Beyond the Code: Protecting Women in the Digital Age

By Radhini Sridhara
for the 2025 Risky Women Writing Competition, presented in partnership with Ocorian

The digital world, built on promises of connection and innovation, has become a double-edged sword for women. While it offers unprecedented opportunities, it also harbors unique and insidious risks. In the GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) and cybersecurity domains, we often focus on technical vulnerabilities and regulatory frameworks. However, a more pressing and often overlooked challenge lies at the intersection of technology and human behavior: the gendered risks that disproportionately affect women. To truly address these threats, we must move beyond traditional security models and adopt a Trust & Safety framework. This shift in perspective recognizes that risk is not just about data breaches or system failures; it’s about the psychological, financial, and physical harm that technology can inflict on vulnerable users.

Women and girls are disproportionately targeted for online harassment, with 85% of women worldwide reporting witnessing instances of online violence. The consequences—ranging from depression to exclusion from online spaces—go far beyond individual harm, affecting organizational trust and workplace safety. Women often face victim-blaming and are left unsupported by systems that lack a nuanced understanding of gendered online harms. For a teenage girl navigating social media, the threat landscape is deeply personal and often escalates from the digital to the physical world. While a company’s GRC team may see a platform data breach as a potential fine or a loss of customer trust, the same event can lead to doxxing, cyberstalking, or the non-consensual sharing of intimate imagery, putting her physical safety at risk. The very architecture of social media platforms, designed for engagement, can be weaponized against young women. For a teenage girl struggling with body image, the algorithm may identify her insecurities and begin feeding her a relentless stream of “thinspiration” content, pushing her toward unhealthy behaviors. For a girl who reports harassment, the platform’s response—or lack thereof—can feel like a second betrayal.

Rethinking GRC for a Gendered Threat Landscape

This is where the Trust & Safety lens is critical. It forces us to ask different questions that go beyond a checkbox approach to compliance. We must question if a platform’s design is enabling harm. A seemingly innocuous “check-in” feature can be weaponized by an abuser to track a victim’s location. A simple-to-use “report” button often leads to an automated system that is not equipped to understand the nuances of gendered abuse, such as a pattern of subtle intimidation or a coordinated “pile-on” of abuse. This perspective shift reframes GRC from a purely technical and legal exercise to a fundamental commitment to user safety and well-being.

AI tools have revolutionized threat detection, but they come with caveats. The current application of AI in Trust & Safety is often a reactive, post-facto solution. A photo is shared, and then the AI flags it for removal. This approach is a game of whack-a-mole; it cleans up the mess but does not prevent the harm. A more innovative and effective AI solution requires a paradigm shift. Instead of just scanning for harmful content, AI models should be trained to identify early-stage behavioral signals that precede abuse. For example, AI could analyze communication patterns to identify language that is becoming increasingly aggressive, abusive, or threatening toward a specific user, enabling an intervention before a major incident occurs. Bias-aware model development is also non-negotiable. If an AI model is trained on data where male-dominated speech is considered “normal” and women’s reports of harassment are dismissed as “overly sensitive,” the model will be ineffective in detecting and mitigating harm against women. Building an AI model that specifically recognizes and flags gendered slurs, patterns of intimidation, and subtle forms of abuse requires training on diverse and carefully curated datasets.

The Power of Women in GRC Leadership

This conversation must be led by women in GRC leadership. While GRC and cybersecurity have historically been male-dominated fields, the growing number of women in leadership positions is a powerful force for change. The lived experiences of women in technology bring a unique and invaluable perspective to the boardroom. Women leaders are often more likely to champion a Trust & Safety-focused GRC model because they viscerally understand the risks that technology poses to women. They can reframe risk metrics, pushing for a focus on the number of doxxing incidents or the time it takes to remove intimate deepfake imagery, rather than just the number of flagged posts. This shift in focus elevates the conversation from technical efficiency to genuine human safety. They are also well-positioned to break down the silos between GRC, legal, engineering, and Trust & Safety teams. They understand that a threat to a user is a threat to the company’s brand, reputation, and bottom line, and they can drive a holistic, cross-functional approach to risk management.

By amplifying female voices and lived experiences in GRC and cybersecurity, we can build a digital world where safety is not an afterthought but a foundational principle. The path forward is not just about protecting data; it is about protecting people. And to do that, we need a GRC framework that is not only compliant but also compassionate.