Unlocked Doors: Privacy and Abuse in an Age of Digital Permanence
This is an op-ed written in 2013
Earlier this year, at least a dozen underaged girls were targeted on a Facebook page titled “Teenage Brazzers.” The girls featured were obviously young, and their pictures were cropped in ways that accentuated their bodies, and a pornographic website logo was watermarked on the corners. These girls were also students of Baraboo High School, my alma mater. The descriptions under the photos said things like “Such a slut” and “Wants the D.” The page sparked much discussion on a separate page called “The Baraboo Views,” run by an anonymous group who ask opinions about happenings in the city. The sudden flow of traffic to this page led to many reports to Facebook of its inappropriateness and was taken down about fifteen minutes after the uproar.
This incident must be considered a red flag to the administration, parents, teachers, and students. Girls from BHS were consciously victimized, objectified, and exploited by their classmates. There was a systematic plan to inflict pain and shame onto these young teenagers. All players listed above must be expected to acknowledge and address this overt manifestation of sexism. They each have a responsibility to enforce and foster an environment where women are supported, respected, and validated. Interventional efforts and educational programs about sexual harassment, sexism, and cyber-bullying are essential to raising awareness and sparking change. In a country where a person is sexually assaulted every two minutes (according to RAINN), it is incredibly negligent not to act. This problem lies not only in the perpetrators of the page, but as much (if not more) in the reactions and discussion surrounding the page. Instead of reactions of disgust towards the misogynist comments made about the girls featured, commenters attacked the victims. Slut-shaming is a pervasive attitude that strips the humanity from victims of sexual assault.
To help understand this, let us turn our attention to the Steubenville case that occurred earlier this year where a girl was raped at a party while the perpetrators and bystanders took photographs and videos in which they laughed and joked about the incident. When the accusations were made, Jane Doe was victimized further, blamed for dressing “provocatively,” leading the perpetrators on, accused of being “easy,” and other shaming terms. Much of this attitude stems from the pervasive rape culture that America fosters through representations of masculinity (a vastly important topic which won’t be unpacked in this piece for the sake of space and focus) and the sexualization of women. Jackson Katz, a prominent activist and educator in confronting gender violence and men’s role in resolution, suggests that if we are “interested in the question not only of how thousands of average guys become rapists, but how millions of men (and women) develop rape-supportive attitudes, it is important to examine the media culture in which young people understand and construct their lives.”
The Facebook page created by students from BHS plays a huge role in the aforementioned rape culture that is growing more permissable as movies, television, and news outlets normalize gender violence and even defend rapists. In film, for example, rapists are most often depicted as complete strangers hiding in bushes, waiting for their moment to attack an unsuspecting passerby. In reality, 2/3 of assaults are committed by a person the victim knows (RAINN). This gross misrepresentation of rapists has fostered a society where rape victims are mistrusted when they accuse acquaintances, and rapists are “let off the hook.” In the case of Steubenville, multiple news outlets were grossly sympathetic to the boys whose “lives had been ruined” by the guilty verdict rather than to the girl who was traumatized and stripped of agency because of the actions of others.
In this age of widespread technology where information is shared and stored instantly, it is important to expand our academia to include implications resulting from a society where sexualization is simultaneously celebrated and chastised. This tension between being sexy but not “slutty,” sexual but not “easy” and in the same breath, pure but not “prudish.” The messages being send to young adolescents about their worth is highly troubling, and I worry for the girls who were used as props for the enjoyment of others.
Critics will argue that once something has been uploaded into the cyber cloud, it is public property and can be used at will. That notion is incredibly problematic as it strips citizens of their right to privacy as well as assumes, again, that it is their fault they were abused because they gave someone the opportunity to abuse. This twisted logic silences women (and men) who are experiencing abuse. Another fault in the rationale is that while women and girls should be conscious of the implications that arise from posting pictures considered “racy” surrounding professionalism and employment (another arbitrary societal norm that requires much more exploration not available in this piece), choosing to post such things does not give others a right to those photos or to exploit and harass the subject of the photograph.
It is hugely important that schools are conscious of this epidemic and take great care to address it. I do not believe that this was an isolated incident of bullying at Baraboo High School, as bullying rates and child suicides are skyrocketing. As a BHS graduate and women’s rights advocate, it is important for me to ensure that women and girls in my alma mater are being heard, respected, and treated with dignity and trust. As a society, we must cease the habit of teaching girls to not post pictures of themselves that others could use in harmful way, but instead we must begin teaching boys not to use those pictures to exploit and sexualize the subjects of them. It is time for all people to begin finding their voice to stand up and speak out against the culture that has taught us to shame the victims of crimes rather than help them heal. We all have a role in this hyper-sexualized culture and therefore a power to reform it.
