Is Indian Social Media Space Misogynistic? A Study of Facebook Comments on Two Indian Female Film Artists Observations on Portraying Women in Cinema

1. Is Indian Social Media Space Misogynistic? A
Study of Facebook Comments on Two Indian
Female Film Artists Observations on
Portraying Women in Cinema
By
Vasantha Raju N.
Librarian
Govt. First Grade College-Talakad
vasanthrz@gmail.com
Paper Presented at the National Conference on “ Social Media for Digital and Social Inclusion: Cultural,
Technological and Economic Implications” on 19th February 2018 at the Centre for Study of Social Exclusion
and Inclusive Policy, University of Mysore, Mysore.

2. Presentation Layout
 Introduction
 Social Media Usage in India
 Social Media, Women Presence and Its Use
 Study of Facebook Comments on Two Indian female Artists
Observation on Portraying Women in Indian Cinema Are Revealing ?
 How Data Extraction Was Done Through Facebook for this Study?
 Statistics of Facebook User Comments for Parvathy and Swara
Bhaskar Posts
 Word Frequency Analysis for Identifying Misogynistic Nature of
Comments
 What the Study Results Are Revealing ?
 How Online Trolling and Bullying Can be Controlled in India?

3. • Social media now permeates almost every aspect of our lives.
• It has been now heavily used in almost all the field of human
endeavour
• Apart from social networking of individuals, in India also Social
Media Space is being heavily used for political campaign, social
activism, social good and has become the primary space for
speaking once own mind.
• There are 196 million social media users in India today which is
expected to reach 370 million by the end of 2022
Introduction

6. Social Media and Social Change
• Political Activism and Campaign
 2008 US Election Campaign
 2014 Indian Parliament Election ( The current Indian PM has the 25
million followers on his Facebook page, Barack Obama is the only other
politician to have more Facebook fan than Modi (NDTV, 2014)
 Arab Spring (Egyptian Revolution, Iranian and
Tunisian Revolution)

7. Social Media and Social Activism
 Occupy Wall Street campaign
1.4 million Likes and spread to other cities
 India Against Corruption
- 1.3 million likes
 Pink Chaddi Campaign
Went Viral
 Kiss of Love Protest

8. Social Media and Social Good
• Crowd Funding
- Lucia Film- Produced through Crowd Funding
( More than 100 investors contributed funds
through Facebook and a blog)
• Community Participation
– Change in policy and Law (#DelhiGangRape)
– Save the Internet Campaign (#SaveTheInternet)
– Stop Acid Attack Campaign (#StopAcidAttacks)
– - The Chennai Flood (#ChennaiRainHelp)

9. Social Media, Women Presence and Its Use
Access to online Spaces have enabled women to forge
friendships, relationship, form communities and voice
their resistance for regressive attitude of the society
towards them.
The global trend shows that women uses social media
sites more often than their male counterparts
The Pew Internet and America Life Project Study found
that 73% of women use at least one social media sites as
compared to male population which accounts for 65%

10. Social Media, Women Presence and Its Use
Conti…
The trend of social media use by women in India is
different compared to the developed world (i.e.,
America)
• “Digital in 2017” report published by Hootsuite and
We Are Social, social media companies found that
of the 191 million Facebook users in India, only
24% are female. Why Is it so?

11. Is under representation of women in social
media space similar to that of marginalization
of women in Indian Patriarchal society?
and
Are Excessive online trolling and bullying for
speaking their mind avoiding Indian women to
use social media space more?
Social Media, Women Presence and Its Use
Conti…

12. What the Study of Facebook Comments on Two
Indian female Artists Observation on
Portraying Women in Indian Cinema Are
Revealing ?
Are they Misogynistic?

13. Study of Two Indian Female Film Artists Facebook
Page and Comments they Received for Specific Posts
 Study of Parvathy, a leading
Malayalam Actress
Facebook Page- Comments
Received for the Post “WCC
special screening of
KASABA !!!!!”
 Study of Swara Bhaskar, a
Hindi Film Actress Facebook
Page- Comments Received
for the Post (Letter) “At the
end of your magnum opus- I
felt reduced to vagina-only

14. Parvathy’s Facebook Page and the Posts
Analyzed for kind of Comments it Received

15. Swara Bhaskar’s Facebook Page and the Posts
Analyzed for kind of Comments it Received

16. How Data Extraction Was Done Through
Facebook for this Study?
• An online data collection and extraction application was
used for collecting users comments through Facebook Page
of Parvathy and Swara Bhaskar.
• After Extracting the data- an Excel add ins called IQ Macros
2018 was used for Word Frequency Analysis to identify the
kind of words used most often to comment.
• Apart from word frequency analysis the study tried look at
the comments verbatim to draw the inferences

17. Statistics of Facebook User Comments for Parvathy
and Swara Bhaskar Posts
SL No Features Comments for
Parvathy Post
Comments for
Swara Bashkar Post
1 Likes Count 9985 2004
2 Comments Count 8141 619
3 Reaction Count 15098 2345
4 Share Count 284 268
5 Comments Retrieved 7398 581
6 Engagement Count 23523 3232
7 Comments Like Count 32951 1588

18. Word Frequency Analysis for Identifying
Misogynistic Nature of Comments on Facebook
Posts of Parvathy and Swara Bhaskar
To identify the misogynistic words , I have used the list of Misogynistic words compiled by Thalikar which is available in his personal
blog at : http://sacraparental.com/2016/05/14/everyday-misogyny-122-subtly-sexist-words-women/
I have also gone through the comments to identify the misogynistic nature of the comments and words used in it.

