18
M. SCHISSLER
Figure 6. Circa 2015. Source: Author’s files.
was that women in relationships with Muslim men, both romantic and platonic, could be
shamed with various insulting terms, such as “kalar wife” and “race destroying woman.” A
variant of the latter phrase features in the post at left in Figure 5, above, for example. “See
this race destroying woman? Look at her,” it says, in part. “Her account name is
[redacted].” Again, Facebook was only one of multiple tools, but, again, posting to Face
book provided a unique ability to make individuals into public displays and warnings to
others. The images below in Figure 7, for example, are from Facebook accounts created
for what appears to be the sole purpose of shaming women in relationships with Muslim
men. The account sharing the first image is named “True news of good-looking Myanmar
women with kalar men”; the account sharing the second is “Lesser wives of Kalar.”
That posting to Facebook provided a powerful means for policing the conduct of
women was also likely reinforced by the way such attacks always contained the potential
for both a broad public display and for targeting an individual’s more intimate social net
works. “I was followed by many people and my photo was being taken. Then it was spread
on social media, mentioning where I had been and what my activities were,” said one
female activist quoted in Ignited. “Some of my close friends dare not talk to me
anymore. They started to avoid me.”84 The efficacy of such attacks also must be under
stood in light of the ubiquity of harassment on Facebook, which was particularly acute
for women. A survey conducted by LIRNEAsia and the Myanmar ICT for Development
84
Progressive Voice et al., Hate Speech Ignited, 82.