Crime Media Culture
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© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1741659016652445
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Dick pics on blast: A woman’s
resistance to online sexual
harassment using humour,
art and Instagram
Laura Vitis
University of Liverpool, Singapore
Fairleigh Gilmour
University of Otago, New Zealand
Abstract
This article brings to attention and explores women’s use of non-traditional forms of resistance
to online sexual harassment. In this piece we use Anna Gensler’s Instagram art project
Instagranniepants to examine how women are appropriating the language and practices of the
cyber realm to expose online sexual harassment and to engender a creative resistance which is
critical, comedic and entertaining. Drawing from interdisciplinary literature on witnessing, satire
and shaming, we explore the techniques Gensler uses to not only document harassment but
also resist, engage and punish those who seek to perpetrate it. This article problematises the
stereotype of women as passive victims of online public spaces, and is critical of popular discourses
that portray online spaces as exclusively risky and that position women as the natural victims of
online violence. It concludes that a more nuanced account of women’s negotiation of online
spaces is necessary, particularly as an overarching narrative of risk and victimisation undermines
the liberatory potential of the online realm.
Keywords
Gendered violence, online sexual harassment, resistance, shaming, technologically facilitated
violence
Corresponding author:
Laura Vitis, Department of Criminology, University of Liverpool in Singapore, #03-02, 29B Tampines Avenue 1,
528694, Singapore.
Email: laura.vitis@liverpool.ac.uk
652445CMC 0 0 10.1177/1741659016652445Crime, Media, CultureVitis and Gilmour
research-article 2016
Article