Women’s Activism Online and the Global Struggle for Social Change (Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change) 3031316207, 9783031316203

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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN COMMUNICATION FOR SOCIAL CHANGE

Women’s Activism Online and the Global Struggle for Social Change Edited by Carmit Wiesslitz

Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change Series Editors

Pradip Thomas University of Queensland Brisbane, Australia Elske van de Fliert University of Queensland Australia

Communication for Social Change (CSC) is a defined field of academic enquiry that is explicitly transdisciplinary and that has been shaped by a variety of theoretical inputs from a variety of traditions, from sociology and development to social movement studies. The leveraging of communication, information and the media in social change is the basis for a global industry that is supported by governments, development aid agencies, foundations, and international and local NGOs. It is also the basis for multiple interventions at grassroots levels, with participatory communication processes and community media making a difference through raising awareness, mobilising communities, strengthening empowerment and contributing to local change. This series on Communication for Social Change intentionally provides the space for critical writings in CSC theory, practice, policy, strategy and methods. It fills a gap in the field by exploring new thinking, institutional critiques and innovative methods. It offers the opportunity for scholars and practitioners to engage with CSC as both an industry and as a local practice, shaped by political economy as much as by local cultural needs. The series explicitly intends to highlight, critique and explore the gaps between ideological promise, institutional performance and realities of practice.

Carmit Wiesslitz Editor

Women’s Activism Online and the Global Struggle for Social Change

Editor Carmit Wiesslitz Hadassah Academic College Jerusalem, Israel

ISSN 2634-6397     ISSN 2634-6400 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change ISBN 978-3-031-31620-3    ISBN 978-3-031-31621-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31621-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Hili Wiesslitz This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgments

In October 2022, media around the world provided extensive coverage of Iranian women who were removing their hijabs as an act of protest against the government, in a country that violates human rights on a daily basis and where women are second-class citizens. The hijab protest actually began several years earlier on social media, and gradually recruited increasing numbers of Iranian women who risk their lives by participating in the protest in the deeply conservative religious state of Iran. As this book goes to press in July 2023, in another part of the Middle East, Israel is experiencing one of the largest waves of social protest in the country’s history, triggered by PM Netanyahu’s plans to overhaul the judiciary, whose results will arguably undermine the very foundation of Israeli democracy. To stress the devastating effects that the changes will have on women’s rights, thousands of women whose acquaintance is based on membership in social media groups come together to demonstrate against the threats to the rights of all women in Israel. I am full of admiration and respect for both Iranian and Israeli women, as well as for all women activists around the world, who courageously take action in the streets and in digital spaces, determined to create a better world, and sometimes pay a heavy price for their activism. I would like to extend my gratitude to the researchers who contributed their studies to this important book, which presents fascinating cases of women’s activism around the world. As a minority, women in academia have taken upon themselves to speak on behalf of excluded and underprivileged women in order to achieve social change. For many, this is a social mission. I believe that the contributors to this book view it, as I do, v

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

as more than yet another collection of academic research—as an important milestone in presenting the work of women activists in digital spaces. I would like to express my thanks to my editor and translator, Renee Hochman, for her expertise and assistance in this journey, and for our numerous engaging and fruitful discussions. I would also like to express my gratitude to Dr. Oranit Klein-Shagrir, Dr. Carmel Vaisman, and Dr. Sigal Barak-Brandes, outstanding researchers and great friends, who were there for me over the years and were always available to listen to my ideas and offer excellent advice. I treasure their friendship and support. Finally to the strong women in my family who are my source of strength and are always at my side: my mother Sima, my sister Limor, and my amazing daughter Hili who is the love of my life and fountain of all my happiness.

Contents

1 Women’s  Avenues of Digital Activism: Fighting for Their Own  1 Carmit Wiesslitz Part I Overcoming the Digital Divide and Going Viral: Women’s Online Struggles for Social Change  21 2 KN-IT-Working:  Older Women’s Eco-­Activism in the Digital Age—An Australian Case Study of the Knitting Nannas Against Gas and Greed’s Use of Social Media for Learning and Empowerment 23 Larraine J. Larri 3 “I’m  at 100!”: Protesting the Right-Wing Government in Austria 45 Ricarda Drüeke 4 Feminists’  Social Media Protests and the Digital Public Sphere in Turkey 63 Aysun Eyrek

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5 A  Technopolitical Approach of the Feminist Performance Un Violador en tu Camino [A Rapist in Your Path]: Exploratory Insights from Online Videos 81 Valentina Carranza Weihmüller, Ana Lúcia Nunes de Sousa, and Karina de Cássia Caetano Part II An Alternative Democratic Public Sphere: The Internet as a Safe Space 107 6 Intersectionality  in Feminist Hashtags and Democracy: How the Black Women’s Day in Brazil Mobilizes Specificities within the Feminist Movement109 Bruna Silveira de Oliveira and Maiara Orlandini 7 “My  Body is Not Your Crime Scene”: The Polarization and “Weaponization” of Women’s Online Activism on South Africa’s Twittersphere133 Allen Munoriyarwa 8 #NoIsNo.  Shaping Public Debate on Rape Culture and Sexual Assault in Spain through Social Media157 Elisa García-Mingo, Patricia Prieto-Blanco, and Silvia Díaz-Fernández 9 Politicization  of Motherhood as a Mode of Digital Activism: The Case of Iran’s Mourning Mothers173 Gilda Seddighi 10 Mobilizing  the Everyday Activist: Digital Communication Toward Action as the Women’s March Advances from Grassroots Activism195 Kristine M. Nicolini and Sara Steffes Hansen

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Part III Democratic Digital Discursive Spaces of and for Women: Unintended Consequences 219 11 Safe  Spaces on Social Media Platforms: Selective Censorship and Content Moderation in Reddit’s r/ TwoXChromosomes221 Amy Mowle 12 ‘Intersectional,  Queer Feminist Magazine’ Made by White People? An Analysis of Digital Feminist Debates on Popular Intersectionality in Germany239 Katrin Schindel 13 “Ca_Va_Saigner”  (“There Will be Blood”): Digital Menstrual Activism in France257 Maria Kathryn Tomlinson 14 “Feminism  in India” Framing #MeTooIndia: A Case of Digital Activism277 Ishani Mukherjee, Priya V. Shah, and Tina E. Dexter 15 Conclusion301 Carmit Wiesslitz

Notes on Contributors

Karina  de  Cássia  Caetano  graduated in Philosophy from the Federal University of Espírito Santo, Brazil, and is a Doctoral student in Bioethics, Applied Ethics, and Collective Health at State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is a scientific communicator of Birth in Brazil (Nascer no Brasil) at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation. Caetano is Popular Educator in Health focused on the democratization of science and health, especially regarding women’s health. Her research interests are decolonial studies and intersectional feminism. Tina  E.  Dexter is an independent researcher and holds a B.A. in Communication from the University of Illinois at Chicago, USA. She is a decorated US Marine Corps combat veteran. Her research focuses on sexual violence in the military, digital activism, minority representation, and business ethics. During her military career she received awards for leadership, including a feature in “The Heroes Issue” of Newsweek magazine (2012). Tina served as an advisor and victim-­advocate to military sexual violence survivors. Her research has been presented at NCA and other international conferences, and her work has been published in the Florida Communication Journal. Silvia  Díaz-Fernández is a Postdoctoral Researcher Marie Curie (MSCA-IF) at the Faculty of Humanities, Communication and Documentation, Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain, since 2022. Member of the Centre for Post-Digital Cultures and the Postdigital Intimacies Network at Coventry University, England. She received her Ph.D. in Media and Sociology in 2020 from Coventry University. Her xi

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lines of research focus on gender studies, gender and new technologies, and contemporary sociological theory. Her work has been published in international journals such as Gender, Place and Culture, Qualitative Inquiry, and Gender and Education. Ricarda  Drüeke, PhD  is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Salzburg, Austria. Her research interests are political communication and digital publics, digital activism and networked feminism, and medial representations of ethnicity and gender. She is currently working on projects within the broader field of cultural and gender media studies. Her postdoctoral dissertation (habilitation) (submitted in 2019) deals with media repertoires in contemporary protest movements, such as feminist protest articulations and movements. Aysun Eyrek  is Assistant Professor of New Media and Communication at Fenerbahçe University, Turkey, and an independent feminist activist in Turkey. Her academic interests include the sociology of communication, digital humanities, gender studies, and digital activism especially in relation to digital media memory studies and digital archive activism. She is the author of Screen Memory: Amnesia in the Cultural Industry, published in 2020. Her recent publications include “Digital Society and Togetherness Against Discrimination (2021)” in Challenging Discrimination in Different Areas: Turkey, edited by N.  Akıncılar Köseoğlu and D.  Apak; “Digitalization of Memories” (2020) published in Media and Literacy and Academic Research. She is currently studying the impact of digital media on feminist memory. Elisa García-Mingo  is Associate Professor of Social Research Methods at the Faculty of Sociology and Political Sciences, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. She received her Ph.D. in 2011 from Universidad de Deusto, with a dissertation called “Peace Waves: Congolese Women Journalists’ Activism Against Sexual Violence.” She has been a visiting fellow at Universidad Católica de Chile, McGill University, University of Brighton, and Aarhus University. She belongs to a research group about sexual assault and another research group on technocultures and social mouvements at Universidad Complutense de Madri. She is an associate member of the Centre for Transforming Sexualities and Gender at the University of Brighton. Sara  Steffes  Hansen is chair and professor in the Department of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. She received her

  NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS 

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B.A. in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, M.B.A. from the University of Colorado Denver, and Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the University of Wisconsin (Madison). Prior to joining the university, she worked professionally for 15 years as a director, manager, and consultant in strategic communication, largely with hightech and Fortune 500 companies. Her research focuses on social media related to consumer marketing, political image-making, and activism. Her published work has appeared in journals such as Journal of Marketing Communications, Journal of Interactive Advertising, Journal of Marketing Management, Public Relations Review, and Howard Journal of Communications. Larraine J. Larri  is a researcher and program evaluation expert, specializing in environmental adult education and environmental citizenship. She completed her Ph.D. in Education in 2021 from James Cook University, Australia. Her research investigated the educative mechanisms for transformative action, addressing political stasis on climate change within the Australian Knitting Nannas environmental activist movement. Using a transdisciplinary approach the study addressed a lacuna in older women’s environmental activist learning by identifying dynamics of situated, experiential, and social transformative learning. Amy  Mowle, PhD  is a researcher at Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia. Her scholarly interests include explorations of sociological perspectives of inequity, the nature of contemporary feminism(s), and the Internet and its attendant digital cultures. She holds a Bachelor of Communications in Journalism with Honors and has received a number of awards for her work, including recognition of the research conducted in her Honors thesis. Her doctoral research explores the influence of the corporatized Internet on the practices and politics of contemporary “networked” feminist communities. Ishani Mukherjee, PhD  is Clinical Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago, USA. Ishani’s research focuses on social media, gender and social justice, digital advocacy, intercultural communication, mobility, and media. Her research has received the Clifford G. Christians Ethics Research Award and Carl J. Couch Internet Research Award. She has presented her research at international conferences and co-authored the book Migration, Mobility, and Sojourning in Crosscultural Films: Interculturing Cinema (2021). She has written essays in

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edited volumes and journals, including Journal of International Women’s Studies, Ada, Convergence, South Asian Film and Media Studies, and Connexions. Allen  Munoriyarwa, PhD is a senior postdoctoral research fellow (PDRF) in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, and is affiliated to the Centre for Data and Digital Technologies at the same university. His research interests are in journalism, news production practices, big data, and digital surveillance. He is currently coordinating research on digital surveillance practices in Southern Africa under the auspices of the Media Policy and Democracy Project (MPDP). Kristine M. Nicolini, PhD  is an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, USA.  She holds a B.A. in Public Relations and Marketing and an M.A. in Mass Communication from Marquette University, and a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. With over 12 years of professional experience in public relations, strategic marketing, and corporate communication, Nicolini shaped the marketing and strategic communication initiatives of non-profit organizations and Fortune 500 companies. Her research, which has been published in Public Relations Review, Public Relations Journal, Educational Psychology, and Online Learning Journal, focuses  on examining the cognitive, behavioral, and normative processes associated with navigating difficult conversations in interpersonal, small group, and strategic communication environments. Ana Lúcia Nunes de Sousa  is an assistant professor at the Educational Video Laboratory and the Post-graduation Program in Education in Sciences and Health at Nutes Institute of Education in Sciences and Health, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is a coordinator of NEGRECS (Center for Gender Studies and Ethnic-Racial Relations in Audiovisual Education in Science and Health) and GERAES (Research Group on Audiovisual Reception in Science and Health Education). She completed her Ph.D. in Communication and Journalism from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Nunes de Sousa is a documentarist and researcher focused on communication, gender, race, and education.

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Bruna Silveira de Oliveira  is a Ph.D. student in Social Communication at Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil, and also a journalist with a Master’s Degree in Social Communication. Bruna Silveira’s academic interests are in communication and politics, studies on deliberation, intolerance, social conflicts, extremism, articulations on social media platforms, freedom of expression, and black feminism. Bruna Silveira is a member of the Media and Public Sphere Research Group (EME/UFMG), and also funded with CAPES (Brazil) resources. Maiara  Orlandini  is a professor at State University of Minas Gerais (UEMG) and Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais (PUC-MG), Brazil. Maiara is a Ph.D. candidate in Social Communication at Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). Maiara is a member of the Media and Public Sphere Research Group (EME), and also funded with CAPES/ INCT (Brazil) resources. Patricia  Prieto-Blanco is Lecturer in Digital Media Practice at the School of Sociology, University of Lancaster, UK.  She is the editor-inchief of MeCCSA Networking Knowledge, editor at HYSTERIA radical feminist collective, YECREA representative for the ECREA TWG Visual Cultures, as well as an advocate of interdisciplinary, participatory, and practice-based research. Her areas of expertise are visual research methods, photography, and migration. Her research interests are in photography, methods and methodologies, mediation of the everyday, and migration. Katrin Schindel  is a doctoral candidate in her final year in the Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries (CMCI) at King’s College London, UK, researching articulations of “popular intersectionality,” whiteness, and queer feminism in German digital feminism. Gilda  Seddighi  is Senior Researcher in Technology and Society at the Western Norway Research Institute, Norway. Seddighi holds a Ph.D. in Gender and Media Studies from the University of Bergen; her dissertation is titled “Politicization of Grievable Lives on Iranian Facebook Pages.” Her research interests involve representations of gender in digital media and communication, gaming, and digitalization processes.

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Priya V. Shah  is a social media and marketing professional and holds an M.A. in Communication from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), USA. Priya’s research focus is on gender, identity, popular culture, social media, and critical/cultural studies. Priya received the Communication Department, Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award at UIC in 2019. Her research has been presented at the NCA and IAMCR conferences, and at the Women and Gender symposium. Priya’s collaborative research has recently been published in Feminist Media Studies. Maria Kathryn Tomlinson  is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow and is leading her own research project entitled “Menstruation and the Media: Reducing Stigma and Tackling Inequalities.” Her monograph From Menstruation to the Menopause: The Female Fertility Cycle in Contemporary Women’s Writing in French was published in 2021. She has written articles in journals, including Feminist Media Studies, L’Esprit Créateur, and Social Semiotics. She also co-edited the volume Queer(y)ing Bodily Norms in Francophone Culture. Her second monograph, The Menstrual Movement in the Media: Reducing Stigma and Tackling Social Inequalities, is forthcoming with Palgrave Macmillan. Valentina Carranza Weihmüller  is a journalist and social researcher with an academic trajectory between Brazil and Argentina. Grounded in Latin American and intersectional approaches, she has experience in studies and social interventions in communication and urban arts, communication in health and gender studies. She completed her Ph.D. in Health and Science Education from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Her topics of interest are Latin American youth, feminist movements, urban arts, participatory communication in health and Latin American, and intersectional perspectives. Carmit  Wiesslitz is a lecturer in the Department of Politics and Communications at Hadassah Academic College of Jerusalem, Israel. She completed her M.A. from New York University and her Ph.D. from BenGurion University of the Negev, Israel. She is the author of  Internet Democracy and Social Change: The Case of Israel, published in 2019. Her research interests include new media, democracy and civil society, social movements and social change, and women and digital activism.

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 5.1

Fig. 5.2

Fig. 6.1

Fig. 6.2 Fig. 6.3 Fig. 7.1

Knitting Nannas being asked to move on (Knitting Nannas Against Gas, Facebook, April 9, 2015, copyright fair use) 37 Videos of “Live Performance Records,” geolocation by country. N = 235. (Source: Our production from Google sheets. To access to the interactive map, click here: https:// docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PAC X-­1vTBl6JpWh2encKK29Wlbc-­R8x4OQCwLLpwwgRzLAFs pNeErnURJJZNWoscE5ccPfA/pubchart?oid=171772902&fo rmat=interactive)91 Un Violador en Tu Camino 2019 from #LasTesis—uMap. (Source: OpenStreetMap Un violador en tu camino. https:// umap.openstreetmap.fr/es/map/un-­violador-­en-­tu-­ camino-­20192020-­rev-­120121_394247#3/24.77/-­ 26.02, Geochicas, 2019) 92 Who is talking?*. (Source: The authors. Note: *30 tweets were considered irrelevant for several reasons: some posted only the hashtags without adding other information to the debate, others tweets were deleted, and still others commented only on issues not related to the topic of discussion. **Verified accounts) 118 Who is talking? (by gender). (Source: The authors. *Verified account)118 Type of actions. (Source: the authors) 119 [Redacted] (2019, October 9). (We need practical solutions from our leaders @IAmNotNext [Tweet]. (All identifiers were removed to protect the Twitter account’s privacy) 140

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List of Figures

Fig. 7.2

Fig. 7.3

Fig. 7.4 Fig. 7.5 Fig. 7.6 Fig. 7.7

Fig. 7.8

Fig. 9.1

(I don’t want to die with my hands up @IamNotNext [Tweet]. https://twitter.com/gorgeous_zee_/statu s/1170288582541619202?s=20&t=83hWVgKGlSiEC4ajLij 6kg. (The face has been covered to protect the privacy of the woman)141 (Yes, we will not act like this didn’t happen @IamNotNext [Tweet]. (The face has been covered and all other identifiers were removed to protect the woman’s privacy and the Twitter account’s identity) 142 A woman is not written Braille) @IamNotNext [Tweet]. (The face has been covered and all other identifiers were removed to protect the woman’s privacy and the Twitter account’s identity) 144 South African Government [@Government] (Violence and abuse against women have) @IAmNotNext [Tweet] https:// twitter.com/hashtag/IAmNotNext?src=hashtag_click146 Men will humiliate you) @IamNotNext [Tweet]. (All identifiers were redacted on the tweet to protect the privacy of the twitter account) 147 Naming and Shaming[@Shamepredators] (Naming and shaming officer from Region) @IamNotNext [Tweet]. (All identifiers were redacted on the tweet to protect the identity of the person mentioned on the tweet) 150 Naming and Shaming [@Pedro] Met in Durban. He was there on business). @IamNotNext [Tweet]. (All identifiers were redacted on the tweet to protect the identity of the person mentioned on the tweet) 150 Image shared by several mothers’ groups, including the group “Madaran Dortmund”. This is a screenshot of a Facebook post from Madaran Dortmund. The women in the picture are introduced as mothers, and the dates of death and names of the killed protesters are written on the image. From the left: the mother of Said Zinali the mother of Ibrahim Ketabdar, the mother of Pouya Bakhtiari, the mother of Behnam Mahjoobi and the mother of Mostafa Karim Beigi. The dates of death are written at the bottom. From the left: July 1999, November 2020, November 2020, January 2021 and December 2009. The names and faces of these mothers are not anonymized as the mothers are public figures. The author received permission from Madaran Dortmund to reproduce the picture in this chapter 179

  List of Figures 

Fig. 9.2

Fig. 9.3 Fig. 9.4

Fig. 11.1

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Picture taken in 2010 and shared in several blogs. This picture was taken from the blog Hambastegi Madaran (http:// hambastegi-­madaran.blogspot.com/2010/). The faces of the women were deleted to preserve their anonymity because only one of the women was a public figure and the other women might not have consented to have their picture taken 182 Picture taken by the author during the offline ethnography in a town in Norway 185 Screenshots from the Facebook page of the node SMM, which shows how the members of the group take pictures of themselves during street protests and share them on their Facebook page. To increase anonymity and protect the activists, the author has removed faces from the image. The name of the group and information about the group is removed from the figure. The author has received permission from the administrator of the page to reproduce the image in this chapter 186 Percentage of commentary removed from the 2XC community in 2020 by month 234

List of Tables

Table 4.1 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 5.3 Table 5.4 Table 6.1 Table 8.1 Table 8.2

Interview questions 70 Collection stage 88 Videos of “Live Performance Records” per region. N = 235 91 Video records in Latin American countries 93 Actors’ (approximate) age 98 General statistics 115 Elements of the Collective Framing of the #IDoBelieveYouSister Movement 163 Elements of the collective framing of the #IDoBelieveYouSister movement165

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CHAPTER 1

Women’s Avenues of Digital Activism: Fighting for Their Own Carmit Wiesslitz

In recent years, the global women’s rights movement has flourished, with groups from all over the world making increasing use of the internet and social media as instruments of social change. What is now known as the fourth wave of feminism is undoubtedly influenced by the new communication technologies of our digital era (Looft, 2017; Munro, 2013; Parry, 2018; Rivers, 2017). The relative ease with which women who share a joint agenda use these platforms to connect across geographic, national, cultural, and political boundaries facilitates the global diffusion of women’s activism and supports their struggles to protect their human rights, their bodies, their status, and their identities. Through digital media, women are unapologetically and fearlessly placing the full force of female power behind their demands for rights as they directly challenge patriarchal conventions and hegemony. This book showcases the online activism of women’s groups around the world in the post-#MeToo era and presents an overview of the diversity of its current expressions.

C. Wiesslitz (*) Hadassah Academic College, Jerusalem, Israel e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wiesslitz (ed.), Women’s Activism Online and the Global Struggle for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31621-0_1

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The #MeToo movement, which captured enormous global attention through online campaigns in 2017, represents a turning point in women’s digital activism that inspired women around the world to join forces and fight for women’s rights and their status in their society and culture. Academic scholarship on such recent manifestations of women’s campaigns is, however, in its infancy. When scholars discuss online campaigns such as the #MeToo campaign, they either focus on the campaign’s agenda or on its platforms, such as social media, which have come to constitute a key element of activism in the digital age (Fileborn & Loney-Howes, 2019; Mendes et al., 2019), with limited attention to the fact that women are the leading figures behind this successful campaign or to their distinctive use of and related experience in the online public sphere. In fact, academic discourse has rarely put forward the topic of women’s activism and women’s use of social media as an arena of collective action and communicative sphere. Why is it so important to place this issue at the center of research attention? First, the field of politics and extra-parliamentary politics is a typically male-oriented and male-dominated sphere in which women are forced to battle to successfully promote themselves and their agendas. Second, women’s organizations have unique features that are specifically related to the way they run their organizations and operations, which often are more democratic and egalitarian in comparison with other social change organizations (Wiesslitz, 2019). Third, saliency and reliable representation in public discourse is a challenge, not only for women’s groups but also for all minority groups (Gammage, 2016; Signorielli, 2017). Following scholars’ notion that the internet offers an alternative, possibly more egalitarian, communications platform for activists to voice their agendas (Castells, 2015; Fenton, 2016), it is important to ask whether this digital tool functions as a safe space (Collins, 2000) for women activists, in particular, and whether they perceive it as empowering. This leads us to the following questions: Does the internet provide women activists with an effective platform to voice their agenda and to act collectively for social change? Is the internet considered and used by women activists as a democratic means of empowerment and inclusivity? Research on these questions contributes not only to our understanding of the internet and new digital platforms, but also is important for its focus on women, an important minority group, and acknowledgment of women’s activism in the virtual world. Hopefully, this collection opens a window into the nature of the operations, strategies, and agendas of women who aspire to join forces to

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organize collective action using the internet, and contributes to a deeper understanding of the discourse that women create on social media and other digital platforms. Thus, with the aim of filling the aforementioned theoretical and empirical void, this book explores the relations between women and activism in the digital age through a wide range of case studies of women who use the internet to facilitate social change around the world. Taken together, the book’s chapters highlight the genuine complexity of the efforts of women activists who are not only challenging the patriarchic order within male-controlled digital platforms but are also challenging the hegemonic actors/voices within the women’s movements. The book’s case studies attest to the impressive proliferation of digital campaigns aimed not only against discrimination of women but against discrimination based on their color, age, ethnicity, and nationality. The internet helps them to voice their agenda and strive for social change as well as to create both connective and collective identities (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012) as women and as human beings. The book offers insights into the creation of what Fraser (1992) calls “subaltern counter publics,” which refers to the alternative spaces that serve those who struggle to be heard within the mainstream public sphere. This book offers an authentic view on the variance and nuances existing within women’s movements and organizations around the world. Women make up half of the world’s population and to talk about women as a homogeneous group is to do injustice to the reality that comprises women with different needs, wants, and capabilities, derived from their culture, nationality, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, age, religion, and education. All of these affect the way women communicate and operate for social change online. Through a discussion and empirical exploration of women’s activism online, this book explores diverse campaigns and topics that women deal with, including women’s identity in the post-#MeToo era, intersectionality, the connection between digital platforms and censorship in women’s online activist discourse and engagement to promote social change. Furthermore, the focus of this book extends beyond campaigns against rape culture to include women’s struggles on other political and environmental issues, such as the campaign against radical right-wing groups in Austria and the environmental struggle against gas companies in Australia. The book is not necessarily celebratory: By presenting both supportive and critical approaches toward the platforms women use and their complex relationship with technology, this book presents the potential for

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power and empowerment alongside the challenges and obstacles facing women activists today. This book’s chapters, representing women from diverse ethnic and national backgrounds, colors, and ages, purposefully contains cases from all over the world, from more deprived and non-democratic countries to richer and more developed countries, in the aim of highlighting the variance, complexity, and nuances that exist in every society in general, and among women in particular. The diversity reflected in this collection of studies is also a retort to the issue of women’s exclusion from the #MeToo campaign as was raised by scholars. Fileborn and Loney-Howes (2019), for example, claimed that the #MeToo campaign, with its global resonance, marginalized the voices of non-Western women activists and women of different demographics—Black women, disabled women, older women, and women from low-SES backgrounds. The campaign therefore prompted questions regarding inclusivity in women’s activism and in its gains in the #MeToo era and beyond. Considering this critique, the case studies selected for inclusion in this collection are unique and represent voices that are rarely the topic of academic research or media coverage, such as groups of older women in developed countries and women of color, who are typically excluded from discourse on digital activism. Furthermore, the book presents cases of women’s groups in countries that are often marginalized in mainstream media, such as South Africa, and in areas where women’s rights are limited, such as Turkey, Iran, India, and Latin America. In addition to diverse women’s groups and struggles, the book also focuses on a variety of social media and internet platforms. In addition to popular Western social media such as Facebook-Meta, Twitter, and Instagram, the book includes empirical studies on other major social media, such as YouTube and Reddit and blogs that have typically attracted less interest of empirical research. Older versions of digital platforms such as organizational websites and emails are also empirically studied as they evidently continue to play an integral role in today’s digital activism. Another innovation and contribution of this book is its focus on women’s role in digital discourse culture. The study of digital discourse is a rich field with many studies (e.g., Ging & Siapera, 2019; Nizaruddin, 2021; Pohjonen, 2019; Saha et al., 2021; Udupa & Pohjonen, 2019; Uldam & Askins, 2013—to name only a few), yet rarely have studies empirically explored the unique and distinct discourse that women produce on digital

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platforms, in particular discourse aimed at women who strive to achieve social change. Conceptually, the book is comprised of three intertwined parts on social change struggles in the digital age. The first part deals with activist practices such as online campaigns and offline and online protests. The second part explores the internet’s function as a democratic public sphere and a safe space for women’s activism, discourse, and campaigns that challenge cultures of silencing (that exist not only within conservative cultures but also within the structural mechanisms of liberal cultures). The third and final part discusses the issue of inclusivity, and presents studies of in-­ group power and control of women’s activism online.

Part I: Overcoming the Digital Divide and Going Viral—Women’s Online Struggles for Social Change In recent years the internet has increasingly become an integral part of feminist digital age struggles for social change that employ online and offline collective action. The case studies in this section introduce non-­ violent protest activities of women who use digital and other resources to promote social change—from the “nannas” in Australia who use craftivism to campaign against threats to the country’s environmental resources (Larraine Larri) and older women in Austria who fight courageously against extreme right-wing politics (Ricarda Drüeke), through women in Turkey who aim to promote women’s rights in a conservative, patriarchal society (Aysun Eyrek), to Latin American women who use YouTube as an instrument to disseminate their musical street protest against rape culture (Valentina Carranza Weihmṻller, Ana Lúcia Nunes de Sousa, and Karina de Cássia Caetano). The struggles documented in this section, covering a wide range of issues (the environment, politics, and gender violence), illustrate the importance of combining online digital activism with offline activism that takes place on the street. As these case studies show, the internet and social media function as key instruments in feminist struggles for social change by amplifying the campaigns conducted in city streets and squares and extending the geographic boundaries of their impact. Moreover, the common denominator of these cases is also related to women activists’ ability to overcome the digital divide that is rooted in socioeconomic factors. In the cases of Austria and Australia, older women master the challenge of

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digital literacy and successfully manage their social struggles on social media; In Turkey and Latin America, women activists who participate in social struggles devise ways to deal with limited access to the internet that affects activists in impoverished rural areas of these countries. The first chapter in this part introduces Australia’s Knitting Nannas Against Gas (KNAG), an older women’s anti-coal seam and fossil fuel movement. Larraine Larri documents the protest activities of these women, who successfully established a non-violent protest movement through craftivism: The women arrive at sites of protest, sit down, and begin knitting caps in the colors of their movement. They use social media to facilitate communications among the movement’s local “loops,” allowing them to overcome Australia’s great geographic distances, document their protests, cultivate a sense of belonging and collective identity for older women across Australia, and increasingly inspire women to go to the field and advocate for policies of ecological sustainability. Their movement is fascinating with respect to the non-violent manner in which they chose to enter an area controlled by belligerent and heavy-handed stakeholders and economic interests, such as gas companies. Also noteworthy, their use of social media and micro-platforms, such as instant messaging and email, as a primary communication tool for documenting and disseminating their protest and ideas, providing opportunities for social movement learning. Through these digital tools, they create a viral effect that spirals into increasing numbers of women who protest across Australia and beyond. In the second chapter in this section, Ricarda Drüeke studies a group of mostly older women involved in non-violent activism. Grandmas Against the Right is a group of Austrian women who protest against radical right-­ wing politics in their country. Similarly to the women’s groups described in Wiesslitz (2019), Grandmas Against the Right recognize the need to incorporate the internet and social media in their struggles as a complement to the offline dimensions of their activism in the contemporary public sphere. They use social media platforms such as Facebook to communicate with the environment outside their movement, especially to reach youngsters who frequent such digital platforms, and to raise awareness, issue calls for action, and motivate new participants to join their circle of activism. More personal means of digital communication, including emails, WhatsApp messages, and closed Facebook groups, are considered relevant spaces for intra-movement communications and for maintaining ties among the group’s activists. As in the Australian case, the image of grandmothers serves the activists effectively both in their street protests

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and on their internet content sites, where their caps symbolize the group and cultivate a sense of belonging and group identification. Although older women activists play an important role in struggles for social change (Keller & Bornemann, 2021; Pedersen, 2010; Sawchuk, 2013; Wiesslitz, 2019), they are underrepresented in the media and in research, both quantitatively and qualitatively (Rohlinger et  al., 2019). Moreover, traditional negative stereotypes attribute incompetence and ineffectiveness to older women and devalue them in comparison to other, younger women who are at the height of their professional career (Rohlinger et  al., 2019). The image of older women as “sweet, good-­ natured” grannies effectively effaces their qualifications, careers, and professional achievements. Still, older women have several advantages as activists, both the time they have available to participate in struggles for social change, and the freedom to take to the streets without risking social sanctions or adverse effects on their livelihood or career. The Nannas in Australia and the grandmothers in Austria exploit the grandmother figure popularly presented in the media, which invites empathy by emphasizing their harmless nature, and operates in their favor in their effort to attract media attention. At the same time, the activists in these two groups subvert traditional representations of older women in popular media as having less qualifications and resources than younger women, and as having less relevance to social life in general, specifically as agents of political change (Rohlinger et  al., 2019). The older women activists in this part not only reject ageism but astutely subvert these stereotypes to promote their social struggles as they fearlessly take to the streets and the online public sphere. In the contribution by Aysun Eyrek, the author conducted a comparative study of veteran Turkish women activists who were engaged in social change protests in the pre-internet age, and women activists who use Turkey’s social media platforms in the present. Based on a series of in-­ depth interviews, Eyrek compares the activists’ uses and perceived value of the internet for the women feminists’ struggles for social change. She found that, for the most part, women value the internet as a public space that supports a discourse on women’s rights, and they recognize its instrumental value as a medium for communicating with policymakers. The activists are, however, aware that the digital divide between women in Turkey’s major cities and women living in the rural periphery limits universal access to their online public discourse, and reduces these women’s ability to benefit from the affordances of online media.

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The digital divide is a concern of several contributors. Despite high poverty rates and poor digital infrastructure, Latin American women activists protest and struggle against rape culture through street performance protests that are documented and subsequently disseminated on online platforms. The video records of their protests have become viral and breached the borders of Latin America to inspire women’s activism in other countries. In their chapter, Valentina Carranza Weihmṻller, Ana Lúcia Nunes de Sousa, and Karina de Cássia Caetano discuss the connection between the feminist struggle that takes place on the streets in the form of artistic performances, and the activists’ techno-political strategic use of digital tools to achieve social change by documenting and posting videos of these performances on YouTube. The authors discuss the viral effect of the YouTube clips of the performative activism of Las Tesis, a feminist women’s collective protesting violence against women in Chile. La Tesis held a synchronized street performance piece, Un violador en tu camino (A rapist in your path), featuring several dozen women who danced and sung to the music of a protest song denouncing the political establishment and its victim-blaming practices. The authors’ findings show that the clips of the protest performance became viral on YouTube and many groups in and outside Latin America reproduced the performance and posted their own recordings on YouTube. The effect of the collective activism on the streets, which was recorded and shared online, was amplified and compounded by the large number of clips of women who recreated the performance piece in their own country, and posted their work as well. Thus, the original performance triggered a dynamics of cross-­ pollination of offline activism that was disseminated and shared through online activism, and repeatedly recreated on the streets. The case of Las Tesis and Un violador en tu camino illustrates how women activists with a typically limited profile in national and global media use digital platforms to lead a significant struggle that generated widespread media echoes. Armed with few resources and extensive creativity, these women activists created a protest that spread far beyond the original local context to various cities around the world and to women in different countries who used the original performance to create their own local protests. The specific use of YouTube made it possible to save and reproduce the performance, overcoming limitations of time and distance.

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Part II: An Alternative Democratic Public Sphere— The Internet as a Safe Space Academic literature discusses women’s exclusion from public discourse already with respect to the early seventeenth and eighteenth centuries bourgeois public sphere (Fraser, 1992) and continues to the present, highlighting mainstream media’s key role in excluding marginalized groups (including women) and perpetuating their stereotypical portrayal (Gammage, 2016; Keller & Bornemann, 2021). The internet and social media are believed to carry a potential for democratic change, offering a more egalitarian platform for minority groups to voice their concerns more openly than the hegemonic patriarchal discourse allows them (Castells, 2015; Fenton, 2016). The question is whether the internet functions as an alternative platform for women in practice, one in which they are not subjected to hegemonic misogynist ideologies. Furthermore, when women use this alternative platform to create a democratic discourse, are they in fact creating an inclusive, egalitarian, non-­discriminatory discourse that embraces women from all demographic, educational, ethnic, and national groups? The following two parts of the book explore these questions. Part II presents studies of several campaigns and discourses by women that attest to an evolving public sphere that embraces women who typically are excluded from or receive biased representation in mainstream media due to the color of the skin, for example, or the religious/patriarchal culture in which they are embedded. In such cases, social media offer them an opportunity to become visible and make their voice heard. In this part we see how the internet, as an alternative public sphere, functions as a safe space specifically for women activists. In her discussion of safe space, Collins (2000) illustrates how women’s encounters allowed them to speak freely on issues relevant to their lives in an era when speaking of these issues in the public sphere was not accepted. Exploring the digital public sphere, the contributions in this section illustrate how Collins’ (2000) conception of a safe space for discourse expanded to include a safe space for collective action for social change. The social media era has extended activism’s boundaries and terms to encompass not only the instrumental collective field of action but also the symbolic-­communicative space. Online public discourse should be therefore considered one of the many expressions of activism, alongside protest action and advocacy efforts. Indeed, Mendes et al. (2019) find that activists consider their participation in online public discourse as an act of activism. The #MeToo campaign also

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exemplified the construction of discourse as a strategy of activism in which women raised awareness and amplified the resonance of the movement and the campaign by sharing their experiences of sexual harassment online (Fileborn & Loney-Howes, 2019). Their shared testimonies generated affective solidarity (Hemmings, 2012) and cultivated a collective identity that mobilized women for action. Thus, their use of social media generated connective communication that led to collective communication (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012), both online and offline. Despite their massive reach and ostensible lack of intimacy, and despite the fact that online media contain some degree of misogyny and hate speech directed at women (Banet-Weiser, 2015; Ging & Siapera, 2019; Stubbs-Richardson et al., 2018), social media such as Twitter and Facebook are viewed as platforms where women can promote their struggles and campaigns, share their life experiences, and create a sense of community (Mendes et  al., 2019). The fourth wave of feminism, which is directly related to women’s use of digital technologies to promote feminist ideologies, seeks to emphasize the problematic issue of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989, 1991) and the discrimination against women due to their race or socioeconomic status. These efforts bring to the foreground the question explored in Part II, of whether the internet effectively constitutes a different, alternative public sphere, distinct from traditional mainstream media, one that supports open argumentation and debates and is liberating for the less privileged groups of women in the women’s movement. Bruna Silveira de Oliveira and Maiara Orlandini offer an optimistic perspective in their study of Black feminism’s representation through Twitter hashtags surrounding Black Women’s Day in Brazil. The authors found that in this case, Twitter served as a means of building solidarity, and created a safe haven and platform for excluded women such as the Black women of Brazil. Their findings show that women were the majority of writers and content creators on the Twitter campaign, and their discourse was instrumental in promoting goals such as social learning and consciousness raising. One of the interesting findings is that Black women used Twitter as a means of self-representation of their lived experiences of trauma and adversity by attaching video clips to their tweets, in which they shared episodes of their lives that illustrated the challenges of being a Black woman in Brazilian society, their experiences of oppression and discrimination, and the sexual harassment to which they were subjected. The affective influence of their posts created a sense of safety and trust that supported a sharing of the intimate details of their lives, creating a safe

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space within a public, mass platform such as Twitter. Consequently, the community of shared experiences on Twitter not only empowered those women but also enhanced their activism online. Another example of the online public sphere’s role as a safe space that facilitates free online discourse is featured in the chapter by Allen Munoriyarwa, who explores the hashtag, #IamNotNext, which trended in South Africa as part of South African women’ struggle against rape culture in their country. In his study, Munoriyarwa shows how the women’s campaigns on Twitter led to their sense of empowerment, which escalated to the adoption by some activists of a combative, anti-male position in their struggle to end violence against women. While many of the women activists used Twitter as a platform for discursive practices critiquing the political establishment and policy makers for the inadequate efforts to reduce the prevalence of violence against women in South Africa, some women created a discourse that, to some degree, reproduced the aggressive and toxic male discourse that was the very target of their protest. Munoriyarwa argues that in some cases, activists’ discourse reflected a weaponized gender dichotomy using “us vs them” language, distinguishing sharply between “bad” men and “good” women, and included shaming tactics that expose attackers’ identity—in itself, a violent tactic with problematic implications in anti-violence campaigns. Although the author criticizes the phantom contributors who polarized the campaign, the study findings actually emphasize how women activists realize Twitter’s democratic potential through its ability to coalesce a plurality of voices in social struggles and place the issue of violence against women on the public agenda. By facilitating a diverse discourse comprising a broad range of opinions and styles, Twitter is able to represent the variegated character of feminist women’s movements and their online actions. The internet’s role as an alternative medium that encourages open public discourse and debate is also supported by the study of Elisa García-­ Mingo, Patricia Prieto-Blanco, and Silvia Díaz-Fernández. These authors performed a hashtag-based analysis of the discourse on rape culture in Spain, focusing on the conversations that emerged around the #IDoBelieveYouSister hashtag protest against sexual violence and rape culture. The authors’ main argument is that Twitter functioned as a platform for public discourse on which women freely voiced their opinion; This platform supported a discussion of the issues that women place on the public agenda, such as rape and rape culture, and includes feminist critique of the misogyny that characterizes Spain’s legal and political establishment.

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The authors show that the platform sparked a legal discourse in which participants, who are not necessarily women from the field of law, debated the legal aspects of specific cases, rape culture, and sexual stereotypes prevalent in Spain. This legalist discourse, which we would have expected to be limited to attorneys, scholars, or even commentators from the media, was created and cultivated by groups of women who assumed an active role in the discourse, and who not only raised awareness of the legal dimensions of relevant narratives but also promoted their own social learning of the legal issues. The authors argue that the discussions led by the women activists on Twitter triggered awareness of the problematic legal distinction between rape and abuse, making this debate accessible not only to women activists but to the many Twitter users who participated in the discourse. The women activists in Spain used Twitter to raise awareness of the significance of their language and their narratives, and also to castigate the political establishment for perpetuating the humiliating and offensive narrative against women. The Twitter campaign was used by women activists in Spain to fuel their offline protests and bring thousands of women to the streets to take a public stand in support of the campaign. Gilda Seddighi reports the findings of an online and offline ethnography based on a content analysis of interviews with women (and men) activists and members of a social network (Iranian Network of Mourning Mothers) in Iran and the social network of their supporters outside Iran, based on Norway (Supporters of Mourning Mothers Hardstad). In Iran, women and men are not free to voice criticism against the political establishment. Gilda Seddighi’s study shows how, within the Iranian political context, social media and the blogosphere are used to create a safe space in which Iranian women can express their grief as mothers of political activists who were persecuted or killed by Iranian authorities. The grieving mothers’ testimonies and declarations convey their criticism against Iran’s authoritarian government and create an alternative, oppositional narrative that is absent from Iran’s mainstream media. This strategic use of grieving mothers makes it possible to disseminate information on the events in Iran and the opposition’s struggle against the government: The mothers’ pain functions as an instrument of social change. Their online activities trigger empathy and support, increase awareness, and establish a collective identity for Iranian women, who also receive support from Iranian émigré communities who, in turn, use social media to amplify the prominence of the grieving mothers’ activism.

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Scholars discussing activism, and specifically digital activism, tend to focus on agendas and digital instruments while disregarding the structural-­ organizational aspects of activists’ work and the evolutionary trajectory of ad-hoc protest events as they transform into organizations that operate continuously for social change (Wiesslitz, 2019). As a result, longitudinal studies on the evolution of social organizations from infancy to maturity, including the dynamics of their online activism, are rare. The final chapter in this part, which documents the evolution of the Women’s March, one of the largest protests in US history (History, n.d.), is unique in this respect as it offers new insights that are not only relevant for women activists, but also has implications for the study of the evolution of social organizations in general. In contrast to most chapters in this book that analyze the campaigns themselves, Sara Hansen and Kristine Nicolini study how the activists institutionalized their protest and created a framework for their activism over time. Their study tracks the history of the Women’s March from its initial conception to the emergence of an established organization that supports and sustains women’s activism through digital tools. Sara Hansen and Kristine Nicolini’s findings show how the movement’s institutionalization led to changes in its aims and its communications strategy. In the movement’s early history, activists focused on calls for collective action and efforts to organize women’s protest, yet as the movement became established it defined additional aims that sustained more long-term operations. The aims of volunteer retention and coalition building with other organizations increasingly assumed a key role: Achieving these aims created a reserve of supporters and activists who could be recruited for actions that extended beyond a specific protest or demonstration. The efforts to target young women also ensured intergenerational continuity both for the movement and for efforts to promote social change for the women of the future. The movement’s unique positioning as an organization for women was reflected in its online communication strategy designed to create an agenda surrounding multiple issues that embrace the needs of all age, ethnic, religious, and class groups, reflecting the activists’ awareness of intersectionality. This unique and environmentally sensitive mode of management that is characteristic of women and organizations of and for women (Wiesslitz, 2019) is also evident in the case of the Women’s March, whose activists sought to create a safe space for diverse groups of women to speak and take action.

