ABSTRACT
In the chapter “Volatile Visibility: How Online Harassment Makes Women Disappear,” the author theorizes “volatile visibility,” the correlation between a woman’s visibility online and the amount of harassment she experiences. To illustrate this concept in action, the author presents interviews with two women who have been negatively impacted by volatile visibility in both personal and professional ways. Each of these stories reveals what online harassment looks like for women on a day-to-day basis while exemplifying how online harassment works to maintain existing cultural boundaries that exclude women from public discourses. Therefore, the author argues that online harassment, in its influence on how we exist and interact online, effectually dampens women’s rhetorical influence and limits their opportunities for expression. This chapter, then, works to unmask the scope of harassment’s consequential and potentially irreversible impact on women and our digital public spheres.
