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In light of the International Day for Countering Hate Speech, which takes place every year on the 18th of June, it is crucial in this day and age, and with the rising accessibility of social media, to acknowledge the detrimental effects of hate speech on vulnerable groups in society, as hate speech often targets inherent characteristics of certain groups to ensure their exclusion from the public sphere.
The United Nations’ Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech defines hate speech as: “any kind of communication in speech, writing or behaviour, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factor.”[1]
Women, being a prime target of exclusionary rhetoric, are constantly bombarded with hateful speech targeting their appearance, intelligence, participation, and often their existence. From Hypatia, to burning women at the stake, to violent hate speech against women flying under the radar of major social media platforms[2], misogynistic hate speech is ahistoric; it has had many forms and manifestations across history, that it becomes difficult to pinpoint the exact rationale behind the eternal subjection and belittling of women and defamation campaigns from men. Existing in a patriarchal society means that this form of violence is so normalized that any attempt to challenge it is met with even more hate and is considered subversive.
However, there is a point of contention regarding the subjectivity of hate speech; what constitutes hate speech, given the loose and broad-ranging nature of this concept?
Theorizing Hate Speech
The scholar Richardson-Self (2018)[3] made the distinction between oppressive speech and hate speech; to them, not all oppressive speech is hate speech, but all hate speech is oppressive. However, the severity of the oppression of hate speech is often undermined as people plead the “freedom of speech” argument to justify hate speech. Therefore, hate speech is thought to do certain acts: silence, malign, disparage, humiliate, intimidate, incite violence, discriminate, vilify, degrade, persecute, threaten, and the like. Thus, if any form of expression performs any of the above, and this expression targets a historically oppressed group, then prosecuting such an act is not an attack on “freedom of speech” but a protocol to protect vulnerable people from hate crimes.
To identify hate speech in Jordan more easily, the Jordanian government repealed and replaced Jordan’s old (2015) cybercrime law with a new and improved cybercrime law (2023), which implements additional measures to combat online-related crimes. Despite the significant improvements, the new law, while preventative, does not clearly define hate speech, nor does it draw the line between hate speech and freedom of speech.
The articles that came closest to defining hate speech are articles 15, 16, and 17[4], which considers defamation, slander, assassination of character, hatred, justification of violence, stirring racism or sedition, and insulting religion as punishable by law. However, none of these terms is explicitly defined, and none mentions discrimination according to sex or gender.
Hate speech against women
Even when it comes to hate speech against women, there are criteria as to what constitutes hate speech. Some scholars[5] conceptualize this categorization by differentiating between sexist speech and misogynistic speech and deeming the latter as oppressive hate speech. They argue that the interdivisional nature of misogynistic speech creates an arbitrary classification for women based on their conformity with the patriarchal system; the more a woman conforms, the better she is, and vice versa. Not only does this reduce women to passive agents of the patriarchy, but it also leads to women themselves leveraging the patriarchal system[6] to prove their “goodness” and create further division between women.
To paint a clearer picture of the argument above, the blog will draw upon the involvement of women in politics as an example. Politics, which is considered socially a masculine field, begrudgingly accepts women’s participation under several conditions, the main one being not challenging the status quo of the political system while simultaneously upholding its ideals of oppression, including what is patriarchal. Thus, if a woman wants to not only enter the political scene, but sustain her position, she cannot delve into topics deemed provocative or controversial, including systematic patriarchal oppression, which ironically enough, is described that way due to systematic patriarchal oppression.
Consequently, this arbitrary classification translates into a woman who is “fit” for politics and a woman who isn’t, depending on their level of conformity. This, slowly but surely, gets cemented into the collective consciousness, as more women who attempt to “disrupt” the status quo get bombarded with hate speech rooted in misogyny, which eventually leads to women avoiding politics altogether, which is, in an indirect way, considered silencing.
Hate speech is more severe when a woman is in the spotlight, a politician[7], a journalist[8], an activist[9], or a public figure[10]. To mention a few examples among the litany of hate campaigns against women, according to a report done by ISD, many Jordanian female candidates faced widespread misogynistic rhetoric that reinforced harmful societal norms, and many online comments directed at female candidates went beyond questioning their competence into targeted harassment[11].