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Part III: Democratic Digital Discursive Spaces of and for Women—Unintended Consequences The final part of this book explores the unintended consequences of women’s self-management of a feminist discourse, and whether feminist women activists promote a feminist ideology that champions equal rights for women, opposition to intersectionality and the inclusion of diverse women’s groups, not only in the male-dominant patriarchal environment but also within the women’s movement itself. In other words, as they fight against the inequalities of the real world, are feminist women using the internet to create an inclusive, egalitarian discourse that embraces all women, or are they delegitimizing certain women in the name of protecting and including “underprivileged” women? The contributions in this part reveal the complexities that emerge as a digital public discourse is created by feminist women who are committed to equality, a plurality of opinions, and inclusion of all groups of women. In the cases reported here, alongside women activists’ feminist ideology we find practices that control participation and police women’s opinions and language by determining what may be said and by whom. The contributions in this part show that the discursive spaces managed by and for women facilitate both freedom of expression as well as control through critique or censorship of voices that are unconventional or unaligned with the dominant view. In her study, Amy Mowle shows how the moderators of r/ TwoXChromosomes, a feminist group on Reddit, censor other women and filter out opinions that are at variance with the group’s mainstream view, and justify their practice as “platform policy.” Amy Mowle shows how moderators of this women’s group use Reddit’s user policy to craft a uniform public discourse that makes no room for diverse voices or women who represent conflicting ideologies and narratives. The social platform’s standard policy, which is designed (for the sake of profitability) to encourage engagement by large numbers and prevent antagonism, is cynically used by the group moderators to censor and exclude women whose voices are not aligned with the dominant voice in the group—a group that is ostensibly designed to function as a safe space for all women and the voices they represent. In groups such as this, a democratic participatory public discourse is limited to women’s voices that align with the dominant discursive narrative, and to the exclusion of the voices of other women whose comments are deleted or blocked. This study offers a rare window into the backstage workings of social media groups and how feminist women also

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use external justifications such as the anti-democratic policies of corporations such as Reddit as a means to control the discourse. In contrast to the case of Reddit, the feminist collective blog Zine-X in Germany applies no censorship to alternative voices, yet the narrative that evolves on this platform positions White women as inimical to the feminist movement and its aim to raise awareness of intersecting systems of oppression and allow the voices of Black women to be heard. Motivated by a desire to promote the interests of Black women, the authors of the German blog effectively mark other—White—women as the patronizing enemies of Black women, and delegitimize White women’s feminist activism on behalf of Black women, which Katrin Schindel terms “popular intersectionality.” In this chapter, Schindel analyzes the blogposts appearing in Zine-X, which proclaims its identification with the projects of queer feminism and intersectionality. Her findings show that the zine’s discourse on intersectionality centers around the intersectionality expressed by feminist White women, who are “bad feminists” or women who need to “improve,” while making little contribution to the goal of changing interracial discrimination. In effect, little is said in the blog about the structural oppression of Black women. Through their criticism against White women, these bloggers unintentionally perpetuate the traditional hierarchal distinction between Black and White women, with White women positioned above Black and queer women in terms of their importance to the discourse. This discourse continues to relegate Black women, a minority within a minority, to the bottom of the female social pyramid, with White women at the top. Criticism against women of privilege is also identified in the study by Maria Tomlinson of Ca_Va_Saigner (There will be blood), a French activist group. In her chapter, Tomlinson presents a study on the group’s Instagram campaign to promote awareness of period poverty—poor women’s lack of access to menstrual products and sanitation facilities. The women’s Instagram posts are also designed to place women’s menstruation on the agenda and protest against the stigmatized discourse about menstruation in mainstream media. Social media serve as important instruments in the group’s project of normalizing the discourse surrounding menstruation, which is traditionally silenced in public discourse. In this case, Instagram is employed to support the group members’ efforts to circumvent mainstream media and insert images of menstruating women and menstrual blood into public discourse. Instagram is used to make visible images that are traditionally concealed, transforming the stigmatized,

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silenced discourse on menstruation that typically evokes shame and embarrassment into a discourse that encourages women to view menstruation as a natural phenomenon that should be treated as such rather than as a source of embarrassment. While applauding the group’s efforts to raise awareness of this silenced issue, Tomlinson also identifies the problematics of privileged women who speak on behalf of low socioeconomic status women. She discusses the legitimacy of the group’s activism and explores the role of the indigent women in the movement’s digital discourse, asking whether Ca_Va_Saigner’s digital campaign is creating change or perpetuating the symbolic exclusion of disadvantaged groups that characterizes mainstream media. The complexities of low socioeconomic status women’s inclusion in digital feminist discourse and criticism against privileged women’s role in such inclusion also emerge in the analysis of the Indian feminist newspaper presented in the chapter by Ishani Mukherjee, Priya Shah, and Tina Dexter. In this chapter, the authors analyze items published in Feminism in India, a women-led digital platform that targets women and focuses on issues related to violence against women and the #MeToo movement in India. Although the website also seeks to make the voices of low-caste women heard, it criticizes women of high castes who not only fail to protect but actually blame low-caste rape victims in India in the struggle against the rape culture prevalent in Indian culture. In contrast to the previous chapters in this part, the critical digital discourse is not directed at privileged feminist women who are struggling on behalf of low-status women or women of a different race, but rather against privileged women who collude with the hegemonic patriarchal male establishment and censure other women. The public discourse that evolved on this platform is critical toward the legal and political establishment and the individuals who commit acts of sexual assault and violence against women, and toward mainstream Indian media that perpetuates rape culture in India through its stigmatizing and victim-blaming narrative. In this manner, the website serves as an alternative media outlet in which Indian women of all castes, including victims of violence from India’s lowest caste, can make their voice heard. In this context, the website demonstrates how the structural and systemic nature of patriarchal oppression in India is supported by high-caste women. Taken together, the chapters in this part point to the emergence of a digital feminist discursive culture that applauds alignment with conventional notions and principles, and defines the boundaries of what

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participants may or may not say. The result is the delegitimization of specific groups within the women’s movement. The collection of research in this volume invites the reader to a fascinating exploration of the spaces where women activists from a diverse range of countries and cultures operate to promote social change. The nuances and tones of women’s activism in the digital era speak to the complex realities of women’s lives and their struggles for women’s rights in local and global contexts.

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History. (n.d.). Women’s march. This day in history. https://www.history.com/ this-­day-­in-­history/womens-­march Keller, S., & Bornemann, B. (2021). New climate activism between Politics and Law: Analyzing the strategy of the KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz. Politics & Governance, 9, 124–134. https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v9i2.3819 Looft, R. (2017). #girlgaze: Photography, fourth wave feminism, and social media advocacy. Continuum, 31(6), 892–902. https://doi.org/10.1080/1030431 2.2017.1370539 Mendes, K., Ringrose, J., & Keller, J. (2019). Digital feminist activism: Women and girls fight back against rape culture. Oxford University Press. Munro, E. (2013). Feminism: A fourth wave? The Political Studies Association. http://www.psa.ac.uk/insight-­plus/feminism-­fourth-­wave Nizaruddin, F. (2021). Role of public WhatsApp groups within the Hindutva ecosystem of hate and narratives of “CoronaJihad”. International Journal of Communication, 15, 18. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/16255 Parry, D. (Ed.). (2018). Feminisms in leisure studies: Advancing a fourth wave. Routledge. Pedersen, J. (2010). The raging grannies: Activist grandmothering for peace. Journal of the Motherhood Initiative, 1(1), 64–74. https://jarm.journals.yorku. ca/index.php/jarm/article/view/30921 Pohjonen, M. (2019). A comparative approach to social media extreme speech: Online hate speech as media commentary. International Journal of Communication, 13, 3088–3103. Rivers, N. (2017). Postfeminism(s) and the arrival of the fourth wave: Turning tides. Palgrave Macmillan. Rohlinger, D., Redmond, R., & Stamm, T. (2019). Gender, age, and political legitimacy: Activist (in)visibility in broadcast news, 1970–2012. Journal of Women & Aging, 32, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/08952841.2019.1593774 Saha, P., Mathew, B., Garimella, K., & Mukherjee, A. (2021). “Short is the road that leads from fear to hate”: Fear speech in Indian WhatsApp Groups. In Proceedings of the Web Conference 2021. https://doi.org/10.1145/3442381.3450137 Sawchuk, D. (2013). Peace profile: The raging grannies. Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice, 25, 129–135. https://doi.org/10.1080/0895284090 3054898 Signorielli, N. (2017). Race and sex in prime time: Five decades of research. In R. A. Lind (Ed.), Race and gender in electronic media: Content, context, culture (pp. 21–37). Routledge. Stubbs-Richardson, M., Rader, N. E., & Cosby, A. G. (2018). Tweeting rape culture: Examining portrayals of victim blaming in discussions of sexual assault cases on Twitter. Feminism & Psychology, 28(1), 90–108. https://doi. org/10.1177/0959353517715874

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Udupa, S., & Pohjonen, M. (2019). Extreme speech and global digital cultures: Introduction. International Journal of Communication, 13, 3049–3067. Uldam, J., & Askins, T. (2013). Online civic cultures? Debating climate change activism on YouTube. International Journal of Communication, 7, 1185–1204. Wiesslitz, C. (2019). Internet democracy and social change: The case of Israel. Lexington Books.

PART I

Overcoming the Digital Divide and Going Viral: Women’s Online Struggles for Social Change

CHAPTER 2

KN-IT-Working: Older Women’s Eco-­Activism in the Digital Age—An Australian Case Study of the Knitting Nannas Against Gas and Greed’s Use of Social Media for Learning and Empowerment Larraine J. Larri

Introduction Activists are either lifelong or thrown into protest by circumstance (Ollis, 2011). The Knitting Nannas Against Gas and Greed (aka KNAG, or the Nannas) evolved from local events in the Northern Rivers Region (NSW, Australia) when communities began fighting against coal seam gas (CSG) extraction. Older women realized that younger activists saw them as inconsequential grannies better suited to making tea and childminding. This research focuses on how KNAG broke through an ageist deficit model that views seniors as “digitally disengaged” (Trentham et al., 2015)

L. J. Larri (*) James Cook University, Douglas, QLD, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wiesslitz (ed.), Women’s Activism Online and the Global Struggle for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31621-0_2

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and became experts, presenting a clearly articulated media profile using digital online tools to complement their offline eco-activism. Part of a larger dissertation on twenty-first century older women’s eco-activist social movement learning (SML), a knowledge gap and gender blindness toward older women were identified. KNAGs challenged the place of aging women in society as frail and invisible. They took to the streets and to social media, establishing and strengthening their brand, creating a networked community of practice (CoP) able to reach out to other anti-CSG groups. Achieving older women’s eco-activism online involved overcoming barriers to adoption of digital technologies. The women successfully crafted a dynamic phenomenon, a vibrant and valued social movement both on and offline. In so doing, they became part of the larger transition movement toward a low-­ carbon future. Through the KNAG case study, this chapter looks at older women’s online expertise and learning within social movement mobilization. SML involves: (a) learning by persons who are part of a social movement; and (b) learning by persons outside of a social movement as a result of the actions taken or becoming aware of the existence of a social movement (Hall & Clover, 2005; Hall et  al., 2006). Social movements have been viewed as learning communities of individuals engaged in the purposeful generation and distribution of knowledge (Eyerman & Jamison, 1991). Social movements formed from groups of like-minded people create cognitive and physical spaces for social learning (Niesz et al., 2018). Social learning requires conversation and a “deeper, transformative and reflexive learning whereby people challenge the values and norms of present business-­as-usual trajectories” (Kent, 2016, p.  150). In the twenty-first century, conversations have become combinations of online and offline experiential learning. Connectivism learning theory (Downes, 2012; Guerin, 2016; Siemens, 2008) informs SML through “connective action” (George & Leidner, 2019, p. 4). In a digitized world, knowledge creation is a distributed network of open and diverse connections where learners autonomously seek information from one another. This self-­ directed learning requires internet research skills and capability using Web 1.0 (e.g., email) and Web 2.0 (or social media) tools. There is no escaping that we live in a digital knowledge economy where access to learning about anything and everything is literally in the palm of our hands. A literature review of older women’s online capabilities and activism is followed by an outline of the case study methodology. Next, research

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findings about KNAG’s use of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 tools consider how the women developed their identity. The chapter concludes with implications for inclusion of older women’s online activism as part of the emerging field of SML theory and how the internet provides older women activists with a platform to voice their agenda.

Older Women’s Online Capabilities and Activism: The Literature Older women’s online capabilities in twenty-first century networked activism are under-researched. Data for older people are not disaggregated by gender and there is a lack of comparability. Proportionally, older Australian women over 65 account for a greater share of the population than men (16.7% to 15.0%). Government and academe recognize the benefits of digital engagement for older people but little is known about the nature of its use. Older women are likely to be most familiar with email and social media like Facebook and SMS on their smartphones (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018; Haukka & Hegarty, 2011; Yellow Pages, 2020). Trentham et al., (2015) identified a gap in research about senior citizens’ use of digital media for activism. They found that seniors were cast within an ageist deficit model as invisible rather than active agentic citizens, “passive targets for health intervention services and not as contributors to society, and certainly not as political activists” (p.  565). It is assumed that elders are locked into being technologically challenged. Challenging dominant discourses involves “naming, resisting, and reframing ageist depictions and storylines of older persons so they do not become digitally disengaged.” Studies of grandmothers found many were experienced computer users who transferred their skills from workplaces of the 1990s’ digital revolution. Their uptake of new digital media was often intergenerational due to family pressure, for example, to maintain contact with children and grandchildren using smartphones or to send pictures to anxious parents when minding grandchildren. Having acquired their new skills, the grandmothers valued digital services more for intra-generational opportunities to connect with friends, for leisure, and entertainment (Carlo & Rebelo, 2018; Yachin & Nimrod, 2020). There is no research into older women’s take-up of digital platforms in older women’s movements, and the use of digital platforms by feminist

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activist organizations has been considered by researchers without specific reference to older women. Fotopoulou (2016) identified older feminists in activist organizations who struggled to incorporate both email and social media and felt that this created a gap between them and younger feminist colleagues. By comparison, Jouët (2018) found that members of contemporary French feminist social movements, in their twenties and thirties, rely on digital communication tools to coordinate activities and use the web as an alternative medium to promote their cause. The women intertwined on and offline media and actions, often creating events and curating them online. They drew on feminist traditions of “performative activism” using humor and satire. Feminist researchers have identified a range of concepts to describe feminist digital activism. Starting with Spender’s (1995) “cyberfeminism” as an expression of challenging the “machismo culture” of cyberspace, these include: facilitating social movement learning though “community informatics”(Irving & English, 2011), “networked feminism” as the “default mode of campaigning and communication for activists” and “digital sisterhood” (Fotopoulou, 2016), “hashtag feminism” and “feminist memes” (Baer, 2016), “fourth wave feminism” (Aitken, 2017), “redoing feminism for a neoliberal age” and tensions between collective and individualist expression (Baer, 2016; Jouët, 2018).

Case Study Methodology Constituted by a number of groups in approximately 40 locations, KNAG is a “multisite bounded system” (Merriam, 2014, p. 49). A mixed method descriptive case study of their network was used to understand the women’s learning processes. In the same way that theories of education segment learner needs and styles by age and stage, the portmanteau “Nannagogy” was coined to differentiate KNAG learning processes from other established and formalized learning systems such as pedagogy (childhood teaching and learning in schooling), andragogy (adult teaching and learning, such as vocational or higher education) and learning later in life (post-retirement learning, such as University of the Third Age). The research maintained a conceptual segmentation of KNAG learning processes to focus on gender and identity in combining “Nanna” (older woman) with “agogy” (“learning” or Greek for “‘I lead”). Nannagogy is a concept of older women’s learning: A learning system for a specific form

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of social movement learning praxis that honors the wisdom and experience of older women. All informants were active KNAG members. The original qualitative and quantitative data were collected through primary sources including written (online) survey data, interviews, and document analysis of social media in the public domain (Facebook posts, digital videos, emails, and e-news bulletins). The research was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee, James Cook University. A written (online) survey was conducted in 2017 to which there were 67 respondents of an estimated 200 women, giving a response rate of 34% or greater.1 Taking the metaphor of knitting, each group refers to itself as a “loop” of the network. Survey respondents are referred to as “S” and their unique respondent number. A purposive sample comprised 10 semi-structured interviews conducted face to face or online using video capture. Interviews were conducted in two phases 2017 and 2018, and in 2019 and 2020 in order to fill gaps in survey data and gain some longitudinal insights from women. To gain ethics approval from my university I undertook to de-identify all participants surveyed or interviewed. This is reflected in the consent forms that each woman signed and gave their consent to the use of the study’s results for academic purposes such as research publications. Each interviewee chose a pseudonym based on women they admired, which I used throughout this chapter. Content analysis of social media in the public domain from 2012 to 2020 included Facebook posts, digital videos, emails, and e-news bulletins. Collection and analysis focused on confirming or challenging and triangulating findings from all sources. The Association of Internet Researchers (Markham & Buchanan, 2012) provided the ethical guidelines for conducting my social media research. As a result I anonymized Facebook and other social media quotes. I used people’s names where the sources were in the public domain such as TV and press news reports, or where people were named by others as figures in the movement.2 1  There has never been an exact census of KNAG members because they have a very distributed structure that does not quantify membership, which in any case varies over time. This number was an estimate given by the Nannas. 2  This comment relates to Clare Twomey, Judi Summers and Eve Sinton. Direct quotes from these women who were also interviewees were anonymized and they are de-identified by their pseudonyms.

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The Context: Fighting fracking Unconventional CSG extraction, or fracking, is known to be environmentally toxic (Acosta et al., 2015, p.7; Tosh & Gislason, 2016). In Australia, CSG is an environmental concern because much of the land targeted for exploration is in farming and rural communities. This has implications for food security (the exploration of CSG mines are located in Australia’s richest food production areas), biodiversity (diverse and rare natural environments are threatened), water security and purity (as one of the driest continents, Australia relies on its precious water resources, much of which is held in natural geological formations of aquifers and artesian reservoirs), human health issues (due to the impact of polluting gases on both air and water quality), First Nations’ cultural ancestral connection to Country, and community cohesion (where fracking is contentious and communities are divided by newcomers who “fly in/fly out” for work with added potential for “boom town” mentalities leading to increases in violence; Hirsch et  al., 2018; Grubert & Skinner, 2017; Ollis & Hamel-Green, 2015; Tosh & Gislason, 2016). In Australia, anti-CSG grassroots activism began in 2010 with the farmer-based activist organization Lock the Gate Alliance (LTG), which has helped mobilize communities against mining companies such as the Gasfield Free Northern Rivers Alliance (GFNR).

Research Findings about KNAG’s Use of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 Tools Beginnings and Online Launch KNAG began as an offshoot of the GFNR regional mobilization that raised community awareness of the negative environmental, economic, and social impacts of fracking. Initially excited by the opportunity of learning non-violent direct action (NVDA) protest strategies through joining an expert activist group, a small number of older women soon realized they were the target of ageist sexism that relegated them to subordinate stereotypical sex-roles—making tea, providing biscuits, and taking minutes. Given that the experts in the group were left-wing men, this was an unexpected negative, antagonistic, and emotionally violent entrée into a CoP espousing non-violence. As soon-to-retire or retired older women with time to give, they had geared up to be active not passive, and found

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this attitude unacceptable. Determined to forge ahead in their quest to learn a form of environmental activism that suited their passions and capabilities, they followed their strategic insights, which creatively morphed into the “Knit-In,” a new type of environmental NVDA activism. They turned their elder grandmotherly status into a form of strategic essentialism. While they use these qualities to engender credibility, which assists in engaging audiences in their messages, KNAGs are clear that this is a subversive activity that gives them their activist identity. This activity reflects McHugh’s (2007) concept of “oppositional discourse” challenging “phallocentrism and its description of and prescription for women” (p.  38). Referring to the sex-role stereotyping the women experienced in the GFNR NVDA CoP, Nanna Joy explained, The main thing that we were trying to do, which is something that a lot of feminists have done in their activism is just subvert the stereotypes and sometimes that’s by countering them and sometimes that’s just by amping them up. So you want us to make tea, we’re gonna fuckin’ make tea and we’re going to have tea cozies in the yellow and black [colors of the anti-­ CSG movement adopted by KNAG] and we’re gonna have cake and scones.

The movement emerged in only 20 days, from June 8 to June 28, 2012. KNAG was recognized in local media and Facebook online. Initially, Nanna Joy told me that only one of the women in the first loop used social media and convinced the others to go online. This led to their first Facebook post “Nannas are go!,” celebrating a protest where mining company Metgasco had begun to excavate holding ponds for contaminated water (Knitting Nannas Against Gas, 2012). Their formula of “sit, knit, plot, yarn, have a cuppa and bear witness,” “Nannafesto,” and Nanna outfits (creative combinations of knitted beret and upcycled clothes in yellow, black and red) emerged within the first six months as the women peacefully knitted in front of Metgasco sites, local pro-CSG politicians’ offices, and community markets. They created online and offline spaces to be seen and heard. Initially this was among other women, where they crafted a powerful identity that gained credibility for its ability to mobilize hundreds of people contributing vital numbers to the anti-fracking movement. Nanna Vida considered that the use of social media across the GFNR made the Northern Rivers campaign successful. With its following, KNAG played an instrumental role over three years

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that culminated in a four-month blockade located in Bentley in 2014. Nanna Vida described the Nannas’ social media involvement: We have a good following and a lot of that has really been helped by social media. It really has helped win a whole lot of things. Bentley would never have been won without the speed of social media, the ability to communicate without being tracked and things like that and to get people there quickly when needed. Yeah, it’s really important.

Nanna Joy attributed KNAG’s early growth to their Facebook visibility, saying that after around two years: … we went up to 13,000 followers. We still have a lot of people following us. That helped us to advertise ourselves and what we were doing and attract other women who were looking for something meaningful. Wide protest groups are all women. So a lot of this is how I’d say that we got so many other loops joined up. We worked very hard on education and bringing people onside. Yes, social media was very important.

KNAG quickly learned the communicative and educative power of social media. The next section considers how KNAG members upskilled their digital literacy. Overcoming the Digital Divide, Extending Digital Literacy Many women entered KNAG with computer competence, having been through the digital revolution in their workplaces during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s as teachers, nurses, health professionals, managers, secretaries, and office administrators. Some were journalists, photographers and graphic artists. All these roles involved some degree of digital literacy. Many were home-makers based on farms, where computer technologies have become increasingly important (Mackrell et  al., 2009). Some had greater expertise, like Nanna Rose, a vocational education college computer programming teacher of many years who easily took the role of loop Facebook administrator. Nanna Vida, proficient in information systems having been a library technician, was already an active smartphone user doing: … everything through my phone. I’ve got a twenty nine year history as a library technician and that helped. Right from the beginning I started in the

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library pre-computers. So when they came in our work changed enormously and a lot of what we had to do by hand once fell off. We were encouraged and paid to do courses. That really helped in the early Atari days, that was hilarious to going right through to Windows and now Mac.

A number of women demonstrated their pre-KNAG use of social media by explaining they first heard about the Nannas “from friends who went to the Bentley Blockade and social media” (Respondent S.46), or who came on board “through social media—Facebook [where I saw…] the actions at Glenugie and Doubtful Creek … seeing Clare Twomey knitting while atop a tripod during a blockade” (S.64). S.63 heard about KNAG from Twitter and other women friends. Her attraction to the movement was the opportunity to be more visibly active than her “clicktivism,”3 “not just ‘liking’ on Facebook—something I am actually doing.” Eco-activist learning in the KNAG CoP includes becoming digital savvy. Realizing they needed upskilling in networking among themselves and other climate justice activists, Nanna loops initiated their own social media training sessions. KNAG members undertook self-directed, needs-­ based learning, drawing on expertise within their loops, engaging more tech-savvy activists, or attending community education courses. Data show that the learning environment has been learner-centered, collaborative, non-judgmental, and enjoyable. The older women have been adaptive, innovative, and competent in learning and applying new digital skills. In 2017, Nanna Vida explained how her loop, already familiar with email, upskilled in social media: We’ve had different training with people involved in the movement and we’re going to have some more coming up now in a couple of weeks which has been asked for from the Nannas themselves which is really good. One of the Nannas organized that. I have to send out an email about that.

When Nannas acquired new technology, such as smart phones or iPads, informal loop training covered basic and advanced functions. Nanna Vida described the role of supportive learning spaces in overcoming fears of new technologies and breaking through the digital divide. There were

3  Clickivism is “a low-risk, low-cost activity via social media, whose purpose is to raise awareness, produce change, or grant satisfaction to the person engaged in the activity” (Rotman et al., quoted in Halupka, 2018, p. 131).

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occasions where collaborative learning involved basic problem-solving and resulted in joyful amusement such as the following incident: We had a hilarious incident where a couple of the Nannas were thinking they couldn’t swipe on their phones and their iPads and we couldn’t work out what was going on and then we realized they daren’t taken off their screen protector. So it was like opening up a whole world and everyone was just killing themselves laughing. (Nanna Vida)

More Nannas are more confident in Facebook, Messenger and email than they are with online meeting technologies like Zoom. Adoption of online meeting technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic varied across loops, depending on women’s confidence and willingness to overcome frustrations learning new technologies. Nanna Rose reflected on KNAG’s adoption of these technologies: In our loop it’s mixed. We’ve had an interesting experience with lockdown with Zoom. I was like, we’ll just go online with Zoom. And there was quite strong resistance from some of the Nannas. Some of them are quite happy, but there’s a few who’ve got used to Facebook, but the move to Zoom was a step too far. They didn’t trust the technology and they didn’t want to be involved. So that didn’t work too well in our loop, whereas the Sydney Nannas, took to it like ducks to water, quite happy to Zoom away. The Sydney Nannas are interesting because they got on so well with Zoom. I think they’ll keep on with it, have some Zoom meetings and some face to face meetings, even when they don’t have to.

The ethos of inclusivity within loops recognizes that members vary in their interest in learning digital technologies, and some loops will use more tools than others. There are at least a few Nannas in each loop who manage the Facebook identity and make sure all members are connected. The next section documents the ways KNAG members prefer to connect. Collective Identity and Community Digital connectedness through eco-activism reinforces collective identity, enhances a sense of community, and contributed to these older women’s well-being, adding value and purpose to their lives. KNAGs use Messenger for in-group communication, planning actions, and social support. KNAG survey data emphasized the importance of networking for maintaining

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friendships and supporting one another in both protesting and personal lives. Respondent S.4 described how social media connectedness engender understanding and cooperation among the KNAG activist CoP and enhance purposeful well aging: I feel part of the group and valued when networking through Messenger and emails. My life, though busy, has taken on more purpose with the work we are doing. We can only be effective if everyone in the group understands each other and can cooperate willingly.

KNAGs value online networking because their structure is a non-­ hierarchical “disorganization” constituted by semi-autonomous groups with a distributed collective leadership model. A majority (79%, 46 of 58 survey respondents) agreed that networking was highly important and considered it valuable for connecting with other members. Women recognized the need for information sharing across loops, learning from one another’s experiences, and sharing strategic knowledge. “Communication is key to keeping everyone informed and involved. You can’t take action if you aren’t aware of what’s taking place,” stated S.23. Collaborative knowledge generation was emphasized by S.47, “We all learn from each other’s experiences, and have different areas of expertise to bring.” Loops have found social media an essential tool for partnering with one another and with other anti-CSG or environmental action groups. S.57 stated, “[we use social media …] both for support and sharing of knowledge. Also in organizing effective actions in partnership with other groups—both Nanna groups and other environmental organizations.” Messenger has proved beneficial as a more private channel within loops, compared to Facebook, which presents the public persona of KNAG activism. Women have different routines of checking their phones. One Nanna only gets mobile reception by coming into town from her rural property. She checks her messages every morning when she picks up her newspaper. Nanna Jessie explained that her loop uses Messenger between themselves, calling it “Nannachat.” Women might discuss their health issues or current challenges and offer support, like Nanna Joy’s example about a Nanna having car trouble and being offered transportation. According to Nanna Jessie, her loop uses Messenger more than Facebook for keeping in touch: [Messenger] happens more than Facebook now for our loop. And it’s sort of like Nannachat. A lot of it is interpersonal stuff as well as organizational

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stuff—someone’s sick or someone’s been away and come back and they’re welcomed back home or catch up with things. It just goes on sometimes. I don’t check my phone until I stop at night and sometimes there’s ten messages on it—chit chat about what to bring the next day or who didn’t understand what the message was or it just goes on and on and on. Someone’s forgotten it or can’t do what they said they were going to do. Or it’s a variation of what we’ve decided.

Despite her background in journalism, Nanna Jeanette had only just begun to use social media when she joined the Nannas. Through being a KNAG, her online competence and confidence increased. Similar to many, she lives outside a regional town, is somewhat geographically isolated, and found Facebook invaluable in creating a sense of community and collective identity through in-group communication: I think they’ve been great on the uptake of social media and I was only really starting to use social media not long before I joined up with the Nannas myself. And so we’ve all made good use of it. It’s really essential for keeping us in touch with each other and also with loops nationwide. It’s really valuable. I don’t think we’d function so well without it, especially because we’re all quite scattered geographically, even my loop. There’s people coming from, an hour or more away in all different directions. So having Facebook particularly, I don’t actually do other social media except Facebook, really helps keep us together and just sharing information.

KNAG loops claimed space online using Facebook. An analysis of loops listed on the Knitting Nannas website (https://knitting-­nannas.com) in January 2021 indicates 31 currently active loops on Facebook with over 40,300 followers or members.4 Over one half of the loops (17) began their Facebook pages within the first four years since the movement’s inception, demonstrating older women’s enthusiasm and capability for connective action. All loops list a contact email address, two have Twitter accounts, one also uses Instagram. As the movement grows, so does its Facebook presence. This and other data confirm the literature that older people prefer to use email and Facebook (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018; Haukka & Hegarty, 2011; Wiesslitz, 2019; Yellow Pages, 2020).

4  This total number of followers or members does not represent unique individuals and is likely to include a small percentage of people who follow more than one loop.

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Facebook has been instrumental in confirming and strengthening KNAGs’ sense of community and collective identity. Online visibility enables followers to affirm their relationship to the cause and legitimizes the cause to both followers and others (George & Leidner, 2019). Nanna Rose’s loop has a number of “active Nannas who frequently post” and “a large passive audience” who occasionally respond. Rose observed women shifting from sympathizers to becoming Nannas, “…participation in the online group is seen as precursor to becoming a Nanna.” She considered that Facebook is “…the equivalent of bonding the group—the same as when you all stand in your Nanna gear out on the street and it’s just an extension of that into the online world. It’s very important for coherence of the loop. A sort of identity with what we’re doing.” In summary, KNAGs use email and Messenger to maintain internal community connectedness and social belonging. In-group communications overcome women’s isolation from one another. Facebook maintains their public identity presenting a united coherent image to the world.

A Media Movement Overcoming Ageist Sexism and Climate Skepticism Over time, KNAG actions have become carefully choreographed images, purposefully pre-arranged as social media content and broadcast using media releases written by ex-journalist Nannas. Using their knit-ins and strategic Nanna essentialism, they eschew violence, insisting on NVDA.  They challenge the hegemonic power of ageist sexism through their vigilant online and offline presence, which draws on traditions of feminist performative activism (Jouët, 2018). In the next part of this chapter, two examples are analyzed to show how mainstream media attention, which generally reports aggression through patriarchal language (Newlands, 2018), has been successfully garnered by KNAG for peaceful activism. Naughty Knitting at Doubtful Creek The Doubtful Creek blockade (February 2013) was the third mass protest against Metgasco in the Northern Rivers Campaign. An alliance of protesters including Nanna Clare Twomey agreed to take arrestable non-­ violent action to frustrate and block access for Metgasco’s latest drilling

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operation at the Eden State Forest. An estimated 350 protesters and 30 police were present. One woman locked herself to a car wreck, a man buried himself, and others lay across the road in front of huge trucks. Seated meters above the ground on a tripod platform, Nanna Clare knitted calmly for hours, working on black and yellow scarf that grew increasingly longer. Each time she finished a ball, another would be secured to her scarf and hoisted up as onlookers cheered, singing songs of protest and solidarity. Eventually, all the other locked-on protesters were removed by the Police Rescue Squad, and Clare was next. A cherry picker was brought in and police extracted the compliant Nanna to chants of “hands off our Nanna” and “shame on the police!” The tripod was demolished and the very long scarf ripped apart. Back on the ground, a group of Nannas repaired the scarf as Nanna Clare philosophically joked, “It was trespassing; it was very naughty knitting!” (Larri & Newlands, 2017, p. 43; O’Keefe & Brown, 2014). KNAG used Facebook to spread the story, which was viewed by 931 people and covered by over five different regional media outlets and the national broadcaster.5 Months later, Nanna Clare celebrated her court appearance and acquittal on Facebook, gaining 142 likes, 38 comments, and 60 shares. Comments showed that followers understood the seriousness and humor inherent in the differential power plays, adding weight to counter the hegemony of state-sanctioned control over the peaceful protesters: You can’t knit in public, it’s not nice!! Have a look at the coppers, do they have riot gear on? It is plain to me, this is a pearler I think any charges should decrease and be cast off!

5  Sources of online videos and information on Doubtful Creek protest: ABC News Online (2013, February 7), Three arrested as northern CSG protests heat up. https://www.abc.net. au/news/2013-02-07/three-arrested-as-northern-csg-protests-heat-up/4506046; MyCrafts website (February 7, 2013). Knitting Nanna arrested at CSG blockade: Doubtful Creek 7 February 2013 [YoutTube Video]. http://mycrafts.com/diy/knitting-nannaarrested-at-csg-blockade-doubtful-creek-7-february-2013/; Farmonline National (2013, September 8). KNAGs a growing force. https://www.farmonline.com.au/story/3586808/ knags-a-growing-force/; The Echo (2013, February 11). Community confronts CSG. Echo. https://www.echo.net.au/2013/02/community-confronts-csg; Broome, H. (2013, February 8). Huge police presence gets trucks through. The Daily Telegraph. https://www. dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/lismore/huge-police-presence-gets-trucks-through/ news-story/2e6b46af7179c97293111e9f0f802514.

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“Call the Cops! It’s the Knitting Nannas!” In April 2015, when Lismore Nannas were confronted by three local police officers and asked to move on during their weekly knit-in outside their politician’s office, they were initially amazed and confused. Why was this happening now after three years, they wondered? The police insisted they were blocking pedestrian access, but the women were sitting as they always had, peacefully knitting, their backs against the office wall, which is evident in their Facebook post “Call the cops! It’s the Knitting Nannas!” (Fig. 2.1, April 9, 2015). “In fact,” they countered, “it was the police who were holding up pedestrian traffic.” In sympathy, LTG posted a call to action with the photo, which the Nannas cross-shared. In answer to the question “What do you think, should the police arrest the Nannas or should they be allowed to continue to sit and knit and exercise their right to peacefully protest? LIKE and SHARE to support the Knitting Nannas!” followers’ responded with a

Fig. 2.1  Knitting Nannas being asked to move on (Knitting Nannas Against Gas, Facebook, April 9, 2015, copyright fair use)

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massive reaction. It was seen by 53,312 people, and attracted 1,700 likes, 535 comments, and 1,500 shares. The image was used strategically, gaining the desired reaction. The overwhelmingly supportive comments responded directly to the image and were critical of the politician and police: All I see is a group of women sitting peacefully knitting together, since when did knitting become a crime? It is time the police left peaceful people alone and started doing something useful for a change. Loitering with the intent to knit? Seriously…tell me when the Nannas are back there. Because I want to stand with them. I love you ladies, every one of you… thanks so much for being so staunch and so brave. So very cool, and more than that—women in their power acting on what they know to be important… Love to all… way to go Nannas—and those police should be ashamed to treat Nannas badly If knitting in public really is illegal, we’re all in big trouble! Don’t be intimidated, Nannas!! You have a right to be there! I appreciate the Nannas. Shame on the police protecting corrupt politicians, ́ our elders who are doing what the politicians should be doing …proyet bully tecting our water and our health. Well they are wielding sharp pointy things and enough string to tie all of them up, they must feel threatened! Lol why don’t they go and catch some real criminals?

This led to KNAG gaining national exposure on “The Project,” a current affairs program (Network 10, April 10, 2015). Media spokesnannas Judi Summers and Clare Twomey were asked why they were knitting. The Project commentators wondered why the police were concerned when Nannas were sitting knitting peacefully, and whether they had considered brokering a deal by knitting something useful for Police, like a Form 1 request to hold a legal protest. Nannas explained their anti-CSG rationale while background footage emphasized the non-violent action. Further extending their reach by 1,214 views, KNAG used the YouTube excerpt of the interview in its Facebook post (April 11, 2015). Both these examples underscore the growing sophistication of the Nannas in multi-channel media management. While the first example was strategically planned in alliance with LTG and GFNR, the second example shows how KNAG was able to take advantage of an unplanned event to garner a significant response. Learning from other activists, the Nannas

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had designated “spokesnanna” media representatives who were confident in public speaking. Nanna Vida explained that the spokesnanna role involves staying on message: So we have media cards that we had done up saying “spokesnanna.” Just in case if you were out and about. We have to stay on message. We have to be very careful for the Coalition [currently in government] and anyone else like the coal and gas guys and girls who would like to undo us.

KNAGs demonstrate their effective use of social media and expands their reach, educating the broader movement about their role by hash-­ tagging and cross-sharing to alliance partners such as LTG Alliance, GFNR, The Wilderness Society, Pilliga Push group, Sydney Water Protectors, Stop CSG Sydney, Nature Conservation Council NSW, and Extinction Rebellion. Fossil Fool Bulletins KNAGs use a mix of media channels as they research and disseminate accurate information about Australia’s fossil fuel industry within their movement and to a broader audience. Adhering to their Nannafesto in presenting evidence-based information, they are conscious of being a credible information source in breaking the confusion and disinformation that characterizes climate change and fossil fuel debates in Australia (Rudd & Woodroffe, 2021; Seccombe, 2021; Taylor, 2015). For the first six and a half years, KNAG relied on individual members who researched and shared relevant fossil fuel and extractive industry information via Facebook. Researched topics included toxicology and health effects of CSG, renewable energy developments, traditional owners’ concerns, new government approvals of coal and SCG mining, logging of old growth forests, threats by mining companies (e.g., Metgasco, Adani, Santos, Dendrobium, Shenhua) to agriculture and water resources, opportunities for activist training and supporting initiatives of other protest groups (e.g., School Strike for Climate), changes to legislation affecting protesters and mining, and other related human rights issues. From November 2017, Eve Sinton, a semi-retired environmental issues journalist and Northern Rivers Nanna, began her free weekly email “Fossil Fool Bulletin” (FFB). Her aim was to save people time and provide access to information on “media coverage of fossil fuels in the context of the

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battle between fossil proponents and people working for a cleaner, more sustainable future” (Sinton, 2017). Current subscription figures show a readership of about 500 with two thirds likely to be women based on email address names as women’s networks spread the knowledge. According to Nanna Rose, most Nannas read the FFB because it is sent by email and is considered a valuable resource for keeping up-to-date with issues and campaigns. She stated: The less IT savvy ones can still read that. It brings together all of the news. She’s amazing—blows my mind. Maybe half of it I’ve seen in my own browsing, and there’s other stuff, [I’m amazed at] how you would do it.

Conclusion and Implications for the Inclusion of Older Women’s Online Activism This research challenges conventional wisdom that older women are caught behind a digital divide. Findings show they are a cohort who lived through the knowledge economy transition and experienced first-hand, in workplaces and homes, the upskilling involved in the digital revolution of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. As a result of their KNAG identities, many moved from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 technologies. While Facebook and email remain staple platforms of choice, the women have become active users of Messenger and Zoom. Data drawn from surveys and interviews confirm that the existence of social media enabled CoP across the KNAG movement. Contemporary SML includes becoming digital savvy in order to be more capable activists. Having social media visibility contributed to building the KNAG identity and strengthened this activist community with added social benefits of increasing older women’s well-being, adding value, purpose, and connection to their lives. KNAG is a media movement, having proved their expertise in presenting a clearly articulated media profile using digital online tools to complement their offline eco-activism. Through their peaceful direct action tactics, the Knitting Nannas effectively advocated for policies of ecological sustainability in mitigating the effects of climate change. KNAG proved that ageist sexism robs society of leadership, expertise, elder wisdom, and resilience in efforts to mitigate climate change and address its worst impacts. It is no longer acceptable to ignore the vitality, creativity, and intelligence of older women activists.

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Declaration of Conflicting Interests  The author declares no conflicts of interests to disclose.

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CHAPTER 3

“I’m at 100!”: Protesting the Right-Wing Government in Austria Ricarda Drüeke

Introduction and Objective In 2017, a group of older women protested on the streets of Vienna against the new federal government in Austria. Some of them walked with canes, had specially made pink and red hats and wore buttons on their clothes, and expressed their protest in the form of signs and songs. What initially sounds like a sympathetic association of seniors has over time become a protest movement represented in over 12 cities in Austria and Germany (Brüstle, 2018). In the meantime, on their website, they call for an alliance of “grannies international.” The movement was featured on a BBC podcast (Silva, 2019) and The New York Times described them “new voices” in politics under the headline “It’s the Grannies!” (Eddy, 2019). The goal of the movement is to draw attention to issues such as racism, misogyny, and unequal educational opportunities in society, and to protest against right-wing policies. They call themselves Grannies against the

R. Drüeke (*) University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wiesslitz (ed.), Women’s Activism Online and the Global Struggle for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31621-0_3

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Right (“Omas gegen Rechts” in German) and point out the necessity of protesting against injustice at any age (Omas gegen Rechts, n.d.). Founded on Facebook in 2017, the group sees their age as a mandate to resist fascist and exclusionary politics and fight for a better future for all. The trigger was the rise of the right-wing FPÖ party, which became part of the Austrian government after the 2017 National Council elections. The Grannies have become a part of the regular Thursday demonstrations against the right-wing ÖVP/FPÖ government and its policies, and in support of a civil society platform against right-wing politics in Austria. These protests continued even after the dissolution of the coalition in May 2019 and the new elections in November 2019. With reference to the “strong grandmothers, whose time was marked by war and destruction,” as one of the group founders formulates in her book about the movement (Salzer, 2019, p. 11), the activists stated that they, too, wanted to oppose the right-wing and misogynist political developments in Austria despite their age—only “a mouse click” stood “between the feeling of powerlessness and the feeling of being able to do something” (Salzer, 2019, p. 74). The group developed a common identifying sign: a pink and red cap in the style of the Pussy Hats that featured in the demonstrations against Trump in the US. A common song was also created. The Grannies against the Right use digital media such as Facebook, blogs and Twitter for networking and mobilization, but their visible protests on the street represent their primary form of action. The overarching questions of my study are: What functions are played by different kinds of media in this protest group? At the same time, it is important to me to map out: Which publics are formed through these articulations of protest? And how does the social negotiation process develop? Based on in-depth interviews with the founders and activists of Grannies against the Right, I will investigate their understandings of digital media activism, and the combination of offline and online activities that testify to their media repertoires. The interviews will also thematize their concerns and hopes for their media practices. In doing so, various forms of agency are identified and the significance of media practices in connection with other forms of action is analyzed. The sample is based on 10

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semi-structured interviews that were conducted between December 2019 and January 2020 followed by a second round in December 2021.1 All interviewees were over 60 years old, identify as female, and most have a higher education. The interviews included thematic blocks on the movement itself, digital media repertoires and the modes of constructing a collective identity. My methodological approach consists of a qualitative content analysis of the interviews. The evaluation was carried out using theoretical coding in order to make statements about the significance of media practices in connection with other forms of action. The guiding premise of the research is the observation that, in recent years, there has been much talk of feminist hashtag activism and even of a “feminist turn in digital culture” (Cefai, 2020). Contemporary feminism is thus reduced primarily to the use of digital media and certain user groups are brought into focus. Although digital feminism—that is, the use of hashtags, blogs, and other platforms (Baer, 2016)—plays a central role in feminist expression, there are other forms of feminist activism. Therefore, it is of particular interest to explore how a group in the German-speaking world, mostly consisting of older women, can position itself as part of digital feminism and what role the participants attribute to digital media. Studies on the use of the internet have shown that around 75% of people between the ages of 60 and 69 use the internet, but only about one in two over the age of 69 (Dahms & Haesner, 2018). In this chapter, the theoretical framework encompassing the movements, participatory practices, and the public sphere, is first sketched out. Then, based on the various protest and media repertoires of the movement under examination, the role they play for activism, communication processes and identity construction is discussed. This is done against the background of the narratives that frame digital activism and networked feminism.

1  I would like to thank Antonio Bilic, Sushana Johann, Verena Kattinger, Benedikt Kluge and Hannah Mauracher for their support in conducting the interviews. The interviews were conducted in German, all interview quotes were translated by the author and were anonymized for privacy reasons. In the processing of the empirical material and in the presentation of the cases I used pseudonyms to protect the identity of the participants. I generalized participants’ descriptions such as gender, age, and location so that no conclusions can be drawn about the person.

