Abstract
This study argues that online discourse about female victims of sexual harassment contain stances and stereotypical assumptions that portray negative attitudes towards the victims. Using Martin and White’s Appraisal Theory aided by Lazar’s Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis, it analyses the attitudes and opinions of Nigerian online participants about the victims, and discusses the ideological perceptions about them in order to explicate the nature of discursivity and stance-taking in online discussions on sexual harassment cases in Nigerian Universities. The data comprise 500 readers’ comments on online narrations about sexual harassment in five Nigerian universities downloaded from Nairaland.com . Findings reveal the use of negative affect and judgement expressed towards victims of sexual harassment present them as liars and willing accomplices in the harassment situation. Also, dimensions of ideological perceptions of females portray them as guilty victims whose behaviours and actions instigated the harassment.
Keywords
Introduction
Sexual harassment in schools is a popular and global phenomenon that affects both males and females, though females are more prone to being harassed than males. Its frequency of occurrence has made it normal and expected in many tertiary institutions (Gådin and Stein, 2019). However, even when encouraged to speak out so that the perpetrators could be punished, victims are sceptical about speaking out as a result of stigmatisation. Discourses on sexual harassment most times accuse the victims of being as guilty as the perpetrators (Andreasen, 2021; Karlsson, 2019).
Discourses on sexual harassment are dominant, garner a lot of interest and have become taken for granted, especially as they concern femininity and masculinity. Such discourse reveals the expected behaviour of the males and females in cases of sexual harassment and failure to do as expected draws negative opinions and criticism from the society (Bell et al., 2014). By expressing opinions and criticisms, people take a stance on the topic of discussion. Stance-taking is basically the expression of attitude, value judgements and assessments by participants in a discourse (Martin and White, 2005).
With the #Metoo tweets and posts around the world, victims of sexual harassment, assault and violence are defying the notion of ‘silent victim’ by sharing their stories in digital spaces. Karlsson (2019) notes that feminist campaigns have instigated the profusion of online autobiographical narratives that challenge sexism and violence, which however, have generated counter narratives and opinions that discredit and disparage the autobiographical narratives. This is also evident in Nigeria where victims of sexual harassment are utilising online platforms to share their experience, which naturally, have generated attitudes and opinions from the Nigerian cyberspace.
The gender landscape of any society is determined by the social, cultural and ideological perception of women in such society, which is most often evident in sociocultural practices within the society. Online discourses about sexual harassment in Nigerian universities is a corollary effect of the gender order in Nigeria. The perception of women is shaped by gendered norms, ideologies and expectations, and hierarchy and power relations that perceive men to be superior to women (Ajayi et al., 2022). These perceptions attenuate women’s bodily autonomy and agency in several climes and contexts, and contribute to rape myth and culture in the country. Awosusi and Ogundana (2015) aver that the Nigerian societal practices are biased against women to the extent of placing them at additional disadvantage. The patriarchal ideology of the Nigerian society expects women to play the role of sexual gatekeepers – sexually pure and unadventurous, but submissive to the sexual overtures of men. Men on the other hand, have sexual privileges that defend their sexual urges and applaud their utilisation of female bodies as objects of sexual gratification (Izugbara, 2008). This patriarchal culture has largely contributed to the social injustice and physical and sexual violence perpetrated against women by men (Akpojivi, 2019).
Extant literature on sexual harassment in universities have investigated the gender disparity in opinions about what constitutes sexual harassment (Ferrer-Pérez and Bosch-Fiol, 2014; Wamoyi et al., 2022); the impact of sexual harassment on victims (Sinko et al., 2021); universities’ intervention programmes to address sexual harassment (Moore and Mennicke, 2020; Skewes et al., 2021); the relationship between socio-cultural beliefs and perceptions about sexual harassment (Yee et al., 2015; Puiseau and Roessel, 2013); the influence of physical attractiveness on perceptions about sexual harassment (Herrera et al., 2016); the portrayal of female victims of sexual harassment in internet memes (Andreasen, 2021); patterns of oppositional rhetorics in online conversations about sexual harassment and assault on university campuses (Phillips and Chagnon, 2021); etc. All of these studies have demonstrated the influence of gender stereotypes, rape myths, societal norms, etc. on perceptions about and attitude towards sexual harassment and victims of sexual harassment. However, studies on the nature of online discourse about victims of sexual harassment in universities have not investigated the nature of stance taking evident in the opinion about the victims. In addition, the discourse of sexual harassment in Nigerian universities is under-researched and the perceptions about victims of sexual harassment in Nigerian universities have not been investigated.