19. SL No Misogynistic Words Frequency of Words which are Misogynistic in
Tone Found in Parvathy Facebook Posts
Comments
1 Feminichi/Feminist/Feminichi/
Feministanegilum/Feminists 236
2 Hate/Hates 65
3 Liplock/Liploks/Liplok/Lips/Lipp 52
4 Hot 40
5 Cheap/Cheep 24
6 Rape/Raping/Rapist 24
7 Publicity 22
8 Intellectual/Intellectuals/Intellect 19
9 Stupid/Stupidity 16
10 Kiss/Kissing 14
11 Idiot/idiotic/Idiots 12
12 Fool/Foolish/Foolishness/Fools 11
13 Middle Finger/Mid Finger 10
14 Fake /Fakes Feminists 09
Word Frequency Analysis of the Comments-1

20. Word Frequency Analysis of the Comments-2
SL No Misogynistic Words Frequency of Words which are
Misogynistic in Tone Found in
Parvathy Facebook Posts Comments
15 Crap 08
16 Ego/Egocentric 05
17 Budhijeeeevi/Budhijeevi 04
18 Loooooooser/Losers 04
19 Filth/Filthier/Filthy 03
20 Hypocrisy/hypocrite/hypocritical 03
21 Bullshits/Bullshitts 02
25 Pseudointellectuals 01
26 Sluttish 01

21. SL No Misogynistic Words Frequency of Words which are
Misogynistic in Tone Found in Swara
Bhaskar Facebook Posts Comments
1 Vagina/Vaginal/Vaginas/Vaginous
/Vegina 95
2 Rape/Raped/Rapes 77
3 Feminism/FakeFeminism/Feminazi
/Feminist/Feminists 50
4 Publicity 27
5 Stupid/Stupidity 25
6 Cheap 24
7 Dumb/Dumbhead 11
8 Intellect/Intellects/Intellectual/Intell
ectualism 10
9 Fake 09
10 Harem 08
11 Disagree 06
Word Frequency Analysis of the Comments-3

22. SL No Misogynistic Words Frequency of Words which are Misogynistic
in Tone Found in Swara Bhaskar Facebook
Posts Comments
12 Brainless/Mindless 04
13 Cunt 04
14 Dick 04
15 Hypocrite 04
16 Crap 03
17 Fucking /Fucq 03
18 hypocrisy 03
19 Idiotic 03
20 Moron/Morons 03
21 Burnol 02
22 Filthy 02
23 Pervert 02
24 Pseudofeminism/Pseudofeminists 02
25 Slut 02
Word Frequency Analysis of the Comments-4

23. 26 Whore/Cheapwhore 02
27 Anti-men 01
28 Bootlickingforamovierole 01
29 Hypocrites 01
30 Intercourse 01
31 Pseudointellect 01
Word Frequency Analysis of the Comments-5

24. Few Example of the Kind of Comments Made
on the Respective Actress Facebook Posts

25. Few Example of the Kind of Comments Made on the
Respective Actress Facebook Posts
Conti…

26. Few Example of the Kind of Comments Made on the
Respective Actress Facebook Posts
Conti…

27. What This Study Revealed?
• The study found that misogynistic words like “cunt”, “dick”,
“cheap”, “whore” “middle finger”, “Rape” “slut” were
used to insult the actresses for speaking their mind.
• There are so many comments which are made on the
Facebook Page of the actresses were highly derogatory .
Most often belittling their modesty and dictating them to
shut up their mind
• The study shows that women irrespective of their social,
professional, economic status often subjected to online trolls
and bullying for having their own opinion

28. How Online Trolling and Bullying Can be Controlled
in India?
• Various Studies have found that existing Laws (IPC provisions and IT Act 2000
(Amended in 2008)) to Control Trolling and Bullying Women online were not
stringent enough so many activists concerned in this domain have recommended
to have separate laws on online trolling and bullying in India
• There is no proper awareness creative mechanism on cyber crime in India. There
is need to create awareness on cyber crime and existing laws on this issue
among the masses
• Need to train children and college students at the school and college level to the
nitty-gritty of using social media space in a positive way
• Establishing counselling centre for victims of online harassment

29. Thank You
?
Courtesy: OCLC