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Movements, Participatory Practices and the Public Sphere Public spheres serve social self-understanding and are also produced in and on digitally networked media, which can expand spaces for feminist activism and protest. Feminist public spheres intervene in social processes and campaign for emancipation and gender justice. In doing so, feminists and feminist coalitions rely on different feminisms, choose different forms of activism, and articulate their positions and demands in diverse publics. Feminist public sphere theory has cast doubt on the idea that it is justified to limit the debate on the public sphere to a political public sphere in the strict, traditional sense. In contrast, other scholars have argued for a wide-ranging and emancipatory definition of politics. Thus, feminist research has highlighted that democracy is a matter of active citizenship. The public sphere is then a space where conditions for cultural participation are negotiated and become central for social inclusion and exclusion processes. Feminist researchers in particular have highlighted the importance of plural publics for effecting changes in the public discourse. The paradigmatic text stems from Nancy Fraser (1997), who opposed Habermas’s (1992) idea of a singular bourgeois public sphere and questioned the possibility of a nonhierarchical deliberation. Diverse forms of cultural and participatory practices are increasingly found in digital publics. These practices thus encompass various cultural expressions, which also include affective and performative dimensions. The affective turn, which inspired studies on performative publics, also took place in media and communication studies. Lünenborg and Raetzsch (2018) speak of “performative publics” to describe public articulations that cross different platforms and consist of constellations of different participants. This term emphasizes the character of the process and calls the dichotomies into question, performatively expressing the fact that these publics are temporary and situational and form themselves through the media-mediated exchange of participants. These publics emerge beyond the traditional structures of social movements and institutionalized media. Boyd (2010) describes such publics as “networked publics,” formed out of “spaces and audiences that are bound together through technological networks” (p. 39). As a result, the network character is emphasized, since different applications have to be analyzed in their interconnectedness rather that separately from one another. Papacharissi (2014) associates Boyd’s concept of “networked publics” with affect theories and describes

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such publics as “affective publics” in order to integrate feelings and emotions consistently. With these new constellations of the public sphere(s), as well as protest and social movements, various participatory practices have also come to the forefront of the theoretical discourse. In recent years, participatory practices have continued to change and differentiate through digital media and its participatory networks. The term “cultures of participation” also refers to forms of citizenship that are of particular significance in movement contexts and media protests. Participatory cultures make use of a variety of media, especially digitally networked media. This reinforces the possibilities of having a voice, raising it publicly, and articulating positions. Digitally networked media are likewise central to movement contexts, as they promote the public visibility of queer-feminist issues and enable participation in public debates. However, it is important not to take the technological platform as the starting point, but to focus on shared practices and cultures. Participatory processes are therefore always associated with acts of citizenship. Participatory communities use digitally networked media as a further platform for the exercise of cultural practices (Jenkins et  al., 2016). In more recent approaches, these forms and practices are mainly understood under the term “cultural citizenship.” Klaus and Lünenborg (2012) define cultural citizenship as the “cultural practices that allow competent participation in society and includes the right to be represented and to speak actively” (p. 204) The concept of “cultural citizenship” considers such media practices of exchange and participation to be central to the construction of (political) identities (Hartley, 2010). In these practices, meanings are negotiated, identification with common goals takes place, and various forms of opposition are expressed. This is tied to the concept of “digital citizenship,” which describes the relevance of the digital infrastructure in social interactions, as well as its impact on identities and forms of participation (Mossberg et al., 2008). Various theoretical models have been developed in relation to media practices, such as “media ecologies” (Treré & Mattoni, 2015), “media environment” (Della Porta, 2011) and “media archaeologies” (Kaun et al., 2016). Over the past few years, hashtags and blogs have also created such temporary, event-related but also persistent publics that support participative processes. This “digital feminism” (Scharff et  al., 2016) is an effective articulation of protest that draws attention to marginalized issues and demands public visibility. In recent years, hashtags calling out (sexualized) violence and discrimination against women in particular have been

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perceived as effective protests. In addition to #MeToo, there are numerous hashtags around the world that draw attention to the discrimination against women and (sexualized) violence as well as racist politics. Other platforms, such as Facebook, also have feminist groupings that can expand feminist networks and create online communities (Crossley, 2015). From these groupings on different platforms, a kind of “digital sisterhood” (Fotopoulou, 2017) can therefore also emerge. In this, the temporary alliances and coalitions that pursue a common concern, especially via digitally networked media, are revealed. Steiner and Eckert (2017) refer to such alliances as “fluid public clusters” (p. 214) in order to emphasize the dynamics of the spaces and participants. The associated requirement of constant connectivity is also viewed critically, however, as Fotopoulou (2017) points out, based on her interviews with women’s groups in the UK.  They still see offline activism as crucial for cohesion and perceive the required presence in digital media as rather burdensome. Dean (2009) has also pointed to this neoliberal link between activism and being online, which presupposes a constantly active individual who receives and produces online content. Based on these theoretical assumptions, the following sections present the results of the interviews. These are discussed against the background of these changing technological conditions as well as the transformation of protest publics.

Findings and Discussion: Grannies against the Right Based on the above literature review, I present the results of my study along four dimensions: First, public protest and digital activism, which encompasses the various media practices of the Grannies that relate to external communication. Second, the communicative practices and networking within the movement; third, the ways to which digital media can provide safe spaces and the vulnerabilities that accompany them. Finally, fourth, I address the extent to which digital media foster a common identity construction and provide the movement with further agency.

Public Protest and Digital Activism For social movements, public attention is critical for ensuring that their concerns are recognized. For a long time, mass media were seen as central; as movement researcher Raschke stated in 1985, “A movement that is not

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reported on does not take place.” Today, in order to generate public attention, social movements and protest movements use different strategies, which are also always dependent on the available media and technologies. Rucht (2011) distinguishes between different techniques for generating media attention, including spectacle, demonstrating a common identity through the choice of symbolism, and personalization. With the Grannies against the Right, campaigns, demonstrations and media appearances, such as interviews, debates and discussions, play a central role. Public presence is important to them, as they express their protest through their participation in demonstrations. At the same time, personal, physical communication serves as the primary means of exchange. This takes place mostly at the events and is of central importance to the activism of the participants. At these meetings, personal points of view are consolidated and experiences are exchanged—and, as a result, also represented in public. Thus, these meetings fulfill the function of personal public spheres, facilitating exchange and mobilization. These forms of action are central to the self-image of the participants. They met one another mostly through personal contacts or by being approached at demonstrations. Their activism is borne out of a common self-image as older women and their enthusiasm to stand up for a common cause—namely, against right-wing politics. Participation and involvement are seen by the participants as actions to be organized collectively, through which a sense of community is created. Their goal is to become “an unmistakable voice in civil society,” according to the movement’s founder (Salzer, 2019, p. 32). They also repeatedly attempt to defuse violent situations, for example, by standing in front of police officers at demonstrations. A common sign of recognition is their so-called “Granny Song,” with the lyrics “Grannies, grannies, the whole country needs us; We fight for the children and make resistance!” (Salzer, 2019, p. 137). In this way, they achieve media attention, which the participants also consciously use as a strategy to publicize their cause and gain further supporters. One of the interviewees emphasizes that legacy media is important for “making their issues clear to a broad public and sending out announcements” (Interview 6, 19). The Facebook platform is used primarily for public communication, and is the movement now also operates a channel on Instagram. Both pages are updated regularly, with content that includes expressions of solidarity with other movements, such as Fridays For Future or BlackLivesMatter, as well as protests against the federal government’s

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migration policy and inhumane deportations. Even if the Facebook account is troublesome, one of the grandmothers sees this as “strengthening the movement itself”, […] because contact with Fridays for Future, for example, is only possible via social media” (Interview 6, 30–31). Pictures and videos are either recorded specifically for the platforms or to document their participation in the demonstrations. The content is wide-­ ranging but is united by the fact that it is directed against racism, right-wing movements, and exclusionary policies. Here, the activists are following conventional presentation strategies only to a limited extent. Like Facebook, Instagram is also used for activist videos in which different grannies make statements; They usually wear the collective symbol of the pink hat, and the recordings look amateurish because of the blurred images that could have been taken by a cell phone camera. Even if a web presence is deemed necessary, the participants see their role as protestors primarily in initiating dialogues, networking at demonstrations, and mobilizing. Almost all of the interviewees emphasize that this is how they reach people: “with the conversations on the street, for example, we get people to go to the ballot box and not vote for the right-­ wing populists” (Interview 4, 50–52). Traditional forms of communication are considered to have a greater impact, and the effectiveness of public communication via Facebook is doubted. With regard to calls for demonstrations, for example, one organizer says: “[…] if it is announced in the local press, then there’s even more turnout. A smaller part comes from Facebook” (Interview 2, 30) Through its public presence, the movement can do more to “stimulate reflection,” while the internet cannot generate the same attention as the participants in the public space. In the sense used by Fraser (2001), the participants thus form counter-publics that intervene in hegemonic public spheres. Public events are thus the mouthpiece for disseminating these positions. The next section shows how the activists combine different media to communicate with each other and to foster networks. Participatory practices are manifested through their presence on the street, but a “networked feminism” is currently assumed, which means that the focus is placed on the balancing act between the online and offline media actions of the participants.

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Communicative Practices and Networking As the previous section has shown, the activists engage in close personal exchanges. This is relevant for the movement in order to exchange ideas, to have a common identity, and to mobilize. The participants are only loosely connected via digitally networked media. Among themselves, they communicate primarily via e-mail, with the purpose of sharing information and arranging meetings. Another channel for internal communication is Facebook, through its group function. In the interviews, it became clear that Facebook is seen as a practical way to stay up to date when one cannot be on site. The group functions of WhatsApp or Google are also used, mostly for internal regional announcements (Interview 8, 28). One of the interviewees emphasizes that WhatsApp groups “serve as a means of communication and negotiations” (Interview 4, 35). Such a messaging platform seems more integrable into everyday life due to the ease of use via cell phone, “because after all, not everyone looks at the internet every day and checks their mails” (Interview 4, 35). E-mail is thus associated with stationary non-mobile use, although its usage via an app would be just as possible. Overall, however, personal communication is seen as much more effective and direct and is therefore preferred, as one interviewee says, “I personally dislike Facebook because personal communication is much more effective and direct ()…. However, I’m aware that social media is important, especially for the younger folk, so I try to stay informed about it” (Interview 7, 35). The way technology is framed shows that the activists associate digital media with a “younger” feminism; They emphasize that they tend to assign digital media to other age groups and are therefore partially dismissive of it. They justify this by their lack of technical skills, as one of the interviewees explains: “Facebook—I’m overwhelmed with all the technology and the effort” (Interview 6, 17). The participants go on to say that they are increasingly trying to include Facebook and Instagram in their activist work, since younger people in particular use these platforms. This also, however, reveals a generational divide, because some of the activists themselves do not use the internet on a daily basis, which can result in an information gap. In addition, some of the organizers delegate the use of digital platforms to the younger people in their environment who have knowledge in this area and can take over setup and guidance: “The homepage is maintained by the son of a Viennese grandmother” (Interview 3: 57) The results also

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show that almost all of the interviewed participants who had already used computers at work use technical resources more frequently than those who have only acquired such knowledge in retirement (Dahms & Haesner, 2018). Strong personal bonds can therefore be found in the group’s personal contacts: “My view is that face-to-face […] is more target-oriented and more intensive” (Interview 4, 47–48),” and interpersonal communication has thus the function to “discuss a lot with each other, from which we develop a mission for the future” (Interview 6, 38). Weak ties are more likely to be associated with digital media and platforms, as these are seen as resources that provide information about the group and serve to announce future protests: “It wouldn’t have worked without Facebook, it’s a mandatory medium, that’s how people find us” (Interview 2, 33). But the Grannies still see face-to-face meetings as important for community building: “The sense of community is created during joint actions such as demonstrations” (Interview 4, 65–66). This shows that trust in and familiarity with technologies are important factors for developing forms of collective action. Since emotional bonds play a major role in the movement, and the factors of trust and familiarity are attributed only slightly to digital media by the participants, digital communication practices that promote and enhance emotional closeness between activists are lacking. Similarly, Chen (2020) elaborated on this in relation to the organization of the Women’s March Minnesota. Here, too, strong bonds are not established via Facebook, and Facebook’s algorithm hinders real interaction. This highlights the technical affordances associated with digital media. Facebook enables coordination, but has certain logics, such as a temporal logic, that forces activists to constantly post updates in order to remain visible. At the same time, Facebook favors interaction-rich threads over new threads (Kaun & Uldam, 2018). In this way, various power relations become effective, which help to determine “success”—that is, visibility. These responses show how different discourses on technology are taken up: Digital media are seen as suitable for younger people and also constructed as something alien, reinforcing the assumption that they “require special individualized incentives to do so, rather than recognizing how they may be deterred by historical and ongoing structural exclusions” (Harvey, 2020, p. 116). At the same time, the activists understand digital media as a means to establish contact with younger generations.

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The public spheres created by the activists are thus formed both online and offline. Different media repertoires are combined to fulfill different functions, such as informing, mobilizing or promoting participation. In the case of Grannies against the Right, a broad spectrum of communication is evident, which is used as needed. Above all, the participants distinguish between internal and external communication in their choice of media. It is therefore clear that a mixture of different communication channels in order to mobilize as many people as possible constitutes the overall communication concept. Bennett and Segerberg (2012) refer to this as “personal action frames” (p. 745). Similarly, Hasebrink and Hepp (2017) describe such practices as personal media repertoires. This shows that a mixture of online and offline activities is significant for the movement, and that it is precisely this interaction that is responsible for the movement’s cohesion, as a similar approach and agreement on this are evident in the interviews. The next section elaborates on one aspect of public visibility, namely, its accompanying risk of increased attacks. This is placed in the context of the concept of safe spaces.

Safe Spaces and Vulnerability As the previous section has shown, activists are aware of the necessity of digital media for external appearances and therefore use them in public communication, but internally, they tend to resort to traditional means of communication. The main reason given for this is that it is more convenient for exchanges and that digital platforms such as Facebook are more impersonal and communication there is seen as less respectful. Closed Facebook or WhatsApp groups and, above all, physical personal spaces thus assume the function of safe spaces. Safe spaces operated as subaltern publics are central for contemporary feminist organizing in the age of digital media (Clark-Parsons, 2018). For the activists, this safe space is formed through exchanges with like-minded people. The starting point for creating such a space is a shared experience of injustice and the desire to protest against it, as Clark-Parsons also pointed out using the example of Girl Army, a closed Facebook group founded in the USA. However, in view of the visibility and lack of anonymity afforded by digital media, which the activists see as a danger, such safe spaces are quite ambivalent. For the Grannies, this is clearly reflected in their expressed skepticism toward the technological platforms, even if this is often based

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on their own avowed lack of affinity for technology. At the same time, they consider an exchange among like-minded people to be important and are thus torn between the search for personal exchange and the need to use digital platforms to generate attention. One of the interviewees emphasizes that it is not possible without technology: “That is why we also organize these technical meetings where we teach each other IT skills. I think that’s very important and I notice that at every meeting” (Interview 5, 29–30). This skepticism is also linked to the question of what visibility through digital media means, as “a critical feminist digital media studies approach thus requires attention to the mutually shaping relationship between technologies and social forces and actors” (Harvey, 2020, 127). The fact that emancipatory articulations are always contested is indicated by the numerous attacks and the attempts to use online platforms for reactionary politics, racism and sexism, which was also mentioned in the interviews. “There is often abuse on Facebook and racist comments, even in our groups we sometimes have to remove people” (Interview 3, 57). Thus, “networked communication technologies can serve to reinforce and reproduce normatively gendered relations of power” (Harvey, 2020, p.125). The interviewees raise their concerns regarding their personal security: “We are not so familiar with Facebook and its privacy settings, so many of us are afraid to make themselves vulnerable” (Interview 3, 45). However they emphasize, “we receive a lot of public attention via social media and realize that our concerns are being noticed” (Interview 7, 34). Finally, there still exists “tension between promises of empowerment and fears of victimization in relation to women and girls’ engagement with digital media” (Harvey, 2020, p. 128). Visibility, therefore, does not inevitably lead to recognition; it also highlights the vulnerability that especially affects those who advocate for emancipatory politics in digital publics (Drüeke & Zobl, 2016). At the same time, it becomes clear in the interviews that this is not an essential factor that would deter the activists from protesting. They see it as their task to demonstrate against unjust policies and to raise their voices. This is made clear in the following section.

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Collective Identity and Agency As the previous sections have shown, the activists use different forms of action and media repertoires. At the same time, through these usage patterns, it becomes clear that they strongly relate to a common identity construction. The clearly formulated goal of the activists, as emerged from the interviews, is the protection of democracy and human rights. One interviewee summed this up as follows: “[…] fortifying people against injustice; we fight to prevent the dismantling of democracy, against racism, for women’s rights, against xenophobia.” (Interview 7, 19–21) This common goal unites the organizers and members of the movement, who thereby consider themselves, but are also perceived from the outside, to be a strong and self-confident collective. A strength of their movement—as one interviewee points out—is “the opportunities to network with like-minded people and do things together” (Interview 8, 14). The activists also draw on common experiences, some of which still stem from the experiences of injustice during the Nazi era, but also from the protests in the context of the 1968 movement. The organizers and the core of the movement share a strong sense of belonging. Social connections are identified as important factors for collective actions in movements (Passy & Monsch, 2014). Outwardly, the Grannies against the Right show their collective identity through their self-knitted hats. They see their emancipatory power in this ambivalence: They play with the image of a grandma (knitting, sewing), at the same time, they wear self-knitted hats to demonstrate their power on the streets. This image also dominates the images and visual elements on their website and their self-representations in digital media. The interviewees emphasize that these are an important part of the movement as well as an important sign of recognition at demonstrations. Such a collective identity, supported by shared symbols, is an important component of protest movements, together with a movement’s own culture and movement-­owned media (Kavada, 2016; Roth, 2018; for women’s movements, see Wischermann, 2003; for the riot grrrl movement, Fotopoulou, 2017. Through the hats, the buttons, and the signs that they carry together at protests, they also display this unity and common identity to the outside world. Mainly Google and WhatsApp groups help the activists to exchange ideas, build a nation-wide community with others, and thus develop a

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position and formulate their own ideas. Digital media then play a role in community construction. One interviewee underlies this “with the help of this [communication via groups, RD] we can then represent to the outside world, because older people in particular are otherwise not heard very much in public” (Interview 3, 57–58). A social movement’s common goals also lead to constructions of a collective identity based on a shared idea. In addition, the movement has continuity among the participants, which enables them to develop common ideas about content and goals over the long term. As is also characteristic of social movements, their protests stabilize over time. Thus, the movement—Grannies against the Right—is not merely spontaneous and temporary, but rather creates lasting, common goals. This distinguishes the movement from event-based and temporary protests, as can be seen, for example, in certain forms of hashtag activism or event-centered protest. The activists thus attain agency that is linked to emancipatory participation: “Political agency […] requires an understanding of empowerment, participation and social change as contextual and as processes that are constantly negotiated” (Kaun et al., 2016, p. 2).

Conclusion To sum up, the participatory practices of the Grannies against the Right include digital media, which plays a specific role, but they emphasize personal contact and group appearances at demonstrations as crucial for creating visibility and building a collective identity. This indicates the close interweaving of different forms of activism, which are negotiated individually and collectively by the activists. These results show that the possibilities for achieving agency are more fluid and spontaneous with digital media, making it a central component of the movement. It is also clear, however, that contemporary feminism does not only take place online, but encompasses various media practices consisting of a vibrant mix of online and offline activities. At the same time, there is a great awareness of the relevance of digital media for mobilizing and informing outsiders, even if the construction of a common identity—the formation of a notion of a common “we”—occurs primarily through personal contacts, common symbols, and exchanges at demonstrations. For an analysis of contemporary feminist practices, it is important to look beyond hashtag activism or internet feminism in general and consider the diverse practices of different participants. This is critical, as the majority of

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“visions of social change and sisterhood in which networked connectivity and ICTs are central, shape to a large extent the priorities of feminist activists” (Fotopoulou 2017, p. 41). As Fotopoulou (2017) also points out, it is above all a “neoliberal myth of more choice [which] is paired with the myth of producing more content in digital networks” (p. 54) that leads to a limited view. The interviews with the participants in this feminist group show that on the basis of their networking through personal contacts and at demonstrations, they established a powerful feminist and anti-racist protest movement that has attracted mass media attention. In order to understand current protest practices, it is therefore important to consider “the increased hybridity and flow between these [online and offline] spaces” (Mendes & Dikwal-Bot, 2020) and to consider them part of a participatory culture in which media repertoires are combined in various ways.

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CHAPTER 4

Feminists’ Social Media Protests and the Digital Public Sphere in Turkey Aysun Eyrek

Introduction In the second decade of the twenty-first century, there were various social movements in economic, ideological, identity-based areas around the world, including the Arab Spring (which started in Tunisia, then spread to Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain), Gezi Protests (Turkey), Occupy Wall Street protests (USA), the Me Too Movement (USA), and the Indignados movement (15M) (Spain). In all these protests, social networks sites (SNSs) played an essential role in connecting people together interactively, gathering and enabling them to participate in political actions (Bennett et al., 2014; Castells, 2010, 2015; Gerbaudo, 2012). The development of digital technologies and increasing use of social media enabled social media to organize and mobilize people against discrimination, inequality, racism, and for women’s rights, raising awareness and create collective action on these issues (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012; Gerbaudo,

A. Eyrek (*) Fenerbahçe University, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wiesslitz (ed.), Women’s Activism Online and the Global Struggle for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31621-0_4

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2012). SNSs also allowed people to discover commonalities and contact others (Boyd & Ellison, 2007), creating a large and often heterogeneous network of people who provide social support. After the 2000s, women organized street protests yet also started to mobilize on social media protests under the hashtags #GirlsLikeUs (2012, USA), #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen (2013, USA), #MyDressMyChoice (2013, Kenya), #NiUnaMenos (Not One Woman Less; 2015, Argentina), and the #MeToo movement that swept around the globe (Çatlak Zemin, 2019).1 Women having different backgrounds and cultures, living in different parts of the world, came together on the common issues that concerned them and expressed their political grievances against discrimination, sexism, sexual harassment, and violence under the hashtags. In 2012, the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan likened abortion to murder and stated that the government was proposing a new law that would ban abortion after the first four weeks of pregnancy (Reuters Staff, 2012). Following his declaration, a march was organized in Istanbul by several groups of women, civil society organizations (CSOs), and feminists, to protect the right to abortion. A social media campaign called “Benim Bedenim Benim Kararım” (My Body My Decision) was launched by a media organization (BiaNet) after confronting a huge demand from its employees and its readers (TUSEV, 2013). This campaign aimed to prevent women from being deprived of the right to make decisions about their body and life by motivating women to send a picture of themselves holding signs in their hands or with the slogan written on their body (BiaNet, 2012). In this campaign, which was highly supported by writers, columnists, artists and people from several different occupations, women shared their pictures, implying that the abortion ban was an attack on their individual rights. These campaigns and social media interactions made people realize that social media provide opportunities of communication, create channels for political participation, and generate public opinion about women’s movements in Turkey. The aspect of social media that motivates people to political participation has made us rethink the concept of the public sphere. Can digital space generate a counter public sphere for different identities and different voices that are made invisible and restricted in society by dominant opinion? What does this new sphere mean for women who have been 1  I follow Markham and Buchanan (2012), Recommendations from the AoIR Ethics Working Committee (Version 2.0).

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excluded from the public sphere throughout history and positioned in the private sphere? This chapter aims to provide an answer to these questions and show the practice of feminists’ usage of social media in protesting, and the potential of social media to generate a counter public sphere against the restricted public sphere. This chapter attempts to analyze the feminist digital public sphere with the data obtained from interviews conducted with 15 feminists from Turkey. The paper proceeds as follows: First, the history of the women’s movement in Turkey is reviewed; Next, the theoretical framework of the public sphere is presented. The following section focuses on the data and data analysis. Finally, a discussion and conclusion are presented.

The History of the Women’s Movement in Turkey The history of the women’s movement in Turkey traces back to the Ottoman Empire (late 19th–early 20th century). In that period, women wrote books, published articles about gender inequality, and established an association that met and discussed various issues (Çakır, 1996). After the First World War, women obtained some rights: “They were admitted to universities in 1914; they were allowed to work in factories and in the public services in 1915; and in 1917, the ‘family act’ recognized the right to limit polygamy for Muslim women, as well as women of other religions of the Empire” (Tekeli, 2010, p.  120). Women encouraged debates on social status, education, polygamy, their exclusion from social life, and the right to vote (Berber, 2017). This period was identified as the first-wave of feminism in Turkey. After the establishment of the Republic in 1923, the new state was a construction as a modern society. Women’s right to vote was recognized by law after the reform of the Republic. It is not erroneous, therefore, to claim that the women’s revolution accomplished by the young Turkish Republic was in fact the result of the 50 years of activism by Ottoman women (Tekeli, 2010). During the early years of republic, the women’s movements had focused on voting, a right that was obtained in 1934. Following this, there was no massive women’s movement that brought into question the role of women in society and family till the 1980 coup d’état (Bayur, 2020). In 1987, a judge rejected the divorce application of a pregnant woman who had been beaten by her husband, stating, “You should never leave a woman’s back without a stick and her womb without a colt” (Tekeli,

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2010, p.  121). After this decision, women’s groups from Feminist and Kaktüs (Cactus) journals, together with independent women, launched a campaign entitled Dayağa Karşı Dayanışma (for Solidarity against Battering) and organized a march. Thousands of women of various identities, ethnicities, and communities in Istanbul took to the streets to protest against domestic violence. It was the first time that women had voiced demands specific to their conditions of existence as women in Turkish society (Paker, 1988; Sirman, 1989). After this street protest, the women’s movement grew substantially and an independent organization of feminists in Turkey was established. Ayata and Tütüncü (2008) believe that “when the military regime harshly suppressed left-wing movements, women found a niche to express their feminist concerns” (pp. 367–368) due to the vacuum left when many of the male activists were imprisoned. After 1980 coup d’état, no massive  demonstration was organized until women’s march in 1987. The 1980s, feminists came together independently around journals and associations and held discussions about women’s rights and sexism. Also, in those years, gender and women’s studies increased in academic research (Durakbaşa, 2019). Feminist journals such as Feminist, Kadın Çevresi (Circle of Women), Kaktüs (Cactus) and Pazartesi (Monday) were published by feminist women. The first issue of Cactus, launched in 1986, stated, “This journal is trying to do its part of in establishing independent women’s movements” (Editor, 1988, p. 6). In the 1990s, several feminist groups such as Islamist, Kurdish, lesbian-­ gay-­bisexual-transsexual (LGBT) and Kemalist groups, each of which had diverse solutions to women’s problems, emerged within the women’s movement (Diner & Toktaş, 2010). In particular, women who identified themselves as feminists in the women’s branches of political parties encountered the political identity/difference (Diner & Toktaş, 2010). In 1999s, Turkey’s EU membership process was affected by the feminist movement and feminist organizations and groups, and NGOs started to receive the foreign funds. The increasing number of funded feminist organizations opened the debate on “project feminism.” The enthusiastic environment of discussion in the 1980s was replaced by groups that were disconnected from each other, each dealing with its own agendas and projects (Koçali, 2002). In the late 1990s and early 2000s, new feminist issues such as intersectionality, identities, LGBT rights and trans activism were discussed, identified as the third wave of feminism. In the 2000s, women and feminists came together under various campaigns and

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platforms, and through these platforms, important changes were made to the Turkish Civil Code (2001) and Turkish Criminal Code (2004). Feminist discourse expanded into the public sphere, feminism became widespread, and the grassroots gained more visibility. Since 2010, feminism has worked to make visible all political and legal structures that restrict women’s freedom and participation in society, through its social media protests in Turkey. Social media protests started with #benimbedenimbenimkararim (mybodymychoice) and then many social media protests emerged including #sendeanlat (tellmetoo), #bacaklarinitopla (stopspreadlegs), #özgecanaslan,2 #Hayir (No), #direnkahkaha (laughoutloud), #birkisidahaeksilmeyecegiz (notonewomanless). These hashtags have been shared by millions of people on SNSs. These social media protests have called up a debate on whether social media in Turkey are a public sphere for feminists or not (Akyel, 2014; Altınay, 2014; Şener, 2021).

Theoretical Framework The debate in the Turkish feminist movement on the public and the private spheres began in the second wave of feminism, which emerged in Turkey in the late 1980s, in contrast to the second wave of feminism of the 1960s in the West. The movement’s slogan “the private is political” (Tekeli, 2010) focused on the relationship between men and women and opened the private sphere to the public. With this slogan, feminists stated that the private sphere which historically was home, was considered women’s sphere, should not be separated from public sphere. The issues discussed by the feminist movement within the public sphere debates include women’s status in the public sphere, the care of children/ elderly, participation of women in working life, equal pay, representation of women in the public sphere, and emancipation. Women have been excluded from the public sphere throughout the history, and they have been compressed into the private sphere. Feminists have made the togetherness of the public and private sphere a political argument. With the aim of spreading feminist political arguments, women came together to organize a coalition of diverse feminist groups. For feminists, being on the street means being visible, and expanding feminist discourse is a way of protesting against the restricted phenomenon of public sphere. 2

 This is the first name of a woman who was brutally murdered by a man.

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The public sphere was defined by Habermas (1974) in his book The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Habermas described the public sphere as a sphere of plurality in which the private individuals come together on matters of general interest, participate in a discussion, and form public opinion because of the discussion (Habermas, 1974, 1991, 2006). It is a sphere open to all, “access is guaranteed to all citizens” and it demands their equal rights. (Habermas, 1974, p. 49). The public sphere is a realm of social life and freedom. Habermas’ concept of “public sphere” does not refer to “the public.” The public sphere is a sphere where different people are visible to each other, where each citizen discovers their differences, and where equal communication and participation is possible, with unlimited information and equal liberties for all citizens. According to Habermas, the public sphere is necessary for democracy, public political participation and debate, which implies participatory democracy. Habermas described the bourgeois public sphere and wanted to assert that “the principle of universal participation meant that inevitably access would have to be granted to women, former slaves, and other marginalized groups” (Benson, 2009, p.  176). According to Habermas (1991), the bourgeois public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of private people coming together as a public. Scholars have criticized Habermas’s concept of public sphere by alleging that it idealizes a liberal public and excludes vulnerable groups (based on identity, ethnicity, and gender). Fraser (1990) states that the dominant voices in the public sphere excluded these groups and that the idealized public sphere is not realized. Landers (1988), Eley (1992), and Ryan (1992) also highlighted women’s exclusion from the public sphere is different countries such as England, France, and USA.  They said that the public sphere is male-dominated and has a masculine culture (Eley, 1992). Fraser (1990) argues that feminist safe areas operated as subaltern counter public spheres or “parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counter discourses, which in turn permit them to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs” (p. 67). Habermas (2006) stated that the internet has reactivated the grassroots of an egalitarian public of writer and readers, and can be broken by the censorship of authoritarian regimes that try to control public opinion. Following Habermas’s definition of public sphere, many scholars have been debated on whether social media can be considered the new public sphere. Scholars have referred to the digital public sphere as “cyberspace”

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(Dahlberg, 1998), “virtual sphere” (Papacharissi, 2002), “the new” (Fuchs, 2014; Jenkins 2006; Kellner, 1997). Many scholars have studied social media in terms of its potential for creating a public sphere for women (Clark, 2016; Kasana, 2014; Rentschler, 2017). Social media have become one of the most common ways of political participation for women. They offer tools for connecting women together interactively to express their opinions or political grievances against sexism, misogyny, etc. Scholars have described the impact of feminism on the internet or social media as “cyberfeminism” (Hall, 1996), “the fourth wave of feminism” (Baumgardner, 2011; Munro, 2013), and “hashtag feminism” (Chen et al., 2018; Dixon, 2014). Clark-Parsons (2019) stated that hashtag feminism is a new form of activism “that appropriates Twitter’s metadata tags for organizing posts and public-by-default nature to draw visibility to a particular cause or experience” (p. 2). Hashtag feminism or digital feminism can mobilize a large number of women within minutes, far quicker than older practices of activism (Jain, 2020). Social media “created a virtual space where victims of inequality can coexist together in a space that acknowledges their pain, narrative, and isolation” (Dixon, 2014, p.  34) and is used to mobilize highly visible collective action campaigns against online and offline misogyny (Clark-Parsons, 2018, p. 2019).

Methodology In-depth interviews were conducted with 10 feminists who organized and took part in social media protests and with five feminist who participated in the first women’s street protest in Turkey. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the interviews were completed between June and November 2020 via digital platforms (Skype, Zoom). I define myself as a feminist activist who takes an active part in feminist policymaking. It is observed that meeting with the participants before participating in a protest or a feminist meeting promoted their trust in the research. As Hesse-Biber (2007) claims, “I am both an ‘insider’ and an ‘outsider’” (p.114) and she elaborates on her claim that insider status is important to achieve a balance in some of these status markers and decrease the possibility of power and authority (p. 140). Before the interviews, participants were informed about the scope of research and where the results will be published. All interviews, which had an average duration of over 1 hour, were recorded and transcribed verbatim, and sent back to participants for evaluation and approval of the

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content. The semi-structured interviews with participants were conducted to understand their opinion on social media protests and digital public sphere (see Table  4.1). The data were categorized under three main themes: social/street protest, public sphere, and impact of protest on feminist policy. Based on these interviews, the chapter examines: (i) the ways in which women utilized social media protests to support a feminist political discourse; (ii) to critically discuss feminist practices in the digital sphere which expand a discourse against the restricted public sphere. In this research I would like to compare opinions on the digital public sphere of five activist feminists who participated in the first mass street protest and 10 ten feminist activists (we can describe them as Table 4.1  Interview questions Theme

Key Point/Questions

Objective

Social media protest/ Street Protest

How do you organize social media protests? Do you consider them according to the Turkey’s political agenda? How do you decide to launch social media protests or street protests? What is the difference between social media protests and street protests? Do you think the social media protests expand the public sphere? Do you think the social media protests expand a discourse against the restricted public sphere? Do you think that social media protests contribute to achievement of the government’s policy amendments on violence or discrimination against women? Do social media actions bring women from different backgrounds together? Do they strengthen women’s solidarity? What role do the social media protests play in feminist politics?

In order to understand the differences between the social media protests and the street protests and how is their organization determined

Digital Sphere

Impact of protest on feminist policy

To find out whether the social media protests provide an alternative to the public sphere on feminist politics To learn about the impact of social media protests

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new-­generation feminists) who organized and participated in the social media protests. All participants play an active role in the feminist movements in Turkey.

Results RQ1: Social Media Protest and Street Protest Questions were asked under the social media/street protests theme to capture feminists’ insights about social media protests, and to find a way to distinguish between them. Ten women stated that they actively take part in groups and campaigns, while five women stated that they only participate in the current protests. All 10 active feminist are members of the umbrella organization Kadınlar Birlikte Güçlü (Strong Women Together; SWT). Mainly social media protests created by this umbrella organization were organized by independent feminists, ranging from associations and political parties to NGOs and unions. Social media protests were organized by these groups across Turkey to make visible all political and legal structures that restrict women’s freedom and participation in society. These groups switched from in-person to virtual meetings due to the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions. Feminists communicated with each other on e-mail groups and WhatsApp groups. Twitter and Facebook pages were used to inform people about protests or actions. Active feminists stated that they decided on a campaign meeting, only open to women, to define the issues to place on their agenda and how to put them into action. Some feminists stated that they determined whether a feminist protest would be organized on social media or in the street in accordance with Turkey’s political agenda. They said that the organization of a street protest takes more time and requires more effort than the organization of a social media protest. Sometimes, Turkey’s political agenda averts our agenda. The prime minister or the president says something, we act on this. Generally, we decide on our social media protests according to their agenda. We prefer social media protests if we need to take action immediately or if we need to raise awareness. We create hashtags and then react. Sometimes we organize both a social media protest and a street protest at the same time. (Participant 1, identified as a feminist for 7 years; May 18, 2020)

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Feminists believe that social media are effective tools for raising awareness, creating public opinion, and bringing women together, while street protests have more effective in terms of women share experiences and support each other in person. I know that social media is a powerful medium in gathering woman together and increase awareness against gender violence and discrimination. Very powerful. But there is nothing like being on the street and the strength of being together in-person. (Participant 2, identified as a feminist for approx. 10 years; May 19, 2020)

Among feminists, there are those who are critical of social media protests, as well as those who consider the public impact of social media as an area that empowers women. Social media is a realm where women unite together, communicate with each other, and help each other in finding their own identities. It allows us to have a significant opportunity that we have never experienced before. I was born into the digital world. Thus, these social media protests make me feel excited. In the past month, woman who were sexually assaulted by several male writers in the literary world started a campaign on social media. Most of women shared their stories under the hashtag #uykularinizkacsin (mayyoulosesleep) and showed solidarity. Such protests show the importance of women’s solidarity and the fact that women are not alone at all. (Participant 3, identified as a feminist for approx. 3 years; May 19, 2020) In the past, we could reach very few people. But now many women gather and react against the violence women at the same time without restriction, thanks to social media. Social media enables women to freely come together and debate public sphere. (Participant 12, identified as a feminist for approx. 37 years; September 11, 2020)

Almost all feminist participants believe that social media protests have the power to change things, but they are not sufficient enough by themselves. Six participants highlighted the fact that social media does not bring women physically side by side, and they stated that experience-­ sharing cannot be done through social media. Women who took part in the first feminist organization in the 1980s still consider street protests to be very important due to the fact that they function as women’s gateway to the public sphere.

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I care about women’s solidarity. Even if I think that the social media protests are important and are an alternative realm for feminists, being on the street liberates women on a completely different level. (Participant 11, identified as a feminist for 35 years; September 9, 2020) Women share private things through face-to-face relationships. We talked about our lives and discovered several experiences of femininity after feminist meetings. That was what made us strong. This is not possible on social media. I agree that they have power, but their effects on society are not long-lasting. (Participant 13, identified as a feminist for approx. 30 years; September 13, 2020)

It emerged that feminists who actively participated in the feminist movement before the 2000s, critically evaluate social media and digital technology, yet do not ignore social media’s potential as a political medium. Throughout the interviews, participants compared past and current feminist movements. RQ2: Are Social Media a Public Sphere for Feminists? Almost all feminists who participate in this research believe that social media generate a counter public sphere against the restricted public sphere as it is practiced in Turkey. They care about the potential of social media, which enable women from different backgrounds, races, ages, colors, and identities to come together and see that social media is a medium that empowers feminism. They stated that in recent years, feminism considered anywhere outside the home as the public sphere, but the notion of the public sphere’s meaning has changed and expanded after the emergence of social media. Our definition of a public sphere for women used to be unblurred. But now, the definition is changed. For us, everywhere outside the home was a public sphere. I do not know the equivalent of this situation in the digital area. If it means sharing a common sphere, it is certain that social media create an area for discussion. (Participant 14, identified as a feminist for approx. 30 years; September 17, 2020)

One feminist who does not currently participate actively in the feminist movement stated that the public sphere was discussed in the 1980s and 1990s by feminist groups around journal and feminists’ meetings. “It is an

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easy way to reach and communicate with people who do not know each other and cross the border. Certainly, social media does extend the public sphere.” (Participant 10, identified as a feminist for approx. 7 years; June 29, 2020) We’ve seen how social media can be a savior for women who live under authoritarian or conservative regimes such as Tunisia, Egypt, etc. Sometimes, social media can be a public sphere where women can have their voices raised, depending on geography. (Participant 7, identified herself as a feminist approx. 5 years, June 16, 2020)

Feminists claim that the social media constitute a public sphere for women who were confined to the private sphere and they also believe that social media has the potential to becoming a medium of feminist policy. However, they highlighted that women do not have equal internet access in Turkey and do not have sufficient skills to use it. Participant 8 (identified as a feminist for approx. 10 years; June 25, 2020) stated that she did not interpret social media as a public sphere because not all women have equal access to the internet. She lives in a rural area in Turkey, she works as a project manager at the Migration Foundation and added that migrant women in particular do not access to the internet and therefore do not benefit from some governmental rights. She also stated that while social media could be used as a public sphere by feminist groups in cities such as Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir, social media are only used for announcements and follow-up news in the provinces similar to the region where she lives. The feminists follow the feminist movement in the world. They send messages via social media to show their solidarity with Argentina and Poland. Participant 5, who identified herself as a feminist for approx. 13 years, (May 27, 2020) stated that although the geographical locations may differ, women’s conditions and circumstances of existence are the same everywhere. RQ3: Impact of Protests on Feminist Policy To understand the impact of social media on feminist policy, feminists were asked about the achievements and social media protests. This part of the research focused on feminists’ evaluations of the social media protests that were effectively controlled after the 2010s, and on what they consider to be the impact of these protests on feminist policy.

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After comments by Turkey’s President about withdrawing from the Istanbul Convention—a Council of Europe convention on violence against women, a campaign that started on social media was successful. We organized a hashtag #IstanbulSozlesmesiYasatir (The Istanbul Convention helps women stay alive). (Participant 9, identified herself as a feminist after Gezi protest; June 25, 2020) Social media enable women to conduct publicities and raise awareness and expand discourse. We are in the discourse age. Everybody speaks with slogans. That has created pressure on the government. (Participant 6, identified herself as a feminist for approx. 9; June 16, 2020)

In April-May 2020, SWT organized a street protest following a social media campaign against the “marry-your-rapist” draft law prepared by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey. A similar law presented to Turkish parliament in 2016 was dropped by the ruling AKP government following social media protests. The feminist movement organized social media protests against the government’s policy amendments for violence or discrimination against women. Participants were divided into two groups: those who believed that social media certainly had a positive impact on feminist politics, whereas the others tended to believe in the positive impact but were still sceptics. Eleven of the 15 participants stated that social media and new digital technologies extend feminist discourse, generate public opinion on women’s issue, raise awareness, and enable large-scale collective action. Four of the 15 participants agreed with these positive views yet also stated that the social media protests were quickly forgotten due to cultural industry and consumer culture. According to this group, social media protests create a temporary agenda and a populist effect. Participant 8 stated that some women identify as feminists to gain more followers and increase the number of their likes on social media. She believed that being a feminist in the modern society has turned into a populist discourse due to the impact of social media. I believe that some women identify themselves on social media as a feminist to gain more followers and increase the number of likes. This is due to the fact that discourse of feminism is popular on social media. (Participant 8; June 25, 2020).

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All feminists underlined the fact that the reason that the feminist movement has become much more visible in society is due to the history of the women’s struggle and social media.

Conclusion This chapter aims to reveal the role of social media in generating a digital public sphere that contrasts the restricted public sphere for the feminist movement. The semi-structured interview method was one of the qualitative methods used in this study. Interviews were conducted with 15 feminists, 10 who actively participated in feminist movements after the 2000s, and 5 who participated in the first massive women’s street protest in Turkey in 1987. The goal of these interviews with women who participated in the feminist movement in different periods of time was to understand the differences in the feminists’ views of the public sphere. More than half of the participants (11) thought that social media allow women to gather under the hashtags by expanding feminist discourse and creating public opinion and public awareness of gender inequality and discrimination. However, feminists also paid attention to digital inclusion and the fact that women in Turkey do not have equal access to the internet. They also noted that social media does not enable women to physically come together side by side. Four feminists, who had participated in the feminist movements in 1980, believed that social media have the potential to promote women’s empowerment, but they stated that the social media protests were quickly forgotten due to cultural industry and consumer culture. They also believed that in street protests, women empower each other, share their experiences, and engage in face-to-face communication, all of which are important in women’s solidarity. Establishing women’s solidarity is a challenge for social media protests. Younger feminists believe that there are no differences between street protests and social media protests, and both are effective in creating public opinion and bringing women together. It is observed that in the early feminist period in Turkey (until the 2000s), founding feminist organizations/groups used traditional mobilization techniques and defined the street as a public sphere. After the 2000s, with the rise in social media use, feminists used social media as a medium of feminist policy and as a means of raising awareness of women’s rights. Findings indicate that social media are important tools for gathering women from different cultures and identities together; pushing the

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government to adopt new laws and amend existing legislation related to women’s rights, raising awareness of gender inequality, creating public opinion on femicide and sexual abuse, and expanding feminist discourse.

