deciding; the men in our tribe are the ones who decide.’” This tactic directly
undermines women's democratic participation by dismissing their voices.
Tarawneh highlighted the inherent difficulty in differentiating between culturally
nuanced "jokes" and legally actionable violence. She explained that while certain
language may be objectively inappropriate, the specific cultural context and the
recipient's own reception of the comment can complicate its formal classification.
Despite falling beyond the scope of legal prosecution, such language profoundly
normalizes the casual belittlement of women in politics and shapes public
perception of their rightful place in the democratic process.
The repetition of phrases like “go back to the kitchen,”
even when deemed "harmless," works to normalize these
ideas in the collective consciousness. This aligns with
what Hodson et al. (2010)25 term "cavalier humour
beliefs," a mindset that legitimizes prejudicial myths
under the guise of uncritical, nonchalant humour. Such
content is also more likely to fly under the radar of social
media platforms when gift-wrapped as a joke or a meme.
Figure 1: The truth is that your place is in the
kitchen and that's it – this image was on a post
about activist Hala Ahed
Ultimately, the pervasive claim that online violence is "just words on a screen" is
what allows it to thrive. When cavalier jokes telling women to “go back to the
kitchen” or suggesting they are unfit for politics because of “hormones” are
repeated enough, they cease to be confined to the digital realm and begin to have
tangible offline repercussions.
From the Digital to the Physical: Offline Repercussions of TFGBV
Offline repercussions of online violence do not stop at discriminatory rhetoric, as
there were many accounts where the situation escalates to physical violence.
Specifically, 35% of the survey respondents said that online abuse led to
offline consequences, such as stress, strained relationships, or public
shaming.
Physical Violence
This translation from digital to physical harm is a recurring theme. In conservative
communities, reputational damage from online harassment can trigger honourbased violence, and blackmail involving intimate photos can lead directly to
physical harm from family members. As one source starkly put it, “If a woman has
her images shared online against her will, she might come home to find her father
25
Gordon Hodson et al., “A Joke Is Just a Joke (except When It Isn’t): Cavalier Humor Beliefs Facilitate the Expression of
Group Dominance Motives.,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 99, no. 4 (2010): 660–82,
https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019627.
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