This study, therefore, explicates the nature of discursivity in Nairaland’s (one of Nigeria’s most popular online forums) discussions on sexual harassment cases in selected Nigerian tertiary institutions. Using Martin and White’s (2005) Appraisal Theory aided by Lazar’s (2005) Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis, it analyses the attitudes and opinions of the online participants towards female victims of sexual harassment and discusses the dominant ideology about gender and sexual violence articulated in the online comments about sexual harassment in Nigerian Universities.
Gender and sexual violence
Literature on sex-related crimes in societies have explicated the stereotypical representation of males and females in news about the crime. (Lindqvist, 2018; Yee et al., 2015; Puiseau and Roessel (2013); Andreasen, 2021; Herrera et al., 2016; etc.). Sexual harassment exists in secondary and post-secondary institutions of learning, and gender is the major contributory factor to sexual harassment (Kabaya, 2016). Gender shapes perceptions about sexual violence in ways that suggest both male perpetrators and female victims are guilty of the same crime. Lindqvist’s (2018) demonstrates in their study that social practices that uphold patriarchy are directly connected to the blame females receive for sexual crimes committed against them. This assertion is also replicated in Nilsson’s (2019) assertion that patriarchal structures are hidden beneath discussions about sexual violence. Patriarchy is evident in societal perception of the female body as objects of men’s sexual gratification. Awasthi (2017) maintains in their use of Critical Discourse Analysis to investigate tweets judged to be sexual harassment, that sexual harassment is the societal consequence of dehumanised perception of female bodies and a form of gender inequality.
Sexism and gender inequality are major factors that contribute to sexual harassment and increase rape myth acceptance and victim blaming (Andreasen, 2021; Herrera et al., 2016; Puiseau and Roessel, 2013). Bakari and Leach (2008) notes in their investigation of sexual harassment in a college of education in Northern Nigeria that sexual violence against female students is sustained through ideological underpinnings that regard female sexuality as flawed and debased – an extension male occupation of powerful and authoritative positions within the institution and discrimination against women.
The notion of the powerful male is intricately connected to patriarchy. Kabaya’s (2016) investigation of the social construction of gender in sexual harassment cases at the University of KwaZulu-Natal shows that females face harassment from powerful males within the institution and males are the main perpetrators of sexual harassment. Wamoyi et al. (2022) also evince in their exploration of Tanzanians’ experiences of sexual harassment that sexual harassment is an expression of men’s power and control of material resources, school grades and employment opportunities – an enactment of sociocultural norms about males occupying more positions of power than females.
The normalisation of sexual harassment is a recurrent feature in the discourse of sexual harassment (Eller, 2016; Gådin and Stein, 2019). Gådin and Stein (2019) illustrate in their study that sexual harassment in schools is normalised and expected as a result of multi-layered web of factors and practices operated at the organisational level. Eller (2016) also maintains that sexual harassment exists in universities as a result of the transactional sexual relationships between lecturers and students. Sinko et al. (2021) however generate a disparate narrative by asserting that the normalisation of sexual violence plays in the tolerance of sexual aggression that exists in universities’ rape culture.
Gender plays a major role in the classification of male attention as harassment as well as the conceptualisation of certain behaviours as offensive (Bitton and Shaul, 2013; Ferrer-Pérez and Bosch-Fiol, 2014; Wamoyi et al., 2022; Yee et al., 2015). Yee et al.’s (2015) exploration of the influence of gender, culture and ethnicity on the Malaysian undergraduate students’ perception of sexual harassment evinces that females identify more behaviours as sexual harassment when compared to males.
Although this present study shares similar interests with the studies reviewed above, it extends knowledge about sexual harassment in universities by investigating the nature of discursivity about victims of sexual harassment in the Nigerian cyberspace. It maintains that online perceptions of the female victims of sexual harassment are embedded in stance-taking, provide insight into the construction of gender and sexual violence in Nigeria, and reproduce the Nigerian normative gender norms and stereotypes. Thus, this study will answer the following questions: what is the nature of stance about female victims of sexual harassment in Nigerian universities; what are the dominant ideologies embedded in the stance; what is the stance and dominant ideology about the perpetration of sexual violence in Nigerian universities on Nigerian cyberspaces?