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CHAPTER 5

A Technopolitical Approach of the Feminist Performance Un Violador en tu Camino [A Rapist in Your Path]: Exploratory Insights from Online Videos Valentina Carranza Weihmüller, Ana Lúcia Nunes de Sousa, and Karina de Cássia Caetano

Over the years, women’s movements have been expressive, as Horn (2013) indicated in the Género y movimientos sociales—Informe general (Gender and Social Movements—General Report). They emerged to defend progressive agendas and challenge violence against women, which occurs in daily practices and within institutional, legal, and economic structures. In this regard, their importance is undeniable in the struggles that marked

V. C. Weihmüller • K. d. C. Caetano Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil A. L. Nunes de Sousa (*) Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wiesslitz (ed.), Women’s Activism Online and the Global Struggle for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31621-0_5

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the democratic cycle in the region of Latin America since the 1980s. Women’s movements and political actions are constantly diversifying and growing, thus demonstrating their strength to combat inequalities and exclusions and to demand rights. Viewing feminism as a theoretical-political movement, Matos (2010) speaks of a fourth wave emerging in the feminist movement. It is characterized by the institutionalization of several historical feminist demands and the emergence of a new South-South framework that articulates political action with theoretical development. The fourth wave recognizes the transversal and interdisciplinary boundaries between gender, race, sexuality, class, and generation, and manifests new forms of activism. In Latin America, non-white feminist perspectives, proposed by southern or African diasporic women intellectuals, have been following the struggles. Thus, decolonial, Black, indigenous, and intersectional perspectives have broadened the feminism(s) already pluralized in the third wave. In this context, the struggles of women in Latin America are diversified and localized. They are connected not only in the region, but also across the oceans through technopolitical activism networks (Kurban et  al., 2017; Toret et al., 2013). Historical and common problems unite feminist struggles on an international scale—#8M, Marcha Mundial de Mujeres (World March of Women), #NiUnaMenos movement, #miprimeracoso— #meuprimeiroassédio (a campaign that disclosed how women are exposed to gender violence at an early age), #MeToo movements—which highlights how social networks have strengthened transnationalization and the visibility of historical guidelines of feminist movements (Torralbo Calero, 2020). Local struggles have also echoed in recent years. Just to name a few, Brazilian women have been setting agendas with #EleNão (manifestation against the policy of Jair Bolsonaro); #MariellePresente (justice movement for the murder of the councilwoman Marielle Franco), and #QueSeaLey (Argentinian women and their national campaign for legal, safe, and free abortion), and, in the case of this chapter—the wide viralization of the Chilean performance, Un violador en tu camino (A rapist in your path). Un violador en tu camino was an artistic performance created by the Chilean collective Las Tesis in November 2019. Las Tesis is a group formed by four female artists: Sibila Sotomayor and Daffne Valdés (performing arts), Paula Cometa Stange (design and history), and Lea Cáceres (costume design; Alvarado et al., 2020) from the city of Valparaíso. The purpose of Las Tesis is to spread ideas and feminist perspectives from the

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“trenches” of art, language diversity (visual, performance, lyrical, musical) and its diffusion on the internet. According to Paula Cometa, in an interview for BBC Mundo (Pais, 2019), Un violador en tu camino was inspired by the book Las Estructuras Elementales de la Violencia (The elemental structures of violence) by Rita Segato, an Argentinian anthropologist, published in 2003. In this work, Segato provided some conceptual tools to understand sexual abuse being more than a passional or libidinal crime. For the author, rape is a political act related to the “mandato de violación” (rape mandate; our translation) that supports the basis of the patriarchal political order. On November 20, 2019, Las Tesis presented the protest performance Un violador en tu camino in Valparaíso, Chile. The main idea was “to generate interventions in the streets, in the context of Fire/Actions in cement” (Las Tesis, 2019; “La Cosecha” section, paragraph 2; our translation). The performance was performed in the midst of the popular protests in Chile, in the context of strengthening feminist struggles in Latin America. After the first call and presentation of Las Tesis, feminist groups and organizations appropriated and replayed the performance in different cities throughout the world. As a result, Un violador en tu camino became a contemporary feminist hymn that articulated feminist struggles, intellectual work, art-street performance, and technopolitical strategies. Based on the analysis of videos published on YouTube during the first month of the phenomenon alongside the journalistic and academic sources that commented on and analyzed its impacts, the political-­communicational dimension of Un violador en tu camino raises questions. What were the particularities of the technopolitical dynamic of this phenomenon? How were the online and offline factors combined in this case so that an artistic performance located in the Chilean context was transformed into a global feminist discourse and an activism strategy appropriated by different feminist groups in diverse latitudes? What was the specific role of digital audiovisual media in the dynamic of this technopolitical phenomenon? To answer these questions, we propose to describe the dynamics of online performance viralization on the basis of audiovisual data from YouTube; characterize the performance itself, in its offline artistic and co-­ creation markers; and discuss the role of digital audiovisual media in the technopolitical strategy of this particular case.1 1   The study follows the ethical guidelines of Markham and Buchanan (2012), Recommendations from the AoIR Ethics Working Committee (Version 2.0).

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Our analysis is supported by a video dataset collected from YouTube (1,393 videos in Spanish and Portuguese) during December 2019. These videos were uploaded during the first month after the original presentation in Valparaíso, Chile.

Technopolitics as an Analytic Tool Technopolitics is understood by Toret et al. (2013) as “the tactical and strategic use of digital tools for organization, communication, and collective action. It is the ability of connected communities … to create and change social movements”’ (p. 3). As indicated by Treré and Barranquero (2018), this concept originated from Spanish academic-activist groups and acquired international relevance once appropriated by researchers from different parts of the world with relevant Latin American representation. These investigations not only studied the potentialities of the technopolitical as a concept, but also as an analytical perspective and approach to various phenomena and strategies that link digital technologies and politics. From this perspective, we may consider the phenomenon Un violador en tu camino as an authentic technopolitical movement as its emergence was totally connected to the use of digital tools. Since the first presentation of the performance by the collective Las Tesis in November 2019, an excerpt of which was uploaded to YouTube and viralized on social media networks, the protest performance circulated on a global scale. Las Tesis published the lyrics from the performance and called on local feminist movements to adapt it to their realities. In this case analysis, collective action was shaped from the streets to the networks and from the networks to the street. It can be considered a game between the physicality and the virtuality (Toret et al., 2013), creating a set of regular practices that can be “conceived as a process because it is constructed and negotiated through a repeated activation of the relationships that link individuals (or groups)” (Melucci, 1995, p. 44). When we add the power of the video, these communicative practices are capable of involving large audiences in a conversation related to the movement’s struggles and claims. The literature provides some examples: the 15M movement in Spain (Montero & Sierra Caballero, 2017), the Brazilian video activism in the context of the FIFA World Cup (Sousa, 2017), and the contemporary anti-racist protests around the world, mainly in the United States and Brazil.

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However, there is some debate about the real power of technopolitics. A school of thought led by Bennett and Segerberg (2012) argues that society is facing much more profound changes in the protest patterns and organization of social movements, due to the influence of the internet and social media. Bennett and Segerberg (2012) affirm that nowadays, the political claims are shared by personal accounts on social media, mailing lists, and online organization platforms. Thus, it is reasonable to suggest that we are living in an era where the “connective action” is taking up much more space compared to the old “collective action” pattern (Tarrow, 1994). The personalized communications made possible by current communication technologies and networks, according to Bennett and Segerberg (2012), have two elements that are particularly important to large-scale connective action: (a) the possibility of expressing political content through simple and personalized ideas, demanding very little effort to persuade; and (b) a large variety of personal communication technologies that enable the content to be shared. Therefore, at the center of the “logic of connective action” is the idea that the digital media are organized agents of collective action. Bennett and Segerberg (2012) argue that people in the present era are more familiar with connective action than with the old pattern. They explain that the collective action requires identification and commitment, therefore represents a higher political cost. Nevertheless, from the authors’ perspective, this logic has not completely replaced the previous paradigm based on strongly connected networks and more stable collective identifications: The two logics work in an interconnected manner. Moreover, the authors consider that protests and organizational work continue to occur both offline and online. Beyond that, the process is not automatic: It is not enough to simply share messages on the networks so the content will reach the audience and the actions will be produced. These dynamics are also affected by the politics of the platforms, which in turn, are more strongly informed and determined by market interests than by public interests (Cammaerts, 2008; Villi & Matikainen, 2016). This critical view is also shared by Dean (2005), who suggests that society is living under “communicative capitalism.” Dean’s central argument posits that communication on digital networks for social movements is not a total failure, but the effectiveness of this type of communication depends on the context. Understanding that “under conditions of the

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intensive and extensive proliferation of media, messages are more likely to get lost as mere contributions to the circulation of content” (Dean, 2005, pp. 53–54). The majority of the messages that circulate on social media are not able to generate an answer, due to their algorithmic logic. So, the value of the messages lies much more in their exchange; hence, in their ability to circulate and generate value (appropriate for companies). Additionally, Dean (2005) highlights that people “believe that they are active, maybe even that they are making a difference simply by clicking on a button, adding their name to a petition or commenting on a blog” (p. 63). In the last instance, it “displaces political energy from the hard work of organizing and struggle” (p. 63). In this sense, it is important to recognize the articulation between the actions on social media platforms and in the streets: the “alliance of the bodies and the street politics” (Butler & Dávila, 2012, p. 91). Another important aspect to highlight, as indicated by Paiva and Gabbay (2018), is the role of political action in “the production of the commons” (p.  130) in urban space. They are talking about the re-­ appropriation of public spaces, symbolic and imaginary of urban life, through creative practices that rediscover community bonding and affectivity. These interventions assume a type of differentiated relationship, indispensable to the formation and consolidation of potentially disruptive collective actions. According to the authors, “communities of affection” are created and linked by friendship bonds, interests, and communicative alternative practices that locally underpin the hegemonic social relationships. These “communities of affection” are formed in the action itself by generating “new modes of expression and new forms of relationship with time, territory and with the communication mechanisms themselves” (Gabbay & de Araújo Soares, 2017, p. 166). In this type of common production, which is at the same time cultural and micro-political, the artistic dimension acquires primary relevance, since it is “affective communication” about the world and about one’s own experiences, mediated by bodies, co-presence, and poetic creation. According to Hill Collins (2019), artistic co-creation spaces occur when alternative ways of experiencing and interpreting the social world are carved. The holistic nature of these experiences allows a differentiated connection with the real and the alterity in the scenes of co-creation. In addition, the author indicates that the centrality of the “framework for performance” (p.  246) provided by this type of artistic practice also

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provides the common elements that can be appropriated and adapted to specific contexts. This framework provides a shared structure for all the creations. Each version is unique, authentic, and simultaneously connected to the others. Putting together the notion of technopolitics with the affective and bonding properties of collective artistic performances not only leads us to stress the relationships between digital technologies and micro-politics, it also leads us to confront the never-ending debates between collective vs. individual, face-to-face vs mediations, community vs. massive, and disruptive vs. hegemonic. Following Kurban et  al. (2017) we understand technopolitics: (…) as a multi-scale way to approach politics that is deeply rooted in the community but which connects with the global agora, and directed both to the achievement of finalistic goals as well as of intermediate goals affecting the design of protocols and processes. It encompasses the concurrence of multiple actors, contributing with their actions—big or small—and knowledge in a gift-economy characterized by a highly granular design of tasks and degrees of participation, and in the end it can be perceived as a synchronization construct that operates in and through many layers and spaces, (re) connecting actors and communities through shared procedures and- converging goals. (p. 514)

From this perspective, we try to escape reductive positions from the collective to the connective and vice versa, while avoiding their amalgamation. The square, the street, the face-to-face interactions have their specificity as well as “what happens in digital networks.” In this way, we try to avoid approaches that are either too dichotomous or too integrative. Rather, we advocate a continuous and dual approach; That is to say, although the technopolitical is constituted of spaces and times of differentiated actions, these do not compete, but complement each other in a strategic and phenomenological dimension. It is recognizing this articulation between the aesthetic-symbolic-discursive of (offline) artistic co-­ creation and its digital (online) dissemination that we intend to address the analysis of the phenomenon Un violador en tu camino from digital audiovisual data.

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Methodology Video Data Set Collected and Selection We created a video dataset collected from YouTube that comprises the recordings of Un violador en tu camino performances uploaded between November 20 and December 24, 2019 (approximately the one-month period after the first presentation in Valparaíso on November 19). We used the YouTube search engine, with the search key: “El violador eres tú” OR “Un violador en tu camino” OR “O estuprador é você” OR “Um estuprador no seu caminho.” These parameters limited the search results to Spanish and Portuguese languages. The searches were manual and carried out in two parts (Table 5.1). The collected videos were included in an exploratory playlist. This playlist was exported on January 21, 2020, using YouTube Data Tools (DMI, v1.12—20/09/2019). The exportation generated a spreadsheet containing 1,393 videos. Digital Audiovisual Data Work On this first and large set of data, we carried out an exploratory treatment in order to discern the types of content included. Thus, at this stage, we were able to approach the various appropriations and interpretations of the Las Tesis performance. Given the number of videos, we selected the 100 with the highest number of views and created an ad hoc classification according to types of videos (musical, opinion, journalistic reports, audiovisual live performance record, satirical, others), and the discursive Table 5.1  Collection stage Search key “El violador eres tú” OR “Un violador en tu camino” OR “O estuprador é você” OR “Um estuprador no seu caminho”

Search Collection Internet local ID date and time connection 1

2

Total

December 16, 2019 4–9 a.m. December 24, 2019 1:30–4 p.m.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Córdoba, Argentina

N° of videos 888

505

1,393

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positioning of each video about the performance (neutral, in favor, against). At this stage, we were interested in becoming familiar with the data and identifying the most interesting dataset with which to explore the technopolitical dynamics of the phenomenon. The discernment about the contents in the exploratory stage led us to a second stage, in which we worked specifically with the videos classified as “live performance recordings,” establishing a subset of 235 videos/ records that recovered the various replays of Un violador en tu camino. For this selection we used the following inclusion criteria: a. live performance recordings, b. more than 100 seconds (minimum time for the presentation of the performance), c. shows the completed performance, d. geographically placed (city and country identification), e. good image and audio quality. Concomitantly, we applied exclusion criteria to limit the dataset to one video per performance, because in some cases, more than one video of the same performance existed. Our interest was to identify the technopolitical dynamics around the phenomenon. Online audiovisual recordings were the articulating materials used to address the connections between online and offline. Each video was cataloged by region, country, and city, to characterize the geographical projection of the phenomenon. These data are organized in sheets and geolocalized maps in the section The Online Dynamic of Un violador en tu camino. To carry out a more detailed analysis, we decided to focus on videos from three Latin American countries (Argentina, Chile, and Brazil). From this smaller set, we characterized the offline scene, considering these visual and sound aspects: lyrics, actors and sceneries. This new information is presented in the section Offline Markers: Lyrics, Art Performance, and Latin American Feminist Struggles.

Results and Analysis The Online Dynamic of Un violador en tu camino Paula Cometa, a Las Tesis member, commented in an interview for BBC Mundo (Pais, 2019) that after the first small intervention on November

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20 in Valparaíso, this video performance recording circulated online on a national scale and the artistic collective was called to participate in other events throughout the country. Faced with such demand, they decided to participate in an intervention in the capital city, Santiago de Chile on November 25, resulting in a massive convocation. The recordings of the video’s first presentation in Valparaíso (Colectivo Las Tesis, 2019) and the second in Santiago (which is one of the videos with many views; Chris, 2019; Es Mi Fiesta TV, 2019; Santiago, 2019;) continued to circulate and, as Paula Cometa said in the mentioned interview, “(…) spread quickly and contact began from other countries, such as Mexico and Colombia, for example, always under the premise that they wanted to do the intervention in their places” (Pais, 2019, our translation). Faced with such a phenomenon, Las Tesis decided to upload the musical score and the lyrics of the performance on the internet. The goal was to have each territory transform it and adapt it to its own context. Valparaíso’s online audiovisual records allowed the dissemination of the performance in Chile, yet the presentation in Santiago was the trigger that started the regional and international viralization. Rapid dissemination and appropriation of Un violador en tu camino then exploded. Different organized women groups in different territories started to go to the streets to recreate their own performances. It was an unprecedented event in feminist struggles. As Paula Cometa recounted, the performance “got out of hand” (Pais, 2019, our translation). In this sense, during a lecture at the Biblioteca Nacional Mariano Moreno in 2019, Segato also commented on the rapid and expressive dissemination of the performance: Las Tesis went around the world with his lyrics, with his performance. Neither left nor right was there to help this worldwide viralization. (…) And what leaves one perplexed, because there is a lot of feminist lyrics, many songs, it is necessary to understand what is here (Las Tesis lyrics), what secret is buried in these verses. (…) There is really a condensation. There is a surface speech and there is a very compacted condensation of another speech buried in the verses (our translation).

Since then, many other videos were filmed and uploaded on the internet using different platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube (Calero & Orta, 2020). Our analysis presented some themes that could be used to recreate the global dissemination of the performance. Regarding geographic location data (the categories of region, country, and city), we

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identified 235 videos in 43 countries and 194 cities in regions around the world (Table 5.2 and Fig. 5.1). The global dispersion of the recordings in our dataset were concentrated mainly in Latin American countries such as Chile (36), Argentina (27), Mexico (20), Brazil (14), and Colombia (12), as well as in the Table 5.2  Videos of “Live Performance Records” per region. N = 235 Region Latin America Europe North America Asia Oceania Africa Total

Videos

Countries

Cities

137 76 16 3 2 1 235

18 18 2 3 1 1 43

111 66 11 3 2 1 194

Fig. 5.1  Videos of “Live Performance Records,” geolocation by country. N = 235. (Source: Our production from Google sheets. To access to the interactive map, click here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PAC X-­1vTBl6JpWh2encKK29Wlbc-­R8x4OQCwLLpwwgRzLAFspNeErnURJJZNW oscE5ccPfA/pubchart?oid=171772902&format=interactive)

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Fig. 5.2  Un Violador en Tu Camino 2019 from #LasTesis—uMap. (Source: OpenStreetMap Un violador en tu camino. https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/es/ map/un-­violador-­en-­tu-­camino-­20192020-­r ev-­120121_394247#3/24.77/-­ 26.02, Geochicas, 2019)

United States of America (12) and Europe, highlighting Spain (34), Italy (7), Turkey and Germany (both with 6), See Map (Fig. 5.2) created by Geochicas (2019). An interesting insight with regards to the Geochicas map is that the data sources were videos published on digital social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, while in our study, the source was YouTube. In this sense, the tool developed by the group of mappers corroborates the data presented in our study, despite the fact that our search was limited to two languages, Spanish and Portuguese, which surely reduced the results obtained. As we mentioned, Latin America was the region with the highest number of video performance recordings: 137 videos in 18 countries and 111 cities (Table 5.3). Latin America represents 58.2% of performance video records and 57.2% of locations, considering the total number of videos in the data subset. As shown in Table 5.3, three countries, Chile (36), Argentina (27), and Mexico (22) exceeded 20 video records, accounting for 62% of the video records in Latin America. Brazil (14) and Colombia (12) had 10–20 videos, jointly representing 18.98% of the records in the region. In five countries, mainly South American countries with an emphasis on Andean

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Table 5.3  Video records in Latin American countries Country Countries with more than 20 videos Countries with more than 10 videos and fewer than 20 Countries with 1–10 videos

Countries with 1 video only

Chile Argentina Mexico Brazil Colombia Peru Ecuador Bolivia Puerto Rico Paraguay Venezuela Uruguay Panama Nicaragua Honduras Dominican Republic Cuba Costa Rica Total

Videos Cities % of Videos 36 27 22 14 12 5 4 4 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 1

23 26 20 11 8 4 4 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 137

1 1 111

% of Cities

62.04% 62.16%

18.98% 17.12% 13.14% 13.51%

5.84%

100%

7.21%

100%

countries with smaller populations and territory, we found 2–5 video performance records. Finally, in the group of the smaller countries (8), mostly Central American countries, the results show one video record per country. Argentina was the country in which the greatest number of cities replicated the initiative (26), demonstrating the strength of its women’s movements, which presented more performances even than Chile (23), Mexico (20), and Brazil (11). The impressive number of cities that produced the performance in countries with a smaller population and size such as Argentina and Chile could indicate a certain maturity, internalization, and articulation of the feminist struggle in these countries. Offline Markers. Lyrics, Art Performance and Latin American Feminist Struggles As Serafini (2020) mentioned, Un violador en tu camino was “an open, collective performance involving lyrics sung in unison to a catchy beat, and a simple choreography performed synchronously by a group of women in a

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public space” (p.  291; emphasis added). According to the author, the power of performance is expressed when the prefigurative approach considers art as mediation for social and political action. In this context Serafini considers Un violador en tu camino as a case of “prefigurative art activism”; thus, “an aesthetic–political practice through which we can build specific ways of relating to each other and acting collectively towards achieving social and political transformations” (p. 293). Inspired by Lélia Gonzalez’s work, Alex Ratts (Negrecs, 2020) reflects on this supposed “division” between art and politics. He argues that the emphasis on “the artistic” or “the political” depends on interests or strategies, regardless of the academia or the involved actors. For him, this difference does not exist in practice itself. Supporting the author, we as women also understand that art has always been a mode of struggle, mainly for those oppressed sectors or those with less power to influence the power structures. From the experience of Latin America’s inhabitants, we present some discursive and symbolic elements that articulate the artistic and political meanings in the offline scene. We consider these elements as offline markers because they allow us to recover some of the artistic co-creation characteristics that happened on the streets. In the first example, we recover the discursive power of the lyrics. As the Las Tesis collective mentioned in its Manifesto (Las Tesis, 2019), the international impact of its message is based on the universality of violent experiences of women, dissident sexualities, youth and children; violence reproduced and covered not only by the social imaginary but also by the functioning of modern states and their institutions. In this way, for the authors, although the worldwide impact of the performance was surprising, it was not something unexpected, as women, wherever we live, “perceive the same sensations about our bodies and life experiences” when it comes to violence (Las Tesis, 2019; “La Cosecha” section, para. 3; our translation). Segato also agrees with this hypothesis when she stated that the strength of the lyrics of Un violador en tu camino was in its ability to synthesize a common pattern of feminist struggles: violence against women (PCI TV, 2020): Because [Las Tesis’s performance] talks about one of the few issues that all women, with our very different aspirations, ways of seeing ourselves, happiness goals, ways of understanding our body, ways of exercising our sexuality, within that enormous plurality that we are on the planet, something we have in common is violence. (our translation)

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The affirmations of Las Tesis and Segato resonate with the conclusions of López Nájera (2019), who mentions “Violence brings us together, death drives us apart” (p. 211; our translation) after analyzing the patterns of struggle of three movements: #Niunamenos (2015, Argentina); #Miprim eracoso/#Meuprimeiroassédio (2015, Brazil and Mexico); and I Encuentro Internacional, Político, Artístico, Deportivo y Cultural de Mujeres que Luchan [First International, Political, Artistic, Sports and Cultural Encounter of Women Who Fight] (2018, Mexico). It is also recognized by Serafini (2020) when he mentions that the lyrics of Un violador en tu camino “put into words that which has been silent for too long: It is the system that is killing us [the women]. It is the government officials and police officers. It is the judges. It is you” (p. 294). Along with universalized violence against women, the performance also highlights the conniving indifference of the State and other public institutions based on patriarchal power, such as the churches. Recognizing the discursive power of Un violador en tu camino from its central theme/message (violence against women), we make the following observations. According to the results obtained in our analysis of video performances in Chile, Argentina, and Brazil, the general pattern of denunciation of “violence against women” acquired different nuances and explanations according to the specific context of reproduction. The original lyrics presented alterations: not only linguistic adaptations of specific terms or complete translations but also semantic adaptations. As we observed in the videos of the performances in Brazil, the adaptations showed the relationship of violence with racism, exemplified in the demand for justice by Councillor Marielle Franco (Jornalistas Livres, 2019) and phrases such as “The elitist state forms a racist, and the black life, is at risk twice” (Esteban, 2019). The relationship between violence and racism can also be demonstrated in the political murder of Marielle Franco, a black woman, which is very symbolic since the cases of violence are aggravated by structural and institutional racism in Brazil (Almeida, 2020), as illustrated in the videos posted by Esteban (2019), Juca (2019), and TV Comunitária do Rio de Janeiro (2019). It is also important to acknowledge that 2021 marks the three-year period of impunity for the case of Marielle Franco.

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In the Argentine case, all the videos featured adaptations of the lyrics. Some barely changed words (“yuta” for “police,” “priests” for “church”) while others modified entire stanzas in order to adapt them to current feminist demands, such as the fight for the decriminalization of abortion and against gender violence (Spiral, 2019). In some videos (La Buta, 2019), the modifications of the lyrics reflect the explicit consideration of trans women and transvestites, incorporating the verse “it is femicide, transfemicide, travesticide.” In Chile, the performance was largely produced in its original’ version (19 of 36), following the model of Las Tesis. In many cases (10), the activists added some lines or chants to the original song, expressing their specific situation (Leonardo, 2019; Luispipe, 2019; Personare Nojerrot, 2019). In the Chilean sample we also found two videos in other languages: a group of women in the Mapuche language (AQB, 2019), and a performance in Arabic by a group of Palestinian women living in the country (Quiasma Producciones, 2019). The great linguistic diversity of the versions of Un violator en tu camino that circulated online is identified by many sources, including Gutiérrez and Osuna (2020) who indicate that the performance was “reproduced, adapted and rewritten in more than twenty languages, including sign language” (p. 192). In addition to the lyrics, as indicated by Serafini (2020) and Flores-­ Márquez (2020), we include the analysis of other symbolic elements of the performances. The categories of scenery and actors help us as heuristic tools to analyze the images of the videos of our dataset for Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. Regarding the scenery, we were able to corroborate that the scenery used was diverse, although the majority of performances were located in public spaces, such as public squares (18), and in front of state buildings (13), mainly police and judicial buildings (7). We also found performances in front of catholic churches, such as the Lujan Catedral in Argentina (Cara, 2019), and iconic public places of popular struggle, such as monuments and squares (Obelisco in Buenos Aires, Cinelândia in Rio de Janeiro and Plaza de Armas, in Santiago de Chile). However, other public spaces for study, care, and work were also used: markets, universities, schools, hospitals, and general streets. It is therefore possible to affirm that the choice of the scenery was not spontaneous, but rather as a deliberate decision made to complement the message of the lyrics and produce an insurrectionary way of inhabiting the city. The social spaces where the performance was reproduced attested to

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its expressive dimension by establishing an “enunciation position”: a “specific interlocutor” that indicated to whom the performance was especially directed, with emphasis on the institutions of state power (judiciary and police force) and religion. This expressive dimension was complemented by another affective type because the different knotting of women singing Un violador en tu camino perhaps represented a voice to heal the pain experienced by those present, if not by all. In this sense, the collective bond in co-creation, such as a type of community of affection, can occur, even if it is sporadic and temporary. The spirit of the performance was precisely that: Female bodies organizing themselves and going out onto the street to do and be together once the artistic act was adapted to their bodies and demands (Las Tesis, 2019). This resonates with Flores-Márquez (2020) when she highlights the centrality of the network organization for the amplification of the struggles and the possibility of encounters. As Las Tesis (2019) indicates, it is the role of the collective-affective character in the community to “articulate people in the world,” to generate horizontalized and counter-­ hegemonic practices from the potential of artistic-political expressions (Serafini, 2020). However, “the collective” was not always presented on the same scale. According to our analysis, the acting groups were diverse in size. We observed that most of the groups included between 50 to 100 participants (in 31 videos, 40.2% of the 77 analyzed) although in some videos, the groups were smaller than 20 (8), and others were larger (13), as we observed in the performance on November 25  in Santiago de Chile (Quiasma Producciones, 2019) and in Pilar, Argentina (Cara dealfajor, 2019). Defining the size of the groups and the characteristics of the protagonists was not a simple task because our observation was limited to the images captured in the videos. Regarding the presentation of the bodies, we describe the intergenerational character of the phenomenon (Table 5.4). In the three countries analyzed, the main protagonists of the performances were young cisgender women, but each case presented certain peculiarities. In Brazil, it was possible to see how women shaped some kind of motherhood politics (mothers with their daughters). In Argentina, some videos showed trans women and transvestites (La Buta, 2019). In Chile, there was greater diversity since we detected the presence of girls (Viajo, 2019), elderly women (ElMouSxH, 2019), disabled women (Viktor, 2019) and even women cyclists (Pablo Abarca Silva, 2019).

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Table 5.4  Actors’ (approximate) age Age

Youth All ages Youth and children Youth and adults Adults All ages (disability) Total

Country

Total

Chile

Argentina

Brazil

18 14

9 7 6 5

5 6

27

14

2 1 1 36

1 2

32 27 6 8 3 1 77

The women represented in the videos confirm that young people were the main characters in the contemporary protests, mainly when we are talking about technopolitical dynamics. In this kind of protest, where the frontiers between online and offline dynamics are thin, it is expected that young people will be at the heart of the movement. But, at the same time, the videos from our data show women of different ages, genders, and sexuality, which suggests that it was not merely a “young movement” but also a feminist struggle. In this sense, the participation of diverse women can be connected with the feminist fourth wave (Matos, 2010). Flores-Márquez (2020) indicates that in artistic activist manifestations of recent years, including the work of Las Tesis, it is important to consider other symbols in addition to the discursive component, such as costumes, accessories, references to media culture, and brands’ ethnic identity. These elements, which on the one hand unify and strengthen the discursively manifest, also allow various appropriations since they are recreated or modified when the context of reproduction changes. As the author mentions, the activist aesthetic of Un violador en tu camino was marked by “the black bandage over the eyes, the green scarves and the clothes (in black and red tones, wearing socks, short, tight T-shirt)” (p. 189). Its elements became very apparent in our analysis. In their symbolic dimension, these visual elements offered a certain aesthetic unity, bringing the online and offline experiences closer together. For example, in the Chilean context, the black bandage represented people sustaining eye injuries during the protests in opposition to the government of Sebastián Piñera, as observed in one of the videos (Afemic Arica, 2019), although its re-­ readings around the world could refer to the “blindness” of public

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institutions, particularly justice with regards to violence against women. The green scarves, a symbol of Argentina for all of Latin America, reinforce the feminist struggle for health and sexual rights as mentioned in Ramírez Morales and Felitti (2020). The clothes, according to the call of Las Tesis (2019)—“glam, shine, fluoresce, whatever is nocturnal”—reinforce the main message of the lyrics: A woman is exposed to the risks of sexual harassment and rape no matter what she wears or where she is.

Conclusions Our analysis of Un Violador en tu camino led us to confirm the constant dynamism between online and offline throughout the development of the phenomenon. In this way, both spaces (the digital dissemination and the co-presence in the streets) contributed in a non-polarized or hierarchical yet complementary way to the globalization of the performance. This allows us to affirm that Un Violador en tu camino was not only a feminist anthem, but also an exemplary case of an artistic-technopolitical strategy in which the offline and the online acted simultaneously to strengthen and broaden the feminist struggle against violence. The study provided insights into several specific aspects of the phenomenon. By focusing on online dynamics (in the section Online Dynamics), we were able to characterize the distribution and breadth of the phenomenon: how the performance was being appropriated in different parts of the world, and the role of women’s groups in Latin America in its dissemination. In observing the specific elements of the performance itself (in the section Offline Markers, Lyrics, Art Performance, and Latin American Feminist Struggles), we accounted for those artistic-political aspects present in the co-present action scenes. We tried to show: • the discursive efficiency of the lyrics, which allowed a transnational community to unite under a hymn; • the simplicity and flexibility of the rhythm and movements, danced in different languages and with local adaptations; • the visual elements of the performance claiming the right to the body as one’s own territory; • the power of the artistic actions to occupy the streets and create temporary communities of affection.

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In this sense, observing offline scenes from online videos allowed us to argue not only the centrality of violence as a global feminist pattern, but also the artistic cunning of the performance to propose a flexible and plausible framework that was adaptable to different contexts and demands. Regarding online audiovisual media, it is reasonable to claim that it was essential to spread and viralize the performance on a global scale, strengthening and articulating feminist discourses and activist practices against violence. Thus, digital audiovisual data was fundamental to the articulation of the technopolitical dynamic, that is, it was the connector between each artistic-collective-community street action and the digital arena on YouTube. Metaphorically, digitized audiovisual recordings functioned as vectors that stimulated an effect of contagion, motivation, and a desire to be part of the movement, and at the same time created a memory file about each performance specifically experienced and recorded. In conclusion, the performance’s expression on the street and its almost immediate digitization/viralization in online networks attests to the technopolitical power of the phenomenon of Un violador en tu camino (A rapist in your path) and to the centrality of the audiovisual record to spread the struggles that resort to performance art as a mode of expression on the streets.

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Biblioteca Nacional Mariano Moreno. (2019, December 13). Autores x autores: Rita Segato [Authors x authors: Rita Segato]. [Video 01:48:08]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OJWaJrNZ-­M Butler, J., & Dávila, R. (2012). La alianza de los cuerpos y la política de la calle [The alliance of the bodies and the politics of the street]. Debate Feminista, 46, 91–113. Calero, M., & Orta, M. (2020). Perfornace feminista Un violador en tu caminho: Análisis en Twitter de los medios de comunicacíon impresos y digitales de Chile y España [Feminist performance A rapist on your path: Twitter analysis of print and digital media in Chile and Spain]. Universidad de Sevilla. Cammaerts, B. (2008). Critiques on the participatory potentials of web 2.0. Communication, Culture & Critique, 1, 358–377. Cara dealfajor. (2019, December 10). “Un violador en tu camino” Intervención Luján, Buenos Aires, Argentina [“A rapist in your path” Intervention Luján, Buenos Aires, Argentina]. [Video 00:02:23]. YouTube. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=MJmcutjecUQ Chris. (2019, November 26). Un violador en tu camino [A rapist in your path] [Video 00:02:29]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLO ljHQiN-­U Colectivo LASTESIS. (2019, November 20). Intervención colectivo LASTESIS [Collective intervention LASTESIS] [Video 00:03:49]. YouTube. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sbcU0pmViM&t=3s Dean, J. (2005). Communicative capitalism. Cultural Politics, 1, 51–74. ElMouSxH. (2019, November 30). Intervención “Un violador en tu camino” LA CALERA 29/11/19 [“A rapist in your path” LA CALERA 29/11/19] [Video 00:02:27]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgCRqPWkJbc Es Mi Fiesta TV. (2019, November 26). Intervención del colectivo Las Tesis en Santiago #25N [Intervention of the Las Tesis collective in Santiago #25N]. [Video 00:02:43]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJGE 9zqgna8 Esteban Bison. (2019, December 9). O estuprador é você (Un violador en tu camino) Vitoria, Espirito Santo Brasil [The rapist is you (A rapist in your path) Vitoria, Espirito Santo Brazil]. [Video 00:04:46]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkZ6tI7qXts Flores-Márquez, D. (2020). Estéticas activistas: cultura mediática y resonancia en las movilizaciones contemporáneas [Activist aesthetics: media culture and resonance in contemporary movements]. Dígitos. Revista de Comunicación Digital, 6, 181–196. Gabbay, M., & de Araújo Soares, R. (2017). Sobre a Comunidade do Afeto: comunicação alternativa e comunidade no contexto atual [About Affection Community: alternative communication and community in the current context]. Parágrafo, 5(1), 159–169.

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Geochicas. (2019). OpenStreetMap Un violador en tu camino [A rapist in your path OpenStreetMap] https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/es/map/un-­violador-­ en-­tu-­camino-­20192020-­rev-­120121_394247#3/24.77/-­26.02 Gutiérrez, M. L., & Osuna, C. A. (2020). Resistencias feministas en Chile: subjetivaciones y acciones estético-políticas ante las violencias neoliberales [Feminist resistance in Chile: subjectivations and aesthetic-political actions in the face of neoliberal violence]. Revista Gênero, 20(2), 178–200. Hill Collins, P. (2019). Relationality within interseccionality. In I. H. Collins & P. (Eds.), Intersectionality as critical social theory (pp.  225–285). Duke University Press. Horn, J. (2013). Género y movimientos sociales. Informe general [Gender and social movements. General report]. Bridge, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. Jornalistas Livres. (2019, December 15) O ESTUPRADOR É VOCÊ/SÃO AS MILÍCIAS/OS JUÍZES/OS TRÊS PODERES/O PRESIDENTE [THE RAPIST IS YOU/THE MILITIAS/THE JUDGES/THE THREE POWERS/THE PRESIDENT] [Video 00:02:02]. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=dsFW2IFKeKc Juca, L. (2019, December 4). O estuprador é você—el violador eres tú—São Paulo [You are the rapist—you are the rapist—São Paulo] [Video 00:03:10]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaN0tlHBmkw&t=33s Kurban, C., Peña-López, I., & Haberer, M. (2017). What is technopolitics? A conceptual schema for understanding politics in the digital age. IDP. Revista de Internet, Derecho y Política, 24, 3–20. La Buta, K. (2019, December 19). Un violador en tu camino—Traslasierra—Villa Cura Brochero—Cba—Argentina [A rapist in your path—Translasierra—Villa Cura Brochero—Cba—Argentina] [Video 00:04:51]. YouTube. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=1v9LNr9OzrM Las Tesis. (2019, December 10). Manifiesto del Colectivo Las Tesis: La culpa no era mía, ni dónde estaba ni cómo vestía [Manifesto of Las Tesis Collective: It wasn’t my fault, where I was or how I was dressed]. The Clinic, “La Cosecha” section. https://www.theclinic.cl/2019/12/10/manifiesto-­colectivo-­las-­ tesis-­la-­culpa-­no-­era-­mia-­ni-­donde-­estaba-­ni-­como-­vestia/ Leonardo Gonzalez Weinmann. (2019, December 4). Un violador en tu camino— LasTesis Senior—Estadio Nacional 4 de Diciembre 2019 [A rapist in your path—Las Tesis Senio—National Stadium, December 4th, 2019][Video 00:05:55]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnpmOO5y4T0 López Nájera, R. (2019). “Apuestas políticas desde los feminismos descoloniales” [Political proposals from decolonial feminisms]. In C. Goçalves & M. Rocha (Eds.), Feminismos decoloniais e outros escritos feministas (pp.  207–228). Expressão Gráfica e Editora.

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Luispipe. (2019, December 10). Un violador en tu camino, funcionarias HCVB [A rapist in your path HCVB officials] [Video 00:03:19]. YouTube. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXEN3NIVuQ4 Markham, A., & Buchanan, E. (2012). Ethical decision-making and Internet research 2.0: Recommendations from the AoIR ethics working committee. The Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR). https://aoir.org/reports/ ethics2.pdf Matos, M. (2010). Movimento e teoria feminista: É possível reconstruir a teoria feminista a partir do sul global? [Feminist movement and theory: Is it possible to reconstruct feminist theory from the global south?]. Revista de Sociologia e Política, 18(36), 67–92. Melucci, A. (1995). The process of collective identity. In H.  Johnston & B, Klandermans (Eds.), Social movements and culture (pp. 41–63). University of Minnesota Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctttt0p8 Montero, D., & Sierra Caballero, F. (2017). Videoactivismo y apropiación de las tecnologías. El caso de 15M [Video activism and appropriation of technologies. The case of 15M]. Chasqui. Revista Latinoamericana de Comunicación, 134, 263–276. Negrecs. (2020). Seminário Lélia González. Educação, mídia e ativismo. NEGRECS UFRJ [Lélia González Seminar. Education, Media and Activism. NEGRECS UFRJ] [Video 02:40:49]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/YZB­VMrZZVo Pablo Abarca Silva. (2019, December 9). Un violador en tu camino. Versión ciclistas. Talca [A rapist in your path cyclist version. Talca] [Video 00:02:42]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqZuJsreBd0 Pais, A. (2019, December 9). Las Tesis sobre “Un violador en tu camino”: “Se nos escapó de las manos y lo hermoso es que fue apropiado por otras” [The theses about “A rapist in your path”: “It slipped through our fingers and the beauty is that it was appropriated by others”]. BBC News Mundo. https://www.bbc. com/mundo/noticias-­america-­latina-­50690475 Paiva, R., & Gabbay, M. (2018). Cidade, Afeto e Ocupações: ou a transfiguração do espaço público no Brasil contemporâneo [City, affect and occupation: Or the transfiguration of the public arena in contemporary Brazil]. Revista RUA, 24(1), 129–138. https://doi.org/10.20396/rua.v24i1.8652511 PCI TV. (2020, March 30). Charla virtual especial con Rita Segato sobre la película Que [Special virtual chat with Rita Segato about the film Que][Video 01:00:00]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PCwkxAyOmc Personare Nojerrot. (2019, December 21). Un violador en tu camino senior Antofagasta [A rapist in your path senior Antofagasta] [Video 00:02:29]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEAE8yV4Xtg

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Quiasma Producciones. (2019, December 9). Un violador en tu camino ‫مغتصب في‬ ‫—طريقك‬Mujeres Palestinas [A rapist in your path ‫—مغتصب في طريقك‬Palestinian women] [Video 03:05]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= mDCd53qmjL8 Ramírez Morales, M., & Felitti, K. (2020). Pañuelos verdes por el aborto legal: historia, significados y circulaciones en Argentina y México [Green scarves for legal abortion: history, meanings and circulation in Argentina and Mexico]. Encartes, 3(5), 111–145. Santiago Diaz. (2019, November 26). Colectivo lastesis—Un violador en tu camino (Chile, #25N) [Las Tesis Colective. A rapist in yout path (Chile, #25N)] [Video 00:01:24]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= fyJF6JJ1X1U Segato, R. L. (2003). Las estructuras elementales de la violencia: ensayos sobre género entre la antropología, el psicoanálisis y los derechos humanos [The elemental structures of violence: Essays on gender between anthropology, psychoanalysis and human rights]. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Prometeo. Serafini, P. (2020). “A rapist in your path”: Transnational feminist protest and why (and how) performance matters. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 23(2), 290–295. Sousa, A. (2017). Video activism: Digital practices to narrate social movements during the FIFA World Cup (2014). Brazilian Journalism Research, 13(1), 38–63. Spiral. (2019, December 7). Movilización mujeres plaza de mayo—#un violador en tu camino [Women’s mobilization in Plaza de Mayo—#A rapist in your path] [Video 00:02:19]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= TywciwYHLkM Tarrow, S. (1994). Power in movement: Social movement, collective action and politics. Cambridge University Press. Toret, J., Calleja, A., Marin, O., Aragón, P., Aguilera, M., Barandiaran, X., & Monterde, A. (2013). Tecnopolítica y 15M: La potencia de las multitudes conectadas [Technopolitics and 15M: The power of connected crowds]. Editorial UOC. Torralbo Calero, M. (2020). Performance feminista Un violador en tu camino: Análisis en Twitter de los medios de comunicación impresos y digitales en Chile y España [Feminist performance A rapist in you path: Twitter analysis of print and digital media in Chile and Spain]. Universidad de Sevilla/Facultad de Comunicación. https://idus.us.es/handle/11441/101939 Treré, E., & Barranquero, A. (2018). Tracing the roots of technopolitics: Towards a North-South dialogue. In F. Cabellero & T. Gravate (Eds.), Networks, movements and technopolitics in Latin America. Global transformations in media and communication research (pp.  43–63). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-­3-­319-­65560-­4_3

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TV Comunitária do Rio de Janeiro. (2019, December 8). Manifestação na Cinelândia (Rio de Janeiro): O ESTUPRADOR É VOCÊ! [Manifestation at Cinelândia (Rio de Janeiro): THE RAPIST IS YOU!] [Video 00:11:24]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz4C-­vlL6eY Viajo Sin Ver. (2019, December 2). Un violador en tu camino chile cerro navia [A rapist in your path. Cerro Navia, Chile] [Video 00:02:06]. YouTube. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XBhf7FTS1Y Viktor. (2019, December 21). Un violador en tu camino de mujeres con discapacidad [A rapist in your path from disabled women] Video 00:02:33]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW8yD9wv9pY Villi, M., & Matikainen, J. (2016). Participation in social media: Studying explicit and implicit forms of participation in communicative social networks. Media and Communication, 4(4), 109–117.

