“This activity is not just a wrongful assault online, it is unjust discrimination…singling out [victims] because of their sex,” said Citron. The Gamergate campaign and the horrifying threats of violence, rape, and murder that prominent women in the video game community like Brianna Wu and Anita Sarkeesian have endured online is illustrative of this. These threats have forced these women to file reports with the police, flee from their homes for safety, and cancel university lectures. These are clearly examples of gendered attacks, and could, theoretically, be prosecuted as such.

But it’s not always the lack of legal precedents that’s at issue—it’s also gaps in police-force education. In her research, Citron said she has found that many police agencies aren’t allocating resources to fighting this type of crime. Often victims who go to the police are told it’s a civil matter, not a criminal one, when there are indeed criminal laws in place to stop the harassment. Many police forces “just don’t have the training,” Citron said. “We can do better on that.”

This is why the question, “Why didn’t she just go to the police?” is often a bad one—one that ignores the reality of what the authorities are willing to do for victims. Take the case of feminist blogger Rebecca Watson. Watson writes that in 2012, she came across a website of a man who was writing about murdering her. After some research, she tracked down his real name and location (which was within a three-hour drive of her home). She called the police department in that jurisdiction, her own, and the FBI, but after some initial questions, she said the authorities didn’t seem to care. “I’ve lived in several different cities…and received several frightening threats, and never have I met a single helpful cop who even made an attempt to help me feel safe,” she writes. Amanda Hess keeps a running file of people who make online death threats against her, she explains in her oft-cited article, "Why Women Aren’t Welcome on the Internet." The first time she filed a report about a man threatening to murder her, the police officer asked her, “Why would anyone bother to do something like that?” and decided not to file a report.

So without the support of the police, and in the face of confusing and unhelpful laws, what should women who face harassment online do? There are some initial steps victims can take to protect themselves, said Jayne Hitchcock, president of Working to Halt Online Abuse, in a recent phone interview. First, even though they may not be helpful, she encourages victims to tell the relevant authorities, and clearly tell their harasser to stop contacting them. Then, they should stop responding to messages or online communications from their harasser. And though it’s tempting to delete the messages, Hitchcock said everything should be kept and documented both within whatever app or system the messages were sent, and with screenshots in case the harasser tries to delete the messages themselves.