25-year old French feminist Shanley Clemot McLaren awarded for fighting cybersexism

At 25-years old Shanley Clemot McLaren is what many people would qualify as a young activist. However, this Sciences Po Paris student - who also works as a gender policy officer at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs - is by no means new to the game. McLaren was 17-years old when she first began fighting for the feminist cause.

She received an award for her work at the Young Activists Summit - now in its sixth edition - where the overriding theme was the "power of collective action", with the slogan "Go Far, Go Together."

It was a form of collective action which began on the other side of the Atlantic - pushed by social media - which led Shanley to start fighting for the feminist cause.

"The #MeToo movement sparked my interest in feminism back in 2017. However, I felt that the voice of young women wasn't being represented in the movement", she tells Euronews Culture.

At the time, Shanley began hearing about how many her female classmates were receiving sexist comments and dealing with micro-aggressions from male students. "Teaching staff knew it was going on, but chose to turn a blind eye to it," claims Shanley.

In response to this, Shanley decided to organise a blockade at her school, to protest against the pervasiveness of sexism in French schools. This action garnered attention from French media, with Marlène Schiappa - serving as Secretary of State for Gender Equality at the time - inviting Shanley to the Ministry for a conversation about sexism in schools.

#StopFisha: a cyber-sexism complaints platform

Three years on, in 2020, Shanley began noticing a rising number of online cyber-harassment accounts - specifically targeting women. Although she began reporting these posts and comments to social media platforms, she realised that the content was continuing to surge on social media and instant messaging platforms.

This rise in online harassment of women was in fact pushed by the COVID-19 pandemic, as surveys carried out by NGOs like End Violence Against Women and Glitch UK have since concluded.

Women in Europe are 27 times more likely to be cyberbullied than men according to a report by the European Women's Lobby. Another study by Plan International conducted across 31 countries, involving over 14,000 girls and young women, found that 58% had experienced online harassment.

This worrying reality led Shanley to found #StopFisha, a platform dedicated to combatting image-based sexual abuse and online gendered violence. The term "fisha" is a version of French slang for the word "afficher," which means to display or make public.

"The accounts were organised by region, department, or city, with ones called “fishamarseille” for instance. They were created to share intimate content about teenage girls without their consent, using their personal information such as names, addresses, phone numbers, and schools," explains Shanley.

The platform which Shanley created allows individuals to report cases of cybersexism through an online form. #StopFisha is registered as a “trusted flagger” - meaning it can file direct reports to have accounts deleted or content removed - by a number of social media outlets.

"How do you help a 13-year old victim?"

#StopFisha has not been granted this "flagger" status by Meta, despite sending repeated requests to the body.

"We're the only organisation in France that works specifically on sexist and sexual cyberbullying", Shanley tells Euronews Culture. "The fact we don't have a partnership with Meta is a pity because there's no voice to represent sexism and sexist violence online - and therefore fewer voices to represent victims."

The activist worries that teenagers are intimidated by the complexity of the complaint forms which some social media platforms have.

"Today I am 25 years old and I know a lot about this issue. I was harassed on Instagram and I was able to fill out a form on a very complicated page on Instagram where I had to quote exactly the articles of law that were being talked about. I can do this kind of thing if I take 30 minutes of my time. But what do you do when it's a 13-year-old victim, how do you help? What does she do?," worries Shanley.

Monitoring online trends dangerous to women

The #StopFischa platform provides legal and psychological assistance to victims of cybersexism, but has also successfully pushed for French laws on technology-facilitated gender-based violence - including sextorsion and deepfake sexual abuse.

The team spends a significant amount of time monitoring online trends, in order to understand which corners of the internet rhetoric which is sexist and violent towards women emanates from.

"At the moment there is a rise in 'masculinist' online content", Shanley shares. Masculinists advocate for male dominance and superiority, typically pushing for a return to traditional gender roles.

"Recently, there was a TikTok trend where masculinist influencers, but also ordinary men and boys, started posting videos where they stated what they don't - or wouldn't - allow their wives or girlfriend to do," she shares.

"For instance they make a video where they say "my wife won't be allowed to go out with her girlfriends, my wife won't be allowed to wear makeup, etc." They promote a whole list of rules and measures which can be used to control and dominate their girlfriends or wives", analyses Shanley.

For the young activist, the increasingly polished look of this content is worrying as it further conceals masculinists' hidden agendas.

"Many masculinists have mastered the codes of how to go viral on social media, which means they can create communities and massive support for their ideas," Shanley warns. "Moderation has difficulty responding and penalising this content, because there is often to clear criminal or problematic offence."