Various studies show that famous women are much more likely to face gender-based insults and bullying from the audience than equally popular men. Only if in other countries popular women are protected by public organizations and entire movements, then in Tajikistan they often have to cope with their problems alone.

Women in media and politics often have to communicate with the audience on social networks. Such publicity helps career growth, but is frowned upon by Tajik society. This is especially true for young women: sometimes they are forced to make a choice between a successful career and family life.

About how women defend their right to publicity in reality and on the web - in the material of the "New Reporter.

"He demanded to abandon social networks"

Nurangez Rustamzoda, in addition to his main job, has been running his own blog for many years. She started her media career with personal accounts and, for example, when applying for an SMM specialist position, Nurangez's main advantage was her popular social media accounts.

"But no one knows at what price I get this popularity. Now, of course, everything is much better, but I had to go through a lot of problems," says Nurangez.

She recalls that she started keeping her accounts while still a journalism student. Anyone who is familiar with the algorithms of social networks and the behavior of the audience knows that videos and photos are needed first of all to promote their blog. And you also need sincerity and an open dialogue with the audience, preferably in the first person.

Nurangez also used such approaches: she talked about her daily life, but was faced with a misunderstanding of society.

"One of my classmates asked me directly, they say, how will you get married, do you post so many of your photos on social networks? At the university, they called me an "advertiser", even the teachers made fun of me," says Nurangez.

Unpleasant conversations with classmates turned out to be the most harmless.

"I started having problems with my parents. Now, thank God, they understand and support me, but first they demanded to delete social networks. Neighbors and relatives told my mother every day that I exposed myself too much on social networks, and my parents took these conversations very hard. In addition, my mother saw what comments were being written under my photos, and she suffered a lot because of this," says Nurangez.

The negative comments that users left under Nurangez's content, as a rule, did not relate to the essence of her messages, but concerned her appearance, clothes, demeanor and personal life. Statements from the networks sometimes turned into reality, gossip appeared around Nurangez. Most of them concerned personal life and led to serious nervous breakdowns.

When Nurangez had a young man, he demanded to give up social networks.

"He was angry that I would be recognized on the street. We had quarrels. He demanded that I delete all my social networks. In the end, I deleted them. It was very hard because I gave up on my career and gave up my many years of work. But then I realized that I shouldn't betray myself like that. I tried to talk, but his relatives also intervened in the relationship, who also opposed my social networks. As a result, we broke up," Nurangez recalls.

Despite the fact that negative comments under Nurangez's content continue to appear, she has now changed her attitude towards them: blocks aggressive users, does not read their messages. However, Nurangiz admits that she still feels vulnerable in front of an audience and tries not to touch on sensitive topics.

Are social networks not for women?

For the society in Tajikistan, Nurangez's behavior on social media is indeed considered very brave. The fact is that there is a widespread opinion in the republic that maintaining pages on social networks is unacceptable for a woman.

For example, popular Tajik bloggers are quite serious about the fact that a girl who has an Instagram page cannot be a good wife. Moreover, such judgments arouse great support from the audience.

Various studies confirm that such stereotypes are really very popular in Tajikistan. For example, according to the analysis of the country's digital ecosystem (DECA) conducted by USAID in 2023, girls and young married women in Tajikistan have limited access to gadgets and the Internet.

One of the reasons is the control over women, including their communication. In families where there are migrant workers, the situation is brought to the point of absurdity: men can leave smartphones to their mothers, not their wives, and in this case, women even have to communicate with their husbands under the control of their mother-in-law.

Perhaps these restrictions have led to the fact that the percentage of Tajik women among social media users is the lowest compared to other Central Asian countries (with the exception of Turkmenistan).

The main users of Tajik social networks are men. Instagram Facebook, for example, according to Datareportal, a portal that tracks trends in audience behavior on social networks in different countries, at the beginning of 2024, the proportion of women among Tajik Facebook users was slightly more than 26%, men - almost 74%, Instagram - 23.9% of women and 76.1% of men.

For comparison, in Kyrgyzstan, during the same period, the female audience on Facebook was more than 48%, and the male audience was more than 51%. The same picture is on Instagram - 57.7% of Kyrgyz women on this site, 42.3% of men.

Law enforcement agencies also exert pressure on women who actively run their social networks. Over the past few years, there have been precedents in Tajikistan related to female bloggers who received various types of administrative penalties for their activities.

The most high-profile case was the 10-day arrest of an 18-year-old girl, who, according to police, created publications that are "completely alien to the customs of the Tajik people." At the same time, the content of this blogger was not much different from that created by her peers in other countries - she danced and sang to music, and wore outfits that conservative people considered revealing.

What can online aggression lead to?

Studies that have examined online aggression draw attention to the fact that, trying to protect themselves from bullying on social networks, women often resort to self-censorship.

"Of course, I began to restrain myself more often, I can't always express my opinion publicly. I understand that my statement may cause harassment again and I refuse it, because I do not want to waste my strength and energy on experiencing harassment," says Zebo Tajibayeva, journalist, head of media Your.tj .

Zebo has repeatedly faced massive aggression against herself. Moreover, regardless of the topic that became the reason for the harassment, the nature of the insults always had common features - users used insults with sexual overtones or discussed her appearance.

That is, most of the insults never touched on a specific topic of discussion. And this, by the way, is typical not only for Tajikistan. Women in other countries from the world of politics, during aggression from the audience, primarily receive insults based on gender stereotypes and prejudices.

Zebo admits that the hardest test was the campaign that was launched against her 10 years ago. At that time, social media in Tajikistan was just gaining momentum, and journalists were not yet immune to negative comments.

"There were thousands of comments with insults, threats, I suffered this harassment very hard. Especially when I began to notice that all this negativity is reflected in the opinion of real people about me. It was really scary," Zebo recalls.

She says that despite the insults left by users, she did not ask for help anywhere.

"In fact, there is nowhere to turn for help. I still don't know how to act in such cases. You should not count on complaints to social networks, they do not respond adequately to them, the algorithms do not work. I could only count on the support of my loved ones," says Zebo.

How can women who have faced online aggression protect themselves?

Despite the fact that online aggression is a serious problem for the whole world, there are ways to protect against it and they are available, including to women in Tajikistan. First of all, it is psychological support from specialists.

"To survive bullying, first of all, mental stability and internal resources are required," says Firuza Mirzoeva, a specialist in the field of cyber security, psychologist. - Unfortunately, women who conduct public activities need to be prepared for haight, this is the downside of popularity, but they need psychological support. It is very difficult to cope with bullying alone."

Firuza says that, unfortunately, there are no media representatives among her clients. She explains this for several reasons, including the lack of free finances to pay for the services of a psychologist.

"There is no practice of seeking psychological help from journalists, although there is a lot of harassment against them. If you don't work on yourself, then people burn out and leave public activities," Firuza says.