In the glossy narrative of Digital Bangladesh, social media platforms like Facebook and TikTok were sold as instruments of liberation - tools that would connect rural women to markets, amplify marginalised voices, and dismantle centuries-old barriers of gender and geography. Yet this promise has curdled into a sophisticated mechanism of control. Radical feminist analysis exposes how patriarchy, far from retreating in the digital age, has migrated online, adapting its techniques to surveil, shame, and punish women's bodies and voices with algorithmic precision. Postmodern feminism further reveals these platforms as discursive battlegrounds where gendered norms are produced and enforced not by overt force alone, but through the invisible operations of power: viral outrage, anonymous mobs, and profit-driven algorithms that thrive on misogyny.
The 2024 National Violence Against Women Survey by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and UNFPA lays bare the scale of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV). Over 8.3 per cent of women with digital access have experienced unwanted sexual communications, sexual blackmail, image-based abuse, or controlling behaviours in their lifetime, with more than 5 per cent facing such violence in the past year alone. Among young women aged 20-24, the figure climbs to 16 per cent, and in urban areas it approaches 12 per cent. Alarmingly, strangers account for 46 per cent of perpetrators - a sharp departure from traditional violence that usually stems from known relations. An unpublished UN Women study documented a sharp surge during and after the 2024 civil unrest, with 66 per cent of women reporting explicit or threatening messages. Police data recorded over 9,117 cyber-harassment complaints in 2024, with notable spikes in the months when women's public visibility increased through protests and political engagement. Recent estimates suggest that as many as 3.3 million women experienced selected forms of TFGBV in the past year. These numbers capture only measured forms; the true prevalence is undoubtedly higher.
Over 8.3 per cent of women with digital access have experienced unwanted sexual communications, sexual blackmail, image-based abuse, or controlling behaviours in their lifetime, with more than 5 per cent facing such violence in the past year alone
Radical feminism insists that patriarchy's central project remains the regulation of women's sexuality and autonomy. In Bangladesh, where ideals of modesty, family honour, and 'purdah' still exert powerful cultural force, social media has become an extraordinarily efficient enforcer. Deepfake revenge porn represents the most chilling technological refinement of this control. A single public photograph from Facebook or TikTok is enough for anyone with basic AI tools to fabricate explicit videos superimposing a woman's face onto pornographic content. Civil society reports document a rising tide of such cases, especially since 2024, targeting activists, students, journalists, and ordinary users who dare to be visible. The damage is never confined to the digital realm. In a society that ties a woman's worth to perceived sexual purity, these fabricated images trigger real-world ostracism, family pressure, ruined marriage prospects, and sometimes physical violence. This is not mere harassment; it is a form of digital sexual terrorism designed to punish women for the crime of public presence and to push them back into the private sphere.
Postmodern insights illuminate the subtler machinery at work. Social media functions as a decentralised panopticon, as Foucault might describe it, where users themselves - through likes, shares, and comments - participate in a collective disciplinary gaze. Algorithms amplify misogynistic content because outrage generates engagement and profit. Judith Butler's concept of gender performativity is acutely relevant: women must constantly enact an idealised, modest femininity online to avoid algorithmic punishment and social backlash. Post a bold opinion, wear something non-traditional, or speak as a feminist, and the response is swift - ritualistic shaming that redraws the boundaries of acceptable womanhood. In Bangladesh's post-2024 landscape, this intersects with resurgent religious conservatism and political tensions. Hardline groups label gender-equality efforts "un-Islamic" or "Western imports," emboldening digital vigilantes to deploy sexualised slurs, fabricated scandals, and moral policing against women who enter public or activist spaces. Research on gendered disinformation shows how such attacks systematically delegitimise women's political participation, shifting focus from their ideas to their bodies and morality.
Bangladeshi women have shown remarkable resilience, building support networks, documenting abuses, and pushing for accountability through feminist collectives and civil society efforts. Yet individual resilience cannot substitute for systemic change. Genuine transformation requires holding platforms accountable, strengthening gender-sensitive digital policies with clear definitions and swift enforcement for AI-enabled abuse, investing in survivor-centred support, including mental health services, and fostering a cultural shift that refuses to normalise online misogyny as "just words."
The women navigating TikTok dances, Facebook marketplaces, university discussions, and protest organising are not passive victims of digital modernity. They are confronting a reconfigured patriarchy that seeks to discipline them through technology. Until Bangladeshi society - policymakers, tech companies, families, and communities - confronts how deeply patriarchy has embedded itself in our digital infrastructure, the emancipatory promise of Digital Bangladesh will remain a hollow slogan that masks the continued subordination of women. True digital progress must centre women's bodily autonomy, voice, and safety, or it will merely perfect the mechanisms of their control.
The writer is a researcher and development professional