PART II

An Alternative Democratic Public Sphere: The Internet as a Safe Space

CHAPTER 6

Intersectionality in Feminist Hashtags and Democracy: How the Black Women’s Day in Brazil Mobilizes Specificities within the Feminist Movement Bruna Silveira de Oliveira and Maiara Orlandini

Introduction Created to celebrate the achievements of women in the fight for gender equality, in the context of the International Women’s Strike, International Women’s Day mobilizes the #8M movements on social media platforms. While the March 8 movement considers only the hegemonic feminism, it neglects the specificities within the feminist movement. Thus, in 1992, after a meeting of Black women in the Dominican Republic, July 25 became the International Day of Black, Latin American, and Caribbean Women, for discussing the various struggles of Black and indigenous

B. S. de Oliveira (*) • M. Orlandini Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wiesslitz (ed.), Women’s Activism Online and the Global Struggle for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31621-0_6

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women and women from traditional communities. In Brazil, the day has been celebrated since 2014 and is also known as Tereza de Benguela1 and Black Women’s National Day, in honor of the quilombola leader. Interested in feminist, anti-racist, and anti-class subordination issues, intersectional ideas orient the overlapping of the various stigmatized identities that coexist in the public sphere. From an awareness of the structural racist reality in Brazil, Lélia Gonzalez (1982, 1985), one of the pioneers of the articulation between race, class, and gender, discusses the fact that sexism, aligned with racism, imposes more severe conditions on Black women. Given this intersectional view, the present chapter, through a content analysis of the data extracted from the hashtags #25deJulho [July 25], #DiadaMulherNegra [BlackWomenDay],#DiaDaMulherNeg raLatinaeCaribenha [LatinAmericanAndCaribbeanBlackWomenDay], #DiaInternacionaldaMulherNegra [InternationalBlackWomenDay] and #Julhodaspretas [BlackWomenJuly] (and others) pulled from Twitter, seeks to understand how the mobilization generated by the hashtags on Black Women’s Day contributes to democracy. To this end, we ask: (a) How did Black feminism articulate itself to disseminate its agenda through the affordances and options provided by the platform? and (b) How does intersectionality based on hashtag feminism inform the public debate to create more deliberative (inclusive and reflective) social processes? On the one hand, since there is an erasure in the public debate of racial and gender agendas, Black women’s mobilizations on social media platforms have contributed to draw the attention of the mainstream media to such issues. Based on these issues, our first research question seeks to understand, by using data referring to publications, how hashtags were mobilized on Twitter to disseminate principles of Black and intersectional feminism. We seek to capture the retweeted tweets to assess the circulation of hashtags on Twitter. In this regard, this research advances our understanding of engagement with the agenda of Black feminism on social platforms, our understanding of the people who engaged, and the discursive resources most frequently used. On the other hand, the intersectionality invoked by hashtag feminism gains support in the public sphere by functioning as intimate publics that create safe spaces (Collins, 2000) where Black women exchange experiences and viewpoints. Thus, considering that intersectionality in hashtag 1  Tereza de Benguela was a slave who became a quilombola leader in Brazil’s eighteenth century.

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feminism enables safe spaces that include Black women in the debate and politicize the discussion, we argue in our second research aim that the collected feminist hashtags contribute to democracy by politicizing and reverberating the debate about intersectionality, moving toward deliberative ideals and creating safe spaces for inclusion and debate, despite hate speech. This chapter is divided as follows: First, we present an overview of Latin America democracy and the relationship between advances in rights conquests and the Black feminist movement. Next, we introduce the gains generated by the articulation between media platforms and feminism through feminist hashtags. Then, we describe the methodological procedures by demonstrating the perspective used to answer the research questions. Finally, in the analytical section, we present our data, and elaborate on the questions raised here in this introduction.

Latin America Democracy and Black Feminism When we look at the past decade in Latin America, it is clear that the progression of governments aligned with the left is not an isolated phenomenon. Between 1998 and 2014, Latin American countries scored more than 30 victories for state leaders linked to progressive parties. Starting with Hugo Chávez’s victory in Venezuela in 1998, and propelled by elections won by left or center-left candidates in almost all countries in South America (excluding Colombia) and in some Central American countries, Latin America experienced a wave of progressive governments, also called the “pink wave” (Cameron & Hershberg, 2010). At a time when democratic consolidation was a central issue, the pink wave was something new in Latin American history, which until then was marked by patrimonial regimes, dictatorships, and colonizations. Thus, after a trajectory of repression, left-wing organizations came to power democratically and governed for years in many countries. The institutional spaces conquered and the time that these governments were in power point to the capacity of these progressive sectors to convene and motivate the public sphere for their cause during this period. It is evident that during this period, not only Brazil, but many Latin America countries, experienced great democratic advances, registering a cycle of progress in accountability and an expansion of instruments for the protection of human rights, thus, affecting indicators that point to the consolidation of democracy in several countries. In the academic field,

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these advances have been studied in their most different forms of manifestation and standardization (Levine & Molina, 2011; Mainwaring & PérezLiñán, 2013). One of the elements that ensure better democratic quality is the right to demonstrate. The principle of freedom of expression makes it possible for political discourse to benefit from the active participation by citizens, who act without fear of censorship or other types of retaliation, whether from the government or socially (Akdeniz, 2002; Bhuiyan, 2011). After facing years of authoritarian regimes and dictatorships, Latin American countries experienced free freedom of expression in the second half of the previous century. However, during the period of authoritarian repression, many countries witnessed the first consolidations of social movements. In the effervescence of the movements from the 1970s and 1980s, Brazil was the stage for the emergence of the first organized groups of Black women. This process was not, however, exempt from confrontations. Even though Latin American countries boast a huge range of Black feminist writers (e.g., Carneiro, 2003; Freitas, 2018; Gonzalez, 1982, 1985; Ribeiro, 2017; Viana, 2010), the dominant feminist movement has not incorporated the demands raised by these writers. For Black activist Gonzalez (1985), while the left resisted discussing issues related to homosexuality and women to avoid dividing the workers’ fight, the Unified Black Movement in Brazil won the right to debate these particular contents at events and congresses. However, Viana (2010) argues that women’s political activism was underestimated in the Black movement, as they were considered “absent,” “unorganized,” or “disinterested.” The fast and solid structuring of the Black feminists’ articulation is a reflection of a society that has advanced in guaranteeing rights, but it is also a consequence of the creativity and organization of Black women. Raising the agenda of intersectionality and the specific conflicts of Black movements (Carneiro, 2003; Gonzalez, 1982, 1985; Nascimento, 1985; Ribeiro, 2017), also aligned with the perspectives of other theories (Collins, 2000, 2016; Crenshaw, 1989; Davis, 2016; hooks, 1995, 2015; Kilomba, 2019), Black feminist movements in Latin America advanced and consolidated themselves in digital networks. Through their presence on the internet, these women were able to connect across geographical borders, building their own safe space.

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Media Platforms and Feminism Hashtags Feminist political mobilization via hashtags has acted as one of the most popular means of mobilization on social media platforms (Baer, 2016). With diverse agendas that reached diverse audiences, hashtag mobilization provides a means for the movement to win what is not always an easy task to achieve, which is a voice and attention in the public sphere. It is noteworthy that we understand political mobilization as collective action, that is, when a group of people decide to act together to promote a common interest (Tarrow, 1993). Within online activism, the use of hashtags is a common strategy among feminists. Hashtags for mobilization of a political nature have been called activism hashtags (Gunn, 2015). Feminist or women’s issues are strongly seen in online hashtag movements, raising topics that are not discussed in mainstream media. When aligned with feminist demands, these hashtags are called feminist hashtags, and they advance by helping to improve the quality of the debate, expanding the voices of marginalized and silenced groups within the movements (Chen et al., 2018). A group of authors have been arguing about the potential of hashtag feminism, since this model of activism has opened up new spaces for groups that are marginalized and silenced in global feminist movements. Feminist mobilizations by hashtag are powerful tools to expand the voice of these groups, such as in the case of Black women, and contribute to the advancement of in social justice and the formation of support centers, which are collective digital spaces in which women share their points of view and gather digitally. Hashtag activism thus offers discursive power, which is vital for women’s participation in the public sphere, by highlighting topics of interest to them, especially topics that are outside the discourse of traditional media, and by diverging from the agenda of neoliberal feminism, as is the case of the Black women’s movement (Cole, 2016; Lima, 2019; Looft, 2017; Loza, 2014). The feminist hashtag is understood as a global and transnational phenomenon, which makes the feminist agenda visible on a global scale and connects women and their demands across geospaces. Hashtag feminism has also become popular in the Global South, where gender issues intersect with institutional politics, and the Latin America was not excluded from this trend. In Argentina, the hashtags #NiUnaAMenos [NotOneLess] and #VivasLasQueremos [WeWantThemAlive] emerged after the murder of the young 16-year-old Lúcia Perez. The campaign soon went viral and

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echoed the voices of women from across Latin America (Lobato & Gonzalez, 2020). Also in Argentina, the hashtag #AbortoLegalYa [LegalAbortionNow] called on the government to authorize the legalization of abortion (Kumar, 2019). In Mexico, the Spanish version of #MeToo, called #Cuéntalo, grouped testimonies of aggression (Lobato & Gonzalez, 2020). In Brazil, #ChegadeFiuFiu [NoMoreHarassment] presented personal narratives and claims against sexual harassment (Orlandini, 2019; Rizzotto et  al., 2017), and #MeuPrimeiroAssédio [MyFirstHarassment], which told details of women’s first experiences of harassment (Baptista et al., 2020), brought women together and provided the means to draw attention and orient the public sphere. These projects are examples of manifestations that took place in different cultural and social contexts. Yet all demonstrate that hashtag activism can promote feminist politics, by transforming lived experiences into a powerful tool to motivate social and political change, and creating a virtual space where victims of oppression can coexist together in a space that recognizes their pain and narratives. Thus, hashtag feminism offers what Collins (2000) called “safe spaces,” in which Black women can create their communities, be exclusive when necessary, always aiming to maintain a safe space for argumentative exchanges. Intersectionality is not left out of this debate. Several researchers have worked to understand whether feminism hashtags are tools for women of color (Chen et al., 2018; Cole, 2016; Jackson, 2016; Looft, 2017; Loza, 2014). In her article “Hashtag Feminism, #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen and the Other #FemFuture,” Loza (2014) argues that it is through hashtag activism that Black women have gained a voice. Zimmerman (2017), in her article “#Intersectionality: The Fourth Wave Feminist Twitter Community,” argues that Black women’s digital hashtag activism fights oppression, and considers social media a central, indispensable tool. Although powerful, hashtag feminism is not without risks and limitations. We start from the premise that hashtags are extremely volatile. As online communities are formed, issues of safe spaces, identity, and the redefinition of feminism appear to contribute to the quality of the feminist debate, but they can trigger hate speech and expose activists to threats and retaliation (Clark, 2016; Cole, 2016; Dixon, 2014; Lopez et al., 2019).

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The Construction of an Analytical Perspective To answer the research questions, three methodological steps were designed: (a) collection of the dataset; (b) organization and selection of data, and; (c) analysis. Data scraping was performed using the DMI Twitter Capturing and Analysis Toolset software (Borra & Rieder, 2014), which allows retrieval and collection of Twitter tweets and their analysis in various ways. The software, which collected the data live on July 25, 2020, was activated on the basis of a set of hashtags and keywords related to the Day of Black, Latin, and Caribbean Women. Searches were conducted in Portuguese, using hashtags circulating in Brazil, including #25deJulho, #DiadaMulherNegra, #DiaDaMulherNegraLatinaeCaribenha, #DiaInternacionaldaMulherNegra, and #Julhodaspretas. As a large volume of data was gathered, the second step was to extract a sample of tweets. For the coding process, we chose to work only with the tweets that were retweeted. Twitter users retweet to amplify tweets to new audiences, publicly agree with someone, and affirm the thoughts of others (Boyd et al., 2010). Thus, the objective is to capture the discourse that circulated most frequently on the platform and that presents itself as popular and significant content for Black women. We choose retweets due to the fact that the analysis focuses on the circulation of information on Twitter on Black Women’s Day, since the content retweeted by users on the platform is related to collective gains, through the reach of capital social (Recuero et al., 2011). The corpus comprises a total of 160 tweets that were retweeted 5,007 times (see Table  6.1). The retweeted content represents 84.20% of the tweets that circulated on the data collection date. This shows that much of the content was not produced in an authorial way, but is rather content Table 6.1  General statistics Date

Number of tweets

July 25, 2020

5,946

Source: The authors

Number Number of Number of of tweets tweets with tweets with with links hashtags mentions 705

5,934

5,199

Number of tweets with media uploads

Number of retweets

Number of replies

4,573

5,007

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that represents or validates the thinking of most Black women who use the hashtags. The large number of retweets is not unusual for protest-related hashtags (Poell & Rajagopalan, 2015). In the third stage, a content analysis (Bardin, 2016; Neuendorf, 2002) was conducted. This method requires coding, categorization, and inferencing processes. As described by Bardin (2016), to treat the material is to code it. Thus, the codebook construction must be aligned with the systematic resolution of the research interest. For this reason, before we present the codebook, we recall our main goal: to understand how the mobilization generated by the hashtags on Black Women’s Day contributes to democracy, since we consider that the plurality of discussions that recognize Black women as protagonists of their own stories ultimately stimulates democratic perceptions. As analytical operators, the elements that are considered essential to quality political deliberation were adopted (Steenbergen et  al., 2003; Stromer-Galley, 2007), and codes that helped us to systematically understand how mobilization was generated by the hashtags. Hence, the coding categories were: (a) general (relevance, 2 gender, and location); (b) actions (calls for collective action and calls for educational content); (c) relationships with external movements, and; (d) Discourse Qualitative Index (DQI)3 (the level of justification and content of justifications, such as anti-­ racism, women’s defense, class struggle, issues of historical invisibility and silencing, and visibility of inequalities). These variables help us understand the arguments triggered in the retweeted tweets that contained the studied hashtags. Only by understanding the purpose of these tweets can we make inferences about the agenda of this social movement. The purpose of the tweets also provides us with insights into the arguments that the audience accepts and reinforces when sharing the tweet.

2  Blocked accounts or tweets that used the hashtags with content on topics unrelated to Black Women’s Day were considered irrelevant. 3  Based on research by Steenbergen et al. (2003), and considering that some of the shortcomings of DQI use correspond to unawareness of certain contexts, we adapted the index to our analytical framework.

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How Did Black Feminism Articulate Itself in Order to Disseminate its Agenda through the Platform’s Affordances and Options? General Presentation of Data How did the mobilization of July 25, 2020 take place on Twitter Brazil? How was the day of the event represented on that platform? In total, 5,946 tweets by 5,194 users indexed the hashtags or keywords on the day of the event. Table 6.1 offers descriptive statistics. The most frequently used hashtags were: #25dejulho (4,149 tweets posted by 3,838 users), #DiadaMulherNegra (848 tweets posted by 747 users), and #Julhodaspretas (815 tweets posted by 646 users). Regarding the 160 coded retweets, it is possible to highlight that the majority of people who commented on the topic using the selected hashtags are individual accounts (34.4%), while, in second place, we have social movements and social organizations (18.8%; see Fig. 6.1). Among members of civil society, celebrities, and political representatives, excluding unidentifiable accounts, 70.7% were women and 29.3% were men (see Fig. 6.2). This means that in our sample, women were the main producers of content related to the debate, whether they were Black or not. As the theme touches on personal harms and issues as well as agendas raised by Black women, it is only logical that it is women who mostly lead the topic on Twitter. However, it is worth noticing that men also engaged with the topic: 22 of the most retweeted comments on Twitter this day came from male profiles. This leads us to reflect on how this discussion is already becoming part of a common agenda, and has ceased to be a topic that belongs to only one specific niche. Calls to Action Calls to action was an analytical operator that was used to learn how Black women gave visibility to (a) legal projects that are not publicly known (“Institutional projects” code); (b) online protests, with calls to engage in social movements through hashtags and/or indicating pages and profiles to be followed (“Online protests” code); (c) calls for collective events, such as congresses, seminars and events (“Collective education” code) and; (d) supplementary material, such as reading recommendations,

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Frequency

Percentage

55

34.4 30

18.8 15 12

9.4

Individual accounts

12 7.5

Collectives Celebrities and and/or social opinion movements leaders**

Media

7.5

5

3.1

Political Private representatives companies

1

.6

Others

Fig. 6.1  Who is talking?*. (Source: The authors. Note: *30 tweets were considered irrelevant for several reasons: some posted only the hashtags without adding other information to the debate, others tweets were deleted, and still others commented only on issues not related to the topic of discussion. **Verified accounts)

Women

Men

43%

25.3% 18.7% 9.3% 1.3% Individual accounts

Celebrities and opinion leaders*

2.7% Political representatives

Fig. 6.2  Who is talking? (by gender). (Source: The authors. *Verified account)

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Fig. 6.3  Type of actions. (Source: the authors)

podcasts, and videos about Black feminism (“Content indications” code; see Fig. 6.3). The creation of this set of codes was made necessary by the educational character of many speech acts. Tweets indicating books to be downloaded for free by Black Brazilian writers were frequent and show how Black women articulate in a community in order to make their existence and work visible, as demonstrated by a platform account that describes itself as “focused on promoting books written by Black people,”4 which released four works on love stories of and written by Black women. Links to university pages or scientific articles that presented the story of Tereza de Benguela were also widely shared. The platform’s potential for dissemination was used to inform and educate. Despite more than half of the Brazilian population declaring themselves Black or mixed (IBGE, 2018), there is a lack of knowledge about the history and struggles of their ancestors. Educational tweets try to break through the barriers of hegemonic knowledge, which often corresponds to the silencing and erasure of Black personalities from the country’s history. Another type of call for action that recurred in the analyzed tweets was invitations to participate in online events. In these events—streamed on YouTube—academics, writers, activists and artists have discussions about Black women in Brazilian society, and this type content was shared more  Translated from Portuguese. The Twitter user is @afroliteraria

4

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frequently by social movements and political representatives in order to bring visibility to events with women of color. In these events, Black women spoke of their experience as political subjects, but also highlighted their role in activism, with political and social implications. Although social movements, communication vehicles, and influencers played an important role in the validation of narratives, it was civil society that stood out by sharing educational information. Through the use of videos, banners, and external links, Black women circulated knowledge and made themselves visible in the digital space. According to Freire (1996), it is through education that historically marginalized population achieve emancipation and can transform reality. In contrast to hegemonic institutions that teach passivity in the face of reality, education and information can take a critical look at society. In this sense, the Black women’s movement stands out, since the movement fights against its historical erasure, bringing educational information to the center of the debate.

How Intersectionality in Hashtag Feminism Promotes the Public Debate to Create More Deliberative (Inclusive and Reflective) Social Processes? Several researches explore the role of online deliberation in political processes (Maia, 2012; Steenbergen et  al., 2003; Stromer-Galley, 2007). Although deliberation is characterized as a form of demanding communication, it has its origin in routines of the demand and supply of arguments (Habermas, 2006). Freedom of expression is fundamental to the modern democratic experience, but the public sphere should not be seen as given, since social actors are subject to unequal conditions when expressing their interests, perspectives, and opinions. As democracy ends up not empirically guaranteeing the same rights to all, in an equal way, the system is defined in the shadow of exclusion that is based on the invisibility of certain groups. Therefore, by becoming structural and allied with the erasure of discordant discourses, exclusion threatens the struggles for recognition of stigmatized groups such as Black women. However, as the intersectionality highlighted by hashtag feminism becomes visible in the public sphere, the creation of safe spaces allows Black women to feel confident in expressing their experiences (Collins, 2000).

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Thus, in order to explore the question about the relationship between intersectionality in hashtag feminism and online deliberation, we enroll two axes of discussion: (a) the personal narratives in hashtags enable women to recognize their similarity through language, emotion and shared meanings. It is through this connection between Black women that they can give voice to their pain and claims, making their agenda visible in the public sphere; (b) the intersectional turn articulated in the day; Considering intersectionality as the way in which racism, patriarchy, class oppression, and other discriminatory systems create basic and structuring inequalities of social positions (Crenshaw, 1989), we investigate in what sense the understanding of the influence of political and economic strata on social structures corresponds to greater reflexivity around the agenda. Among other conditions, deliberation requires that people freely express their opinions and justify their arguments, which can be done with personal stories or even humor (Steiner et al., 2017). Although we do not understand the communicative exchanges between Twitter users as deliberation, it is possible to consider that the publications analyzed here are part of a deliberative system (Maia, 2012; Mansbridge et al., 2012), since the relationships traced on social media are similar to everyday conversations (Wright et al., 2015). Personal Stories Personal stories are studied on several fronts within applied human and social sciences (Black, 2008; Butler, 2015; Maia, 2012; Young, 1996). Scholars defend the potential of these narratives when they understand that informal and testimonial discourses can enrich reflection and deliberation processes in society. Self-reports and personal stories can increase listeners’ empathy and encourage understanding of the speaker’s perspective, which is essential for deliberation and consequently, healthy democracy. Although we do not study argumentative exchanges on Twitter, we argue that personal accounts can build a space of solidarity for women of color to take a political stance (Chen et al., 2018; Khoja-Moolji, 2015). Based on the concept of intimate publics, Berlant (2011) emphasizes the potential of “feeling political together” (p. 224) and that for a true sense of belonging, women must be able to find their “safe spaces” (Collins, 2000). These spaces are very important for Black women to express themselves and deliberate on issues that are relevant to them.

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Among the tweets that were coded as “personal narratives” (36  in total), 75% contained justifications that ranged from basic (one argument) to reasoned (more than one argument and/or quote from external sources), while only 25% contained no justification. Although this does not imply a high frequency, we need to emphasize the democratizing potential of tweets that contain personal reports. In giving voice to their pain, Black women positioned themselves as a historical resistance from their reports. It is through the harm suffered and reported on social networks that they connect with each other, creating a community. It is in this safe space that Black Brazilian women reported some of the traumas and difficulties they experienced, making them visible, and uniting the individual with the collective, and the personal with the political. Many of the personal reports came in the form of a video attached to the tweets, emphasizing that these women are able to give a name and face to their personal experiences. Facing the haters, trolls, and hate speech that may eventually appear on the internet (Clark, 2016; Cole, 2016; Dixon, 2014; Lopez et al., 2019), Brazilian women of color reported the difficulties of being a woman, Black, and marginalized in Brazilian society, including but not limited to excessive sexualization, tension related to affection, structural difficulties in placing themselves in the job market, and the discomfort of trans women in regard to other questions about their identity. In addition to the cases mentioned, the following example describes a tweet that was attached to a video produced by a collective. Retweeted seven times with 1,400 likes, the video brought together mothers who recounted the difficulties they had already faced in raising Black children in an extremely unequal society. The tweet asked “What is it like to be a mother of Black boys in a racist society?”5 Despite personal stories being valid arguments for conversation, a high percentage of these reports (21.3%) were accompanied by links to external sources, such as journalistic articles, reports that point to inequalities, and scientific articles. This finding may reinforce the legitimacy of these personal experiences. Some of the women who publicized their stories and personal experiences used technical and academic data as arguments to justify and validate their stories. 5  Translated from Portuguese. Publication made by collective Quebrando o Tabu on July 25, 2020.

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The tweet with the highest engagement,6 which was retweeted 2,665 times, presented the experience lived by Tereza de Benguela. In addition to narrating her experience, the tweet presented historical data and evidence of the struggle and historical silencing of Black women. In addition, the thread included a link to a scientific article that proved the veracity of what was said on Twitter. By conducting a historic struggle for visibility and a struggle against silencing, women are finally able to communicate and state their claims​​ through the exposure of personal stories on the internet (Barker-Plummer & Barker-Plummer, 2017; Chen et al., 2018; Clark, 2016), but unfortunately, this discourse is not sufficiently understood as a valid argument. The personal reports accompanied by external links used other sources as a resource to reinforce the narrated personal oppressions and difficulties. This move stresses that the dominant discourse does not recognize the social and racial inequalities experienced by part of Brazilian society.7 Because the silencing of the oppressions experienced by women of color is part of the country’s sociality (Ramos, 2007), shared individual experiences are not enough and external sources are needed to prove these personal stories. As long as we are not in a society that validates individual experiences as arguments and justifications—as in the case of Brazilian society—personal stories are forced to resort to external sources as a validation system for narratives of pain and suffering. Intersectionality In relation to intersectionality (b), we can point out some paths to the discussion, which refer both to the imbrication of the agenda with issues related to class struggle, as well as to the articulation with LGBTQIAP+ population guidelines. According to the data analysis, 15.6% (25) of tweets  Available at https://twitter.com/ashleymlia/status/1287010987456028672  Between 1888 and 1930, the post-slavery abolition period, Brazil, by encouraging European immigration, stimulated the process of miscegenation in an effort to decimate Black bodies in the country (Rodrigues, 2020). Related to this, the hegemony of racial democracy operated in Brazilian culture after 1888 for a long time, as a demobilizer of the masses (Hanchard, 2001; Rios, 2012). The successful policy of racial democracy ended up weakening the racial conscience of Brazilian Blacks. Therefore, the denial of Brazil’s slavery past allowed the construction of a mestizo national identity, which, in addition to not defining the specific emblems suffered by the Black population, neglects the indigenous contribution (Rodrigues, 2020). 6 7

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were categorized as discussions related to class struggle, and of these, 36% referred to the Brazilian movement in favor of the fight for the rights of app-based delivery workers, a movement entitled #brequedosapps [crashingtheapps].8 The movement, also held on July 25, was juxtaposed with the Black feminist agenda by some users, as shown in the following comment:9 I’m going to use #BrequeDosApp and #JulhodasPretas together to give visualization to the narrative and trajectory of Black women political leaders of the working class… after all, this is the intention of being on the same day, right?10

The tweet explains the intersectional character of the mobilization that involves the discussion on Black feminism, as it confers the importance of Black Woman’s Day to the exaltation of Black women who, by occupying public positions, problematize and engage with the working class. This tweet is among the 10 most retweeted tweets that day. In another statement, we also noticed the articulation between the struggle of the delivery men hired by the applications and an allusion to Tereza de Benguela Day: Today, in addition to #TerezadeBenguela and International Day of #MulherNegra Latin American and Caribbean, is also day of #BrequedosApps. All support for workers who oppose the system of modern enslavement #VidasNegrasImportam.11

By connecting the exploitation of contemporary workers to the importance of pleading for Black lives, parliamentarian Andréia de Jesus, author of the above tweet, makes evident her critical perception of the hegemonic networks of power that maintain and transform Black and Black bodies into roles of subalternity. It is important to discuss here the fact that 8  The meaning of the term is a suggestion to boycott companies responsible for delivery applications in Brazil, since the delivery workers have limited rights. 9  We follow Markham and Buchanan (2012), Recommendations from the AoIR Ethics Working Committee (Version 2.0), and only show examples of tweets from public users with verified accounts. For other users, we deleted any identifiable details of the authors whose texts are cited in the chapter to protect their privacy. 10  Translated from Portuguese. Publication by Winnie Bueno, an academic, public personality on Twitter, and activist of the Black movement on July 25, 2020. 11  Translated from Portuguese. Publication by Andréia de Jesus, Minas Gerais state deputy, popular lawyer, and also a member of the Brazilian black movement, on July 25, 2020.

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slavery has been framed as one of the axes of support for capitalism (Ianni, 2003). Thus, ignoring the relationship between political and economic issues and social agendas is to omit the historical heritage left by slavery in countries that have developed through this perverse system of exploitation. For Davis (2016), slavery left Black women and their female descendants a legacy of resistance and insistence on sexual equality—while enslaved women suffered the most diverse types of abuse—thus creating parameters for a new condition of being a woman. Moreover, concerns about the class struggle also touch Black feminism when we come across Brazilian statistics that states that Black women are the most affected group in the economy, since the way the country’s tax system works puts them at the base of the social pyramid, receiving the lowest salary (Almeida, 2019). Other debates related to the class struggle that emerged in the coding process, in addition to the #brequedosapps agenda, concerned slavery and discussions around inequal access by people from the peripheries. About the latter, some tweets cited, for example, the trajectory of Carolina Maria de Jesus, a renowned Brazilian writer, who, in describing her experiences as a Black woman and resident of the periphery, denounced the social inequalities that affect stigmatized groups. The second topic of discussion representing the intersectional view reflected in the collected hashtags mentions the scope of the struggles of the LGBTQIAP+ population, which appears in 6.9% of the corpus. To illustrate this articulation, we present a tweet that constitutes the third most retweeted tweet that day, posted by Erika Hilton: Day 25 is the day of the fight against racism, chauvinism, cis-sexism, transphobia, lesbophobia, biphobia, and classism. It is the day to understand that when Black women, trans and cis, move, the whole society moves.12

Erika Hilton, a trans woman, is a city councilwoman in São Paulo, a human rights activist, and a supporter of culture, health, and social rights for Black people, as shown in her Twitter profile. The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter is also featured in her profile. In addition to celebrating the day, explaining some demands, and citing some personalities, her enthusiastic posting on Black Women’s Day also alludes to the importance of thinking in an intersectional way.  Translated from Portuguese. Published July 25, 2020.

12

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Today #25deJulho International Latin American and Caribbean Black Women’s Day and National Tereza Day of Benguela and Black Women we need to remember Marielle Franco who was also BISEXUAL.13

In the comment above, one notices the concern to work concurrently on the agendas of Black feminism and bisexuality. This way, we understand that the engagement reflected in the hashtags related to Black Women’s Day also directs attention to issues related to gender and sexual orientation (beyond cisgender and heteronormative identities) as markers of inequalities.

Conclusion Feminist hashtag mobilizations are powerful tools for amplifying the voices of marginalized groups—as in the case of Black women—and contribute to advances in social justice and the formation of support centers, which are collective spaces in which women share their experiences and gather. Activism by hashtag in the case studied offers discursive power, especially for those who are outside the dominant discourse, as is the case of the Black women’s movement. Although social networks are positioned as a place of conflict and clash between groups, they can also act as a space of solidarity and meeting for excluded groups’ claims of non-belonging. Regarding the first question, How did Black feminism articulate itself to spread its agenda through the affordances and options provided by the platform? we affirm that in the tweets studied, sharing external links and retweeting were the most frequently used affordances. In addition, personal stories appeared as important discursive resources. The personal stories in the analyzed tweets prompted users to develop a sense of connection with each other. By sharing other women’s stories, users affirmed and validated each other’s discourse, creating a network of connection. This connection makes women recognize themselves as similar through language, emotion, and shared meanings. It is also through hashtags that these women create a space in which they can coexist in their pain and suffering, finding similar ties with each other through their particular histories. This space, created from the individuality of each user,

 Translated from Portuguese. Published July 25, 2020.

13

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enables the construction of a collective space capable of welcoming and supporting other women. Reflecting on the democratic overlays created by the hashtags posted on Twitter on International Day of Black, Latin American, and Caribbean Women does not imply that the platform is attributed a mythological power to save democracies in crisis that are full of intolerance, hate speech, and denialism. Rather, articulating the contributions of such mobilizations to democracy can reveal to us the structuring character of Black feminist movements in building a more inclusive and plural society. In this way, the chapter offers two important contributions. The first, from a conceptual perspective, refers to the centralization of problematizations in Latin America, and proposes a decolonial approach to dealing with female activism in the digital age. The second is related to the methodological-­ analytical perspective: the adaptation of the DQI to observe the specific context of analysis can bring relevant findings to studies on the internet. The perspective that recognizes the subjectivities of Black women as a structuring process for interactions is urgent in socio-political discussions. This means that Black Brazilian protests have a range of stratifications. Therefore, one proposal for future steps, starting with this chapter, is to understand how the differences between Black feminist movements themselves occur, and what is the relationship of this plurality with democracy. We understand, therefore, that the public sphere must be an open space for debates of social conflicts, starting from a recognition of the central role of inequalities in the public debate.

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CHAPTER 7

“My Body is Not Your Crime Scene”: The Polarization and “Weaponization” of Women’s Online Activism on South Africa’s Twittersphere Allen Munoriyarwa

The Context: South Africa’s “Pandemic” of Violence against Women On October 9, 2019, more than half a million women in South Africa marched to the South African Parliament in Cape Town. In a scene reminiscent of the march of the French women to Versailles on October 5, 1789, the women who marched to the South African Parliament demanded an audience with the country’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa, the members of the executive, and legislators. They demanded that the President address them on the urgent issue of the abuse of women. They also demanded to hand a petition to the President himself, and not any of his representatives.

A. Munoriyarwa (*) University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wiesslitz (ed.), Women’s Activism Online and the Global Struggle for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31621-0_7

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The events of the previous three months before the march had been dark days for women’s safety in the country. First, on August 24, 2019, Uyinene Mrwetyana, a University of Cape Town student, was raped, bludgeoned to death, and her body burned. In the three weeks from the end of August into September, the bodies of more than five women were found raped, murdered, and dumped in shallow graves around Cape Town. On a farm west of the city of Johannesburg, a three-year-old girl was raped, mutilated, and her remains burned. As the body count mounted, organizations, activists, and celebrities started to mobilize in order to draw attention to this serious problem. Statistics indicate that seven women are murdered in South Africa every day, and more than 20 a day are sexually abused.1 These statistics illustrate the horrors South African women go through. On October 2, 2020, the country’s President admitted before Parliament that the country was facing a national crisis of violence against women. This admission was a culmination of a spate of extremely violent murders of women in the months following August 24, 2020. Celebrities across South Africa started tweeting and speaking out against women’s abuse. For instance, South African-­ born Hollywood actor Charlize Theron tweeted that men should take responsibility for this scourge and should join in the effort to fight violence against women. Celebrated comedian Trevor Noah echoed the same sentiments on Twitter. It was around that period—the first week of October 2019—that the Twitter hashtag #IAmNotNext started to trend. Women mobilized, largely around this hashtag, to petition Parliament and the President to address the issue urgently. The march on October 9 was not an incidental anecdote of history, but a well-planned and orchestrated event where the #IamNotNext played a central role. According to The Guardian (October 9, 2020), the march was one of the largest protests ever witnessed in post-apartheid South Africa. It was also one of the largest protests organized by women on a single cause. In South Africa, research on platforms like Twitter is still emerging. Previous research on Twitter in South Africa focused on how the platform was appropriated during the Fees Must Fall protests in South Africa in 2015 and 2016 (Bosch, 2017). Extant research on South Africa also focuses on how the country’s Twittersphere has, over time, become a haven for hate speech (Munoriyarwa, 2021). Verweij and van Noort 1  Follow these statistics here: Crime Stats: www.iol.co.za//news//south-africa-crimestats-seven-w/.

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(2014) also examined how journalists in South Africa utilize Twitter to enhance public debates and relationships. What is evident from this emerging literature is that research on how Twitter is appropriated for women online is still scarce in the South African context. This also holds true of the global context. This chapter contributes to filling this lacuna by exploring Twitter use during a women’s campaign. By so doing, the chapter contributes from the global South. At this point, it is important to review existing literature around women’s online activism.

Networked Activism: Review of Related Literature Growing research attention is directed at how digital platforms like Twitter and Facebook open possibilities for grassroots activism for interest groups and social movements (Lindgren, 2013). Social media platforms like Twitter constitute an evolution in alternative communication for contemporary activism (Poell & van Dijck, 2015). Activists are no longer dependent on the mainstream media. The Arab Spring, for example, is arguably agreed to have been driven by social media (Comunello & Anzera, 2012). The Occupy Wall Street movement in the USA also thrived on Twitter as a tool of mobilization (DeLuca et al., 2012). Networked publics may function as political forces (Chadwick & Howard, 2008). This happens because networks allow production of digital meaning by the masses (Lindgren, 2013), an important shift away from the elite production of culture (Lindgren, 2013). In the process, consideration is given to “the viewpoints of ordinary people activists and protesters” (Atton & Hamilton, 2008, p. 86). Fuchs (2011) and Langlois et al. (2009) agree that in addition to enabling user activity, networked platforms also steer these activities, for instance through “retweeting,” “liking” and “(un)following.” According to Poell and van Dijck (2015), these activities shape the way users interact with each other on these platforms. These scholars note how networks utilize “algorithmic mechanisms”—a form of “technological shaping” (p. 532)—that shape and influence activists’ interactions on social media platforms. However, actual levels of Twitter use have not been verified or quantified in social change movements where Twitter was used (Christensen, 2011). Gladwell (2010) agrees, but for a different reason, noting that Twitter and other social media are built on weak ties. “It’s just a platform that ensures distant connections with acquaintances, with breath-taking efficiency” (2010, p. 4). Gladwell thereby disagrees with those he terms “the evangelists of social media,” arguing that Twitter’s weak ties seldom

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lead to high-risk activism. What Twitter does is to increase the motivation for social change but it cannot contribute to strategy (Gladwell, 2010). However, Hermida et  al. (2014) disagree with Gladwell (2010) and Christensen (2011). They note that acceleration is a virtue brought to networked activism by social media platforms. By acceleration, Hermida et al. mean speedy and massive exchange of information. Papacharissi and de Fatima Oliveira (2012) agree that acceleration allows protesters to share emotions in real time. In addition to acceleration, Poell and van Dijck (2015) add the “personalization” dimension, which implies that an individual’s own views, rather than a collective identity, become important in the mobilization of activists. Poell and van Dijck (2015) argue that social media platforms have added “virality” to activism—where protests go viral, they trend, but can fall apart as quickly as they are stitched together. This chapter presents an attempt to understand how Twitter has been appropriated in support of women’s activism. It does this by focusing on one hashtag—#IamNotNext, used by South African women during the mobilization and march between October 6 and 10, 2019 to Parliament in Cape Town. This study is limited in one major way: Its focus is on one incident and one hashtag. It is, nevertheless, important because it also represents vital steps in understanding how Twitter can be used to fragment social movements, weaponize their discourses, and poison debates within them on important social issues like violence against women. The issue of how digital platforms like Twitter can nevertheless be appropriated for women’s activism can go beyond being a philosophical and theoretical issue to being empirical, by a systematic exploration of case-based circumstances of digital activism patterns as is offered in this chapter. Furthermore, there is no known research from South Africa at the intersection of women’s activism and the appropriation of digital activism. Existing research has focused on the use of Twitter during university-wide protests in the country (Bosch, 2016) and the use of Twitter for anti-­ colonial activism (Bosch, 2017)

Conceptualizing Women’s Online Activism as an Assemblage The concept of assemblage (DeLanda, 2006) is an open one whose tenets provide conceptual lenses through which organizational practices like women’s movements and women’s online activism can be understood. This chapter draws on a number of its tenets to understand Twitter

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activism on violence against women in South Africa. The assemblage asserts that ideas can be powerful for groups that are always viewed as marginal—for example, a women’s activist movement in the South African context. These groups can morph their ideas and become mainstream through access to technological spaces like social media platforms to mount resistance against their oppressors (Davies, 2011). Social media platforms thus become “distribution platforms” (Davies, 2011, p. 276). The assemblage is constitutive of both the virtual and actual spaces (Davies, 2011) that are actualized and virtualized by (trans)national activists’ movements. In the study of online hashtag movements, the concept of assemblage attends to complex practices within which agents mobilize to effect change through social media platforms. The assemblage concept asserts that social formations are temporary aggregates of both objects and people (Davies, 2011). Thus, the concept of assemblage argues for a “constellation of things [and, by extension, people]” (Davies, 2011, p. 276), each moving in their own “line of light” (p. 276). These lines of light can temporarily cohere and then disperse (for example, women can mobilize toward a cause and then their unity may fragment). In an assemblage, human participants function as actors that shape activism (Reestorff, 2014). Technology (like social networking platforms) can provide “the structures and spaces of possibilities” (DeLanda, 2006, p. 10). How? By making it possible for activists to connect on different sites of interactions (Latour, 2005). Thus, new technologies like Twitter play a crucial role in adding power to movements by, for example, being “platforms of publication” (Rodríguez-Giralt et al., 2018, p. 11). Latour (2005) adds that it is through network activism that a real movement is constituted by actors, “… with varying motives and ideals, but based on a loose alliance derived from a common cause, identity construction, values and lifestyles” (Masroor et al., 2019, p. 153). Hence, an assemblage, such as a women’s online movement against violence, “relies on (a shared) cause … and a willingness to invest [energy and time] in the movement” (Reestorff, 2014, p. 488). Furthermore, the human agents in an assemblage engage in multiple activities (Reestorff, 2014), such as sharing experiences on violence and sharing an activist imaginary. The concept of the assemblage is important in this chapter because, among other issues, this chapter explores how the women appropriated online spaces to push an offline agenda (the march to Parliament). In addition, this chapter helps to explain how the technological assemblage— the Twitter space—was used for anti-violence activism, with consequences for the movement.

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A Note on Methodology This chapter adopted a qualitative and interpretivist approach (Adler & Adler, 1987). It sought to interpret social media texts, tweets, on a popularly used hashtag: #IamNotNext. While this was not the only hashtag used by South Africa women to organize their protest, it was, by far, the most popular one judging by the number of followers and the number of tweets posted. For example, on the day it first appeared, on October 6, 2019, the hashtag garnered about 4,000 tweets, and this number doubled the next day, the day of the march. In order to retrieve the tweets, the author followed the hashtag, which is still active, though not trending. The author also used Ritetag, a Twitter scraping software program. This is a simple, easy-to-use software program (www.ritetag.com) that allows the mining of older tweets. The research was interested in tweets posted between October 6 and October 10, 2019, the days the hashtag was first used, and when the massive march to Parliament by women took place. It also included tweets posted between June 9 and 16, 2020, for two reasons. First, because another march to Parliament was organized, and second, the hashtag started trending again. Ritetag allowed the author to mine the old tweets and put them on a spreadsheet. The mined tweets added up to around 6,700. It was virtually impossible to analyze them manually so the tweets were further distilled by eliminating retweets (unless the original tweet could not be located in the maze of the mined data), and tweets not focused on the march or the subject of violence against women. This left the author with about 3,800 tweets that could be put on spreadsheets. But a corpus of 3,800 tweets was still deemed too large for manual reading. So, the author purposively sampled tweets that specifically referred to the march. This left about 1,960 tweets. The themes and discourses were constructed from a re(reading) of the tweets on the spreadsheet. To augment a manual reading of the tweets, the author also utilized a simple software program called Voyant. Voyant is an analysis software program that allows for textual, discourse, or qualitative content analysis of social media data. It has three major advantages that made it attractive for this research: (a) It does not require complicated coding and complements manual coding of data; (b) It is user friendly, especially for researchers who come from a qualitative research orientation like this author; and (c) It helps identify key discourses and ideas in tweets. Thus, the author complemented manually generated key discourses with Voyant-generated

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discourses. Voyant, however, complemented the qualitative discourse analysis (Johnstone, 2018) that was utilized as the main analysis framework. The purpose of discourse analysis in this chapter was to gain insights into the nature of women’s activism as it unfolded on the hashtag. By exploring these insights, discourse analysis identified value judgments, ideological perspectives, and evaluations made by users on the hashtag. Identifying these helped interrogate the kind of discourses and the nature of hashtag activism on the platform. Discourse analysis does this by revealing implicit and explicit meanings of texts such as tweets (Yaqub et  al., 2017). The researcher could then refine these into analyzable themes as findings (Lachmar et al., 2017).

Findings In the next section, I demonstrate how #IamNotNext was appropriated to express “righteous outrage” by women, to speak back to power against inadequate laws, and to mobilize offline demonstrations. I show that the hashtag was therefore an assemblage in which voices coalesced and placed the issue of violence against women on the public agenda. The next section shows how phantom contributors tried to polarize the hashtag’s agenda. It demonstrates how these phantom contributors weaponized the hashtag through an intolerant, militaristic lexicon. I conclude with a discussion of my findings. The Mobilization of Networked Outrage A prominent appropriation of #IamNotNext was how it mobilized an online community of rage against violence on women. The hashtag rekindled debates, which had hitherto lain dormant but were not extinct, on the country’s approaches to combating violence against women. On the hashtag, women questioned the efficacy of South Africa’s laws on violence against women, the commitment of the political elite, and the attitude of law enforcement agencies in the fight against violence on women. Thus, the hashtag was a space of coalescence, allowing activists to organize a discourse and a bond against violence. The public on the hashtag, furthermore, questioned the “collective conscience” of South African society and its collective morality. For example, users condemned “a government of speeches and no action.” Other users posted that, “the government was part of the problem because it had no plan on the ground.” The tweet

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below is an example of how the hashtag became a space to speak back to political power. As shown on the tweet below, women used the Twitter space to openly confront power, and demand action, beyond verbal promises. The tweet below and the next one that follow express outrage in two ways. Firstly, they recognise that gender-based violence has been debated in the South African context for a long time. Secondly, they recognise that the solutions to it have either been non-existent nor insufficient. But beyond these two points, it is also worth noting that the tweet below (Fig.  7.1) comes from one of South Africa’s famous women musicians. This shows how twitter, as a platform, united women in outrage, and provided a space on which their rage and its expression found a common purpose. The hashtag was also a space where women expressed outrage at rampant violence against women and mobilized for offline vigils against violence. For example, some very common tweets that expressed this anger included the following (Fig. 7.2): As Lindgren (2013) noted, one of the essential purposes of social media platforms like Twitter is to coordinate both online and offline activism. This use of the hashtag confirms similar uses of Twitter during the Arab Spring (Comunello & Anzera, 2012). The difference is that, during the Arab Spring, authorities attempted to suppress these platforms (Comunello & Anzera, 2012), to make them less effective in mobilizing the masses against authoritarian regimes. In South Africa, there is no evidence that the ruling elite attempted to suppress or censor the hashtag. In fact, the

Fig. 7.1  [Redacted] (2019, October 9). (We need practical solutions from our leaders @IAmNotNext [Tweet]. (All identifiers were removed to protect the Twitter account’s privacy)

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Fig. 7.2  (I don’t want to die with my hands up @IamNotNext [Tweet]. https:// twitter.com/gorgeous_zee_/status/1170288582541619202?s=20&t=83hWVg KGlSiEC4ajLij6kg. (The face has been covered to protect the privacy of the woman)

then Minister of Women Affairs in the South African government, Bathabile Dhlamini, tweeted in support of the march. DeLuca et al. (2012) noted a trend, where the mobilization of activists begins on social media, rapidly connecting disparate individuals and driving them onto the streets. Thus, as Chadwick and Howard (2008) observed, activism can easily be realized into a potent political force through online mobilization, which often syncs neatly with offline agendas. #IamNotNext played the same role in the South African context. As the tweet below shows, in the process of mobilizing women, it also furthered other discourses of empowerment, and the end of women’s

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stigmatization, body shaming, and other forms of humiliation, trivializing and silencing of women that have always been at the center of the struggle for women’s emancipation. And as the tweet below shows, the debate for women emancipation for some women activists, is intrinsically linked to other forms of oppression, like the oppression through religion. The tweet below is forthright about this (Fig. 7.3): Twitter, as evidenced above, gave women the power to question their status in South Africa’s society, and in addition to this, to question the architecture of that same society which produced spaces (like the religious space demonstrated on the tweet above), to oppress them. Two preferred ways of communication on the hashtag were the use of rhetorical questions and reference to motherhood. For instance, the two

Fig. 7.3  (Yes, we will not act like this didn’t happen @IamNotNext [Tweet]. (The face has been covered and all other identifiers were removed to protect the woman’s privacy and the Twitter account’s identity)

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tweets below show how women used rhetoric questions as a discourse strategy in communicating their outrage against violence, and the next one shows how women activists made reference to motherhood. Some users asked how long abuse by men was going to be tolerated, while others questioned whether men did indeed care about women. Harris (1997) noted that when used in everyday discourse, devices like rhetorical questions achieve two main discoursal objectives: They prove emotions, and hence are often used in serious and sensitive conversations; and they make persuasive argumentation from the speaker’s perspective. There was reference to the end of the “rainbow nation.”2 Twitter users questioned rhetorically whether the post-apartheid nation had a place for women. They further questioned whether freedom after apartheid was meant for women as well. Overall, these rhetorical questions raised deep misgivings by users about what freedom means for women in South Africa, and the overall construction of the “rainbow nation.” Other common discoursal tropes included reference to motherhood. For example, some users appealed to everyone to realize that “women were mothers who deserved respect from everyone.” Reference to discourses of motherhood, as illustrated on the tweet below, was arguably meant to appeal to notions of respect with which mothering is historically associated (Verseghy & Bradford, 2018). Mothering “provides said or unsaid meanings about bodies, and how those bodies [should be respected by others] … managed … and in so doing … [carry] … notions of value” (p. iv). Discourses of motherhood on the hashtag spoke back to the dominantly masculine view of the female body as an “object” of (sexual) pleasure and fantasy that could easily be disposed of. One of the tweets that violently opposed this “sense of entitlement’ to women’s bodies by men became a rallying point of women’s activism in this period. It was expressed in the following posts on the hashtag (Fig. 7.4): Thus, the hashtag’s activism in this context spoke back against structured and institutionalized forms of oppression and prejudice that often lead to violence against women. In this manner, the hashtag’s activism brought to light the daily struggles of South African women against violence. There are, however, inherent contradictions in the way this anti-­ violence discourse was articulated on the hashtag. While on the one hand, 2  South Africa is often referred to as the Rainbow Nation, signifying that it has people of many colors, but remains one nation.

