An urgently needed reckoning with the harm, harassment, and abuse women face on the internet, with insights from clinical experts on how to survive the trauma—by an award-winning reporter

When Alia Dastagir published a story for USA Today as part of an investigation into child sexual abuse, she became the target of an online mob launched by QAnon and endorsed by Donald Trump Jr. While female journalists, politicians, and influencers receive a disproportionate amount of online attacks because of the nature of their professions, all women online experience hate, with psychological effects akin to physical violence.

In To Those Who Have Confused You to Be a Person, Dastagir argues that the generic advice to “just ignore it,” “grow thicker skin” or “eff the haters” is minimizing and counter-productive, even when well-intentioned. Women need a better understanding of what is happening to their brains and bodies during online abuse, how it’s changing them, and why they are not fragile or weak for their human responses to fear and harm.

Dastagir weaves together her own story with the stories of thirteen other women who have faced online abuse, including a comedian who uses feminist humor to cope and an OB-GYN who uses anger over her online harassment to fight attacks on reproductive rights. Dastagir examines how words harm and why words that hurt one woman may not necessarily trigger or traumatize another; she explores the impact of online violence on bodies and analyzes how online abuse intersects with disinformation online. She argues that while online abuse is often framed exclusively as a problem of misogyny, it is also connected to a culture of white supremacy, and the systems with which it intertwines; she explores the places hate can show up, from Zoom bombing and online dating to social media and even your doorstep. Throughout, she weaves in critical analysis from psychologists, sociologists, neuroscientists, technologists and philosophers.

To Those Who Have Confused You to Be a Person is the book on online abuse for this cultural moment, when being online is a daily necessity for so many, even as we grow ever more polarized. Systemic solutions are key to combating violence online, but women also need meaningful strategies to cope, to empower them to raise their voices against the forces bent on silencing them.