Materials and methods
The data for this study comprises 500 comments gathered from five purposefully selected stories on university sexual harassment downloaded from Nairaland. Nairaland is chosen for its popularity as it is the largest Nigerian online forum that serves as an all-purpose discussion forum on about two million topics ranging from politics to social issues (Chiluwa and Odebunmi, 2016). In addition, its members cut across different ages, social classes, gender and professions – there are students as well as lecturers of tertiary institutions. It allows participants to post personal stories as well as stories and news reports from other online forums or news sites, which are then deliberated on by member of the community. Thus, depending on the interest of members and the how trendy a story or news article is, it may generate a few or more comments. As a result of time and space constraints, only five stories/posts 1 were chosen because they generated a lot of comments. Two of the stories are follow-up discussions on trendy sexual harassment cases while three are personal stories of victims. Only the first 100 comments in each story are utilised for this study, making a total of 500 comments.
To properly account for the type of stance evident in the comments, a descriptive qualitative approach is adopted. Lexical items and labels that represent the stance of the online participants towards the victims of sexual harassment in the comments are identified, thematically grouped and analysed using the analytical indices of Attitude in the Appraisal Theory. As a result of space constraints, only comments deemed important are extracted to buttress the analysis. The comments are adapted in their original form, without any form of editing and used as extracts in the data analysis section. The extracts are coded ‘P’ and numbered for easy reference.
Martin and White’s Appraisal Theory
Appraisal Theory which investigates the realisation of the opinion and attitude of language users in different contexts of human communication, is a blend of Discourse Analysis and Grammar (Martin and White, 2005: 35). It has three interacting domains: Attitude, Engagement and Graduation. Attitude pertains to feelings, emotional reaction, judgements of behaviour and evaluation of things as evident in the use of the writer/speaker’s choice of words. (Martin and White, 2005: 39). It is a framework that can be used to analyse opinion about people and their behaviour, as well as evaluations of phenomena (Martin and White, 2005: 42).
Attitude accounts for the linguistic expressions of inscribed or invoked positive and negative feelings, reactions and perceptions that can be graded, intensified and compared. Attitude is sub-categorised into: Affect, Judgement and Appreciation. Affect deals with the realisation of human emotions and feelings; Judgement refers to perceptions of people’s behaviour and character. It is sub-categorised into ‘Judgement of Social Sanction’ and ‘Judgement of Social Esteem’. Judgement of social esteem deals with normality (how unusual someone is), capacity (how capable they are, and tenacity (how resolute they are). It is enshrined in oral culture (Martin and White, 2005: 53). Judgement of sanction on the other hand, entails veracity (how truthful someone is) and propriety (how ethical someone is). Appreciation concerns meanings that pertain to the evaluation of things we make and performances we give, as well as natural phenomena. It is sub-divided into Reaction (whether they catch our attention or please us), Composition (balance and complexity) and Valuation (how authentic and timely they are). Given the fact that the discourse of sexual harassment in universities contains online participants’ perspectives about the phenomenon and assessment of perpetrators and victims of the phenomenon, Attitude provides the lens with which to critically analyse the discourse of sexual harassment in Nigerian universities and the ideological underpinnings embedded in the discourse.
Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA)
FCDA a multidisciplinary approach to critical discourse studies that focuses on social injustice and transformation of gender; it demonstrates the copious and not-so-copious ways of gendered assumptions and how hegemonic power relations are portrayed and challenged in different contexts (Lazar, 2005). It focuses on social injustice and transformation of gender and clarifies the relationship between gender, power and ideology. It is concerned with critiquing discourses which uphold patriarchy that systematically privilege men as a social group which excludes, disempowers and disadvantages women; it portrays that social practices are gendered (Lazar, 2005).
FCDA is useful in this study in order to succinctly analyse the nature of sexist discourse that investigate the sexist discourse on sexual harassment in Nigerian universities. It is also useful in interpreting the ideological perceptions of females and investigating gender discrimination, patriarchy and stereotypical framing and presentations embedded in the attitudinal stance of the commenters. Thus, while Attitude is used to analyse the stance utilised in the comments, FCDA is used to provide an ideological analysis of the stance from a feminist perspective.
Results and discussion
This section reveals the nature of discursivity about female victims of sexual harassment. The dominant themes in the online discourse which are evident in the online participants’ lexical choices are highlighted and discussed in each subsection below.
