New exhibition spotlights the real-world impact of online abuse targeting women leaders

Inside the Glass Cage draws on a Marsden Fund-supported research project led by Te Kunenga Ki Pūrehuroa Massey University academics Associate Professor Suze Wilson, Professor Rochelle Stewart-Withers and Professor Sarah Riley, along with independent scholar Dr Tracey Nicholls. The exhibition uses quotes from interviews with women in politics, journalism and academia to explore the personal, professional and political consequences of online hostility. The exhibition runs from 14 to 18 August at Te Auaha Gallery in Wellington.

Dr Wilson says the exhibition highlights the viscerally felt, real-world effects of misogynist and racist abuse and threats.

“We wanted to move beyond statistics and show how this hostility impacts women emotionally, physically and professionally, and to make visible the resilience and courage they display in continuing to lead.”

Wilson said the work challenges the idea that online abuse is somehow ’less real’ simply because it happens in a digital space. The women who participated in the research often described feeling under constant hostile surveillance, with their leadership and authority actively undermined.

“We’re presenting this experience through the metaphor of the ‘glass cage’, a concept first developed by Dr Wilson and Dr Danielle Selman-Julian from Auckland University of Technology. Unlike the more well-known ‘glass ceiling’, which refers to unseen barriers to advancement, the glass cage represents an active effort to constrain and discredit women’s leadership. Wāhine Māori and other women of colour demonstrating leadership are especially likely to be targeted in this way,” says Dr Wilson.

The exhibition features several constructed glass cages that visitors can step into, each lined with quotes that convey the nature and effects of the gendered and racialised abuse the study participants face.

“We want audiences to feel what it’s like to be surrounded by such hostility, to better understand how online misogyny and racism actually functions,” adds Dr Wilson.

The exhibit, which is free and open to the public, also draws attention to the broader democratic implications of this abuse. As Wilson put it, “If women are driven out of public life by these attacks, we all lose. It’s not just a women’s issue – it’s a threat to inclusive and representative leadership in Aotearoa.”