonic masculinity. Gender differences in the symbolic universes that emerge from the interpretation of haters' comments are also illustrated. The stigma imposed by this and other “choruses” (Berger and Luckmann 1966) can cause significant distress, especially among young women. One way to counteract this entrenched ostracism could be to increase the number of lesbian women as role models (“significant others”) who promote and disseminate positive and serene images. However, in the long term, educating individuals from adolescence to avoid giving importance to sexual orientation when judging others represents the best form of prevention.