Complicity of the victim
The ideology of the complicit victim arises from the rape myth that female victims of sexual violence have encouraged their perpetrators consciously or unconsciously, especially through their interactions with them. The victims in the data are regarded as females with a flawed sense of reasoning. This assessment stems from societal expectation that demands a state of constant perception from females, in addition to requiring them to be careful with and wary of men. Failure to do such makes them complicit in the harassment situation. The victims are accused of complicity in the harassment situation by exposing themselves to situations where they had to negotiate with their lecturer. The attitude portrayed towards the victims of all the cases used for this research are similar: blame – the victims are blamed for making themselves available to their harasser. This corroborates findings from the studies of Yee et al.’s (2015), Lindqvist’s (2018) and Bakari and Leach (2008) that stereotypical evaluation of female victims of sexual violence considers them as a category of humans with a flawed sense of reasoning. Consider the extract below:
The extracts above portray different categories of negative attitude towards the victims. P1 contains judgement of negative normality, indicating that the victim deserves to be sexually harassed since she decided to approach the lecturer. It also connotes that females should not approach their lecturers for anything if they do not want to be harassed. Within the Nigerian societal context, smart females are expected to be mindful of the males they ask for help, unless they are ready to give sexual favours in return. The attitude portrayed in P1 is also reflected in P2: a ‘smart’ student should know when a lecturer is sexually attracted to her and should know not to visit such a man if the attraction is not mutual, irrespective of whether the meeting is important or not. Going to such lecturer’s office without a partner is an acceptance of the sexual overtures. P3 contains not only invoked judgement of negative normality which suggests she deserves to be harassed because she did not report the lecturer to her parents, but it also contains judgement of negative propriety to indicate that she is foolish. Her failure to report to her parents makes her a worthy victim of harassment. The negative attitude towards the victims in the extract above portrays an ideological generalisation of the mental acumen of females as it stereotypically represents them as foolish people who do not think of the consequences of their actions before they embark on them. Such stances support patriarchal structures and rape myths that defend sexual violence.
Normalisation of sexual harassment
The normalisation of sexual harassment in the data is a stance that objectifies females, and a patriarchal assessment of females that considers sexual violence a normal part of human society (Lindqvist’s, 2018) that females are responsible for.
The stance portrayed in the extracts above contains negative normality that suggests that sexual harassment in Nigerian universities is a normal occurrence that on the one hand represents moral decadence in the Nigerian university system and on the second hand, females’ complicity in the transactional sex situation that occurs in universities. In addition, it suggests that sexual harassment is a self-induced punishment females have to go through for dressing seductively – they have to pay a price for their seductive choice of dressing. This assessment is an embodiment of the culture of male dominance that justify male aggression as a form of punishment for erring females (Ajayi et al., 2022: 467). It is also a defence of male aggression and a patriarchal order that Lazar (2005: 7) couches as ‘male privilege’. This corroborates Eller’s (2016) and Gådin and Stein’s (2019) postulation that sexual harassment is the result of illegal practices operated in universities. It also gives credence to Bakari and Leach’s (2008) assertion that sexual harassment occurs in tertiary institutions as a result of the debased and flawed nature of female sexuality.
The normalisation of sexual harassment in the data for this study adopts two patterns: one, sexual harassment is normal because males and females coexist in the society and two, as far as a female student is a dunce and empty headed, she should be psychologically prepared for sexual harassment. Both stances are hinged on the Nigerian dominant sexual discourses premised on the patriarchal ideology that women are objects of male sexual exploitation as well as objects of sexual gratification (Izugbara, 2008). This is reflected in the extracts below.
The extracts above portray an overlap between socio-cultural practices and societal expectations from females. A close reading of the extracts provides an empirical presence of objectification of female sexuality: as far as a female is sexually active, she must be ready to give in to the sexual urge of men that are in a position to assist her to achieve her life’s goals. More so, females should be willing to offer sex to their lecturers since these lecturers can make or mar their future. This patriarchal assessment of females encourages hierarchical relation of domination between females and their male lecturers and ascribes negative deferring roles to the females. This is an overt form of sexism which Lazar (2005: 9) classifies as a misogynistic and denigrative form of gender asymmetry. The stances from the data that normalise sexual harassment give credence to findings from the studies of Kabaya (2016) and Wamoyi et al. (2022) that sexual harassment is a representation of male’s power and control of material resources and school grades – women are harassed because they are the subjects of men. The stance in P187 demonstrates that as far as academically challenged students exist in these institutions of learning, sexual harassment will exist – sexual harassment is a normal phenomenon in tertiary institutions because females do not have the same level of intelligence. Females who are not intelligent could benefit from a lecturer’s power by exchanging sex for grades – a form of symbiotic relationship of give and take/ offer and acceptance. Also, it is a form of opportunism for men who are too conscious of their power; and because some of them are phallus-driven, they like to be compensated for their ‘kindness and favours’ towards vulnerable women. It is only when there is a breach of contract or misreading of intentions that the incidents get into the open.