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Fig. 7.4  A woman is not written Braille) @IamNotNext [Tweet]. (The face has been covered and all other identifiers were removed to protect the woman’s privacy and the Twitter account’s identity)

some women appealed to “motherhood,” other users attacked the very concept as a perverted societal expectation that every woman wants a man in order to be/become a mother. This attack, it can be argued, represented the shift of the hashtag from just being a platform for online mobilization to an often radical mobilization against masculine ideologies that entrap women. In the process of mobilizing and fighting entrenched masculinity that often leads to violence, the hashtag was polarized. The next two sections of this chapter demonstrate how discourses on the hashtag became weaponized and fragmented. The Polarization of Women’s Online Activism In the previous section, I explored the appropriation of the hashtag for online-offline mobilization, and as a platform to express outrage against violence against women. In this section, I demonstrate that discourses on the hashtag became increasingly polarized. When online discourses are

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polarized, it has the detrimental effect of trivializing the cause of women’s activism, and backgrounding, instead of foregrounding, society’s collective response to violence against women. When discourses are polarized, they become negative, permeated by partisan antipathy and displaying high levels of animosity. Polarized discourses often manifest themselves in individualization and dissent in activism (Barberá, 2019), and they segregate along ideological cleavages which make consensus and rational (dis) agreement almost impossible (Barberá, 2019). Language is often charged and often divided between “us and them” (Masroor et al., 2019). Polarized discourses were a characteristic of #IamNotNext. These discourses were often a culmination of rancor among contributors on the hashtag. In the following example, an edited version of Twitter statement by the Ministry of Women Affairs one month before the protest was liked and retweeted many times on the hashtag on the day of the protest. While on the tweet it is not clear who edited it, the ultimate result of this tweet, arguably, was that it shifted the blame on men. The edit below shifts the blame for abuse on men, and also blames men’s silence for the perpetuation of culture of abuse. It is undeniable that the majority of the abuse on women have been perpetrated by men. But, discourse is not only about what is said, it is also about what is left unsaid. For instance, the editor of the tweet below (Fig. 7.5) backgrounds abusive same sex relationship as well. More so, the power of the women’s voice in speaking out is deleted, in order to emphasise the centrality of men in the whole discourse. But on the other hand, the edits (as shown on the widely shared tweet above) show how activists were taking the war against violence on women directly to men. Thus, women’s online activism adopted multiple trends and patterns that moved beyond mere expressions of rage to active engagement with men. However, in so doing, some activists on the hashtag made use of dehumanizing discourses, such as in the following example (Fig. 7.6): The tweet above does not address the fundamental issues of men’s violence against women. Rather, it takes away civility from the online discussion, by “weaponizing” it with insults. In the process, the tweet can easily trigger “shouting matches” between, and among participants. This opens men to the criticism that they are skirting over the issue of women abuse. However, it needs to be pointed out that these polarizing discourses cannot be attributed to a specific gender, considering how Twitter allows participants to hide their real identities. They could easily have been posted by anyone. Avraamidou et al. (2021) noted that hashtags can be hijacked

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Fig. 7.5  South African Government [@Government] (Violence and abuse against women have) @IAmNotNext [Tweet] https://twitter.com/hashtag/ IAmNotNext?src=hashtag_click

by opposing groups, opening them to voices not aligned to the original cause. It can be argued that this was rather a rhetorical form of violence that replicated, in discourse form, the violence that some men were perpetrating on women. There is no doubt that women’s activism had to speak back against this violence, but hijackers of the hashtag, be they men or women, resorted to violent and humiliating rhetoric that represents a troubling descent in the tone of online activism. The polarized discourses kept the discussion in a discursive cycle that hampered free, evidence-­ based, policy-lobbying debates. The effect was that women’s activism was, in some instances, robbed of rational deliberation and activism. For example, one activist tweeted “one rapist, one bullet.” References to bullets represent an expression of violence that consequently polarizes discourses.

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Fig. 7.6  Men will humiliate you) @IamNotNext [Tweet]. (All identifiers were redacted on the tweet to protect the privacy of the twitter account)

The tweets also demonstrated a preference for the use of certain pronouns. For example, collective pronouns such as we, our, us and they, and personal pronouns such as I. Some of the examples on the hashtag include the following tweets: I don’t feel safe walking in the streets, in our own homes and at work #StopRapingUs If you have been sexually abused, pls pls pls never be afraid to SAY IT. May GOD give us the strength to fight together and make our communities safe for us all. Our women have suffered enough and we must put an end to it. #stoprapingwomen #Stoprapingus #Saynotorape We are WOMEN. We’re HUMANS. We deserve to be FREE. We deserve to EXIST. We deserve to be SAFE. We deserve our AUTONOMY. #WeAreTired #StopRapingWomen #StopKillingWomen #STOPRAPINGUS

Collective pronouns in discourse sustain a positive self-presentation by activists—a presentation that was prevalent on the hashtag. Furthermore, these pronouns reflected an inclusiveness among women activists. In discourse, the collective pronoun “we” is associated with collective action.

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The “I” pronoun was equally significant on the hashtag. It is argued that using first-person pronouns gave women on the platform an opportunity to claim and assert their experiences with violence. Thus, opinions and experiences are discussed in the active voice, which emphasizes authority and intimacy with such experience. Discourse analysts (e.g., Mukherjee & Bhattacharyya, 2012) argue that first-person pronouns are empowering ways of using discourse to share real-life experiences. The hashtag, therefore, helped women connect their private experiences and emotions on the public realm. On the other hand, these pronouns can be understood as polarizing strategies of (positive) self-presentation (Masroor et  al., 2019). On the same hashtag, men are represented by the distancing pronoun “they.” The use of such distancing linguistic devices creates a polarizing negative other-­ presentation (Masroor et  al., 2019). In addition, the preference for the pronoun “us” creates further polarization because, “[It is] used to defy itself by blaming the other, hence, it brings a negative presentation of the other” (Masroor et al., 2019, p. 11). This was a logical culmination considering how emotional women abuse issues are in every society. This should help us see the importance of the hashtag for building a collective movement that utilize digital platforms’ affordances to shape the modalities of activism and drive social interaction and change. “One Rapist One Bullet”: Weaponizing Women’s Digital Activism The weaponization of social media platforms has been defined as a practice through which individuals and organized groups—states, terror groups, religious groups, political parties and many others—use social media platforms to influence and shape perceptions, attitudes and behaviors of people usually through unscrupulous dissemination of falsified information (Nielsen, 2015). Weaponization entails both disinformation and misinformation, “… [through] mobile and computer technologies [on] social network media, [by] tech-savvy digital natives [to] … create a potent mix influencing the character of [debates]…cause suspicions within movements…and divide them” (Nielsen 2015, p. 75). There was a significant amount of polarized discussion on the hashtag. These polarized discussions tended to spread mis- and disinformation about actors, in order to shape public opinion about others. It should be noted that these polarized discourses cannot be attributed to women, as anyone can post on a

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hashtag. What I need to do here is to explore the overall consequences of such discourses on the women’s movement without pointing fingers at any particular group. For example, it should be noted that some posts became an elaborate disinformation campaign on the hashtag. For example: South Africa cabinet has agreed to revive death sentence in South Africa… Our Children and Women are not safe at all … and our Justice system is failing us. Death sentence in South Africa has been passed on the 5 men who raped a 5-yr old in PE … men no longer safe at all …

This was disinformation. For a start, South Africa has no death sentence in its constitution, and prior to these tweets, the country’s executive had made it clear that there were no intentions to bring back the apartheid-era law. Weaponization also implies using social media for purposes other than the original aims (Nielsen, 2015). The tweets above constitute weaponization in the sense that they use the hashtag to become “super-spreaders” of misleading information. It is understandable that women were speaking resistance, indignation, and justified anger; They were rebelling against an ethical transgression of which they have been long-standing victims. The hashtag “created an affective digital feminist space” (Mendes et al., 2019, p. 4) which, as an assemblage, was appropriated for several purposes. First, it was used to name and shame perpetrators of violence against women. Users of #IamNotNext called this practice “naming and shaming.” Good examples of tweets that “named and shamed” perpetrators on the hashtag include the following (Fig. 7.7): A tweet like the one above shows how women were no longer apologetic and were “fighting back” against this rampant culture of abuse. Therefore, one can argue that hashtag activism emboldened women to confront a culture that had permeated their lives, and somehow became “normalized.” Another example of such a tweet on the hashtag is the following (Fig. 7.8): The tweet above shows how online spaces have emboldened women not only to speak out, but to name and shame their abusers. It also highlights how women are willing to use online spaces like Twitter to confront abuse faster than formal institutions like the police or the courts would do, by naming and shaming alleged perpetrators outside institutional confines. Thus, as Mendes et al. (2019) noted, hashtag activism goes beyond

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Fig. 7.7  Naming and Shaming[@ Shamepredators] (Naming and shaming officer from Region) @ IamNotNext [Tweet]. (All identifiers were redacted on the tweet to protect the identity of the person mentioned on the tweet)

Fig. 7.8  Naming and Shaming [@Pedro] Met in Durban. He was there on business). @ IamNotNext [Tweet]. (All identifiers were redacted on the tweet to protect the identity of the person mentioned on the tweet)

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mere expression of anger. Hashtags give activism an opportunity to document harassment, sexism, misogyny, challenge a rape culture, and share stories and experiences about rape and resisting rape. This ability of Twitter, as an assemblage, to foster connections for women and to offer platforms of solidarity for women’s organizations should be lauded. “Naming and shaming” admittedly leaves perpetrators of violence against women no place to hide. At the same time, as an approach to fighting violence against women, it nonetheless has dangers, such as the often faulty generalizations (Nielsen, 2015). In this case, the generalization might be that all men are collusive in the perpetuation of violence against women. Also, the faulty conclusion might be that men could therefore not be part of the solution. But evidence points otherwise. When the hashtag started trending in October 2019, there was also a correspondingly trending hashtag championed by men, #NotInMyName. This shows how much men have been and can still be part of the solution, as much as some are the problem. The overall consequence was the rapid spread of stereotypes that debased all men as assailants. Extremist views and inflammatory expressions found space on the hashtag. Weaponized activism, as it increasingly became on the hashtag, paradoxically invited prejudice and falsehoods by stoking popular (but justified) anger, and clouding informed and rational policy debates. One cannot underestimate the importance of women’s “naming and shaming,” which emboldens society to confront real perpetrators, but these practices should not be performed in ways that deepen and perpetuate the “us vs them” dichotomies between men and women.

Discussion and Conclusion This chapter sought to answer two questions: In what ways was the hashtag #IamNotNext appropriated for online activism by women in South Africa? What kind of discourses did the hashtag create as women organized and mobilized collectively on Twitter? It was noted that for online women’s activism, Twitter was used for information dissemination, to recruit more women for the march, and galvanize support for the anti-violence cause. The chapter highlights that women’s voices, which had been silent, became unequivocally loud as activism moved online. This is because of the impersonality and spontaneity of Twitter as an assemblage that allows for social formations as actors engage and mobilize on the platform. Furthermore, as an assemblage, the hashtag became part of opinion formation and

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deliberation. The chapter further notes that the presence of many women’s voices, besides well-known local and global celebrities, means that even voices from the periphery participated in this activism. Kay (2020) noted that an emerging trend of women’s online activism, especially Twitter activism, is that it often foregrounds the anger and voices of celebrities, who end up dominating the conversation. Savigny (2020) agreed, noting that there is a pattern on Twitter activism that revolves around celebrity-based fourth-wave activism, where celebrities hijack a narrative, such as the case of #MeToo. My case demonstrates the opposite, however. There is no evidence that locally based (South Africa) celebrities hijacked #IamNotNext. I therefore, argue that the #IamNotNext activism remained broad based, providing an activist moment for all women, without “drowning out” any particular class of women’s voices. In this instance, therefore, #IamNotNext remained inclusive and even represented “subalternized activism” that provided access to all women to participate. As an assemblage, the hashtag consisted of actors of varying motives and ideals, based on a loose affiliation, although the affiliation was broadly based around one cause—the fight against violence against women. I also noted the difficulties of building a consensus. For example, there were women who wanted “all men castrated,” while others wanted “men locked up and the keys thrown away.” All these were proffered as solutions to violence against women. Thus, while it was central in mobilizing activists, the hashtag could not bring about consensus. As Lindgren (2013) pointed out, it is not easy to build consensus on such platforms. Opinions increasingly become fragmented (Masroor et  al., 2019). Yet it is argued that despite increasing fragmentation, as an assemblage of human participants, #IamNotNext was able to shape women’s activism in the South African context and set  a media and government agenda on violence against women. It is instructive to note that on the day of the march, when the women handed their petition to the South African President, they were also able to extract concessions: The President immediately announced moves to amend the constitution to make laws against violence effective. The chapter demonstrates the dangers of online activism as well. As demonstrated, there were voices that hijacked #IamNotNext to perpetuate prejudice against women by weaponizing and polarizing the platform. Gouws and Coetzee (2019) noted that one of the dangers of online spaces is that they can be hijacked by uncivil voices with a radically different agenda that dilutes the original one. On #IamNotNext, like any other online platform where people hide through anonymous tweeting, it is not easy to pinpoint the sources of these phantom uncivil voices. These may

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have been conservative masculine voices that sought to divert attention from the largely massive groundswell of support for the women’s movement that #IamNotNext created, by disparaging women’s activism. I note that on this hashtag, these radical and uncivil voices attempted to create a vast chamber of online conversations and argumentation that spread hate against women and men, indoctrinated and echoed ideologies that were contrary to the original ideals of the hashtag, which were to coordinate women’s voices again violence and generate a society-wide response. What we saw on this hashtag was an attempt by such voices to dominate the repertoires of action, shift attention from the original course, and use it as a space to attack others in deliberately choregraphed ways. In my view, the intention of weaponized and polarized discourses was to make activists lose sight of what matters in the society they share. This chapter adds to the emerging literature by a careful exploration of the South African case. The study argues that the #IamNotNext hashtag became a focus for online mobilization in preparation for offline interactions such as physical protests by women. However, as the hashtag became a central point for activism against rape and other forms of women abuse, it became radical and militant, challenging stereotypes against women, patriarchy, and other practices. The hashtag also challenged the adequacy of South Africa’s laws in protecting the rights of women. The study concludes by noting that the hashtag became a central point for the conscientization of women on broader gender-related issues, and hence, became a focus for renewed activism for women’s rights in post-apartheid South Africa. By focusing on one particular hashtag, the chapter leaves a number of research gaps that future research might fill. For example, how women activists appropriate online platforms other than Twitter is a lacuna future research could fill. Furthermore, there is still little research on online women’s activism in other countries on the African continent.

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CHAPTER 8

#NoIsNo. Shaping Public Debate on Rape Culture and Sexual Assault in Spain through Social Media Elisa García-Mingo, Patricia Prieto-Blanco, and Silvia Díaz-Fernández

Introduction This book chapter explores how social media users and feminist cyberactivists used Twitter and other social media platforms to challenge rape culture and gender stereotypes present in the Spanish legal system. Our

E. García-Mingo (*) Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected] P. Prieto-Blanco University of Lancaster, Lancaster, UK S. Díaz-Fernández Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wiesslitz (ed.), Women’s Activism Online and the Global Struggle for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31621-0_8

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analysis focuses on the case of “the Wolf Pack”1 (TWP), a notorious case of gang-rape that took place in Spain in 2016 and propelled a heated debate about social attitudes toward sexual violence. Hundreds of thousands of Spanish women took to the streets in protest over three years (2016–2019, from the moment of rape to the second sentencing) flooding streets with chants and social media with hashtags such as #IDoBelieveYouSister, #NoIsNo and #tItIsRapeNotAbuse. In April 2018, the ruling handed down by the Provincial Court of Navarra established that the victim had been abused, not raped, determining that there had been no violence involved. The court’s decision brought women to the streets across the country in a wave of widespread indignation that lasted weeks, if not months. A year later, the Supreme Court sentenced the five assailants to 15 years in prison, completely reversing the sentence of the Provincial Court of Navarra. TWP was fought in the courts, in the streets, and online, propelling an unprecedented social debate that ultimately led Spain to join other European countries (e.g., Denmark, Sweden)2 that define and limit consent in their legislation under the premise that only yes is yes. The social hype was seized by the Spanish socialist party, which briefly after starting their mandate in 2018, convened a group of specialists to review the Criminal Code and address the growing social unrest. Since then, experts and politicians have been working on a draft of the Organic Law of Comprehensive Guarantee of Sexual Freedom, known as the Only Yes-Is-Yes Law, which focuses on the consent of the victim. Our holistic research of the #IDoBelieveYouSister movement draws from literature on collective action frames (Rapp et  al., 2010), hashtag feminism (Horeck, 2014) and anti-rape communication (Rentschler, 2014). By following #IDoBelieveYouSister ethnographically (Bonilla & Rosa, 2015), we explored the roles of digital technologies in contemporary feminist activism (Fotopoulou, 2017), digital cultures of support between women (Thrift, 2014), feminist counter discourses against rape (Shaw, 2014) and in anti-rape communication (Retschler, 2014). We built our research of #IDoBelieveYouSister on the backbone of recent Spanish scholarship addressing the TWP case and the related cyber protests, 1  The name of the case is due to the nickname that the five assailants gave themselves in a WhatsApp group that they used to brag about sexual harassment of women. 2  Also see https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2020/12/consent-basedrape-laws-in-europe/

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including a study of the dialogical relations between the feminist movement and political agents on Twitter (Larrondo et  al., 2019; Núñez-­ Puente & Fernández Romero, 2018), and of Twitter’s potential to spread social meanings attached to the case and to contribute to the active construction of change knowledge (Idoiaga Mondragon et al., 2019), and the relationship between digital participation and incivility (Robles et al., 2019). In light of our analysis, this paper argues that the #IDoBelieveYouSister movement was successful in propelling/effecting social change because it: (a) symbolically condensed trust in the victim and social saturation regarding victim-blaming in cases of sexual violence in Spain (Núñez-Puente & Fernández-Romero, 2018); (b) encouraged a collective sense of support, empathy (Turley & Fisher, 2018), and sisterhood based on the creation of networks of self-defence (Rapp et al., 2010), and; (c) made a traditionally niche feminist cause accessible to a larger audience (Eagle, 2015) through a discussion of key issues such as #PatriarchalJustice and consent (#NoIsNo), and contributed to the local debate about consent. In a previous article, we discussed the performativity of hashtags to create affective unification between social media users and giving support to rape victims (García-Mingo & Prieto Blanco, 2021). In this chapter, we highlight the third aspect of the social movement: its capacity to transform socio-­ political life through actions that transcend social media, in this case, by shaping the debate on rape culture and sexual assault in Spain. A Methodological Note: Toward a Hashtag Ethnography Hashtag ethnography is both an approach and a set of methods employed to examine how and why digital activism is so notable in certain social groups (Bonilla & Rose, 2015) and in relation to some causes. Hashtag ethnography proposes to understand hashtags as performative (Bonilla & Rose, 2015), socially constructed artifacts that are inserted in  local cultures and concrete narrative frames. Postill and Pink (2012) also understand hashtags to work performatively, and they argue that hashtags facilitate the experience of being in a digital crowd, and allow researchers to move across social media environments and to research the social formations around a focal object (Caliandro, 2018). Our work on #IDoBelieveYouSister aims to understand the social formations around it. In other words, we explore a socio-digital object of study: a hashtag landscape (Carpenter et al., 2018) that emerged in a concrete sociohistorical moment to fight against sexual violence and rape culture.

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What is radical in Bonilla and Rosa’s (2015) work is that they conceive hashtags as mediatized places that can be considered field sites; Therefore, it is possible to conduct hashtag ethnography. Hashtag ethnography is an analytical proposal consisting of three analytical tasks: considering, analyzing, and understanding the variety of uses that users make of a concrete hashtag. It is thus an invitation to transcend quantitative analysis in order to understand the social practices and sociabilities that underlie the use of hashtags, which in recent years have become one of the most complex and polysemic communicative practices. In our study, we consider the hashtag landscape as a field, and we intend to approach it in all its complexity, writing extensively about it, trying to understand socio-cultural practices that take place in the field, including the use of hashtags, the interpretative framing that a hashtag landscape can create in a community of users, and its performative capacity to alter social life. Through analysis and interpretation, we aim to contribute to the understanding of current cyberactivist practices, and how these intersect with vernacular (cyber)practices in the concrete sociohistorical moment of TWP. We observed that feminist (cyber)activism is strongly rooted in local needs, vernacular language, and traditional activist sociabilities, even when it may employ a global repertoire of practices and narratives. To conduct our hashtag ethnography we conducted API-based research (Rogers, 2013) and participant observation in online media (FB groups, Twitter, websites) and offline environments (demonstrations, talks.). Our API-based analysis included quantitative and qualitative analysis of our hashtag landscape, composed of 101 hashtags and 6,595 tweets and retweets that were extracted from Twitter, retrieving all the messages posted in the week of June 21–29, 2018, which is considered the most active period of online and offline protests concerning the WPC.

A Traditionally Niche Feminist Cause is Made Accessible to a Larger Audience: Understanding that #itisnotabuseitisrape and Tweeting About Rape Culture A recent analysis of cyberactivist actions against sexual violence in Spain (including Facebook, Websites, Twitter) revealed that digital communication has become a successful ethical and political arena for interventions to fight against sexual violence and rape culture (Sádaba & Barranquero,

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2019). In this context, not only cyberactivists, but also social media users, who had until then never been involved in the niche debate on gender justice, participated in the Twitter debate about rape culture and the debate on differences between rape and abuse. This overwhelming participation evinced a degree of self-development, learning, and commitment that had not been seen before June 2018, when Twitter was flooded with thousands of messages of this kind. In the first place, social media users joined the #IDoBelieveYouSister conversation on Twitter mainly to show their rejection of the judicial process, and to show solidarity with the victim. However, the conversation evolved into a form of feminist consciousness as women started to discuss a plethora of concepts, ideas, and debates (sexual abuse vs aggression, sexist institutions, debate about consent) that were new for many of the users, who started to acknowledge that all kinds of violence against women were structural rather than personal (Mendes et al., 2019a). In fact, after this moment of affective unification (Stage, 2013), the hashtag landscape turned into a virtual arena of debate where the differences between assault and abuse were discussed (#ItIsNotAbuseItIsRape). This, in turn, precipitated a more public debate about the regulation of consent in the Spanish Criminal Code (#noesno). Núñez-Puente and Fernández Romero (2018) and Idoiaga Mondragon et al. (2019) extensively discussed the discursive production on Twitter in relation to the #IDoBelieveYouSister movement and how it challenged the hegemonic frames of representation of gender-­ based violence Núñez-Puente and Fernández Romero (2018). We argue that users not only defied the hegemonic frames, but that Twitter provided a platform to engage in a deliberative process that led to a shared understanding of the problem (Rapp et al., 2010). So, in describing “a virtual arena of debate where issues were discussed,” we imply that hashtagging behavior opens a space of discussion, which is emplaced through the contributions of feminist cyber activists and non-activist Twitter users. Protests, displays of solidarity, and debates also took place on the streets of the Spanish state. The space of the movement involved multiple settings; However, we argue that the ever-growing complexity and ideological density of the Twitter conversation about the TWP case enabled the social movement to play a genuine transformative role in the social debate about sexual violence in Spain. The Twitter conversation about the TWP case had a pedagogical effect not only on digital users, but on Spanish society. The digital and the analog echoed each other, amplifying their impact, and promoting an in-depth debate. Other authors, who

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have pointed out that feminist digital content can have a pedagogical function because readers are exposed to feminist ideas and critiques they may have not encountered in their daily lives (Keller, 2015), have in fact defined Twitter as a “pedagogical platform” (Mendes et al., 2019b). In our case study, after a learning phase, Twitter users engaged in a discussion that became theoretically and ideologically thicker when they addressed “rape culture,” “institutional misogyny,” and “patriarchal justice.” From our point of view, the success of the #IDoBelieveYouSister movement sparked the debate about the legal treatment of rape and its connection to rape culture in Spain. The initial thick conversation about the legal treatment of rape effectively became a feminist “legal school” for Twitter users. The technical differences between abuse and rape in the law, as well as the difference between violence and intimidation, were problematized in Twitter conversations. Niche debates and specialized language were actively used by digital publics that were previously unfamiliar with the legal interpretation or implementation of the Istanbul Convention.3 Here, we observed how lobbying for an amendment of the Criminal Code jumped from technical feminist circles (such as Themis and Asociación de Mujeres Juezas) to the mainstream digital community via Twitter conversations. From this point onward, users referred directly to “rape culture” using the term as such or tacitly relating it to components of rape culture. Retschler (2014) theorized about how feminist digital networks are organized around the conceptual framework of “rape culture,” and our hashtag landscape revealed that Twitter users referred to different components of rape culture but did not employ the specific #rapeculture hashtag, as we can see in the following tweets. Following the definition of “rape culture” proposed by Parenti (2005), we coded the tweets referring to different aspects of rape culture (see Table 8.1): (a) acceptance of sexual violence as an everyday occurrence, (b) the relationship between sexual violence and male prerogatives, (c) the connection to patriarchal cultural norms, (d) victim blaming, (e) institutional apathy and reluctance to fight against sexual violence, and (f) fear of stigmatization of victims. As we can see from some of the data, the Twitter users put in circulation many terms, ideas, and debates that were new for many users (e.g., sexual abuse vs aggression, sexist institutions), representing a most salient example of the pedagogical function of Twitter. Idoiaga et  al. (2019) 3

 See https://www.coe.int/en/web/istanbul-convention/home?

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Table 8.1  Elements of the Collective Framing of the #IDoBelieveYouSister Movement Feature of rape culture

Example of tweeta

Acceptance of sexual violence as an everyday occurrence

Relax, wolfpacks, you are free to mingle at your whim in San Fermines’18 and to fulfil your tradition of macho men who have a blast #idobelieveyousister #wolfpackoutofjailjusticeundone #youarenotalone #itsnotabuseitisrape #noisno (June 22, 2018) Relationship between The case of San Fermin is significant because even with graphic sexual violence and evidence, you give them the benefit of the doubt or even affirm male prerogatives that there is no crime, because you feel identified with them, and tomorrow it could be you. We care about all victims #idobelieveyousister (June 27, 2018) Connection to 2018: women fight for the right to go drunk on the street and not patriarchal cultural be raped and judged for it. norms #patriarchaljustice #idobelieveyousister #powerfulwomen #wewantusfree #wearethewolfpack (June 29, 2018) Institutional apathy Women suffer a second rape when they report, the courts help and reluctance to rapists to denigrate us. The absence of a yes should be enough fight against sexual #youarenotalone #idobelieveyousister #itsnotabuseitisrape (2018, violence June 27) Victim blaming You are not going to shut us up, you are not going to lock us up, we are going to continue occupying the streets before a justice that blames the victims and protects the executioners#idobelieveyou sister #stoppartriachaljustice (June 22, 2018) Fear of Hopefully, this pushes us to talk, to stop being silent forever. Our stigmatization of silence only protects our aggressors. Talking empowers us. victims #idobelieveyousister #tellit #cuentalo #wearethewolfpack (June 25, 2018) Source: The authors, following Benford and Snow (2000) and Kozman (2017) a Following Markham and Buchanan (2012) Recommendations from the AoIR Ethics Working Committee (Version 2.0) we have excluded any identifiable details in order to protect users’ privacy

studied this case through Social Representation Theory (SRT) and concluded that the discourse on Twitter regarding the TWP case created a digital space of participation where debates took place, both on rape culture generally, as well as on certain topics such as sexual harassment, rape myths, lad culture or toxic masculinity, which until then had been mainly addressed in feminist environments.

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Framing the Issue Online: From #waronwomen to #noisno One of our main statements is that the hashtag landscape that we ethnographied provided digital publics with a new framework to conceptualize and think about sexual violence, rape culture, and gender stereotypes in the Spanish legal system. To do so, the social movement engaged in a process of online framing of the events, which included negotiating a shared understanding of the problem, taking the web, and building solidarity among protesters, as explained by Rapp et al. (2010). However, for our case study, we argue that social media users followed a rather different sequence: first, they took up the web; second, they built solidarity among protesters (García-Mingo & Prieto-Blanco, 2021) and, finally, they engaged in the negotiation of a shared understanding of the problem. We state that the online framing of the events was produced through the social practice of hashtagging, which in turn rests on the specific affordances of Twitter. The process allows users to propose frames through hashtags, understanding the frames as “a certain pattern that is composed of several elements, where elements are framing devices that refer to previously set components and not the simple appearance of words” (Kozman, 2017, p. 779). In the specific case study of TWP, the online framing of the events was both generic and specific. The generic framing of the events, reflected in the use of general hashtags such as #feminism #genderviolence #sexualviolence #patriarchy and #itiswar, linked the TWP case to the ongoing struggle for women’s rights in Spain (Cobo, 2019), including the more recent massive protests against domestic violence and the now-traditional March 8 women’s marches. This generic framing of the war on women can be divided in four related statements that underlie the social media conversation that we observed through our qualitative analysis: (a) Women have fewer rights than men; (b) Women have less freedom than men; (c) Violence against women is a continuum; (d) Violence against women is a problem that must be solved. The specific online framing of the events is related to the affective unification in Twitter that allowed the #SisterIDoBelieveYou to transcend general ideas of feminism and the idea of war on women and move into spaces of in-depth debate and vindication for specific changes in the current Spanish society. To study the specific framing of the events, we follow Benford and Snow (2000), who point out that collective action frames are

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constructed “as movement adherents negotiate a shared understanding of some problematic condition or situation they define as in need of change, make attributions regarding who or what is to blame, articulate an alternative set of arrangements, and urge others to act in concert to affect change” (p. 615). These are, from our understanding, the elements of the collective framing of the #IDoBelieveYouSister movement (Table 8.2): As stated above, the social media activists and users who engaged in the hashtag landscape that we ethnographied, agreed that there was a problematic situation that was in the need of change, namely the lack of justice for women and the rampant rape culture, condensed in the idea of the war on women, and in hashtags such as #thisiswar and #wearegoingtowin. When trying to make attributions regarding who or what is to blame, it was clear that the problem was institutionalized, namely, located in the patriarchal justice system in Spain. The following tweet evinces this as well as a (perceived) presence of misogyny in other institutions in Spain today. This highly retweeted tweet was posted by the institutional account of the leftist political party @PodemosCMadrid: We are taking the streets this afternoon, #PatriarchalJustice has freed #LaManada. #SisterIDoBelieveYou because we need to expel #machoism from our institutions and society [Authors’ translation]

Table 8.2  Elements of the collective framing of the #IDoBelieveYouSister movement Elements of collective framing

Situation they define as in need of change Attributions regarding who or what is to blame Alternative set of arrangements

Urge others to act in concert to effect change

#IDoBelieveYouSister

Hashtags used

Lack of justice for women End of rape culture

#genderviolence #thisiswar Patriarchal justice #patriarchaljustice Misogynist institutions #WPoutofjailjusticeundone Change the law #noisno Raise feminist #itisnotabuseitisrape consciousness #feministalert #herearethefeminists Unite in the war to come #idobelieveyou Street protest #alltothestreets

Source: The authors, following Benford and Snow (2000) and Kozman (2017)

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In Twitter, users debated and proposed three actions to propel the desired social change: first, raising feminist consciousness, protesting the cited rape case, and using hashtags such as #feministalert and #herearethefeminists, (the latter is one of the most repeated hashtags in the feminist street marches that have been happening in Spain on March 8 since 2018). Second, users advocated a change in the article of criminal law, including the key ideas that there is no difference between rape and abuse (#itisnotabuseitisrape), criticizing how consent was included in the laws, and playing with what has been a motto to criticize impunity of rape and femicide cases in Spanish history: raped or dead (“violadas o muertas”; Valdés, 2018). Some of the key ideas in the content were expressed by Twitter users in the following way: If a woman does not defend herself because fear paralyzes her, it is not rape. This sentence will go down in history for leaving the most unprotected women in court #IDoBelieveYouSister #TheWolfpack (June 22, 2018) #TheWolfpack is not abuse, it is rape, and this is not a sentence, it is a mockery. And then they will tell us that we exaggerated …#NoIsNo #IDoBelieveYouSister (June21, 2018) @LiarlaPardo11 explaining why the accusation has been appealed: because the proven facts constitute what is classified as a sexual assault and the sentence does not contemplate it, thus condemning them for abuse #TheWolfpack #IDoBelieveYouSister #Itisrapenotabuse (June 24, 2018) NO is NO!!! And if you don’t say YES, it is also NO.  Stop injustice … #IDoBelieveYouSister (June 21, 2018) It is rape not abuse. She was penetrated 20 times! #IDoBelieveYouSister #iamthewolfpack (June 22, 2018)

Finally, all the tweeting and hashtagging behavior of the community was intensely addressed to urge others to act in concert to affect change, including cries about unification of women in the war to come, the need to support the victim, and the more specific action of taking part in street protests through the hashtag #alltothestreets and the proliferation of posters calling to action with full details of street protests, such as the following tweets: #Wearethewolfpack these five pigs are #TheHerd. We cannot let them live in peace. We are going to show the judges who freed them that the fight has just begun. #HermanaYoSiTeCreo #AllToTheStreets #ThisIsWar because #ThisIsNotJustice

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You think you have the right to anything, and you do not. Now it is OK. We must speak. # TheWolfpack #IDoBelieveYouSister They want us to be quiet, hence the sentence is shit, trying to victimize the guilty and now this, FREEDOM! Anger and indignation! #ShittyJustice #TheWolfpack #IDoBelieveYouSister #AllToTheStreets

Conclusion: Twitter Users Shape the Technical Debate about Consent Ruling no. 38/2018 of March 20, 2018 in the TWP case has been widely acknowledged to represent a point of inflection in the classification of crimes against sexual freedom in the Spanish Criminal Code (Aguilar, 2020), as diverse social actors took the WPC case as the representative case on which to express their demands for gender equality. Also, judges and jurists were stated to have been astonished by the popular, media, and political reaction to a legal decision. Some legal scholars, judges, and politicians noted the risks of punitive populism when referring to the performance of social media and mass media during notorious cases of sexual assault in recent years in Spain— not only in the Wolf Pack case (2016), but also in two other cases known as the Arandina case (2017) and the case of the Wolf Pack of Manresa (2016). Scholars Gil and Núñez (2018) stated that “under the slogan of the ‘democratization of criminal law’ there is a rejection of the experts and their replacement by uninformed opinion, when not manipulated, based on feelings and emotions” (p. 16). This may be the case of the #thewolfpackwearstoga and #laManadaSonLosJueces hashtags and the chants in street protests, which have been vigorously criticized. However, even these actors responded to the postulates of the social movement of #Idobelieveyousister in their academic work, giving them credit as legitimate actors in the debate. On the other hand, other relevant actors, such as the Association of Women Jurists Themis, stated that Spanish civil society, which was outraged, was exercising its right to freedom of expression and its right to disagree with judicial decisions on the basis of sound criticism, with the aim of contributing to an improvement of the judicial system, and defending the interests of women victims of sexual violence.4 Even in one of the 4  Press release published in 2018 available at: https://www.mujeresjuristasthemis.org/ prensa/noticias/188-comunicado-de-prensa-sentencia-caso-la-manada

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policy papers of the legal association, they used the widely used slogan of #BastaYadeJusticiaPatriatchal to refer to some cases that had been judged with a gender-discriminating approach. As stated above, following the TWP case, a review of the law conducted to determine whether to base rape cases on a woman’s explicit consent to sex. Several European countries, such as Sweden and the United Kingdom, have already changed their laws to define rape as sex without consent. The new bill, the Organic Law of Integral Guarantee of Sexual Liberty, still to be approved by the Spanish Parliament and Senate, is seeking to create a paradigm shift when defining consent, delving into the idea that silence is not consent in any case, hence the only “yes” is “yes”. The new definition is in line with the changes introduced in other European legislation, and follows the spirit of the Istanbul Convention, and the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women. We witnessed this appropriation of language and claims by relevant political actors, not only on Twitter, which has been appropriated by some politics to do virtue signaling (Orlitzky, 2017), but also in their political performance. Carmen Calvo, former Vice President and Minister of Equality stated in a Senate hearing on gender policies said that the protection of sexual freedom for women involved “always believing the victims” and that there are only two ways to formulate consent to having sex: “No is no and yes is yes.”5 Even when the ratification of the Organic Law of Integral Guarantee of Sexual Liberty appeared to be the aim of the #Idobelieveyousister, some feminist legal scholars such as Faraldo (2018) and Acale (2018), who have been key actors in the debate and the analysis of the previous law and the elaboration of the new one, remained alert. For María Acale (2018), no matter how much our law is improved, if measures tackling patriarchy are not concurrently adopted, we will not be able to eliminate the stereotypes and social prejudices that still nest in relevant sectors of society. Meanwhile, Aguilar (2020) highlights the helplessness, injustice, and victimization to which women victims of sexual violence are subjected when they seek justice with judges driven by stereotypes. Some of the doubts expressed by legal experts were issues that the social media users and activists raised throughout the entire process of protest in the #Idobelieveyousister movement. In fact, the #patriarchaljustice 5  Also see https://www.abc.es/familia/mujeres/abci-carmen-calvo-defiende-victimasdelitos-sexuales-deben-creidas-si-o-si-siempre-201812140728_noticia.html

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hashtag was the hashtag most frequently used in association with the main hashtag #Idobelieveyousister, along with other relevant hashtags such as #wolfpackoutofjailjusticeundone. When social media users referred to the issue of “patriarchal justice,” they would do it in two ways: They either expressed their feelings (rage, anger, frustration, shame) toward the system or they reflected on the Spanish legal system, focusing on three issues: (1) culture of impunity; (2) justice being patriarchal; and (3) the connection between patriarchal justice and institutional male chauvinism. Some of the in vivo codes that helped us to understand the feelings of the users were: “The system rapes us” and “I don’t feel represented.” Some of the issues that social media users raised (justice does not include nor represent women; judges have a misogynistic mentality of judges; judges lack adequate training; judges have a primitivistic and conservative mentality) are aligned with those experts who say that it is difficult to modify the culture of interpretation, as we must progress in the training of judges (Faraldo, 2018). For Faraldo, the new law fulfils a function of “social pedagogy” for us: It is simply the final step in a pedagogical process that started long before on social media with a spontaneous tweet. Acknowledgments  We would like to thank our colleagues from the University of Brighton and Universidad Complutense who discussed with us the analytical proceeding and did proof reading of the manuscript, namely Igor Sádaba.

Data Availability Statement The data set used was scrapped using NodeXLPro and extracting information from the two most representative hashtags (#HermanaYoSiTeCreo and #YoSiTeCreoHermana) between June 21 and 29, 2018. The data set used is available by personal email to [email protected] Declaration of Conflicting Interests and Funding  The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research conducted to this article to the Centre for Digital Media Cultures, the Centre for Transforming Gender and Sexuality and the School of Media of the University of Brighton.

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CHAPTER 9

Politicization of Motherhood as a Mode of Digital Activism: The Case of Iran’s Mourning Mothers Gilda Seddighi

Introduction The role that social media play in Iranian social and political activism is often discussed in the context of the Iranian authoritarian political structure, a political structure that systematically censors oppositional voices and journalists (Michelsen, 2018). Many scholars have argued that social media can challenge authoritarian political structures because social media potentially create a space for free expression (Amir-Ebrahimi, 2008; Rajabi, 2015; Sadeghi, 2012) and represent a tool for organizing activism against political suppression (Rahimi, 2011). Drawing from this argument, women’s use of social media for activism has often been seen as challenging the patriarchal norms that the Iranian authoritarian political structure has solidified through legislation (Sadeghi, 2012; Seddighi &

G. Seddighi (*) Western Norway Research Institute, Sogndal, Norway e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wiesslitz (ed.), Women’s Activism Online and the Global Struggle for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31621-0_9

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Tafakori, 2016). For example, the women’s online campaign against compulsory veiling under the “My Stealthy Freedom” umbrella garnered much attention among scholars. It has often been argued that individual acts on social media that challenge gender norms can create a shared sense of collectivity through which the gendered norms of Iranian politics are destabilized (Rahbari et al., 2019; Stewarta & Schultze, 2019). Iranian women’s affective expressions on social media have also been argued to contribute to an expanding public space for women’s engagement in politics (Dabashi, 2010). An example of these affective expressions in the Iranian context is the sharing on social media of love letters written by the wives of political prisoners (Dabashi, 2010). Since women’s expression of feeling toward the opposite sex in the public sphere is not traditionally acceptable, social media have been seen as enabling women’s social and political participation as both a tool and a space of affective expression (Sadeghi, 2012). Women’s online expressions of love and grief are central forms of online activism among Iranian women, especially as an apparatus to galvanize attention against political suppression or to share testimonies. Mothers’ expressions of grief on social media have been critical in creating a shared memory against the authoritarian narrative about political uprisings in recent decades. A similar, albeit socially and culturally different, bearing of witness by mothers has been observed transnationally, such as in Mums United for Black Lives in the US (Cineas, 2020). Contrary to the literature that interprets women’s individual expressions of emotion in the context of the Iranian authoritarian political structure, this chapter explores how the network uses the notion of motherhood as a resource for digital activism and how age, gender, and the status of belonging to a nation-state have affected the shaping of this digital activism. In this chapter, I introduce a case study of the Iranian network Mourning Mothers and its node Supporters of Mourning Mothers located in a town in Norway.1 The network started to gain momentum by means of protest in the aftermath of the Iranian green movement in 2009 and continued as a transnational network through online activism. Mourning Mothers created a tradition of online witness bearing to lives that had been lost or endangered because of political suppression in Iran. The data used herein were gathered through offline and online ethnography and 1  The name of the town was omitted to protect the identity of the activists involved in the node of the network.

