Kasari Govender on Cyber Misogyny

The stories are legion.

A Member of Parliament uses Twitter to lobby for a woman's image to be used on British currency and she is threatened with rape and murder.

A female journalist files a column on a controversial subject and instead of speaking to the topic, online comments are directed at her personally: insults and harassment.

Women are overpowered and shut down on the internet every day by stalkers who hide behind a veil of anonymity. For women, the online world is an unwelcome, potentially dangerous place.

In Vancouver, the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund - also known as LEAF - recently released a report on this trend, dubbed cyber misogyny, and has put forward a proposal to deal with it.

Kasari Govender is a lawyer and the Executive Director of West Coast LEAF, and she spoke to guest host Francine Pelletier from our Vancouver studio.