Technology-Facilitated Abuse Victimization: A Gendered Analysis in a Representative Survey of Adults

• Published date: 01 December 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/15570851231196548
• Author: Anastasia Powell,Asher Flynn
• Date: 01 December 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Feminist Criminology

2023, Vol. 18(5) 435–458

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/15570851231196548

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Technology-Facilitated Abuse

Victimization: A Gendered

Analysis in a Representative

Survey of Adults

Anastasia Powell

1

and Asher Flynn

2

Abstract

This study addresses a signif‌icant knowledge gap regarding the gendered extent and

nature of Technology-Facilitated Abuse (TFA). Drawing on a representative sample of

4,562 Australian adults, the results demonstrate that though prevalence of any lifetime

TFA victimization is not specif‌ically gendered, there are clear gendered patterns in the

extent and nature of particular types of TFA experienced. Here, women are more likely

to report experiencing sexual coercion, as well as intimate partner abuse and co-

occurring forms of abuse from the same perpetrator. The results support aspects of

the gendered violence thesis and suggest avenues for future research into TFA

victimization.

Keywords

victimization, sexual harassment, intimate partner violence, domestic violence, woman

abuse

Technology-Facilitated Abuse (TFA) has emerged as an umbrella term for various

subtypes of aggressive, stalking, and/or harassing behaviors, perpetrated with the aid of

internet-enabled and other digital technologies. Though early studies into these online

1

Criminology & Justice Studies, RMIT University, Melbourne, VI, Australia

2

Criminology, School of Social Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, VI, Australia

Corresponding Author:

Anastasia Powell, Criminology & Justice Studies, RMIT University, 411 Swanston Street, Melbourne, VI 3000,

USA.

Email: anastasia.powell@rmit.edu.au

forms of interpersonal violence tended to focus on children and young people (e.g.,

cyberbullying, sexual exploitation, Quayle & Taylor, 2002;Smith et al., 2008), as well

as cyber stalking (Sheridan & Grant, 2007;Spitzberg & Hoobler, 2002), contemporary

research has expanded to consider a wide range of harms against both young people and

adults. These include for example, online harassment (Nadim & Fladmoe, 2021),

technology facilitated sexual violence (Powell, 2022;Powell & Henry, 2019), image

based sexual abuse (DeKeseredy & Schwartz, 2016;Flynn et al., 2016;Henry et al.,

2020;Powell et al., 2022), and digital coercive control (Dragiewicz et al., 2018;

Woodlock et al., 2020). TFA is also increasingly being adopted in government policy,

program and service sectors in countries including the United States (Witwer et al.,

2020), Canada (Off‌ice of the Privacy Commissioner Canada, 2021), and Australia

(Commonwealth of Australia, 2022), as well as global organizations such as UN

Women (2022), further highlighting the importance of research to drive understanding

of its extent and nature in order to inform responses.

Though some research to date has sought to examine the gendered nature of image

based abuse (e.g., Henry et al., 2020;Powell & Henry, 2017), as well as dating abuse

experienced by youth and/or college student populations (e.g., Brown et al., 2021;

DeKeseredy et al., 2019;Seewald et al., 2022), there are very few quantitative studies

that have investigated the gendered nature of TFA across multiple abuse types and

within representative samples of adults. This study addresses this signif‌icant gap in the

literature by focusing on victimization experiences across multiple types of TFA.

Furthermore, it addresses an increasingly controversial issue within the f‌ield of in-

terpersonal violence; that is, the extent and ways in which online and other TFA might

mirror or depart from the gendered nature of interpersonal violence that is well-

established in many face-to-face abuse types. Drawing on a representative sample of

Australian adults (n=4,562), we investigate the prevalence and gendered nature of

TFAvictimization, with respect to its extent, perpetrator gender, victims’relationship to

perpetrators, and the presence of co-occurring abuse.

Conceptualizing Technology Facilitated Abuse

Also referred to as ‘technology enabled abuse’or ‘technology facilitated violence’,

TFAwas initially referr ed to by scholars in both the f‌ields of intimate partner violence

(e.g., Woodlock & Webster, 2013) and child sexual exploitation (e.g., Moser, 2012).

Since then, a growing f‌ield of scholarship has emerged which has deepened under-

standings of the role of technology in both partner violence (including stalking and

coercive control (e.g., Dragiewicz et al., 2018;Woodlock et al., 2020) and child

exploitation (e.g., Finkelhor et al., 2022;Guerra & Westlake, 2021), whilst also

broadening understandings of the wide range of contexts in which TFA occurs (e.g.,

Powell, 2022;Powell & Henry, 2019,2017). Contemporary research into technology

facilitated forms of interpersonal violence and abuse encompass behaviors experienced

from intimate partners, as well as other known people, acquaintances, and strangers

online (see Holt et al., 2017 for an overview).

436 Feminist Criminology 18(5)