Another study conducted by Solidarity is Global Institute (SIGI)[12] reveals the dimensions of digital electoral violence against female candidates in the 2024 Jordanian parliamentary elections, which extended to defamation, stereotyping, mockery, etc. SIGI argues that this type of violence leads to diminishing the voters’ trust in the female candidate and thus lowers the independent participation of women in politics. This was proven correct as no female candidates succeeded in open competition, and the 25 women who ran outside the quota system were unsuccessful.
Female journalists are not exempt from hate speech, as the Network for Combating Digital Violence Against Female Journalists in Jordan reports that 55% of journalists surveyed for their study reported facing some form of online violence at least once in their careers, which included hate speech and defamation[13].
Conclusion
Hate speech is a structural problem that cannot afford to be looked at in a vacuum, and with the ever-increasing accessibility to social media and the internet, and the rise of generative AI giving people the ability to fake, fabricate, or even create any image or video to benefit their defamation campaigns, we need to start looking at hate speech and online violence as deeply rooted issues within the fabric of society that needs to be extracted and exterminated.
[1] Unites Nations, “What Is Hate Speech?,” May 2019, https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/UN%20Strategy%20and%20Plan%20of%20Action%20on%20Hate%20Speech%2018%20June%20SYNOPSIS.pdf.
[2] Global Witness, “Violent and Sexualised Hate Speech Targeting Women Journalists Approved for Publication by Social Media Platforms,” Global Witness (blog), 2023, https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/digital-threats/violent-and-sexualised-hate-speech-targeting-women-approved-for-publication-by-social-media-platforms/.
[3] Louise Richardson‐Self, “Woman‐Hating: On Misogyny, Sexism, and Hate Speech,” Hypatia 33, no. 2 (2018): 256–72, https://doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12398.
[4] Legislation and Opinion Bureau, “Cybercrime Law,” Pub. L. No. 17 (2023), https://www.lob.gov.jo/?v=1&lang=ar#!/LegislationDetails?LegislationID=3398&LegislationType=2&isMod=false.
[5] Richardson‐Self, “Woman‐Hating.”
[6] This is not done to oppress other women, but to gain the advantages of conforming to the system, such as social status and societal acceptance. While it is inherently oppressive to bargain with an oppressive system, it is a method of survival within said oppressive system, and it could be performed unconsciously.
[7] Aim Sinpeng, “Women Politicians in Southeast Asia Face an Epidemic of Online Violence,” Centre for International Governance Innovation (blog), 2022, https://www.cigionline.org/articles/women-politicians-in-southeast-asia-face-an-epidemic-of-online-violence/.
[8] Julie Posetti et al., “The Chilling: Global Trends in Online Violence Against Women Journalists; Research Discussion Paper” (UNESCO, 2021), https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000377223.
[9] Zaina Erhaim, “Women Activists in the Middle East Face Online Bullying and Sexual Harassment,” openDemocracy (blog), 2020, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/north-africa-west-asia/women-activists-middle-east-face-online-bullying-and-sexual-harassment/.
[10] Rob Cover et al., “Protecting Public Figures Online: How Do Platforms and Regulators Define Public Figures?,” Media International Australia, January 9, 2024, 1329878X231225745, https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X231225745.
[11] “Hate Speech and Democratic Challenges: Navigating Jordan’s 2024 Elections,” ISD (blog), accessed May 27, 2025, https://www.isdglobal.org/digital_dispatches/hate-speech-and-democratic-challenges-navigating-jordans-2024-elections/.
[12] SIGI, “New Qualitative Study Reveals Dimensions of Digital Electoral Violence Against Female Candidates in the 2024 Jordanian Parliamentary Elections,” 2025, https://www.sigi-jordan.org/en/article/dr-s-noa.
[13] سلامات and شبكة مناهضة العنف الرقمي ضد الصحفيات في الأردن, “دراسة قطاعية: العنف الرقمي على الصحفيات في الأردن,” سلامات (blog), 2023, https://portal.salamatmena.org/publication/dvaw-jordan-journalists-ar/.
