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Sarai Sepulveda

Professor McCann

English 1301.127

10 November 2021

One Step Behind

The woman, as history has taught, is an uncontrollable force that endures the exhausting

states of merely existing and fighting among a world where certain individuals carry the absurd

notion that they can, in fact, command a woman. To control is to assert every aspect that

dominance owns, a power that no being is yet to acquire. Therefore, when control fails the

female-hating ego falls onto the action of influencing. Now, this is a technique that society has

mastered over time, in which the female cannot simply “be” without receiving criticism and thus

altering the opinions of others. Every glance, lift of the finger, and even breath will not continue

unless it is stripped apart and put under a microscope by someone who is determined to find a

flaw. Today, the best place one can take their critiques knowing that they will be heard is social

media, home of unnecessary comments. Sue Ann Barratt’s “Reinforcing Sexism and Misogyny:

Social Media, Symbolic Violence and the Construction of Femininity-as-Fail," demonstrates the

way verbally aggressive comments on two cases where private pictures of Caribbean women that

were exposed to the public can influence sexism and misogyny. She argues that these comments

are forms of symbolic violence that directly target the concept of femininity-as-fail within

Caribbean women. Barratt delivers an effective argument on the increase in sexism and

misogyny through social media by means of citing trustworthy sources to build her credibility,

presenting sensitive cases that appeal to the audience’s inner emotions, and providing charts and

quotes on the social media comments that were made on the cases.
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It takes a reliable source to know a reliable source, a fact that Barratt shows throughout

her crediting of sources such as Pierre Bourdieu and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham to establish

her own authority as the author. As Barratt dives into her argument, she begins to discuss some

terms and ideas that the average reader is unfamiliar with. For instance, symbolic violence and

respectability politics are two of the various phrases she introduces to her audience while

delivering her argument. It is in the audience’s nature to simply recognize the term as “difficult

words” and move on rather than to actually take the time to research them, but Barratt saves time

by mentioning who she obtained these terms from and explaining their meanings. To illustrate, “I

use Pierre Bourdieu’s symbolic violence...according to Bourdieu, [symbolic violence] operates

as a cognitive process, invisible but tangible and experienced in its effects, and thus I see it as a

most useful conceptualization of how online feedback forums manifest gender based violence”

(Barratt 17). Not only does she provide credit to her source and a definition of symbolic

violence, but Barratt also finds a way to tie it back to her initial argument, reminding readers

how this new piece of information remains relevant to the issue. As Barratt continues discussing

her argument, she brings up the values of feminine identity and worth that are often found in the

Caribbean. She writes, “These notions are steeped in a discourse of respectability politics, a

concept first discussed by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham… (18). At the mention of this notable

name, readers are either able to observe how Barratt’s information is true or solely recognize that

Barratt cited a source that still establishes her credibility. Sue Ann Barratt solidifies her argument

and appeals to her own good character as she specifies the sources from which she got her

information and how they relate to her topic. 

         In addition, Sue Ann Barratt gets in touch with her audience’s personal feelings and

emotions as she details the events of the two controversial cases that took over the Caribbean by
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placing her readers in a situation that requires them to develop individual opinions. The first case

that is brought up is taken from newspaper and television coverage, once again adding to her

ethos appeals, where she explains the affairs of Therese Ho and her former boyfriend who

nonconsensually spread private images of her. “Their relationship was branded an affair, with

heated debate, especially in the online feedback forum, focused on who was the bigger

wrongdoer in their shared infidelity,” (20) is one of the sentences Barratt writes, engaging her

audience in a case they are not even involved in. The words “affair,” “heated,” and “infidelity”

evoke feelings of scandal and mystery that push the reader towards the cliffs of curiosity where

diving into unknown matters becomes the most tempting option. As readers latch on to the

riveting details of the case, Barratt continues by presenting the following case where a similar

situation occurred but at a much different magnitude. The author writes, “The details of the case

were that hundreds of photos containing images of young women and girls nude or partially

clothed and, in some cases, engaged in intimate acts, were leaked by employees of a cyber café,”

(Barratt 20) taking a more careful approach to a more careful situation. Barratt once again works

with the dehumanizing nature of the case to entice readers and by way of her own subtle

comments, she nudges the audience towards her argument’s direction once she gets into the

social media commentary made on the cases. Sue Ann Barratt’s intricacy in portraying the

intensity of these cases that took place in the Caribbean sears through the words on the article

and into the readers’ sentiments.

