Drowning Out Women’s Voices: Weaponising Online Misogyny to Silence

Misogyny online is not simply offensive speech at scale—it is a coordinated, systemic practice of silencing. Drawing on feminist analyses of misogyny as the “law enforcement branch” of patriarchy Manne (Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny. Oxford: Oxford University, 2018), and extending work in speech act theory (Langton 22 (4): 293–330, 1993; McGowan 29 (2): 458–473, 2014; Caponetto 40 (1): 191–202, 2021), this paper argues that the sheer volume of online misogyny silences women. Platform affordances, especially algorithmic amplification and the rapid formation of ad hoc hostile groups (Barnes 25 (2): 251–281, 2023), transform misogynistic hostility into an environment where women’s speech is not merely contested but actively erased. We identify three systematic modes of silencing: locutionary silencing (women are deterred from speaking at all), illocutionary silencing (women’s speech is not recognised as what it is), and sincerity silencing (women’s speech is recognised but discredited as inauthentic). We argue that far from being side-effects of individual prejudice, these forms of silencing are built into the architecture of digital discourse. We proceed by showing how online hostility is made frictionless and rewarding for misogynists, producing predictable patterns of silencing. This phenomenon raises urgent normative concerns: when half the population is structurally constrained from full participation, public discourse itself becomes an echo chamber for patriarchal norms. We conclude that counter-speech, though important, is insufficient without structural reforms to platform design.