Witty divas, nice mothers and tough girls in a sexist world: experiences and strategies of female influencers in online political debates
Abstrakt
The aim of the paper is to explain the reasons behind the persisting gender gap in online political communication by examining the experience of women who are among the most visible and active participants in the online discussions on political issues. Despite the fact that current research stresses that the significance of gender differences in political participation in traditional Western democracies as well as in the Central and East European countries is growing weaker (Vráblíková, 2009; Vesnic-Alujevic, 2012; Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2009), the author together with her colleagues revealed in their previous research that men are much more active participants in online discussions on political issues in the Czech Republic than women (Vochocová et al., 2016).
Building upon these findings, the paper focuses on possible reasons behind the striking difference in e-expression between Czech women and men. Adopting a qualitative approach, the study explores the experiences of a selected group of women who are among the most active SNS users in the Czech Republic.
Data gathered through in-depth interviews reveal that women employ specific strategies to succeed in this environment and to deal with sexist ad hominem assaults - they either emphasize qualities traditionally considered feminine and act as 'witty divas' or 'nice mothers', or accommodate to the masculine character of the environment by adopting a 'tough approach'. Some of them even experiment with masculine profiles.
These strategies seem to reproduce the traditional patriarchal binary frame and show that even influential women strategically subordinate themselves to the rules of the male-dominated participatory sphere.