The beauty of gossiping often lies in the particular feature that is its secrecy; however,

when it is willingly plastered onto the social media forums of news coverage sites, that concept

of confidentiality is traded with the intent to wound. In Barratt’s argument, she claims that the

comments the public made under the two cases where Caribbean women were involuntarily put
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on display, strongly influence the prejudice and discrimination against women. As if the verbal

aggression could not get any more brutal, upon collecting the comments there began to be some

variation in the type of insults. About eleven kinds of speech acts were made in these news

forums ranging from comments that blame the victim to critiquing other commenters. Each case

held its set of comments that were then categorized into pie charts that illustrated the different

percentages of each type of comment. In the first case, there were seven different types of

comments where the pie chart demonstrated that the majority was 61% of comments that were

blaming the victim and the minority were 1% requesting access to the photos (Barratt 21). For

the second case, there were eleven different kinds of comments that were also divided into a pie-

chart where the majority of comments were 31% on blaming the victim and the minority was a

tie of 3% between irrelevant comments and comments that were critiquing the media’s focus

(Barratt 22). These statistics serve as clear evidence to the audience that when it comes to cases

revolving around women being disrespected, they are not met with sympathy. Barratt displays

that the already existing problems of misogyny and sexism feed off of these types of comments

that take over the internet. Still, Barratt takes an extra step by providing some of the actual

comments that were made on each case. One of the comments on the first case remarks on

Therese Ho’s last name, “Her last name says it all,” followed by the types of speech acts and

verbal aggression that the comment falls under (Barratt 24). Labeled as prejudicial chastising and

a character attack, a comment on the second case says, “Like you said, they’re so stupid have no

morals value whatsoever and expect to get respect” (Barratt 25). These quotes are used as direct

proof of the demeaning remarks individuals make on the cases of Caribbean women who were

not at fault. Through the illustrations of pie charts that revealed the different types of comments

made on the cases and the quotations of the actual comments, Barratt successfully promotes the
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idea that symbolic violence is heavily reflected and thus reinforces misogyny and sexism in

society.

All in all, Sue Ann Barratt effectively argues her claim on the strengthening of misogyny

and sexism through the citing of credible sources, presenting emotional cases, and providing

evidence of comments on the cases to appeal to her audience's beliefs and sentiments. In

“Reinforcing Sexism and Misogyny: Social Media, Symbolic Violence and the Construction of

Femininity-as-Fail," Barratt discusses the issues of discrimination and prejudice towards women

by explaining the concepts of symbolic violence and femininity-as-fail, and how they apply to

cases of Caribbean women who were intimately exposed to the public. Social media is used as a

forum to publish comments on such matters that then go on to have an everlasting impact on the

life of a woman. It is one thing to bash a woman in person but to take it online where millions of

people can see and be influenced by similar statements is a cruel tactic that only causes harm.

The day in which a female is supported instead of attacked when placed in a certain situation is a

day that seems far ahead. Sadly, society is always one step behind. For now, the best is to assert

that the woman is real, the woman is human, and the woman breathes the exact same air as

everyone else.
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Work Cited

Barratt, Sue A. "Reinforcing Sexism and Misogyny: Social Media, Symbolic Violence and the

Construction of Femininity-as-Fail." Journal of International Women's Studies, vol. 19,

no. 3, 2018, pp. 16-31. ProQuest, https://tamiu.idm.oclc.org/login?

url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/reinforcing-sexism-misogyny-social-

media-symbolic/docview/2057939820/se-2?accountid=7081.