Dressing, sexuality and sexual harassment
Stance portrayed in this theme connotes judgement of negative propriety which suggests that sexual harassment occurs in universities because females dress provocatively – female dressing is a crucial factor in sexual harassment. It exonerates the male lecturers from the crime of harassing their female students by presenting a biological argument – men are naturally always stimulated by the physical appearance of females and the sight of scantily clad females further aggravates the sexual stimulation Andreasen (2021). The stance is portrayed below.
P135 above utilises negative propriety to blame the victim for dressing inappropriately. Sexual harassment here is seen as a consequence of improper dressing. A victim of sexual harassment that complains of being sexually harassed after dressing provocatively is ‘yarning dust’, that is, is saying rubbish. The utilisation of this negative appreciation of valuation trivialises the harassment, exonerates the perpetrator and suggests that females who dress provocatively are responsible for their harassment. This portrays the acceptance of the rape myth that considers a female’s dressing as the cause of sexual violence perpetrated against her. It gives credence to Lindqvist’s (2018) and Andreasen (2021) postulation that ‘the physical attractiveness of victims is a recurrent feature in opinions about sexual harassment’. The stance portrayed in P135 above is also reflected in P129 below.
tempt you with evil will you overcome it? NO. So why you tempt a man with your unclothedness and blame him. . . . So why bring it to their faces when YOU KNOW it creates a surge of hormones. You are tempting him and also accusing him for his actions ‘like your father the devil is doing’.
The evaluation in P129 supports societal gender stereotype which categorises underclad women as agents of the devil. By comparing females’ immoral dress sense to the actions of the devil, the commenter in the extract presents females as calculative and vindictive, always out snare men so they could blame them for their actions. This makes the female victims guiltier than the male perpetrators who could not help but fall for their wiles. This assertion also exonerates the perpetrators from the crime and authenticates the argument of Andreasen (2021) that sexual violence is deemed inevitable when the female is not only sexually appealing but also has sexual agency. Women with sexual agency cannot credibly accuse men of sexually harassing them – they are not credible victims precisely as a result of their beauty, sexuality and dressing.
In P149 below females are advised to ‘dress moderately’ so as to avoid harassment. Though not explicitly negative, through the use of invoked propriety, the comment still acknowledges females’ fashion choice as a cause of sexual harassment. P128 utilises rhetorical question and negative propriety to blame women for being harassed – harassment is the consequence of indecent dressing. P298 confirms Bell et al. (2014) perception that failure to fit into societal gendered expectation attracts consequences. Both extracts hold women accountable for their safety.
However, in P122 below, the commenter exonerates the victims and females generally from the blame of sexual harassment.
The stance in the comment though not directly positive, blames the perpetrators for not taking their eyes off what is not theirs. Though the stances embedded in the extract neither blames nor exonerate females, it is negative as it suggests that women are properties of men and harassing a female is synonymous to stealing the property of another man.
Blame on the victim and the perpetrators
This stance posits that both the victim and the perpetrator are guilty of sexual harassment because there is no action without a cause. Harassment occurs because victims would have encouraged their harassers directly or otherwise. This stance is a reinforcement of the gender stereotype that females are known to play on men’s intelligence.
In P211 above, the commenter uses negative veracity and negative propriety to adjudge the victim as guilty as the perpetrator. The perpetrator is not guilty because the victim is ‘a prostitute that has been fucking other lecturers’. This suggests that women who are sexually active cannot claim to have been harassed and such ladies are guilty of exchanging marks for sex. This not only reinforces the ideology of generalisation, but suggest that females do not work for their grades. The same stance is evident in P272 where the commenter insinuates that the victim is devious and calculative. Hence, she is also guilty and should suffer the same punishment as the perpetrator. In P292, females are adjudged guilty of sexual harassment. The use of negative propriety and veracity in the extracts evince that females are also sexual harassers and as guilty as male perpetrators. This assertion reinforces Kabaya’s (2016) findings that male students in her study justify their harassing behaviour ‘by claiming that they feel sexually harassed by women who wear revealing clothes. In P295, women are presented as a gender that is overtly conscious of their sexuality. This makes them as guilty as perpetrators.
Femininity, sexuality and lies
Value-laden statements in this category denigrate female victims of sexual harassment by portraying them as liars. This stance maintains that females only claim harassment when they want attention or feel cheated by males. It is the tale of a scorned woman. This aligns with findings from the study of Phillips and Chagnon’s (2021) that in the discourse of sexual harassment, the discourse of oppositional rhetorics which quickly moves from victim-centred perspectives to moral panic and witch hunt narratives is evident. It is a form of ideological inversion that uphold hegemonic relations.
