Introduction

Summary

Women have had enough. They have been trained to minimise men's harassment and intrusions into their daily lives. They have become accustomed to brushing off experiences that leave them feeling disturbed, uncomfortable and fearful for their or others’ safety. They have become habituated to being alert to the conduct of others, just in case: the stranger acting oddly on the train, the group of lads looking over, the man hanging around the shopping centre.

This is such an everyday aspect of life for so many that it has become taken for granted, almost unnoticed that women do this ‘safety work’ – managing their behaviour, routines, interactions, visibility and conduct in online and offline spaces – all to minimise the threat of men's intrusions and abusive practices (Vera-Gray, 2016; Vera-Gray and Kelly, 2020). But now, more and more women are challenging men's harassment and intrusions, and are seeking education, prevention and redress.

These challenges are now turning to the common practice of cyberflashing – where a man sends an unsolicited penis image to another, commonly a woman. Women experience it on the train, in the supermarket, queueing for coffee and in their everyday interactions online. For many this intrusion is an annoyance, an irritation, but perhaps something they should simply ‘shrug off’. But the significance and impacts of cyberflashing must not be minimised. It can also be experienced as violating, deeply disturbing and threatening: Why would someone send this? Who are they? What might happen next?

Recognising women's experiences

Many women with these experiences of cyberflashing have spoken out and are demanding change. In developing our analysis of the nature, extent and harms of cyberflashing, we draw on these publicly available testimonies. These testimonies have been shared in many different media outlets, and we use examples and case studies from the UK, Ireland, the US, Canada, Australia and Singapore, exemplifying the international nature of this problem. This does not mean these are countries where online abuse and cyberflashing is more prevalent, but our study is limited to accessible English language material. This pool of public testimonies is sizeable; for example, 70 women shared their experiences with journalist Sophie Gallagher (Gallagher, 2019a). When engaging with these testimonies, we use the women's names as they appear in the media.