Research Questions
The main question is:
How does the Facebook page of ACSVAW enhance women’s autonomy against sexual violence?
To be more specific, we have the following questions:
How do social media users conceive of women’s autonomy against sexual violence after reading the Facebook page?
How do the messages delivered on the Facebook page make an impact on the usual practice of victimization on women?
How does the enhancement of women’s autonomy break the traditional power relation between men and women?
Research Methods: What Worked and What Failed
One of the goals of our research project is to investigate whether social media is a good platform for sexual education and information to be delivered. With the qualitative method of interviewing, which was done on phone, through Snapchat (a trendy social media platform among teenagers nowadays) and face-to-face, we successfully collected some concrete and detailed opinions concerning its effectiveness as well as its difference from the traditional sexual education.
Moreover, sexual violence is a common issue and is always widely discussed. As a result, there were numerous choices of literature to review and all of them can be easily accessed. We definitely grasped a better and more in-depth understanding as the foundation of our research.
However, we also encountered some limitations. Firstly, the time is very short and limited. We had to discuss, make decisions, conduct interviews, analyze the information collected and present our thoughts in a-few-week times, while at the same time ensure the quality of our work. We noticed the urgency so we wanted to start as soon as possible but our anxiety just worsened the situation. We set our first research questions hastily, ended up wasting time to redo the proposal with a new topic and lagging behind.
Also, it was hard to find and meet suitable interviewees in such a hurry. Therefore, we failed to practice the random sampling method, which we thought of doing so at first in order to see Hong Kong people’s general level of knowledge about social media sites that deliver sexual education online.
Secondly, the filming with Anson, the girl who experienced sexual violence, was not as easy as expected. She felt embarrassed to share her experiences at first as she did not know some of our group mates at all, and it was rude for us to keep on asking her to talk about her experiences when she was not comfortable to do so. So we spent time hesitating and thinking of ways to continue with the interview. Luckily, we eventually succeeded by chitchatting with her at the beginning instead of directly requesting her to share her stories and thoughts. It is actually a skill required for interviewing people that we should start on chatting something casual to let the interviewee feel more secure and relaxed.
Interview Subjects
In this project, we have interviewed three parties.
The first one is the staff of ACSVAW. A message was dropped to their Facebook page, asking questions regarding sexual violence. The administrator, Irene, replied and firstly told us their vision and mission. They realized that the majority of victims of sexual violence is women, so they hope to combat sexual violence against women through the promotion of gender equality, calling for a balanced power relation between men and women.
Moreover, they observed that social media platforms (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, etc.) are extremely popular nowadays, which gradually become an essential tool of information exchange and instant communication. Therefore, they set up the Facebook page, which is now one of their most frequently used channels to deliver information. Unlike making video clips, operating Facebook pages is less costly. It is also a more effective promoting method, which enables them to reach more people, comparing to the traditional ones like publishing posters and distributing leaflets. As a result, there are always victims of sexual violence seeking help from them through the page, and they have a counseling team to deal with these cases.
On the other hand, ACSVAW hopes to raise public awareness, especially women’s, towards their bodies, that sexuality issues are no longer taboo in Hong Kong and people freely discuss sexual violence.
Also, they discovered their followers (and people who left comments) are generally 20 to 30-year-old female, which is exactly their target audience. They hope to advocate the idea of female autonomy by organizing programs and activities, aiming to educate the female to be confident of themselves.
Last but not least, they wish to remind the public about their responsibility, as everyone could be an eyewitness of a sexual violence incident.
The second interviewee is Anson, a year 1 student from the University of Hong Kong. She was being flirted by strangers for several times, yet did not seek help from anyone as she thought her experiences were trivial.
Originally, she shouldered the responsibility of being sexual harassed, as she blamed herself for not being aware of the surroundings and dressing ‘sexily’. She thought Hong Kong is a patriarchal society with the mediated portrayal of dominating men and deprived women. For example, sex education at school usually emphasizes on dressing ‘properly’ to self-protect.
However, after reading the Facebook page of ACSVAW, especially information about the ‘Slutwalk’ activity and posts like ‘My body! My choice!’, she noticed that women indeed have their bodily integrity and autonomy, and realized her rights and freedom to make decisions.
In her opinion, ACSVAW could definitely help empowering women by holding campaigns, giving relevant sex education and information to the public.
The third interviewee is Winnie, a Science student from the Chinese University of Hong Kong without any sexual violence experience. Initially, she thought men’s violent acts are merely caused by biological and psychological factors and believed offenders are usually with mental illness, with the sexual impulsion driven from young, attractive and provocatively dressed girls.
However, after reading the information on the Facebook page of ACSVAW, she realized that indeed everybody could help fighting against sexual violence, simply by being an active bystander. She said she would definitely help the victims without any hesitation if she witnessed such incidents. She also has hope towards gender equality and wishes to see an improvement in women’s social status.
Content analysis and observation of social media sites
ACSVAW made use of their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ACSVAW/) to raise public awareness towards sexual violence against women from different perspectives.