In the extracts above, females, especially the victims of sexual harassments, are depicted as promiscuous and hypersexual. P90 suggests that females knowingly present themselves to be harassed as a ploy to make the men give them whatever they want; hence, males, not females, are the victims. The stance of negative propriety embedded in the extract connotes that females are seductresses who have no right to complain about harassment because they are the perpetrators. The use of negative propriety in P45 ‘banged our lecturers for marks’ is anchored on the sexist ideology that commodifies women, which also suggests that female students are voluntary sexual tools in the hands of male lecturers. They offer their bodies to the lecturers because they are desperate to graduate; sex is the legal tender used by female students to convince lecturers to pass them even when they deserve to fail. Sexual relations between female students and male lecturers are not unwanted but openly desired by the females, so, no mature Nigerian university female student can claim to have been harassed. P50 and P47 also contend that the victims of sexual harassment are prostitutes. The stance embedded in P50 which is similar to that of P90 also contains Judgement of negative Veracity and Propriety. The commenter posits that the level of intelligence displayed by the victim makes her an accomplice. The use of ‘rubbish’ at the end of the comment, which portrays negative appreciation of valuation, connotes that the victim does not have a case or stand the chance of winning the case because she is as guilty as the perpetrator. This stance also suggests that females who are not virgins should not complain of being sexually harassed and that university female students who complain of being sexually harassed by their lecturers only do so because they did not get the desired grades after having slept with the lecturers. The stance embedded in the extract also exonerates the perpetrator on the ground that the victim is an ‘ashawo’, a derogatory term for a prostitute. In P47, the commenter casts aspersion on females generally by referring to them as ‘whores’ (judgement of negative propriety) and ‘useless creatures’ (judgement of negative normality) that enjoy sexual relations with men. The attitude portrayed in all the extracts demonstrate a gender-biased assessment of females’ sexuality and sexual habits, evident in the labelling of the victims as prostitutes.
Framing masculinity and sexuality
This theme embodies the superiority of the male sexual organ over that of females and the power males have over females’ bodies. It expects females to accept that males find them sexually attractive irrespective of what they wear or how they look.
The discursive structure within the extracts above further denigrates females by portraying them as sexual objects and objects of males’ sexual fascination. Though the extracts do not directly evaluate females, they represent ideological perceptions about males and females with regard to their biological differences and roles. Males are expected to be randy because it is in their nature to be: they have strong sexual desires, while females are expected to secure themselves from randy males and help the males by ‘covering up’ themselves. Females are depicted as the ‘other’ biological entity subject to the wiles of randy men; they are subordinate and unequal to men (Herrera et al., 2016). This ideology exonerates males from sexual crime while placing the blame on females, especially since females are not desisting from acts that would make the men fall for them. The extracts above uphold societal practices that view pernicious sexual acts performed by men as normal and appropriate in certain conditions – men have uncontrollable sexual desires which need to be fulfilled at all times. It also aligns with Herrera et al. (2016) assertion that myths and preconceived ideas about male sexuality fuels sexual harassment and perceptions about it. With the ideological perceptions about male sexuality, the society reinforces, aggravates and normalises the perpetration of sexual crimes against female and further extends the inequality gap between both genders.
Conclusion
The portrayal of victims of sexual harassment in Nigerian universities provide insights into the construction of masculinity and femininity in Nigerian cyberspaces as well as how these spaces reproduce and reconstruct normative norms about gender and sexuality. The appraisal theory used for this study has evinced that there are varying form of negative attitude expressed towards victims of sexual harassment which blame them for the sexual harassment and make them as guilty as the perpetrators.
Findings from this study has corroborated findings from similar studies conducted in other countries and in Nigeria as well (Andreasen, 2021; Kabaya, 2016; Lindqvist, 2018; Phillips and Chagnon, 2021; etc). The context of harassment notwithstanding, women are blamed and judged negatively in sexual harassment situations. Female victims of sexual harassment in universities are usually not protected after speaking out. Rather, they are subjected to negative evaluation, their innocence and complicity in the harassment situation is questioned and they are called derogatory terms.
The use of Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis in this study has portrayed that the society contributes to the inequality between the male and female gender through the roles assigned to them. The theory has portrayed in this study that language is a major tool used to encourage sexual crime against females.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.