What is sexist hate?
Sexist hate against women, also referred to as misogyny, involves hateful comments or behaviour that are motivated by an underlying prejudice against anyone who identifies as a woman.
Sexist hate can involve anything from jokes that lean into harmful stereotypes about women (“get back in the kitchen”), to comments that undermine their talent or abilities (“women can’t play football”), to gendered slurs (“silly cow”), or remarks that talk about women in a sexualised way (“I’d rather see what’s underneath her football shirt”). It can also involve even more serious language involving violence or death threats.
Why is EE getting involved in this issue?
As a technology brand, EE is committed to tackling issues to make the online world safer for everyone. Sexist hate is one such issue that needs tackling: the sexist hate women receive online regularly makes news headlines and can be seen playing out on social media platforms.
To ensure we approached this issue in the right way, we collaborated with experts to bring our campaign to life. We worked closely with Professor Matt Williams of Cardiff University, a global expert on hate crime, and HateLab, a research and data entity who specialise in hate speech. At every step of the process our partners were on hand to advise and formed an integral part of campaign development.
Is sexist hate really such a big problem?
Globally, women receive on average 27 times more hate than men*, and Black women are 84% more likely to be mentioned in abusive tweets than white women.**
Many UK women recognise the importance of this issue: 66% of women believe that a greater understanding of misogyny in UK culture more broadly would benefit them, while 42% of women say that misogyny impacts their ability to express themselves.***
While we know sexist hate happens often, it is hard to quantify the exact amount of sexist hate women receive in real time. This is because hateful tweets often get deleted by social platform regulators before they can be recorded, and women regularly receive hate in their direct messages as opposed to public comments.
What does sexist hate have to do with the Women’s Euros?
Like many women in the public eye, the vast majority of our Home Nations footballers have received sexist hate from men in online comments, direct messages, and the real world. As a major Home Nations football sponsor, EE is committed to making sure sexist hate does not become a problem for our players during the tournament, as they deserve to focus on representing their country.
What do you mean when you say ‘sexist hate stops with men’?
Asking men to help tackle the problem is all about allyship. Allyship involves helping or supporting other people who are part of a group that is treated badly or unfairly. When it comes to tackling sexist hate, we want to turn men from bystanders to upstanders so women don’t have to fight this problem alone.
But isn’t that sexist against men? Surely men receive hate too? And women can spread it?
We recognise that men can and do receive certain types of hate – but in this instance the issue we are tackling is sexist hate against women. And often, sexist hate against women does come from men. 66% of the public believe that if men stopped directing hate and criticism at women online, the overall amount of online misogyny would greatly reduce.*
We know most men are not responsible for sexist hate. But all men can step up as allies alongside women so we can tackle sexist hate together.
*UN Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development. Cyber Violence against Women and Girls: A world-wide wake-up call (2015)
** Amnesty Troll Patrol Report 2018
***Source: all YouGov. Statistics exclude respondents who answered ‘Don’t Know.’
