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Postcard from Zaharah: Women on net bullied extensively

WOMEN in public life, according to one research, experience more harassment, attacks and bullying online.

More often than not, these targeted and coordinated harassments are conducted to push these women out of the public space.

The report warns that unless action is taken against cyberbullying, "the year 2023 will be the year that women leave the Internet".

I find this whole scenario sad and disheartening.

Women cannot and must not be bullied to retreat to their own quiet corner by people who hide behind faked accounts and names, and by online media who feel that the long arm of the law cannot reach them.

This report brought to mind the cyberbullying of Dr Amalina Che Bakri, a surgical registrar and a clinical research fellow in breast cancer surgery at Imperial College here in London.

An influencer in her field of expertise, Dr Amalina shares her knowledge and experience, gaining her thousands of followers.

But as the Internet is a double- edged sword, she has also attracted as many haters and trolls bent on discrediting and criticising everything that she puts online.

To online media, her postings are fodder for their own content, with click bait to entice more readers.

"It would seem that I have been harassed online since forever," the Kijang Emas scholar, who graduated as a medical doctor from the University of Edinburgh in 2013, once lamented to me.

Yes, it is obviously so. Being in the public eye doesn't come with its risks.

From the time the student came to this country, to the present day as a doctor, a wife and a mother, her life had been put under a microscope to be examined by people who think they have a right to every move she makes.

When she shares her knowledge with her audience, whether about her research and findings or her experience as a new mother, not many people respond to the posts positively or intelligently to promote a discussion.

No, instead, behind fake names and accounts, they look at her dressing, her lifestyle and pick on trivial issues and bombard her with words too crude to repeat here.

As if that was not enough, some people have used her name to set up fake accounts to promote products.

While baseless accusations had been thrown at her, the feisty doctor refused to retreat and be muted by these critics.

She had taken criticisms bravely as a student, as a doctor and as a young wife and gave back as good as she got, but recently when they honed in on her baby, she had had enough.

Action must be taken.

While sharing her knowledge and experience, Dr Amalina offers to answer any question from her followers.

People, understandably, were curious and wanted to know about the pregnancy of this famous person they had followed as a student who scored numerous As.

They wanted to know about taboos or pantang aftercare after giving birth as someone residing in a Western country and married to a Western man.

Obviously her experiences were going to be different and she shared them.

However, her answers, instead of being accepted as the experience of someone of knowledge, brought a barrage of criticism that bordered on the ridiculous and even obscene.

Sadly, that was the case when she gave her views about female circumcision, which is legally wrong in the west.

Her views on this subject were deemed a topic worth reporting by online media, and inevitably followed by insults with lewd words from readers hiding behind fake names.

I had worried about the route this was taking, but to Dr Amalina, the threat of a legal action was the only recourse.

One online media site had already issued an apology.

Being a public figure, an influencer, certainly has its pros and cons.

The same above report quoted a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) study that concluded that "from journalists to politicians to academics and beyond, basically any woman who has the temerity to express herself online, have often experienced this gendered disinformation in addition to the abuse".

The study of journalists found that 73 per cent of women they spoke to had experienced online violence, and 20 per cent said that they had experienced physical attacks or had been abused offline in connection with online abuse.

Sadly, these women had to exercise self-censorship and withdrew from online interactions, and avoided interacting with their audiences.

But why should they?

Women who could be sharing information and knowledge shouldn't have to kowtow to bullies.

It brings to mind another case of the Sufiah Yusof, the child math prodigy who made it to Oxford.

She was, sadly, another victim of cyberbullying.

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