[Commlist] CfP - Online Discourse of Gender-Based Violence International Conference

Conference

Amiens, France

Date: 13/01/2027 - 15/01/2027
Call for papers ending on: 30/04/2026

Call for papers

The very first days of 2026 have witnessed the proliferation of Grok
AI-generated deepfakes on X. Over the past decade, institutional reports 
have
constantly reported the presence of gender-based violence online (e.g.
Council of Europe Gender Equality Strategy 2016; UN Human Rights Council
2018; Amnesty International 2020; Haut Conseil à l’Égalité 2024). In
2017, the European Institute for Gender Equality estimated that one in ten
women had already experienced a form of cyber violence since the age of 15
(EIGE 2017: 1), encompassing cyber stalking, cyber harassment, gender-based
hate speech, and non-consensual intimate image abuse (EIGE 2022).

Online gender-based violence is a widespread, cross-cultural issue. Social
media platforms enable the rapid spread of harmful discourse and the
emergence of online communities united by hostility toward particular social
groups, such as women and LGBTIQ+ people. A notable example of this
phenomenon is the (neo-)manosphere (Gerrand et al. 2025), which has received
growing interest from linguistics researchers in recent years . This rich
literature has focused particularly on English-speaking communities (see
Czerwinsky, 2023 for an overview), where researchers have examined 
discursive
representations of masculinity, femininity (Heritage & Koller 2020; Iveson &
Formato 2022; Krendel et al. 2022), and feminism (Aiston 2024;), as well as
the lexicon (e.g. Ging et al. 2020; Gothard et al. 2021; Bogetić 2023).

While there is research on these discourses outside the English-speaking
world, such as in Turkey (Denir & Tiryaki 2024) or Spain (Fernández et al.
2023), it is not always conducted within the field of linguistics. Notable
exceptions include Huang (2023) and Bao (2024), who observed the expression
of anti-feminism on Chinese social media. Applying critical discourse
analysis, Huang (2023) identified strategies demonising feminists, such as
representing feminists as deviant women. More specifically looking at
metaphors used to represent feminism, Bao (2024) found that war metaphors
were the most frequent, thereby presenting it as a threat to be eliminated.
Within this still limited body of linguistic research outside the
English-speaking world, a few additional studies can be noted. From a
comparative and intercultural perspective, Anastasi et al. (2023) analysed
the dynamics of interactions within online Incel communities in Italian and
English. Adopting an approach that combines natural language processing and
feminist studies, their thematic exploration highlights variations both in
the topics discussed and in the targets of hateful content. Incel discourse
has also been characterised, among other features, by a neoliberal market
logic extended to the domain of sexuality (Scarcelli 2021). In this context,
Anastasi and Fragalà (2025), examined how dating applications such asTinder
are discursively constructed within the Italian incel community.

Even within the field of linguistics, most research has focused on lexical
cues of gender-based violence, highlighting how antifeminist ideology is
constructed through specific terminology among incels (Bogetić 2023),or
made visible through collocation patterns (Krendel et al. 2023).
Nevertheless, as Kwarteng et al. (2022) concluded in their study of online
misogynoir, automated hate speech detection through lexical items is
insufficient to address covert or intersectional forms of misogyny,
emphasising the need for contextualised pragmatic analyses. Krendel (2023),
through an analysis of speech acts in alleged self-help posts from the
manosphere group r/TheRedPill, aptly showed how the frequency of
face-threatening speech acts made the community less supportive than the
overt lexicon of self-help and personal improvement might otherwise suggest.

As noted by Colliver (2024), little attention has been paid to the discourse
and experience of online violence against trans people. While research in
this area remains limited, two key aspects of online discourse can be
mentioned: the role of algorithmic recommendations and the impact of content
moderation. Focusing on algorithmic recommender functions, Baker et al.
(2024) demonstrated that transphobic content is frequently recommended to
boys and young men on Youtube and TikTok. Regarding content moderation, Are&
Gerrard (2024) argued that TikTok’s policies toward trans users’ content
can perpetuate harm through censoring and flagging trans’ users posts as
potentially offensive, effectively constituting an act of violence.

While originally rooted in the grievances of "angry white men" (Kimmel 
2013),
the (neo-)manosphere and its anti-gender ideology are now conveyed and
promoted by diverse audiences: white incels represent a minority of the
incel.is users (Gerrand et al. 2025), while researchers also note the
emerging "black manosphere" (Awwal 2024; Procope Bell 2024) and promotion of
misogyny and hegemonic masculinity within online gay spaces (Leeder 2024).
Women themselves, either as "tradwives" influencers, ‘pink pilled’
anti-feminist activists or femcels can also engage with and produce
misogynistic discourses (Bauer 2024; Anastasi 2022). This diversity requires
researchers to pay close attention to the specific characteristics of the
group under discussion - including their linguistic characteristics,
preferred topics, and intended audiences - and consider how these elements
contribute to diverse manifestations of online gender-based violence.

As mentioned above, recent developments in technology are also leading to
other forms of gender-based violence discourse online, particularly through
the use of AI (Copley et al. 2025) and, more specifically, the creation of
deepfakes (Karagianni & Doh 2024). A discourse analysis of online misogyny
was carried out by Lee (2025), with a focus on mass and social media
discourses surrounding the 2024 'deepfake porn' scandal in South Korea.
Results showed that male-dominated online communities were responsible for
the construction of narratives that place a strong emphasis on instances of
male victimisation and the subsequent attribution of blame to women.

Building on this literature, this international conference aims to bring
together linguists working on the interplay between online discourse and
gender-based violence, with a particular focus on the latest developmentsin
technology, transphobic discourse, and discourse outside English-speaking
communities, among other topics.

We invite papers on, but not limited to, the following themes:

non-English speaking communities
	diversification of the participants
	transphobic discourse
	latest developments in technology
	antifeminism
	intersections in hate speech
In addition to paper presentations (20-minute presentation + 10-minute Q&A),
there will be a round table discussion dedicated to young researchers 
working
on these topics. A workshop will also be organised to give those who wishto
do so the opportunity to discuss the emotional work that can arise from this
type of research.

Practical information

Submission is to be done via a login on the conference
website: https://odgbv27.sciencesconf.org/
	deadline: April 30th
	format: Abstracts must be no longer than 500 words (excluding references)
and must be anonymous.
	languages: English and French (if you decide to present in French, we
encourage you to have support material in English)


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