Moral panics about women online repeat Victorian fears of women in stores

Evidence

Though this concern predated the internet by more than a century, it bears striking resemblance to the social fears about women and technology that emerged at the dawn of the digital age. The recent incarnation of this “moral panic” positions digitally networked girls and young women as especially vulnerable to nefarious predators, or, alternatively, stigmatizes them for their (sexual) agency. Contemporary anxieties about women online can be understood as an expression of this persistent, Victorian-era moral puritanism; the internet thus represents a public space inhabited by women, much like the early department store. — Brooke Erin Duffy, (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love, 53

Categorization

• SEED: The department-store/internet parallel could anchor a piece about moral panics over women entering new public spaces.
• XREF: connects to: Self-promotion violates gendered prescriptions for women’s behavior — Brooke Erin Duffy, (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love:…, 337; White women feared black women’s perceived immorality threatened their own status — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 384; Fearful women transit public space in planned, purposeful bursts rather than strolling — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 876 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Successive moral panics recycled the same demonizing stereotypes across groups #epitomizes (0.85) — Runnymede Trust (ed. Farah Elahi & Omar Khan), Islamophobia, 162
• Negrophobic women’s fear arises from imagination, not real danger #exemplifies (0.85)
• White women feared black women’s perceived immorality threatened their own status #exemplifies (0.80) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 384
• Oriental female monsters gave Victorian anxieties about race and desire a place of expression #exemplifies (0.80)
• Moral panics link disparate fears into one ‘hydra-headed other’ #expands (0.80) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 1116
• Racialized images of criminality reconstitute and escalate through moral panics #expands (0.80)
• Fearful women transit public space in planned, purposeful bursts rather than strolling #expands (0.75) — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 876
• Moral panics substitute law-and-order fear for addressing economic crises #expands (0.75)
• A moral panic counts as a crisis when it is experienced as one #qualifies (0.75)
• Dracula articulated Victorian anxiety about reverse colonization #corroborates (0.75) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 1095