The first one is campaign promotions. The most recent campaign on the page is ‘#RealMenHK - Be An Active Bystander’ (旁觀者清出手者型). It is said that if all the bystanders (or witnesses) are willing to intervene and stop incidents of sexual violence, or even lend a helping hand to the victims, such incidents can be reduced by 44%.
To promote this campaign, ACSVAW is currently posting a photo a day on the page. There are in total 16 photos of 16 famous men, including professors, singers, actors, sportsmen, etc., holding their drawings that ask people to stop sexual violence. Some of them also recorded a video to call for actions. ACSVAW made use of the celebrity effect to catch public’s attention. The fame of stars is definitely an effective tool to attract more people, and that they tend to be more willing to know about or even follow the news of this campaign.
The strategy of posting images and videos is also the key to attract social media users. As there are an infinite number of posts and updates on Facebook every day, users usually scan through their news feed. Therefore, ACSVAW’s promoting style of posting pictures and videos, as well as keeping the captions short, certainly makes their campaigns stand out. Also, the use of ‘hashtags’ (e.g. #RealManHK, #SlutWalk, #EndSexualViolence), usually at the end of their captions, allows people to easily access more information simply by a click.
The second one is the discussion on current affairs. For instance, there is a post titled as ‘Too lenient judgment: A criminal with three sexual harassment accusations is only punished to complete 240 hours of community service orders because of his “success” and profession’ (「成功人士」的240小時社會服務令), and another one titled as ‘Object setting up “Women Only” Cars on the MTR’ (反對增設「女性專用車廂」). Surprisingly, apart from the local news, the page also talks about international issues concerning sexual violence. For example, there is a post titled as ‘I object in negation of raping as a sexual violence crime in Turkey’ (反對土耳其否定「強姦是一種性暴力罪行」).
All these posts are very critical that help ACSVAW voices out their opinions, from the intention to fight for women’s rights and body autonomy, clearly and argumentatively. The topics are also closely related to our daily lives, but many of us may not be aware of them. Take the post concerning ‘Women Only’ Cars as an example, ACSVAW states that such facilities are not as good as it seemed to be. Instead, it switches the responsibility and casts the blame on women if they are sexual harassed when they are not taking the special cabinet so that ACSVAW strongly opposes it.
Their posts are also open for discussions. Social media users can freely leave a comment below the posts and express their opinions as well. As observed, some users said the post of ‘Women Only’ Cars inspired them, as they did not think of such disadvantages, while some users thought that these facilities could eliminate women’s embarrassment when they take public transportations, as passengers on trains are always extremely packed during peak hours in Hong Kong. The page administrator also responded to their comments actively.
The third one is direct sexual education. Both the ways used and content given by ACSVAW on the Facebook page are quite different from those of traditional sexual education. For example, instead of asking the female to protect herself, ACSVAW gets to the root of the problem of sexual violence. There are slogans like ‘Do not teach me how to dress up, ask people not to rape us instead’ (「唔好教我點著衫，教下啲人咪強姦」); as well as passage titled as ‘There is no need to avoid being the next victim, instead, avoid being the violence offender’ (「不要成為下一個受害者？避免成為侵犯者！」)
As showed above, they use eye-catching and straight vocabularies to educate the public; at the same time, it shows that discussions about sexual violence are never taboo or shameful. ACSVAW strongly encourage people to share their experiences, and if victims find it too public to write them on the page, private messages are always welcomed at any time.
Conclusion: Research Outcomes and Ethical Observation
In order to investigate how the Facebook page enhances women’s autonomy against sexual violence, literature review, interviews, and content analysis are conducted. It is found that the sexual information delivered on the Facebook page of ACSVAW is widely discussed among the social media users. The sexual information and education given by ACSVAW induce the users to have a broader imagination on sexuality. They are also open to more perspectives (i.e. feminist) of sexual violence, for example, women’s outfits should not be a reason for them to be sexually assaulted and blamed. The page shares information to educate the public and it breaks the myths regarding sexual violence and accusations on women. As a result, it reduces the victimization of women and enhances women’s autonomy.
Besides, there are some ethical issues concerning this research project. Firstly, we notice that getting interviewees’ consent before conducting interviews is crucial. For example, when we sent a text message to the administrator of the page of ACSVAW, she asked us to firstly give her a call and briefly present our research project to her, instead of directly answering our questions. Also, although we did not ask our interviewees to sign the consent, we told them our purpose of the study, procedures, and possible risks to ensure their full understanding of our research project. Moreover, as some may not want to disclose their identity, anonymity and confidentiality should be preserved that we only reveal their English name and the school they are studying at. The video recorded and the content of conversation could only be used for academic purpose.
Secondly, it may cause potential harms to interviewees. For instance, when we asked our second interviewee, Anson, to recall her memories of being sexually violated and describe them in front of the camera, she might feel uncomfortable and embarrassed. Thus, we should provide her a comfortable environment when conducting the interview, i.e. pleasant tone, and pausing when necessary.