Lithuania has already been criticized by UN CEDAW for media publications that are degrading to women, yet the country still has no measures in place to combat sexist hate speech.

"How do you identify a slut?" asks the anonymous author of an article that appeared on one of the largest Lithuanian online news sites. "Girls only appear decent at first. The truth, however, is different — there are many loose young ladies among them. How do you avoid falling for one of them?"

With no offense spared, the article then proceeds to examine the girls' purportedly immoral behavior — how they talk on social media, how they behave at parties and what girls guys should avoid.

Sexist hate speech as a control

Gender expert Margarita Jankauskaite claims that derogatory sexual labels are a powerful tool to punish women for any attempt to oppose the patriarchy at home or establish their own autonomy as people.

"Anyone is free to label, in essence, any woman like this, since it isn't predicated so much on women's actions as it is on the prejudices and interpretation of the observer. These kinds of articles only serve to encourage and normalize the objectification of women."

According to Jankauskaitė, the "saint" or "slut" (chaste Mary and carnal, lustful Eve) dichotomy is exploited systematically in our culture in order to entrench female subordination and control:

"When a person's identity is forced into a binary structure emphasizing certain characteristics, there's no room left to express humanity. Discussions of this sort give women no chance to be full-fledged human beings — to be the masters of their own bodies, desires, actions and choices."

Lack of media supervision

In 2014, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination also chimed in to share its concerns over Lithuanian media publications that were degrading to women. Unfortunately, at present there are no authorities in Lithuania in charge of monitoring information that is discriminatory and derogatory on the basis of gender.

The Office of the Equal Opportunities Ombudsman does not examine complaints regarding media conduct. Two institutions are capable of ordering entities to remove unethical publications and imposing sanctions — the Office of the Inspector of Journalist Ethics and the Ethics Association for Public Information.

Unfortunately, there are no legal provisions directly prohibiting publications of this nature. The Code of Ethics of Journalists and Publishers is also silent on humiliating treatment based on gender.

While the outdated code, adopted way back in 2005, is due for an update this year, it is unclear whether the principles of non-discrimination and gender equality will be included in the new edition.

Investigation

The Human Rights Monitoring Institute contacted all three institutions, asking them to oblige the disseminator of the information to remove the humiliating publication.

Furthermore, it was proposed to include gender non-discrimination principles in the new code of ethics, create a database with the results of monitoring this type of information and educate journalists and the public on how articles like these are unethical, as well as harmful to women and their role in society.