This paper will explicate perceptions of minoritized women’s safety and women’s exposure on
digital platforms and how this translates into ‘self-imposed’ censorship or risk-taking
practices. Risk shall be looked at through the impact of online misogyny not just on
the individual, but also through social costs on families and proximate communities in authoritarian regimes.
This paper is based on a study based on qualitative and ethnographic interviews with Muslim women and activists who experienced technology mediated sexual violence and who have been at the forefront of protests organized online and offline. How does
‘trolling’ help us understand the kinds of risks that politically active women take?
How does online abuse and misogyny affect the way politically active women are
perceived by their families and immediate communities? What are the perceptions of risk vis-à-vis the community and women themselves? This paper shall then offer to look at how a relationship is constructed between an ethics of care and risk-taking behaviour that is mediated by the digital. This focus on the transference of ‘risk’ - from being risky for the woman to being risky for the community - will be taken from feminist standpoint theory that uses intersectionality to understand the different kinds of ‘patriarchal bargains’ that women have to strategize in their everyday lives.