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interviews with 13 members of the network and its abovementioned node between 2013 and 2016.2

Theoretical Framework: Gender Norms in Framing Online Expression of Emotion In the context of media and communication studies, affect and emotion have been increasingly discussed in recent years. Specifically, there has been significant attention paid to the economic aspect of the mediation of emotion (Ahmed, 2004) in social and political realms because it creates a space for audiences to foster feelings (Garde-Hansen & Gorton, 2013; Wahl-Jorgensen, 2019). This is especially true on social media sites, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, in which audiences share and produce personal micro acts (Chouliaraki & Musarò, 2017; Murru et  al., 2018; Zarzycka & Olivieri, 2017). Many have attempted to explore how affective practices in media representations may produce modes of intrusion and transformative action (Bennett & Segerberg, 2011; Zarzycka, 2016). An influential work in this landscape is Papacharissi’s (2016) contribution to how public spaces, enabled through digital devices, are undergoing change because of the way in which subjective affective stories are interwoven with objective news. According to Papacharissi and de Fatima Oliveira (2012), this combination of subjective and objective stories creates a sense of connectedness to the network or public space. According to Bennett (2012), this new structure of storytelling in the digital sphere creates a sense of belonging without a common identity. Bennett goes on to argue that while collective actions used to be created based on a common identity in traditional social movements, connected networks are not generated in the same way at present. As research on emotion has increased in many fields, such as audience and political communication studies, it has called into question the binary opposition between rationality and emotion and showed the central position of emotion in social and political life (Wahl-Jorgensen, 2019). Affect is embedded in the “cultural, economic, social and spatial realms of cultural memory and community formations, driving forces behind human rights movements and political dissent against state and emotional geopolitics” (Zarzycka & Olivieri, 2017, p.  530). Therefore, affect in 2

 This study was funded by the University of Bergen, Norway.

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digital activism may reproduce already existing hierarchies (Seddighi, 2014). From a feminist media study perspective, gender is a site of inquiry and agency (Tyler, 2008) in which affect is embedded. Drawing on Butler’s (1999, 2002) works, norms of gender and sexuality not only produce subjectivity but also limit how affect drives forces for solidarity and political activism. As Tafakori (2021) argues, in the context of the Iranian women’s rights movement, affect operates both to enable and to block the recognition of injustices.

Methodology The data introduced here were part of a larger research project I conducted for my PhD dissertation between 2011 and 2017. The dissertation focused on how gender and sexuality norms are reproduced on Iranian social media through the recognition of lives that have been lost or are in danger because of political violence. The Mourning Mothers network became a natural part of the PhD project because it was one of the few well-organized and active Iranian networks working over a long period. The research relied on online and offline ethnography and consisted of 13 interviews with network members. The online and offline ethnography and interviews were conducted between 2013 and 2016. The online ethnography followed Brugger’s (2011) methods of web archiving. Brugger (2011) distinguishes between snapshot, selective, and event strategies of web archiving. While in the snapshot strategy, one harvests a large number of websites or blogs at a specific time, in the selective strategy, the focus is on gathering material from a few websites over a longer period of time. The method of web-archiving in this research followed an event strategy, which focuses on events that correspond to the theme of the research. The online representation of mothers’ engagement in the social movement is the event that the web archiving followed. In this methodological strategy, the researcher pursues the question of how this specific event at a specific time is mediated. It is clear that there is a difference between “found” and “made” data (Jensen, 2011). Although web-archiving presents data “found” on publicly available webpages, the data are considered “made” data because they are contextualized and presented in relation to a specific research interest and ethnographic setting, representing a range of methodological choices (Lomborg, 2012). The images that are introduced in this chapter are a result of this web-archiving process. During the offline ethnography of

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gatherings, some pictures were taken (Fig. 9.3 in this chapter). While the pictures that I have taken show the setting of the offline gathering, the archived pictures are aimed at showing how gatherings are mediated online. The difference between these methods is important to grasp why it is essential to present web-archived pictures in this chapter. This chapter introduces my ethnography of the Supporters of Mourning Mothers located in a town in Norway (SMM hereafter). I have archived the posts on their Facebook page, studied how members communicate about their offline gatherings on the page, and interviewed the active members of the group. The data introduced here rely mostly on these interviews. The interviewees were recruited through snowballing, a long period of field work, and interaction with several groups active in Europe. As I had earlier conducted research on mother-activism in Iran, the contact persons I knew from that research acted as gate openers. Many groups engaging in different levels of activity have worked under the umbrella of support for Mourning Mothers at different times and have created Facebook pages or blogs for their activities. At the time of the ethnography, there were several groups in Canada, the US, and Europe. I focused on the SMM for two reasons: First, like other nodes, this group used the mode of motherhood for their activism; Second, they were seen by the core members of the network as exemplifying groups that were not considered nodes of the network. This indicated a tension in the network, which trigged this case study. The interview guides were open-ended and semi-structured. In my conversations with the core members of the network, the focus was on how the network was initiated, organized, and coordinated. The interview guide used for the administrators of the Facebook pages, which were created as nodes of the network, focused on how they perceived the network and how they were connected to other nodes. The fieldwork received ethical approval from the Norwegian Centre for Research Data (NSD), and I followed their rules and ethical guidelines in AOIR 2020 (Franzke et al., 2020) regarding data security and ethics of research. All informants received written information about the PhD research project, and they were asked whether they were willing to participate in an interview. The informants were told that their participation would be voluntary and that their names and roles would be anonymized. In each meeting, the purpose of the research and the interview process were also discussed. In the meetings, the informants gave consent to participate in the interviews and made decisions regarding how the interview

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should take place. All interviewees’ names are pseudonyms, and their background information were anonymized. The images in this chapter are introduced with permission from administrators of the webpages on which the web-archiving was conducted.

The Mourning Mothers Network Mothers have historically contributed to politicizing their personal suffering and emotions related to loss by bringing them into public spaces (Logsdon-Conradsen, 2011; Reiger, 2000), especially under authoritarian political structures (Bosco, 2007; Taylor, 1997). The Mourning Mothers of Iran brought their personal grief into public spaces. Since the political uprising of 2009, when many who took to the streets to protest Iran’s electoral results were killed or arrested, the mothers of the killed protesters from the uprisings of 2009, 2017, and 2019 have been outspoken about their grief on Iranian social media and Iranian diasporic media (Radio Zamaneh, 2020). Websites, Facebook, blogs, and Instagram have been among the social media used by the mothers’ group in the past decade. The image below is an example of posts that aim to show solidarity with mothers and keep the memory of injustice alive (Fig.  9.1). The image shows mothers of five protesters killed between 1991 and 2021 sitting together in front of some stairs after a gathering in Tehran. The mothers, leaning back on the stairs or on each other, clasp their hands tightly in front of their bodies. One of the mothers has a blanket around her, suggesting that she is ill or weak. Other mothers show caring toward her by holding her body or her hands. The mothers look straight into the camera, as if their presence is proof of witnessing an injustice. On the one hand, the picture conveys a vulnerability that establishes solidarity among mothers. On the other, it shows a form of bravery and consolidation. This picture and many other images of mothers are widely circulated on Iranian social media, as the mothers bravely stand in front of the camera, share their names, and show the grief in their faces. As the image below shows, the mothers are not introduced by their names, but with the name of their killed children; for instance, the mother of Mostafa Karim Beigi. Mourning Mothers became a network of men and women who shared their witness bearing and took part in making the lives lost in political disputes grievable (Nabavi, 2012). The network was initiated in June 2009 against the backdrop of a call to publicly grieve Neda Aqa Soltan, a woman killed in a post-election demonstration. Women and human rights

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Fig. 9.1  Image shared by several mothers’ groups, including the group “Madaran Dortmund”. This is a screenshot of a Facebook post from Madaran Dortmund. The women in the picture are introduced as mothers, and the dates of death and names of the killed protesters are written on the image. From the left: the mother of Said Zinali the mother of Ibrahim Ketabdar, the mother of Pouya Bakhtiari, the mother of Behnam Mahjoobi and the mother of Mostafa Karim Beigi. The dates of death are written at the bottom. From the left: July 1999, November 2020, November 2020, January 2021 and December 2009. The names and faces of these mothers are not anonymized as the mothers are public figures. The author received permission from Madaran Dortmund to reproduce the picture in this chapter

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activists contributed to the network’s establishment. For instance, Mothers of Peace which was “set up [in 2006] to mobilize women against military attacks, nuclear proliferation, and … any actions that could instigate war” (Sadeghi, 2012, p. 133). Hediyeh a middle-aged woman, was one of the network’s founders. Although we met up with each other for research purposes in Europe, we first met in Tehran in 2008, when she was active in several mothers’ and human rights organizations. In 2008, she was aware that the notion of motherhood gave her the status and power to advocate for the freedom of activist detainees (Seddighi, 2009). One of my first questions for Hediyeh was how the network was created. She explained that there are several mother organizations in Iran, such as Mothers of Khavaran. However, those mother organizations are “for family members who would gather in cemeteries and memorial ceremonies. But those who initiated the Mourning Mothers wanted to take a step further and create a network” that went beyond familial relations: After 20 June [2009], the day Neda was killed, we in the movement of mothers thought about how to stop the killings. Whether we had a child in prison, a child who was killed, or neither, we all mourn. We called ourselves Mourning Mothers—not because the network was created by those who lost their children, but because we recognized ourselves as the mourners, since our children were under the threat of being killed, imprisoned, or raped. (Hediyeh)

Hediyeh argued that the grief of mothers who had lost their children in the uprising was the grief of all mothers. The notion of motherhood in the Mourning Mothers network does not necessarily refer only to direct mother–child relationships; Rather, motherhood is an expanded concept. This notion of motherhood in activism is employed as a tactic: It creates opportunities to take part in the network for a larger group of people, both men and women, who are not related by blood to the protesters who have been killed.

Motherhood as a Mode of Digital Activism The Mourning Mothers network started to use blogs only a few weeks after initiating the group. Pedram, a young man, was involved in blogging for the network. In reply to my question of why the network needed a blog, he stated:

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We wanted to archive the news related to the mothers by ourselves. We thought that the news agencies that cover the news would use it in the direction of their political ideologies. We needed to report the news in a way that we could take responsibility [for it]. (Pedram)

Pedram’s comment refers to the difficulties Iranian activists face in raising their voice on traditional media. Severe censorship over traditional media exists in Iran (Khiabany, 2010; Michelsen, 2018). In diasporic media, the news may be introduced within an ideological frame that causes even more suppression of activists in Iran. Pedram pointed out that the blog enabled them to gain control over the framing of news related to their activism. Blogs were considered to be an independent medium in which they shared videos of mothers wearing black clothes, expressing the pain of their grief in cemeteries and at memorial ceremonies, crying in front of the camera, and making speeches and statements about the killing of the protesters. Figure 9.2 presents an example of the images shared on blogs. This image, like other pictures and videos of mothers, shows a cemetery. We can see a grave and the flowers that have been brought to the ceremony in the background. Women in black clothes are the main actors and objects of the picture. Some of these women are sitting close to the grave and showing their sorrow, whereas others stand behind these women and look down. The picture is taken close to the faces and aims to capture identifiable faces of the mothers and show the solidarity that these mothers have toward other families of killed protesters. Hediyeh argued that the blog became important when the group that they had started in 2009 became larger. Several similar groups were created in several cities in Iran, and many support groups were later established in 11 countries in Europe, as well as Canada and the US. Hediyeh described the use of a blog as a mode of communication with other nodes: The mothers in Iran will give a statement. The statement will be published on a blog or website. Then the supporters put the statement on their blog or Facebook pages and share it in their gatherings. (Hediyeh)

Another identified feature of blogging by the activists referred to the blog as a means of creating connections with other activists based on the “independent” framing of the news. In the context of transnational activism, the images, reports, and videos of grieving mothers were reshared so

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Fig. 9.2  Picture taken in 2010 and shared in several blogs. This picture was taken from the blog Hambastegi Madaran (http://hambastegi-­madaran.blogspot. com/2010/). The faces of the women were deleted to preserve their anonymity because only one of the women was a public figure and the other women might not have consented to have their picture taken

that they could be translated into different languages and made accessible across borders. The direction of the content flow of public grieving has not only been from Iran to diasporic communities. Rather, as political suppression heavily reduced the space for gathering in Iran, the gatherings organized by diasporic communities became crucial for the circulation of grief, this time by showing how Iranians in diaspora show their grief and relate to the mothers’ grief. As Hadi, another young man, stated: The purpose of the gatherings [outside Iran] is to make news. The aim is not to bring people to the streets. There is often a gathering on behalf of a community in Iran [that cannot demonstrate because of political suppression]. It is important to take pictures and make a report to share in Iran and outside. (Hadi)

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The online archive of images taken at the offline gatherings in which mothers’ grief and images of political prisoners are shown connects the Iranian space of activism to activism in diaspora. In this way, the archive expands the space of activism.

Gendered Forms of Mothers’ Activism Both inside and outside Iran, mothers’ grief is used as a source for mobilization. Maryam, a middle-aged woman active in one of Supporters groups of Mourning Mothers in Europe, explained this as follows: I saw [on the news] that Sohrab Arabi was killed [in a demonstration in the summer of 2009], and I saw his mother came to protest in the streets. I felt that it had happened to me. I thought I had to show my support. I used to help the youth [from Iran] who came here. I think it is a maternal instinct. (Maryam)

Men and women were both active in the network, resharing the pictures, videos, and statements of the mothers in Iran. During the ethnography, I realized that young men often had the responsibility for blogging and Facebook updates. This became a topic of discussion in the interviews. I asked Hediyeh what the role of men in the network was and why the responsibility of blogging was given to young men when all the activists in the group that initiated the network were women: The boys were very active. Many mothers who joined us told us that they were encouraged to take part in the network by their sons. It was through collaboration with boys that we set up the blog. This was because boys were much better in technical issues. The situation is much better now. There have been some workshops to teach mothers how to use the internet. Now, everyone has an email.

To contribute to the circulation of grief from offline gatherings in Iran to online spaces, where mothers also had control over the framing of the news, mothers became dependent on the technical abilities of the younger generation, especially young men. Hadi is an example of this group of activists who haves been involved in blogging for the network. He explained his role as follows:

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The blog and the website were repeatedly hacked. The blog was taken down several times. But we took it back. I had the responsibility for blogging because I had the ability to hide information. I also had work experience that enabled me to be in contact with news agencies and online campaigns.

I also asked two young women, Somayeh and Bahareh, who were active in the supporters group of Mourning Mothers in Europe, why young women are so active in mother-activism. Like the middle-aged women I talked to, they felt that they could relate to the grief the mothers’ experienced because they were women,. However, for them, it was a long way to become supporters: In Iran, men are much more active in society. In practice, they learn much more than women do. They are bold and have courage. Then I came to Norway, I had to find the courage in me and dare to take part in the [the name of the Mourning Mothers group]. (Somayeh)

The essentialist image of motherhood created a source of mobilization, but the notion of motherhood was expanded to create a network and broad activism in and outside Iran. This has led to new forms of gendered activism. Somayeh and Bahareh, unlike the middle-aged women I talked to in this research, could not draw on mothering as a source of activism. Their account highlights the cultural and social norms that influence women’s experiences in activism, even when it is enabled by online devices and is accessible.

Mother-Activism and Belonging to a Nation-State Iranians in the diaspora established groups in many European, Canadian, and US cities (e.g., Supporters Mourning Mother LA) to support the network through offline gatherings and create online archives for their offline gatherings and activities. The node SMM is an example of these groups, but it differs from many other groups in that it mainly consists of asylum seekers. In the same way that activists’ age and gender unfolded forms of mother-activism, supporters’ social background as asylum seekers

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might unfold other aspects of online activism that are motivated by mothers and conducted in their name. At the gatherings in the town that SMM was located, I observed that all group members wore reflective vests—which are commonly worn by locals during the winter when there are significantly fewer daylight hours. Although their style of dress first appeared local, upon closer inspection, one could observe a drawing of the Iranian flag on these reflective vests (see Figs. 9.3 and 9.4). It caught my eye that the asylum seekers drew the Iranian flag on their clothing when gathering in a town in Norway, although they had sought protection from the Iranian state in Norway. The group held A3-sized posters featuring pictures of Iranian political prisoners. The posters were printed in Persian, English, and Norwegian. I wondered why there was a need for posters in Persian if the group’s aim was simply to communicate with Norwegians in the streets. I also wondered why there was a need for

Fig. 9.3  Picture taken by the author during the offline ethnography in a town in Norway

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Fig. 9.4  Screenshots from the Facebook page of the node SMM, which shows how the members of the group take pictures of themselves during street protests and share them on their Facebook page. To increase anonymity and protect the activists, the author has removed faces from the image. The name of the group and information about the group is removed from the figure. The author has received permission from the administrator of the page to reproduce the image in this chapter

posters or Facebook posts in Norwegian if they were simply for an online archive that connected this group to the network. The group’s Facebook page was launched on April 15, 2012, and at the time of research, all eight of its founders continued to serve as administrators. The group had held a street protest in the town to protest the practices of execution and imprisonment of political activists and prisoners of conscience in Iran. In response to my question to the members of the SMM on why they had created a group linked to the Mourning Mothers network, Farideh stressed the critical role the network played in political activism across political parties. Farideh was a middle-aged woman, with decades of experience as a political activist, who also collaborated with both Iranian political parties in the diaspora and with local political parties: It was because of the cause behind the supporters of the Mourning Mothers that we became a group; its members do not promote any political party or faction. This independence [from political parties] makes communication possible among different groups and motivates us to take part in the activities. We have been lacking a purpose like this. This is the only place in which

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people with different political orientations, such as communist, monarchist, Mujahedin, or socialist get together.

For Farideh, the circulation of mothers’ grieving on social media inside and outside Iran created a sense of community beyond political identity (Bennett, 2012). Like Farideh, Saman, a young male asylum seeker who was involved in blogging for the group and updating the Facebook page, believed that the group’s resharing of mothers’ grief would include asylum seekers in the sense of community: It was important to have a Facebook page to inform all the countries, cities, and groups active in the Mourning Mothers network that we exist, that we collaborate with them, that we repeat their words, and that we show our sympathy (Saman)

For Saman, SMM’s Facebook page facilitated their connection in the network because the group could then like the network’s Facebook pages, receive information and posters, and contribute to an online archive of their offline gatherings. The connection was not limited to group members following each other or linking the Facebook posts; Rather, it allowed them to contribute to the circulation of emotion and grief and to be included in the sense of community even without a shared identity. The Facebook posts not only functioned as a source of information or as a factor enabling the circulation of emotion; They also became a place of struggle to become connected. Online archived pictures of asylum seekers’ offline activism highlighted the struggle for a sense of belonging to a community. As Fig. 9.4 shows, the Supporters of SMM would take pictures of themselves together, in a row, as well as individually. All such photos, which focused on their faces, were archived on Facebook and on their blog. It appeared that the photographic documentation and online archiving were as important as the protest itself. Furthermore, while the group used Facebook to become part of the network, the members’ legal status and engagement in other politics of recognition, such as asylum seeking, challenged how their use of Facebook to archive pictures of their offline gatherings was received by the network’s founders in Iran. During my research (2013–2016), the phrase “those who take pictures of themselves” was repeatedly used in network and social media-based activism. Asylum seekers who participated in various campaigns in Europe and Canada were used as examples of activities designed to strengthen cases of

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asylum seeking in the host country. In this regard, the activism of asylum seekers in the network was of personal interest. During my offline participant observation of their gatherings, Farideh and other members of the group insisted: We are not like those groups who come to the streets for five minutes and take pictures of themselves just to post on Facebook. We are actually standing here. (Farideh)

Farideh’s reply to my question on why they took pictures showed that the members of the SMM understood that their online archive of offline gatherings might be perceived as an act of personal interest outside the initial framing of mother-activism. However, the online archive of the pictures, where asylum seekers often had an Iranian flag pinned on their chest or displayed texts written in Persian, English and Norwegian in offline gatherings, might have been a form of negotiating a sense of belonging to a nation-state, and negotiating the inclusion of members’ online archive in the circulation of mothers’ grief.

Discussion The network of Mourning Mothers follows the tradition of mothers’ politicization of personal suffering and loss (Reiger, 2000). The grief of mothers crying for justice for their children who have been imprisoned or killed during protests has been archived and reshared on the network’s social media. Via the resharing and circulation of mothers’ affect (Ahmed, 2004) inside Iran and across national borders using social media, a network was created. Despite the political suppression and censorship of traditional media in Iran, this enabled the network to create a voice (Khiabany, 2010). However, mother-activism created different, gendered forms of online activism that were shaped by Iranian culture and norms. While it is culturally acceptable for middle-aged women to organize gatherings and act against political violence in Iran (Seddighi, 2009), the chapter shows that, as in many other countries (e.g., Argentina; Bosco, 2007; Taylor, 1997), it is also acceptable in Iran for young men with developed digital skills and experience to assume the primary responsibility for creating online archives, even under the name of mother-activism. The political suppression of hacking or taking down the online archive of the network was seen to justify the role that these young men with high digital skills

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play in the network. On the one hand, the generational digital literacy gap and persistent gender inequality, especially in the political realm, and on the other hand, political suppression gave young men an opportunity to be active in the Mourning Mothers network. While middle-aged women found a resource of activism in their social role of mothering, young women could identify with the negative impact that the persistent gender inequality in Iran had on their political activism. Thus, although the circulation of emotion creates a sense of connectivity, as Bennett (2012) argues, political structures and cultural norms play a critical role in whose emotion is accepted to be circulated and how one can play a role in circulating the emotion. The mothers’ digital activism stands apart from Sadeghi’s (2012) and Stewarta and Schultze’s (2019) examples of women’s activism through social media, in which they envisaged that women’s activism might destabilize gender norms of Iranian politics. As indicated in the chapter, the mothers’ digital activism might increase women’s participation in political events; however, mothers’ expression of emotion on social media will not necessarily problematize gendered norms of politics in Iran. The blog was used by the mothers who initiated the network to assume control over the framing of the activism. The use of social media has arguably expanded public space (Dabashi, 2010). It has also expanded the space of activism by circulating emotion in gatherings inside and outside Iran, as well as online. The supporters reshared the mothers’ pictures, videos, and statements in their social media, which might have had the effect of fostering affect in even larger audiences (Garde-Hansen & Gorton, 2013) in and across national borders. The combination of expressions of objective stories of killing and imprisonment and subjective stories and emotions of mothers who grieve for their children creates a sense of belonging (Papacharissi & de Fatima Oliveira, 2012). Despite the expansion of the notion of motherhood as a mode of activism, gender norms are tightly interwoven with the perception of blood kinship, and biological ties unconditionally legitimize the recognition of political prisoners and lives lost in political conflicts. Because of its implicit association with biological ties, the notion of motherhood creates a reference to the “natural” grief and love as a force for connectivity. Historically, the notion of heteronormative family love as a source for making lost lives visible has contributed to a sense of belonging to a nation-state. This chapter illustrates that the combination of subjective

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and objective stories creates a sense of belonging because affect is embedded in gender and social cultural realms (Zarzycka & Olivieri, 2017). The case of SMM highlights how belonging to a nation-state might have been taken for granted in the mothers’ activism and thus might create limits to the sense of belonging. Drawing on Butler (1999, 2002), it can be argued that while subjective stories and emotion might foster a sense of belonging (Papacharissi & de Fatima Oliveira, 2012), they might also limit subjectivity and belongingness. Although the notion of motherhood and the affect attached to motherhood created activism and a network enabled by social media, gender norms also contribute to the struggle for determining how to belong to a horizontally structured network that is open to everyone.

Conclusion This case study raises questions about the role that motherhood and social media play in creating a sense of connectivity in authoritarian political contexts and diasporic settings. Although the social role of mothering fosters online political subjectivity in an authoritarian political context and might make politically suppressed voices heard, it does not necessarily challenge the gender politics and norms of the country. Whereas the network creates opportunities for supporters to act under the name of Mourning Mothers and seemingly has a horizontal structure, persistent gender inequality and a gender digital gap create a hierarchy of responsibilities and roles in circulating emotion. Gender and sexuality norms—that is, the unconditional love between mother and child—provide the premise for creating online networks and activism, but the same norms limit subjectivity. While the notion of motherhood was expanded in this network to increase inclusion in the activism in their cross-border and cross-ideology activism, there was still a presupposed notion of belonging to a nation-state. The notion of belonging to a nation-state, age and gender contributed to create hierarchies in online activism.

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CHAPTER 10

Mobilizing the Everyday Activist: Digital Communication Toward Action as the Women’s March Advances from Grassroots Activism Kristine M. Nicolini and Sara Steffes Hansen

The Women’s March is an internationally recognized social movement organization (SMO) that was initiated in January 2017 via a Facebook post inviting women to protest the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States of America. The transition from grassroots protest to a more formalized organizational structure has evolved to include a digital communication strategy aimed at mobilizing the everyday activist through collective action. This case study uses a mixed-methods approach focused on both the evolution of the organizational structure and protest participants’ perceptions of and interactions with the SMO’s digital communication strategy. The study examines the balance between

K. M. Nicolini (*) • S. S. Hansen University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Oshkosh, WI, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wiesslitz (ed.), Women’s Activism Online and the Global Struggle for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31621-0_10

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traditional in-person protest and digital activism through collective and connective action to mobilize stakeholders toward an SMO’s desired outcomes and stated accomplishments. The Women’s March SMO has claimed responsibility for many outcomes related to their broad umbrella-based issue agenda in a series of stakeholder emails (Women’s March, 2018, 2019, 2020). The SMO’s accomplishments include mobilizing voters across the nation, organizing local education programs, maintaining the longest running protest movement in the U.S., and digitally engaging volunteers and protesters nationally. While these goals represent a significant demonstration of mobilization toward collective action, one area that warrants further investigation is how stakeholders perceive and interact with the digital communication strategies employed by the SMO.  In other words, where do traditional activism and collective action intersect with digital activism and connective action powered by stakeholder outreach? To address this central question, the chapter examines the structural progression of the SMO demonstrated through the womensmarch.org website, analyzes the outcomes claimed by the organization in a series of stakeholder emails, and incorporates direct protester statements about perceptions of and interactions with the organization’s digital communication.

Literature Review The review of the literature is situated within sociology and broader communication research and begins with social movement organization progression to identify the stages of SMOs at different points in their lifespans. Communication outreach is explored through resource mobilization related to SMO structural stages. Unique aspects of the feminist agenda and digital activism also are examined to understand the role of collective and connective action toward SMO desired outcomes.

Social Movement Organization Progression The formation of a social movement organization (SMO) involves a series of progressive stages originating with Blumer’s research (1951/1995). Della Porta and Diani (2009) offered a more expansive view on the typical progression of a SMO, citing four stages within the process including (a) initial agitation and the formation of a core group of agitators; (b) creation of objectives for action; (c) progression toward formal organization;

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and (d) institutionalization of the SMO as it becomes “an organic part of society and crystallizes into a professional structure” (Della Porta & Diani, 2009, p. 150). In the fifth year since its inception, the Women’s March serves as a modern case study of SMO progression with sustained activism through increasing digital activism strategies. Originating in 2017 when a small group of women organized what has been referenced as one of the largest protests in United States history in response to the inauguration of Donald Trump, the Women’s March has transitioned from a one-day protest into a robust SMO. During the first stage in the progression, organizers cited derogatory comments from the incoming president toward diverse groups as a representation of misogyny, discrimination, sexism, and other moral character flaws. The agitation of the incoming president’s perceived moral character deficiencies was communicated through social media by a core group of activists and served as a call to action to mobilize and protest. Before the protest, the Women’s March created partnerships with other activist groups to leverage diverse networks and communicate on a broader scale. The grassroots efforts to organize and mobilize collective action demonstrated the potential for a national movement centered on women’s rights and built upon intersectionality. Following the first march, the activist group transitioned into the second stage by creating objectives for action including 10 actions for 100 days and community huddles (womensmarch.org, 2017). Using discursive processes, Women’s March organizers identified core “issues” associated with the movement while maintaining a nimble approach situated within an umbrella of “unifying principles” (womensmarch.org, 2017). These overarching ideals allowed the SMO to seamlessly pivot to embrace current issues without straying from the foundational principles upon which the organization was founded. During the years following the initial protest, steps toward formal organization began, representing the third stage of SMO progression. The Women’s March faced controversy in 2017 due to anti-Semitic remarks reportedly made by Women’s March co-chairs Tamika Mallory and Carmen Perez (North, 2018). Recognizing the threat posed by media attention focused on these issues, the activist group took steps to rebuild and diversify the leadership team (Heaney, 2019). In the final stage of SMO progression, the Women’s March institutionalized, establishing a formal structure. The organization achieved nonprofit status in 2020 and formalized the process for partnership requests

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through their website. Additional changes to their leadership structure can be seen over time through the representation of leadership positions, board of directors, and advisers.

Collective and Connective Action Stakeholder action is essential to achieving desired outcomes linked to an SMO’s multi-issue agenda. The Women’s March represents a hybrid approach, integrating both collective and connective action. Bennett and Segerberg (2012) offer three distinct structural approaches. Collective action organizationally brokered networks is defined by a strong organizational approach centered on the distribution of collective action frames designed to mobilize stakeholders toward large-scale action. In such models, social networks are managed by the SMO, and interpersonal networks serve as a mechanism to build relationships to support collective action. The SMO takes center stage in this model while partnerships or coalition building serves as a tool to bridge differences and accumulate and manage resources. Connective action self-organizing networks arise from grassroots efforts by a few individuals and involve little to no organizational coordination. Instead, messages center on “inclusive personal action frames” (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012, p. 19) and rely on large-scale personal access to various communication platforms. Situated between these two organizational models, the connective action organizationally enabled network is categorized by loose organizational coordination of action with social technology outlays where content originates with the organization but is focused on inclusive person action frames. The organization functions in the background in loosely linked networks. The three structural approaches outlined above exemplify how digital activism continues to reshape our understanding of SMOs, many of which continue to shift between organizational models (Chadwick, 2007, 2011) as they adapt to changing digital, political, and societal landscapes in an effort to secure resources. Interestingly, the origins of the Women’s March are situated within the connective action self-organizing network model but have shifted over time to reflect the connective action organizationally enabled network.

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Activist Resource Mobilization, Digital Activism, and Organizational Structure To move forward an agenda focused on multiple issues, activists need to strategically collect and mobilize resources (Heath, 2008, p. 12; Heath & Palenchar, 2009) toward the establishment of a sustainable organizational structure, which may directly impact issue strategy outcomes. These stakes or resources may be directly linked to the power and influence an activist organization holds in relation to issue management, mobilization toward collective and connective action goals, and influence over a specific issue or agenda. The resource mobilization for the Women’s March used an umbrella issue approach centered on a multi-issue agenda and a large network of partnerships (womensmarch.org, 2017). This approach was designed to quickly acquire resources by addressing a variety of issues related to women’s rights and to stay relevant by pivoting to current issues that could become heightened in news cycles, including gun violence in schools, defunding police, and inequities exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital activism is a central component of resource mobilization and the communication of collective and connective action.

Digital Activism Many successful SMOs, including Occupy Wall Street (Leong et  al., 2019), Black Lives Matter (Garza, 2017), and the Women’s March, rely on digital activism, defined as digitally mediated social activism (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012; George & Leidner, 2019; Selander & Jarvenpaa, 2016), to streamline communication strategy and frequency. From the creation of dynamic, informative websites to the dissemination of organizational messaging through curated email lists and social media, the diversity and far-reaching implications of digital activism have mobilized stakeholders to embrace collective action. Digital activism differs substantially from traditional activism (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012; Selander & Jarvenpaa, 2016) due to the possibility of innovative action (George & Leidner, 2019). Furthermore, mechanisms of digital activism, and the resulting impact of such communication, vary “depending on whether one looks at the participant, the SMO, an individual targeted by the

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action, or an organization targeted by the action” (George & Leidner, 2019, p.  2). An SMO’s collective action goals may be realized instead through connective action, or the organization and shared content mediated through information systems (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012). Connective action promotes organizational messages and mobilizes action while personalizing the message to align with stakeholders’ interests. Blending collective and connective action, the Women’s March employs a multi-platform approach centered on an organizational website, stakeholder emails, and social media strategy. Sommerfeldt (2013) provides a detailed list of website resource mobilization tactics that activist groups use to accomplish strategies. Taken together, the activist resource mobilization, communication strategy, and organizational structure toward collective action demonstrated by the Women’s March website over the span of the five years of the SMO’s lifespan provides the background for the first research question. RQ1: How has the Women’s March website communication evolved with its structural progression from grassroots protest to organized social movement organization?

Feminist Agenda and the Women’s March The Women’s March is situated within the modern feminist agenda that historically includes three distinct waves of feminism. The first wave, unfolding during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, centered on the women’s suffrage movement and obtaining the right for women to vote. Second-wave feminism, at its height in the 1960s and 1970s, is often associated with Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique” (published in 1963), the establishment of the National Organization for Women, and an agenda focused on equal legal and social rights (Breines, 2006; Collins, 2002; Crenshaw, 1989; hooks, 1982; Roth, 1999; Silliman et al., 2004; Thompson, 2002). More recent research (Brewer & Dundes, 2018; Moraga & Anzaldúa, 2015; Valks 2008) identifies an important gap in the history of feminism associated with failing to recognize the many contributions of women of color or incorrectly attributing those accomplishments as occurring in the wake of white feminist accomplishments. The presentation of the history

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of the feminist movement in this context has culminated in “an enduring sense of invisibility among women of color” (Brewer & Dundes, 2018, p.  50). Crenshaw (1989) defined the concept of “intersectionality” to communicate and extrapolate the compounding of discrimination. In this sense, second-wave feminism focused only on issues of equality instead of broadening the focus to include the intersectionality of race, class, and other issues that lead to oppression. The third wave of feminism, beginning in the 1990s, centers on viewing women’s lives and choices as intersectional, with a broad focus on how race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender, and nationality impact feminism. Reflecting the third wave of feminism, the Women’s March positioned the initial protest and grassroots activism as representative of all women, citing a mission statement that has remained consistent since its inception: The mission of Women’s March is to harness the political power of diverse women and their communities to create transformative social change. Women’s March is a women-led movement providing intersectional education on a diverse range of issues and creating entry points for new grassroots activists and organizers to engage in their local communities through trainings, outreach programs and events. Women’s March is committed to dismantling systems of oppression through nonviolent resistance and building inclusive structures guided by self-determination, dignity and respect (womensmarch.org, 2021).

The mission statement was quite broad and the fledgling organization was the subject of much criticism in 2018. Critics argued Women’s March leadership did not reflect intersectionality and statements made by some in leadership positions directly contradicted such a claim (Sarmiento, 2020; Stockman, 2018). The Women’s March quickly realized it would have to restructure to align with the current wave of feminism and intersectionality if it wanted to stay relevant and move its issue agenda forward. The unifying principles appeared on the SMO’s website in late January 2018 and have remained largely consistent throughout the lifespan of the SMO.  These principles include: ending violence, reproductive rights, LGBTQIA, workers’ rights, civil rights, disability rights, immigrant rights, and environmental justice. While the issues agenda has remained consistent, the details on the website accompanying each issue have become more developed over time.

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SMO Framing and Outcomes The Women’s March mobilizes resources toward social change (Heath, 1993; Sommerfeldt, 2013) through strategic communication of collective and connective action that allow activists to understand and negotiate meaning in online communication and dialogue to support the SMO agenda. The way that SMOs are structured contributes to the effectiveness of messages to engage participants. SMO leaders can organize resistance through communication with collective action frames, defined as “purposively constructed guides to action created by existing or prospective movement organizers” (Tarrow, 1992, p. 177). Goffman (1974) conceptualized framing as a way to provide meaning to life experiences and activities. In sociological literature, Benford and Snow (2000) built on Goffman’s work to develop the idea of collective action frames that affect individual experiences and drive action based on meanings. In an analysis of framing studies, Snow (2004) notes that SMOs may claim frames as properties of organizations and, at times, their organizational forms may serve as frames as well. For example, framing of the palliative care social movement shifted over several years from a doctor-led illness approach in outreach to a grassroots patient-led approach toward care as a human right (Vijay & Kulkarni, 2012). Website content, social media updates, and other forms of mobile texting and online communication can help bring interested individuals and organizations to support issues and activities for the SMO championing related causes. Digital activism may inspire co-creation (Botan & Taylor, 2004) of meaning among SMOs and their publics as well as framing of issues in word choice and mention of key issues (Xiong et al., 2019). Outreach from SMOs reflecting the issues life cycle, from an initial cause toward a successful advance in results, may relate to its strategic engagement of dynamic networks of individuals and organizations toward issue goals and outcomes (Sommerfeldt & Yang, 2017). Furthermore, successful results or perceptions of outcomes (Gupta, 2009) may impact the organization’s abilities to draw activists, gather funds and other resources, organize structurally, and other important factors for efficacy and growth. Based on the literature for SMO framing and outcomes, activist strategies for collective action strategies and communication may evolve in time with societal issues, progress toward goals, and organizational changes. The activist organization may shift from an initially small group showing resistance to a more structured, professional organization focused on

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achieving set outcomes (Della Porta & Diani, 2009). Communication strategies that mobilize resources (Sommerfeldt, 2013) also identify characteristics of the SMO (Jackson 1982), which may be extended to engagement in digital external and internal communication (Jahng & Lee, 2018) or in addition to digital outreach (Veil et al., 2015). Essentially, the framing of SMO outcomes identifies progress of collective action efforts. RQ2: How has the Women’s March framing of outcomes evolved with its structural progression from grassroots to organized SMO? While collective action serves as a mechanism to drive SMO messaging around desired outcomes, connective action is ignited at the grassroots level. Supported by an individual’s personal, often emotional, connection to the message and fueled by stakeholder personal social networks, connective action ensures the growth of the movement and aids the SMO in reaching more diverse groups of people. The third research question examines how connective action and collective action coalesce around the Women’s March protest experience. RQ3: How did Women’s March protesters interact with digital activism tools in relation to protesting?

Method Given the different perspectives (SMO and protest participants) represented within the chapter, the researchers employed a mixed-method approach to address the research questions posited above. To examine organizational structure progression over the lifespan of the SMO and alignment with key organizational message framing at different points, a comparative content analysis was conducted using several communication artifacts from the Women’s March, including the organization’s website and year-end stakeholder emails documenting outcomes of the Women’s March, from each year of its existence (2017–2021). Observation and context aid qualitative methods such as content analysis for strategic communication (Daymon & Holloway, 2010). Web content was analyzed for SMO progression (Blumer, 1951/1995; Della Porta & Diani, 2009), communication strategies (Jackson, 1982), informational activities, symbolic activities, organizing activities, litigious activities, and civil disobedience activities. Communication tactics (Sommerfeldt, 2011) designed

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for resource acquisition (tangible, intangible, and coalition building) also were identified in analysis. Email communications of documented outcomes from the Women’s March were analyzed for communication strategies (Jackson, 1982) associated with annual accomplishments communicated to stakeholders. Finally, data collected from interviews with Women’s March protesters were analyzed to examine how they interacted with digital activism enacted by the SMO. The Wayback Machine (https://archive.org/web/), an internet archive website designed to build an archive of websites over time, was used to address the first research question pertaining to how the Women’s March website demonstrates structural progression. The archive website provided a mechanism to collect data on the womensmarch.org website over the lifespan of the SMO. Using the first available archive date of the website for 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021, the researchers accessed and scraped content from the site including: homepage content, site navigation, organizational structure, mission/vision statements, unifying principles, and calls to action (CTA) buttons. Data were then compared and contrasted over the five-year period to examine the SMO’s organizational structure changes, issues of importance, development of mission/vision and unifying principles, collective action issues, and CTAs. For the second research question, analysis was focused on Women’s March emails sent to stakeholders since the SMO’s first protest activity in January 2017, to explore organizational structure that may reflect changes in strategies and outcomes. Prior to analysis, the researchers attempted to find consistent documented Women’s March outcomes from a published book in 2018, annual reports, emails, and other official updates such as news releases. This evaluation of artifacts showed inconsistent availability of official updates. This inconsistency may be due to changes in staff and leadership, as well as the prioritization of duties with limited resources. After further evaluation, the Women’s March year-end emails provided the most consistent announcement of outcomes based on issues addressed in the SMO’s activities. The emails were of similar length and sent in late 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 to state what the Women’s March accomplished during the year. Emails were obtained by completing an online form to receive further information and updates from the SMO’s website. Each statement in the emails was coded if it aligned with an activist strategy activity (Jackson, 1982). Statements were checked against other Women’s March emails about the topic from different points within the respective year. Types of coded activities could be compared for different

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points in time for the Women’s March as an organization, from its grassroots year in December 2017 to its more formal organizational structure as of December 2020. One researcher coded the outcomes based on Jackson’s taxonomy (1982), which was reviewed and discussed with a second researcher to ensure consistency. Data collected through interviews with Women’s March protesters were analyzed to address the third research question centering on protester interactions with the SMO’s digital activism. The interviews were conducted as part of a larger exploratory research project on a 2019 Women’s March regional protest in the midwestern U.S. in which seven protesters participated in long interviews (McCracken, 1988) about their experiences. Protesters were approached at the event with invitations for interview if they would share an email address. Based on email responses, seven protesters agreed to participate, ranging in age from 20 to 72 and including six females and one male who identified as Caucasian. Specifically, their interactions with Women’s March digital activism were separated from the larger dataset. Content analysis was conducted on verbatim protester statements that were recorded, transcribed, and examined specifically related to their use of online and social media in interactions for protest.1

Findings The first research question examines how the Women’s March website communication has evolved with the structural progression from grassroots protest to organized SMO.  Using the Wayback Machine website archive tool, the Women’s March site navigation from 2017–2021 was mapped to Jackson’s (1982) activist strategies and Sommerfeldt’s (2011) activist group website tactics. The activist strategy results indicate that symbolic, organizing, and informational strategies were most prevalent, however, how different strategies have been utilized has evolved over time. The symbolic strategy, characterized by “street theater” (Jackson, 1982, p.  215) or protests, aimed at “demonstrating not only where a group stands but how strongly it feels” (p.  215), have remained a focal point for the organization 1  Following Markham and Buchanan (2012), Recommendations from the AoIR Ethics Working Committee (Version 2.0), identifiable details from protesters’ statements were excluded to protect their privacy.

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throughout the duration of the SMO.  The annual protest in January serves as a mechanism to reactivate the everyday activist and refocus efforts on the issues agenda, which has transitioned over time from grassroots protest of the inauguration of Donald Trump, to voter registration efforts, to educational outcomes for future feminists. The organizing strategy initially focused on youth ambassadors as the future of the Women’s March. Over time, this strategy has been used to further voter registration efforts, empower local everyday activists to take action within their communities, build affiliate networks and chapters, and create a future feminist initiative. The informational strategy has evolved as the SMO moved toward a more formal structure. Initially, the focus was on generated news coverage related to activities centered on the annual protest. The 2017 website media page provides a few media statements with a long list of links to news coverage. In 2019, the page evolved to include media statements, opinion pieces, and media coverage. This evolution incorporates additional media relations tools and reflects a more nuanced and sophisticated organizational message and media approach. In 2021, the page consisted of media statements with no direct media contact. The evolution of the page demonstrates a move away from a more informational strategy reliant on media coverage for validity to a formalized process for information dissemination aligning with an organization’s media relations approach. For example, the latest news releases entitled “4 Years of Resisting, Persisting, and Transforming” and “Women’s March on the Soaring Unemployment Rates and Its Impact on Women” (womensmarch.com, 2021) offer SMO position statements and achievements. Iterations of the Women’s March website from 2017–2021 align with Sommerfeldt’s (2011) activism tactics, including tangible, intangible, and coalition-building resources. Tangible resources are primarily collected through donations/fundraising CTA buttons and the online merchandise store. Over time, the number of CTA buttons related to donations increased on the homepage from one to four. Additionally, the online merchandise store evolved from march-specific merchandise only sold at certain times of the year to a fully branded online store offering customizable options year-round. Sponsorships and donations do not appear to be prioritized by the SMO as they are not given space on the organization’s homepage. The intangible resource tactics link to building a strong following of everyday activists and keeping them informed and focused on specific issues within the broader organizational agenda. Tactics related to

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becoming a member and volunteering has consistently grown over time. Language on the website has become more CTA focused, moving from “subscribe to a newsletter” to “join us,” referencing a number of educational, training, and donation activities related to the SMO’s current issue agenda. Volunteer CTAs also have used more active language, moving from “march volunteers” to “super volunteer onboarding.” Action alerts have grown more frequent and encompass a broad range of topics from “defund the police, to “#grabyourwallet,” to “enroll in the future feminist series.” Finally, coalition-building resource tactics have demonstrated a consistent expansion over time. After the initial march in 2017, the website focused on local, grassroots efforts to build “huddles” and engage in “postcard writing” to impact legislator decision-making. In the following years, the Women’s March transitioned to broaden coalitions for youth empowerment, power to the polls, and together we rise. Each of these coalition efforts focused on a specific desired outcome linked to empowering youth to become involved politically, motivating stakeholders to encourage others within their network to get out the vote, and encouraging a broader initiative to move the SMO’s current issue agenda forward through donations and educational activities. During the past two years, these efforts have included an educational focus regarding COVID, a future feminist series focused on educating young women about the history of the Women’s March movement, and formalization of the partnership process to include a step-by-step guide for how to apply to become a partner organization. The transitions over time reflect the SMO becoming an established nonprofit organization with an issues agenda encompassing many different areas that touch upon women’s rights. The expansion of the issues agenda allows for stronger coalition-building efforts and more resource accumulation due to the diversity of groups included in the intersectionality of the Women’s March SMO. For the second research question, outcomes articulated in year-end emails for 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020, were coded individually in a spreadsheet as to how they expressed informational, symbolic, organizational, litigious, or civil disobedience communication strategies. At the end of each of those years, the Women’s March sent one email to its stakeholders to inform them about outcomes or accomplishments for the year and plans for the year ahead. A total of four year-end emails, one for each of the years, was analyzed.

