Women & Gender Abuse: Need To Build Circles Of Trust

Women are vulnerable to online security breaches, gendered abuse and sexual harassment. Whether it’s a troll or an eve-teaser, online or offline, women remain easy targets. The second panel discussion at SheThePeople.Tv's Safety Summit focused on women and the gender abuse they are subject to online.

The panel discussion saw Mahima Kaul, Public Policy head at Twitter, writer Nazia Erum and Ngurang Reena, Delhi University professor and activist. The panel was moderated by Kiran Manral, author and Ideas Editor at SheThePeople.Tv.

Psychology behind trolls

Psychologist Anita Mishra emphasized that there are psychological issues with people who troll others. In such a scenario, we need to be emotionally intelligent and take care of our expressions offline and online.

"We need to build circles of trust and solidarity to tackle the problem," - Kiran Manral

Bringing more women online to solve the problem

Writer Nazia Erum pointed out that it is time for us to draw a line between constructive feedback and trolling. She said that she often gets trolled for the politics of the religion she belongs to. She said that one way to tackle online gendered abuse is to bring more women online.

Get more women on social media. When women stand together, we can deal with trolls - @nazia_e at #SafetySummit pic.twitter.com/HP5a9CK1Xl

— SheThePeople (@SheThePeopleTV) August 28, 2018

Enforcing laws to tackle online abuse

Mahima Kaul, handling public policy at Twitter, said that they have lines drawn against sexual harassment on Twitter. She also specified that grave offenders are suspended from the platform if they don't comply with repeated warnings.

ALSO READ: How Rema Rajeshwari Tackled Fake Forwards Menace In Telengana

"We do policy programs and get interesting programs to talk to women in detail about safety issues online." - Mahima Kaul

We also need to take a step back and see how we can take stock of the health of conversations online and we are doing that @misskaul #SafetySummit uncomfortable conversations do lead to change pic.twitter.com/74FEx8Nmxr

— Shaili Chopra SHE THE PEOPLE (@shailichopra) August 28, 2018

Delhi University professor Ngurang Reena said that we must impart the right education to students and try to get to the root cause of the problem.