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In its first year, the Women’s March articulated higher symbolic strategies related to protests and marches beyond the large and historic January 2017 marches that kicked off its start as an SMO. Further, this was the year in which the Women’s March outcome language included “our movement must convert this momentum into direct electoral power” (Women’s March stakeholder email, Nov. 28, 2017). Its other 2017 outcome communication related to organizing was stated as “bringing together 5,000 women and allies—seasoned activists and movement leaders, rising political stars… and new grassroots organizers” (Women’s March stakeholder email, Nov. 28, 2017). In 2018, the Women’s March did not use symbolic strategies referencing protests, but instead focused on organizational outcomes, such as “we kicked off the year with our #PowerToThePolls campaign, door-­knocking, and mobilizing voters across the nation” (Women’s March stakeholder email, Dec. 31, 2018). One litigious outcome took credit for the increase in women in national office following the U.S. midterm 2018 elections. Two outcomes demonstrated civil disobedience. The first opposed the separation of immigrant families, to which the Women’s March stated “we responded by organizing the largest women’s-only civil disobedience in U.S. history” (Women’s March stakeholder email, Dec. 31, 2018). The second referenced the SMO’s disruption of hearings for the U.S. Supreme Court nomination of judge Brett Kavanaugh, “an anti-woman and anti-­ affirmative judge” (Women’s March stakeholder email, Dec. 31, 2018). In September 2019, when three founders of the Women’s March stepped down due to anti-Semitic controversy (Sullivan, 2019) and a new board of directors was appointed, outcomes were unlike all other years. Instead of a heavy focus on one or two activities, all five categories were represented, but overall the lowest number of outcomes was mentioned. “Women’s March became the longest running protest movement in the history of the country,” noted one symbolic strategy while “we welcomed a new board of directors—16 powerful, social justice trailblazers who are ready to take this movement to victory in 2020 and beyond,” demonstrated informational strategy (Women’s March stakeholder email, Dec. 31, 2019). In 2020, nine organizing activities made up a significant number of outcomes, followed by two symbolic and one litigious outcomes. This was the year of the U.S. presidential election and the first year for the agenda of the new board of directors. Four years earlier, with the election of Trump, the Women’s March started with a focus on resisting Trump’s policies. Indeed, its biggest outcome for 2020 noted “defeating

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Trump—top accomplishment” (Women’s March stakeholder email, Dec. 30, 2020). Symbolically, outcomes mention protests with “692 sister marches” and the “Jan #riseup march,” while organizationally, the SMO highlighted “21,000 volunteers engaged… 21,668,506 texts sent” as well as outcomes of the “Women defeat Trump text program” and “Feminist Future Webinar Series” (Women’s March stakeholder email, Dec. 30, 2020). Many of the organizing emails mentioned education, such as “we trained thousands of women in direct action, empowering them with the skills to escalate their organizing work in their own communities” in 2018 (Women’s March stakeholder email, Dec. 31, 2018) and “we launched our Digital Defenders program, an online campaign to confront online bigotry and create healthy digital discourse” in 2019. Several outcomes were described with hashtags and digital focus that indicates online activities, sometimes associated with organizing and networking, and at other times connected with in-person protest. Here symbolic and organizational activities appeared interrelated. In terms of collective action, outcomes often were expressed with prognostic frames that indicated success of the Women’s March in completing a goal or being part of a solution to an identified problem. Prognostic frames helped communicate that the Women’s March could continue its agenda and successes in the future with more resources through increasing activist participation, fundraising, and other forms of support. All of the outcome messages, in each year, were accompanied by one or more CTAs for fundraising. Some years included an agenda of what was ahead but the level of specificity varied. The Women’s March appeared to complete outcomes based on a continued focus on supporting its mission and principles, which led to activism and activities that would adapt to the urgent issues at the national level. For example, in 2017, the Women’s March leaders knew that they would be organizing to get out the vote for the 2018 midterm elections but had no way of knowing they would be engaging in civil disobedience for the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination. The outcomes reflect the responsive position of the SMO to adapt to issues of the day that they must defend or resist as they arise on the national scene. The third research question examines how Women’s March participants interacted with digital activism tools including the Women’s March website, emails from the SMO, and social media in relation to protesting. Content analysis of interview data resulted in the emergence of two

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overarching themes including how participants used digital activism tools to inform themselves and others about Women’s March activities, and differing levels of interaction and connective action. The participants’ interactions with different digital activism tools illustrate connection as both a strength and potential weakness, given the many touchpoints centered on the yearly Women’s March protest.

Digital Activism as an Educational Tool Protest participants used digital tools and connective action to stay informed and educate others within their personal social network (PSN) regarding evolving issues related to the SMO’s agenda. Quotes from two protesters exemplify this idea: “I think it helps to have a national presence to help keep the issues on the forefront. Women’s March messages help inform about issues not covered in the news, or to supplement the news” and “I know for some people there is information about how to organize something in your own community, and that’s helpful too.” Some participants shared additional information on their social channels to educate their PSN on issues highlighted at their local march. Using connective action, these stakeholders were continuing to educate themselves and sharing information with others via digital communication platforms. As a protester mentioned, “I shared several posts on Instagram and Facebook…I shared a video of the indigenous women that gave the talk,” referring to a speaker on the disappearance of indigenous women at the Midwest region march. Even though the Women’s March has an established national presence, protesters often indicated they were made aware of SMO information from online content posted by contacts or organizations in their PSNs. For example, a protester described hearing about the protests “from the internet, probably that was the first thing…We are connected to a number of things. I’m sure we heard about it through Move On.” Others sought out additional groups to help inform them on issues related to the SMO’s agenda, as seen in this interview quote that describes handmade pink pussy hats worn at Women’s March protests: “There was an active online community for fiber artists called ‘Ravelry’…so I know of the pink pussy hat project through Ravelry.” Some protesters did not seem to fully connect the SMO’s actions to a specific organization or entity. Instead, their experience reflects the connective action hybrid model previously discussed. Interestingly, most

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participants did note that they used the SMO’s website to research information on the protests (location, date/time etc.). Beyond the focus on education around the SMO’s multi-issue agenda, protesters interacted with the SMO’s digital activism and enacted connective action strategies with their PSNs to inspire others to take action as well.

Interaction and Connective Action Interviewed protesters noted interaction with the Women’s March SMO that centered on receiving emails and social media. According to three protesters, website interactions were primarily limited to seeking out information on upcoming events: “I have gone there to see…okay, is there anything happening in our area, or how far I have to travel to participate,” and “Yeah, I’ve been on their website. Like specifically, I was trying to figure out where the march was.” Referencing emails were distributed by the SMO as a source of education regarding current issues and calls to action. For example, “Action points…call your congressperson and here are talking points to call them about. Ideas for signs [for protest] are very helpful.” Social media was viewed as a valuable connective action tool to motivate, organize, and communicate protest participation. Leading up to the protests, participants sought to mobilize others through sharing posts via their PSN, adding personal comments to shared posts, and organizing groups to attend protests, as a protester described: I think most people that I know get the same messages I do…I might mention ‘Hey, we’re going, anybody want to join us in the van?’… ‘Who wants to go along?’ because there aren’t many marches in [my small town] but if you can find others in the vicinity.

Interviewees also indicated they often posted pictures of themselves at the Women’s March and added personal comments, such as “I did put a hashtag on it…I did #NastySigns multiple times with pictures of signs I liked.” Another protester marked herself as participating on event pages focused on the protest, while a fellow protester noted: Probably sometimes I would just forward the Facebook message and other times I would add a statement from my point of view …A lot of them were expressions of how much fun the four of us… were having together there. A

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lot of them were messages about how awesome it was to see how many people had turned out and how peaceful the people who turned out were.

Two protesters described posted pictures of themselves at the Women’s March on social media. One stated, “Afterwards my friends posted pictures of us there.” Another protester said she posted her own picture afterward “because I’m proud of it.” In each instance, participants engaged in connective action by sharing the information to educate others and motive people to engage in similar actions. Although the level of interaction may vary across liking, sharing, engaging, and commenting, all participants harnessed connective action to advance the SMO’s collective action agenda, especially centered on protesting.

Discussion The Women’s March use of digital communication as a fundamental tool to acquire resources and mobilize everyday activists toward collective and connective action serves as a focal point for understanding the structural progression of the SMO. The Women’s March strategic communication both supports and challenges aspects of resource mobilization. During the transition from a grassroots organization in 2017 to an increasingly structured national SMO by 2020, the Women’s March communication strategies (Jackson, 1982) continued to leverage symbolic protests as it embraced issues-based mobilizations of activists. However, protests centered on the annual march and responsive opposition online and in-person to issues as they arrived on the national scene. The informational strategy transitioned away from media coverage as a point of legitimacy and toward a more nuanced media relations approach aligned with a corporate communication structure. Communication strategies expanded, using collective action frames and connective action, for engaging activists—indeed, the everyday activist—at low to involved levels. This approach supported accumulation of activists as this SMO’s most important resource. Connective action opportunities, both driven by the SMO (e.g., sign slogans, social media posts) and originating with activists (e.g., pink pussy hats) allowed the everyday activist to simply forward a hashtag call to action, such as the #grabyourwallet boycott of certain retailers, or take bigger steps through contributing funds or gathering friends to join an in-person protest. In order to engage activists across many issues, the Women’s March added education as a key component in its model. Many

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education activities, which expanded over time with structural progression, were increasingly communicated in website content and articulated annual outcomes. While education is not expected with SMO progression, it represents a necessary intent for the Women’s March. Education, over time, progressed with the organizational structure. The early focus in 2017 on youth ambassadors, transitioning to the current “youth empower” initiative, and the recent focus on educational initiatives such as the future feminists series represent the SMO’s strategic approach to establishing a futuristic long-game instead of a more short-sighted approach. The ability to recruit, educate, and empower a new generation of activists while maintaining a consistent, diverse issue agenda is a new, more sustainable approach to activism. The Women’s March shifted focus to education in its second year to train activists, to provide guides for political outreach, and to gain easy access to actions such as joining a local activist group or helping get out the vote. One reason for the shift is that the Women’s March needs to clarify and be a part of relevant issues in the national discourse, requiring diverse and discursive issues to be understood among all stakeholders, including participants who may be joining with preferences for certain issues. This approach ensures the SMO remains relevant for an increasingly diverse stakeholder base represented under its issue agenda umbrella. Secondly, the Women’s March prioritizes education for everyday activists to get organized for impact at the grassroots level. The mobilization of the everyday activist centers on providing a variety of opportunities to become involved at varying levels of commitment. Accumulating activists is key in the digital landscape because power in numbers is a resource that allows for higher-stakes outcomes that move the issue agenda forward and earn the SMO a seat at the decision-making table. Activists who can spread updates on social media sites through hashtags, or bring others to online sessions to learn about getting out the vote or fighting disinformation online, provide essential roles in representing an army online with shared messages while reaching out to peers for motivational calls to action to contact a legislator, sign a petition, participate in a protest event, or even engage in civil disobedience. The Women’s March is keeping one foot in the national conversation with national social justice issues, and the other in grassroots activism in local communities throughout the U.S.

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What may be most important to the modern SMO, given the context of the digital landscape, is authentic activist support in online and in-­ person conversations. The Women’s March used symbolic, organizing, and information strategies most often, and though litigious strategies were used, the focus was more volunteer based. These were evident in annual outcomes, which championed mobile outreach and social media activism toward broad outcomes in U.S. election victories, as were symbolic protest and civil disobedience. At times, such as when referencing election victories, the rhetoric appeared to glorify the SMO’s outcomes to take credit for national outcomes for which the Women’s March was part of a broader coalition. Bold statements helped set vision and create a feeling of being a part of a big movement with momentum that could effect change and earn support of stakeholders. At other times, claims were more evidence-­based with authenticity, such as stating numbers of protesters and social media messages, which also showed a broad scope of activist effort and momentum. As in the work of Veil et al. (2015), in which activist pressure on organizations such as hoax and social media hijacking extended Jackson’s (1982) taxonomy, findings from the Women’s March appear to support digital strategies to broaden organizational communication and resources. This SMO focused on communication strategies and education targeting the everyday activist. While raising financial resources is essential for SMO expansion (Sommerfeldt, 2013), findings from the Women’s March suggest a high value of educating and aggregating an army of authentic activists. In addition to increasing networks and interaction using digital tools, these activists can broadly disseminate social media outrage on Twitter and Facebook, or encourage involvement in events and protests through images of feminist power, unity and inclusion on Instagram or other online messages.

Future Research This work examined strategic communication related to SMO structural progression, which could be extended to include quantifiable outcomes such as activist numbers, funds raised, and networked partners and coalitions. The Women’s March is a young SMO focused broadly on multiple issues as it evolves discursively in importance or impact on U.S. society. This broader issues agenda model represents a more innovative approach toward sustainability and resource accumulation, specifically linked to

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everyday activist collective action mobilization. Communication strategies continue to evolve in the digital landscape and national discourse, and changes in issues could be a focus of future research. Collective action frame narratives and dialogue related to digital communication also could inform future research initiatives to better understand the modern social movement organization.

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Valk, A. M. (2008). Radical sisters:Second-wave feminism and black liberation in Washington (Vol. 118). University of Illinois Press. Veil, S. R., Reno, J., Freihaut, R., & Oldham, J. (2015). Online activists vs. Kraft foods: A case of social media hijacking. Public Relations Review, 41(1), 103–108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2014.11.017 Vijay, D., & Kulkarni, M. (2012). Frame changes in social movements: a case study. Public Management Review, 14(6), 747–770. https://doi.org/10.108 0/14719037.2011.642630 Xiong, Y., Cho, M., & Boatwright, B. (2019). Hashtag activism and message frames among social movement organizations: Semantic network analysis and thematic analysis of Twitter during the# MeToo movement. Public Relations Review, 45(1), 10–12.

PART III

Democratic Digital Discursive Spaces of and for Women: Unintended Consequences

CHAPTER 11

Safe Spaces on Social Media Platforms: Selective Censorship and Content Moderation in Reddit’s r/TwoXChromosomes Amy Mowle

Introduction The internet and social media platforms have come to represent a new frontier for women’s rights advocacy and feminist organizing, providing unanticipated potential for mediated collaboration, discussion, and action on a global scale. The phenomenon of the participatory internet is broadly considered to have revolutionized the contemporary women’s movement by “allowing gender activists to connect within and across borders, at a low cost” (Loiseau & Nowacka, 2015, p. 2). The increased availability of the internet and affordability of digital communications technologies has ostensibly created opportunities for women from a diverse array of

A. Mowle (*) Victoria University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wiesslitz (ed.), Women’s Activism Online and the Global Struggle for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31621-0_11

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backgrounds to have their voices heard, despite potentially limited access to traditional forms of power.1 Fenton (2016) summarizes this emancipatory perspective of digital political participation, proposing that the “horizontality and diversity of the internet are… claimed to enhance the liberatory potential of the oppositional political movements found online” (p. 32). Some scholars suggest that this radically new form of organization and activism constitutes a “fourth-wave” of the feminist movement—a “reincorporation of consciousness-raising groups through social media”— as young men and women challenge sexism, form communities, and engage with the movement in ways that are “relevant to their individual, lived experiences” (Blevins, 2018, p. 101). While the legitimacy of a fourth-wave of feminism remains a source of contention within the literature, there is little doubt as to the impact the internet has had on the ways in which contemporary societies engage with and enact political struggles. Phipps (2014) maintains that “feminism, which is currently enjoying a resurgence… has perhaps never operated in a more difficult political and cultural milieu” (p. 3). Indeed, the technological entanglement of contemporary feminist politics has contributed to the materialization of novel conflicts and adversities from both within and outside of the movement. On one hand, the increased popularity of feminism and feminist ideologies has contributed to the rapid expansion of anti-feminist perspectives, particularly within far-right communities. This new form of anti-feminism most often manifests in the organized and persistent digital harassment of feminist subjects, as well as the antagonistic infiltration of women’s spaces. Moreover, the discordant factors and struggles witnessed within networked feminist communities signal the extent to which a lack of ideological and political cohesion exists within contemporary feminism. While not a new phenomenon, these elements appear to have contributed to a multiplication of rifts, detonating intractable political conflicts and reactions of intolerance within the movement. Central to the functionality of networked feminist spaces in a digital environment widely considered to be hostile towards women and other minorities (Farrell et  al., 2019; Marwick & Caplan, 2018; Massanari, 1  It must be noted here that the digital divide represents a very real barrier to social, economic and political engagement and continues to disproportionately impact women, even in the global north, and should be taken into consideration in any discussion regarding the efficacy of women’s political engagement in online spaces. As noted by Dean (2009), “The internet does not surpass established inequalities between the well-educated middle class who dominate public discourse and those on the peripheries” (p. 34).

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2017, 2018) is the capacity to cultivate a “safe space” through the moderation of the content and commentary shared within the community. As is the case with most online communities, “[m]oderators play integral roles as volunteer stewards in shaping and enforcing the rules and norms of their community” (Dosono & Semaan, 2019, p. 3), and these rules and norms, in turn, shape the participation, practice, and perspectives of that community’s constituents. In the age of trolling, cyber bullying, and digital harassment, strict moderation practices are necessitated in online communities seeking to cultivate a safe space for members. Yet, in an analysis of the moderation policies and practices of one of the internet’s largest networked feminist communities—Reddit’s r/TwoXChromosomes (2XC)— there appears to be several tensions that arise between efforts to maintain a safe and welcoming community for women on one hand and promoting tolerance for the ideological diversity of feminism on the other. These tensions and their implications for participation in the community are explored throughout this chapter using commentary data collected directly from Reddit’s application programming interface (API) throughout 2020. Reddit’s API is freely accessible by the public pursuant to the relevant terms and conditions.2 By extracting data directly from the API, it is possible to collect commentary from threads in ‘public’ subreddits. The data collected for this research included both retained and removed comments, and while the use of removed commentary remains a controversial subject, this research follows the guidance laid out by Chandrasekharan and Gilbert (2019, p.  2) in that “examining removed comments provides key insights into how online communities are governed, and those benefits outweighed any downside risks, as long as the risks are mitigated.” In utilizing both retained and removed commentary, this paper seeks to provides further insight into the nature of content moderation in the 2XC community from the perspective of its participants. To mitigate any risks associated with the use of commentary data, identifying information pertaining to original poster of each comment has been removed (e.g., pseudonymous usernames3). Moreover, direct links were only supplied for content contributed by the moderation team of r/ TwoXChromosomes to further safeguard against poster re-identification. 2  Reddit’s API terms and conditions are available at https://www.reddit.com/wiki/apiterms/, archived at https://archive.ph/5mEcl at the time of writing. 3  When comments are directly quoted, usernames have been replaced with a sequential handle (i.e., User A through User G.)

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Documentation pertaining to the rules, regulations, and moderation policy of the 2XC community were also collected and archived. All data were then analyzed using thematic analysis, “a method for systematically identifying, organizing and offering insight into patterns of meaning (themes) across a dataset” (Braun & Clarke, 2012, p. 57).

Contextualizing Reddit and r/TwoXChromosomes The participatory internet, also referred to as web 2.0, is recognized as the second stage in the evolution of the internet, characterized by a move from static websites to user-generated content and social networking platforms. Such platforms are defined by Gillespie (2018) as: …online sites and services that

(a) host, organize, and circulate users’ shared content or social interactions for them, (b) without having produced or commissioned (the bulk of) that content, (c) built on an infrastructure, beneath that circulation of information, for processing data for customer service, advertising, and profit. (p. 18).

The platform this paper targets is the pseudonymous social media platform, Reddit. The self-proclaimed “front page of the internet,” Reddit is primarily geared towards focused discussion, the rating of web content, and news aggregation. The platform is comprised of over 130,000 distinct, autonomous communities known as subreddits, with more created on the site each day. Reddit’s registered users (redditors) can submit posts to these topic-specific subreddits, usually in the form of written content, links to news articles, images, or videos. Redditors can then comment on these posts and other comments, creating a dynamic environment in which content is discussed. However, it is not necessary to create an account to access much of the website, “and anyone with internet access can read Reddit postings” (Adams, 2022, p. 2). The focus of this analysis is the networked feminist community r/TwoXChromosomes (2XC). At the time of writing, 2XC is host to almost 13 million subscribers (redditors) and is currently one of the largest subreddits on the platform. Of course, Reddit and 2XC—like all social media platforms—do not exist in a vacuum. The very same political, social, and cultural pressures that govern

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practice in the offline world are present—if not amplified—in the online arena. Considering this, it is necessary to contextualize Reddit and 2XC as specific fields of practice subordinate to the broader social, economic, and political forces that shape everyday life. The internet and its related communicative technologies are not neutral spaces for unrestricted self-­ expression and connection; Rather, these technologies constitute a highly commodified, competitive social environment. Asymmetries in visibility and attention bring to the fore questions regarding the democratic potential of “participatory” social media platforms such as Reddit. Research into variances in access to the internet and its associated technologies has revealed that those who tend to dominate discourse online are likely to be well-educated, middle-class individuals equipped with high-speed internet and a workable understanding of contemporary political debates (Brodock et al., 2009; Fenton, 2016), while the voices of those on the fringes of access potentially remain side lined, or are omitted all together (Hindman, 2008). Indeed, Fenton (2016) observes that “[n]etworks are not inherently liberatory, the internet does not contain the essence of openness that will lead us directly to democracy” (p. 49). While 2XC boasts an incredibly impressive user base, this does not necessarily translate to a diverse user base. In other words, the capacity to understand and meaningfully engage with the perspectives and opinions considered appropriate within the community necessitates a level of social, cultural, and economic capital on behalf of the user. Thus, the representation of feminism in the 2XC community may not necessarily incorporate the perspectives of those who lack the necessary volume or composition of capitals that make meaningful participation in the community possible. In the absence of exposure to divergent experiences or opinions, homologous perspectives and patterns of thought can emerge unchallenged, further working to discourage the diversity of participation. Indeed, our increased dependence on the internet and digital communications technologies has led to an explosion of instantly available information that has paradoxically created the conditions for the formation of “echo-­chambers.” Deibert (2019) suggests that “faced with information overload, consumers resort to cognitive shortcuts that tend to steer them toward opinions that fit what they already believe. At the same time, social media’s own algorithms guide users into online filter bubbles in which they feel comfortable and ideologically aligned” (p.  23). I argue that this course is amplified in the process of establishing and maintaining online safe spaces,

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as voices ideologically compatible with a community’s dominant narrative are celebrated and amplified, while those criticizing or questioning this narrative may be silenced or altogether banned from participating.

Safe Spaces, Online Places With the explosion in popularity of feminism and other progressive political ideologies over recent years, the establishment of safe spaces has arguably become a necessary feature of many online communities. Such practices are often ratified in response to real or perceived threats from individuals or groups that express hostility towards feminism and other social justice ideologies. Indeed, as recent research suggests, the resurgence in popularity of feminism(s) and the mainstreaming of socially conscious attitudes have been met with significant resistance in certain online communities, particularly those associated with the identarian populism of the “alt-right” (Farrell et al., 2019; Marwick & Caplan, 2018; Massanari, 2017; Massanari & Chess, 2018). The misogynistic rhetoric of the so-­ called “manosphere”—a name given to the online spaces in which individuals discuss and organize around the principles of anti-feminism—is underpinned by the perception that feminist ideology has come to dominate the social, cultural, and political milieu, actively undermining the role of men and traditional conceptions of masculinity. Marwick and Caplan (2018) point out that “networked misogyny is often organized in subcultural online spaces such as Reddit” (p. 545) and so, to mitigate this, the establishment and maintenance of safe spaces has become a necessary facet of practice within networked feminist communities. The concept of the safe space is considered to have its roots in the radical feminist communities of the 1970s, and was developed as a means to provide a space in which women could “speak and act freely, form collective strength, and generate strategies for resistance” (Kenney, 2001, p. 24). More recently, safe spaces have been premised on the notion that the voices of the traditionally marginalized should be prioritized, and that all individuals communicating within a safe space must consider the intersectional privileges conferred upon them by their position in the cultural hierarchy (Gibson, 2017). As a significant social media platform, Reddit is a strategic domain in which safe spaces are mapped and formalized to counteract the threat of networked misogyny and, in turn, productively enable feminist discourse. While 2XC is generally considered to be a safe space (particularly for women, transgender, and nonbinary individuals) in

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the literature (Betteridge, 2016; Workman & Coleman, 2014), the concept is only raised indirectly in 2XC’s moderation policy. The ambiguity of 2XC’s status as a safe space supports earlier claims as to the “overused but undertheorized” nature of these environments (Barrett, 2010, p.  1). Clark-Parsons (2018) suggests that such a perspective has led to the term being employed as “a shortcut for gesturing toward presumable shared attitudes regarding the openness of a space to certain identities and ideologies” (p. 2130). Indeed, the establishment of a safe space in which a degree of ideological homogeneity is presumed appears not to coalesce with the catch-all-rubric encapsulating 2XC’s About Community description, which suggests that the subreddit functions as a space for women in general terms: Welcome to TwoXChromosomes, a subreddit for both serious and silly content, and intended for women’s perspectives. We are a welcoming subreddit and support the rights of all genders. Posts are moderated for respect, equanimity, grace, and relevance. (r/TwoXChromosomes, 2020a)

Of course, women do not constitute an ahistorical, homogenous group, and thus the perspectives of women are wide and varied. While the moderation policy of 2XC positions the community as a universal service suitable for all women, the reality is that only those women whose worldview fits the community’s narrative are welcome to actively participate. As is the case with all subreddits, the tacit and implicit rules that guide practice within this community are managed, crafted, and moderated by a relatively small group of volunteers—all of whom invariably share a similar worldview. Yet, as Gillespie (2018) points out, “when rules of propriety are crafted by small teams of people… they aren’t always well suited to those with different experiences, cultures, or value systems” (p. 8). While the moderators of 2XC ostensibly aim to provide an open, welcoming, and safe space for women’s perspectives, in practice such communities can only provide a safe space for those women who share similar perspectives with the small team of moderators that screen content and control the space. Throughout the dataset of commentary that was removed from 2XC, there were many instances in which participants voiced their concerns regarding the removal of perspectives and opinions that were deemed to be incompatible with the views of the team of moderators. This trend is particularly salient on threads that touch on the more contentious issues centered in contemporary feminist debate, including discussions around access to abortion and gender-critical feminist perspectives.

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User A: Or it’s because all the anti-abortion comments get deleted by the mods? Sometimes I have an opinion slightly disagreeing in this subreddit but I don’t even type it out because mods are very quick to ban and users are very quick to downvote. User B: Wow, good job moderators for removing opinions that are not in line with OPs. There was no reason to remove the post I replied to at all. User C: Why is there so much deleted content on this sub, let people discuss things without censoring everything that you don’t like mods. The above examples capture a sentiment that was echoed across the dataset, that is, a sense of frustration with the relatively narrow perspectives and opinions that are deemed appropriate for heavily moderated digital communities such as 2XC.  Further, such examples indicate that participants may be discouraged from criticizing the actions of moderators, as such commentary is removed with great regularity. The immutable consequence is that the potential for diverse women’s perspectives is outlined within the designated space, but such diverse perspectives are, more often than not, muzzled and unilaterally annexed to the removed content stockpile. This practice limits and ultimately restricts participation in the subreddit to those who remain compliant and are willing to contribute to the established narrative favored by the moderation team and, by extension, the community at large.

TwoXChromosomes: Moderation Policy and Practice A particularly significant affordance of political organization and facilitation on Reddit is the ability for volunteers to moderate the content and commentary of a community’s constituents. According to Reddit Help, a moderator “is just a regular redditor… except they volunteer to perform a few humble duties within a particular community” (RedditHelp, 2020). These duties include but are not limited to setting up the community, deciding on its subject, removing posts deemed to be questionable or off topic, and banning users for spamming or posting abusive content. When studying the communicative practices of any subreddit, the community’s moderation policy provides a contextualizing framework for the online discourses that uphold and reflect the community’s values (Gibson, 2017). The moderation policies of autonomous communities on Reddit act as an

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influential aspect of a subreddit as the participation of users is altered in direct response to the style and application of the moderation policy. While the volume of scholarship concerning issues around content moderation on Reddit is growing (Gibson, 2017; Shen & Rose, 2019; Squirrell, 2019), there has been very little research into the ways in which feminist communities utilize content moderation in order subsist in online spaces that are considered to be somewhat hostile towards women and minority groups (Massanari, 2017). The 2XC moderation policy is relatively straightforward, outlining the type of content permissible in the community and delineating acceptable parameters for participation. Of significant interest are the sections towards the end of the policy documentation that touch on the removal of content and commentary. Short and to-the-point, the documentation reads: Removed Submissions If your submission would be better elsewhere on reddit, or you have broken a rule, we will try to let you know. Removed Comments Trolling and rude comments will be removed without notification. (r/TwoXChromosomes, 2020a)

However, the removed commentary scraped from Reddit’s API suggests that it is not only trolling or rude comments that are swiftly removed, but also commentary that diverges from the community’s dominant narratives. Given that the moderation policies of safe-space communities are generally concerned with preventing “the marginalization of voices already hurt by dominant power relations” (Gibson, 2017, p. 2351), the application of these kinds of policies ensure that the community is not disrupted, nor discourse derailed, by ill-intended contributions. This often results in participants being “censored or ejected from a space for not properly observing the standards of speech, tone or style” (p. 3). Under the subheading “Free Speech,” the policy reads: While all of reddit is a publicly accessible forum, it is a private corporation. 2XC, created and maintained by private, volunteer individuals, is an expression of those private, volunteer individuals’ mission to foster a safe, respectable, reasonable space for women to discuss women-related issues. Just as your free speech rights are not triggered when a store security guard escorts you for disruption or disrespect, your free speech rights are not triggered here when and if the private, volunteer individuals who work hard to

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­ aintain this space decide you are too disruptive or disrespectful for their m taste. You may always create your own space and bloviate there. (r/TwoXChromosomes, 2020a)

That the status of the community as a safe space is raised in the policy documentation under the “Free Speech” subheading is indicative of pre-­ exiting tensions between the two concepts, particularly in the context of contemporary digital culture. As such, it can be assumed that this section of the moderation policy has not been written for the intended audience of the subreddit, but rather to serve as a warning to those seeking to disrupt the community. This assumption is further augmented by the derisive tone in the second half of the entry, where it is suggested that any individual who disagrees with the moderation policy of the community can create their own space and “bloviate there.” Research conducted into the ideological underpinnings of 2XC suggests that the community is closely aligned to the principles of fourth-­ wave feminism (Betteridge, 2016; Massanari, 2019; Workman & Coleman, 2014), a determination supported by an analysis of the community’s moderation policy. In essence, the fourth wave is informed first and foremost by a non-essentialist perception of gender and womanhood, as well as a focus on reproductive justice, body positivity, sex work, and choice. This perspective is mirrored in a post permanently pinned to the top of the front page of 2XC, in which a community moderator poses the rhetorical questions: Do I have to be a woman to participate here? What about the subreddit name? What about trans women? What are the rules, anyway?’ (r/TwoXChromosomes, 2020b). The post goes on to answer these questions, and in doing so, the moderator clarifies in candid terms that, “Any user who can follow the rules is welcome here. Women, men, nonbinary, agender, genderqueer, cis folks and trans folks, everybody. If you’re not on board with that, you can fuck right off.” That this post is the first thing most users visiting 2XC will see is significant and is intended to signal the ideological position of the subreddit to potential participants. Indeed, the language and tone of the post suggests an operational style where individuals with opinions that may challenge the community’s parameters of acceptable discourse around gender politics will not be welcomed. While this position makes explicit that only those perspectives that validate a spectrum of gendered identities are welcome, it also implicitly suggests that alternative perspectives are not only invalid, but also unpopular. Feminist views on gender identity are as wide and varied as the movement

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itself, yet avenues for women to discuss or debate the implications of expanded understandings of gender and sex are practically non-existent. For 2XC, the following examples of removed commentary reflect the moderation policy outlined above and indicate a marked rejection of alternative feminist perspectives on gender politics. User D: Reading this sub-Reddit you’d think gender critical views were almost non-existent rather than highly popular as they are, no wonder when GC/sex realist4 comments are being disappeared by the mods. This is how false consensus is created. User E: It’s kinda absurd to say the act of mentioning that most women have XX chromosomes is transphobic. Most women also have periods. Most women also go through menopause. Facts aren’t transphobic. It’s literally just biological sex and, as we know, biological sex doesn’t always align with gender. User F: Biological sex is not a spectrum. It’s binary, with a few outliers from the norm. User G: GC people believe in biology and that women have a right to their own spaces. They don’t hate trans people. The rejection of critical realist perspectives of sex and gender in the 2XC community is significant and indicates a shift in the social and cultural legitimacy of sex-based oppression in the West. However, many removed comments approach the subject in a considered and tactful manner, these conversations are also regularly accompanied by rude, abusive, or trolling commentary. Such removed commentary is evident in a multitude of forms and in response to a range of stimuli not limited to discussions of sex and gender. It is to the complications presented by such febrile contributions that we now turn. The frequency with which such commentary appears, paired with the number of unique users on the subreddit per day, necessitate the use of automated moderation tools. However, the implications of automated moderation are uncertain, and preliminary analysis suggests that much more than the intended content is captured when threads are algorithmically sanitized. 4  GC is an acronym for gender critical, which, at its core, is a critical realist feminist perspective that considers biological sex to be an immutable characteristic, and gender to be socially constructed. GC feminists perceive biological sex as the central factor in the continued discrimination and oppression of women in patriarchal society.

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Automoderation Tools At the time of writing, 2XC’s moderation team is comprised of 10 volunteer individuals. Given the sheer size of the 2XC community, moderators are not able to manually verify that each submission and comment made on the subreddit aligns with the community rules. The massive discrepancy between the number of active users and the number of volunteer moderators on the subreddit necessitates the use of several automated moderation tools built using Reddit’s open API. The most significant tool at the moderators’ disposal is known as Automoderator (Automod). Automod is often programmed to curate the user-generated content submissions and commentary posted to a community, acting as a filtration system to ensure that content fits with the theme, tone, and style of the subreddit. Some of the key actions performed by Automod are as follows: • enables or disables a spam-filter; • automatically removes submissions/commentary that receive a certain number of reports; • removes submissions/comments that contain certain words or phrases; • automatically reports submissions/comments containing certain words or phrases. There are many significant benefits using Automod with large communities. These include the automated removal of spam posting, bot accounts, and obvious obnoxious or offensive content. However, despite the beneficial nature of Automod, its use also raises a number of challenges. Research conducted by Jhaver et al. (2019) reveals “the deficiencies of Automod in making decisions that require it to be attuned to the sensitivities in cultural context or to the difference in linguistic cues.” While Automod is generally used to filter out unwanted content, it can be utilized to “soft-­ ban” users using trigger systems that will automatically send a user’s submissions or comments to the moderation queue, rather than posting them directly to the site. Soft-banned users will still be able to participate in the community normally, but all content they post to the subreddit will be automatically forwarded to the spam queue, which is a waitlist for content flagged as requiring moderator approval before it will be visible in the community. From the user’s perspective, they will see all their content appear normally within the community yet no one else will be able to see or engage with it.

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While Automod is one of the most widely used automated moderation tools, subreddits also regularly employ other third-party bots for assistance in regulating content. For example, according to the FAQ section in 2XC’s moderation documentation, the community implemented a user-­ history-­ban bot to pre-emptively ban users who have a history of participating in subreddits that do not align ideologically with the aims of 2XC.  Knowledge of the bans that may result from the participation in subreddits deemed ideologically incompatible with 2XC likely limits the impetus of community members to engage with diverse content across Reddit. Such self-imposed restrictions may limit their ideological exposure to a narrow and singular worldview, and thus restrict the development of the kind of robust and diverse feminist politic that can not only withstand critical scrutiny, but also encourage legitimate and enduring social change. Such moderation practices clearly demonstrate the tensions between keeping a community free from antagonistic individuals and maintaining an open and welcoming space for women. Automoderation tools with the capacity to blanket-ban or soft-ban users with perspectives that challenge 2XC’s dominant narratives serve to eradicate the competing and complex narratives that are necessary for real social or political change. Instead, the users of 2XC are beleaguered by the inviolability of moderation practices and policies, exposed to an orthodoxy and the tactical nuance of a singular perspective that is rarely critically examined. Further, the concrete details of the use of automated moderation tools are rarely, if ever, shared with subreddit participants or the wider Reddit community. Considered by the moderators of 2XC to be trade secrets, these details are not freely available due to the possibility that miscreants or antagonistic parties will bypass screening filters or other moderation practices. While there exists a salient necessity to provide women and marginalized groups a safe space to connect and communicate, the use of automated moderation tools also creates conditions that may contribute to an increasingly limited scope of participation. Using a tool to scrape data directly from Reddit’s API, comments from 100 of the most engaging posts from each month were scraped. These data were then collated in order to ascertain the total number of comments made across each of the posts for a given month, as well as the total number of comments removed. The data indicate that, on average, over 20% of commentary posted—or approximately 13,000 unique comments—are removed each month (Fig. 11.1).

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Percentage of Comments Removed by Month 25.8 24.1

25

23.3

21.1

20.8 20

20.4 18.0

21.3 19.9 17.2

15.7 14.3

15

10

5

0

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August September October Novermber December

Fig. 11.1  Percentage of commentary removed from the 2XC community in 2020 by month

Although it is not possible to drill deeper into the data outlined above in order to understand what percentage of comments were removed by human moderators or automated moderation tools, previous research indicates that Automod is responsible for the elimination of 30–80% of removed commentary each month in some of Reddit’s most popular communities (Jhaver et al., 2019). That the 2XC moderation team also employ a user-history-ban bot to pre-emptively ban potential participants must also be taken into consideration, as many users deemed undesirable based on their post or comment history are unlikely to contribute to the high amount of content removed from the site. A recent paper shines a light on the tensions between transparency and risk to community, noting that there is a “need to determine a middle ground where communities are transparent about content moderation practices but not at the cost of disruptions caused by deliberate transgressors” (Jhaver et al., 2019, p. 27).

Conclusion The process of content moderation is often employed to offset both real and perceived threats to organization and participation in networked communities. The shape and nature of a networked community can be discerned via a close interrogation of the policies governing the discursive practice of participants. The social agency and cultural character of these

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networked machinations was examined in this chapter. An analysis of the moderation practices of 2XC reveals that there are significant tensions in the creation and maintenance of safe spaces in online environments—an observation that is further complicated as a community grows. While moderation practices are employed to neutralize the negative impact of trolls and troublemakers within the community, a closer look into the moderation policy of 2XC and the commentary removed from the community as a result reveals that the ongoing maintenance of safe spaces in communities as large as 2X may also undermine the diverse nature of contemporary feminism. Through an analysis of the moderation policies of 2XC, it is possible to better understand the feminist narrative this community promotes as well as the ideological directions and parameters used in community’s moderation practices. The fourth-wave feminism of 2XC is one of many contemporary streams of thought within the feminist movement, and the removal of opposing opinions within the community—particularly through the use of automated moderation tools—is indicative of the tensions that arise in maintaining large progressive political online communities. The moderation practices of a community are only further complicated by the sustained growth of that community (Gillespie, 2018), and with almost 13 million members, there is a significant incentive to keep as many members within the 2XC community as happy as possible, a process that lends itself to undermining the critical nature of feminism. As Rivers (2017) suggests: Engagement with criticism from both outside and within the feminist ‘movement’ ensures that feminist remains a dynamic and responsive ideology that attempts to resist essentialism and universalizing, in order to adapt to women’s ever-changing experiences and a continually shifting political landscape. Thus, disagreements between feminists and apparent inconsistencies between feminism(s) can be seen as offering the opportunity to expand feminist debates, rather than rendering feminism incoherent or irrelevant. (p. 3)

It is certainly the case that “the diversity within feminist ideologies, and among feminists themselves, can be seen as a cause for celebration” (Rivers, 2017, p. 3). However, in practice, the spirit of diversity within the contemporary feminist movement is increasingly complicated by the very nature of digital participation and the pressures that characterize our online lives. Indeed, the vast and powerful communicability afforded by the internet has led to a vast multiplication of separate resistances on the left (Dean, 2009). It has been suggested that the result of this

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multiplication has hampered the potential for the development of strong counter-­hegemonies, leading both to a fragmentation of the left and what appears to be an amplification of a cohesive and extreme right-wing political voice (Dean, 2009). As demonstrated in this chapter, emerging research suggests a complex and complicated process through which the feminist narrative becomes distilled down to its most universal form, negating the potential for constructive debate, an outcome that has several implications. First and foremost, through curated moderation, the 2XC community is presented as a homogenous entity: By allowing only a unified perspective within this community, the ideological diversity inherent to contemporary feminism is undermined. Individuals coming across this large community are met with a sense that there is a level of cohesion and understanding within the community, when in reality moderators and algorithmic moderation tools are working tirelessly to curate a degree of homogeneity. Behind the scenes, this means a huge amount of commentary is removed from view, allowing and displaying only certain perspectives. 2XC is illustrative of the tensions between content moderation and networked feminism, between the necessity of a safe space for women online, and the necessity to allow feminists with ideas that challenge the meta-narrative of fourth-wave feminism in a space to engage with, challenge, and ultimately strengthen the movement. In order to discuss the maintenance and function of safe spaces within networked feminist communities as an avenue for feminist empowerment, we must look very closely at the extent to which women are permitted a level of self-determination online and how far the application of the moderation tools available to digital communities are impacting women’s sense of agency and protection.

References Adams, N. N. (2022). Scraping Reddit posts for academic research? Addressing some blurred lines of consent in growing internet-based research trend during the time of Covid-19. International Journal of Social Research Methodology. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2022.2111816 Barrett, B. J. (2010). Is “safety” dangerous? A critical examination of the classroom as safe space. Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 1(1), 9. https://doi.org/10.5206/cjsotl-­rcacea.2010.1.9 Betteridge, J. G. (2016). Oppression in the Reddit hivemind: Tracing patterns of misogyny in electronic public spaces (Publication identifier etd9775) [Master’s thesis, Simon Fraser University]. https://summit.sfu.ca/item/16579/

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Blevins, K. (2018). bell hooks and consciousness-raising: Argument for a fourth wave of feminism. In J. R. Vickery & T. E. Everbach (Eds.), Mediating misogyny (pp. 91–108). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­3-­319-­72917-­6_5 Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2012). Thematic analysis. In H. Cooper, P. M. Camic, D. L. Long, A. T. Panter, D. Rindskopf, & K. J. Sher (Eds.), APA handbook of research methods in psychology, Vol. 2. Research designs: Quantitative, qualitative, neuropsychological, and biological (pp.  57–71). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/13620-­004 Brodock, K., Joyce, M., & Zaeck, T. (2009). Digital activism survey report 2009. DigiActive Research Series, R@D. (Research@DigiActive). Chandrasekharan, E., & Gilbert, E. (2019). Hybrid approaches to detect comments violating macro norms on Reddit. arXiv preprint arXiv:1904.03596. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1904.03596 Clark-Parsons, R. (2018). Building a digital girl army: The cultivation of feminist safe spaces online. New Media & Society, 20(6), 2125–2144. https://doi. org/10.1177/1461444817731919 Dean, J. (2009). Democracy and other neoliberal fantasies: Communicative capitalism and left politics. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j. ctv11smj29 Deibert, R. J. (2019). The road to digital unfreedom: Three painful truths about social media. Journal of Democracy, 30(1), 25–39. https://doi.org/10.1353/ JOD.2019.002 Dosono, B., & Semaan, B. (2019). Moderation practices as emotional labor in sustaining online communities: The case of AAPI identity work on Reddit. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1–13). https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300372. Farrell, T., Fernandez, M., Novotny, J., & Alani, H. (2019). Exploring misogyny across the manosphere in reddit. In Proceedings of the 10th ACM Conference on Web Science (pp. 87–96). https://doi.org/10.1145/3292522.3326045 Fenton, N. (2016). Digital, political, radical. Polity Press. Gibson, A. (2017). Safe spaces & free speech: Effects of moderation policy on structures of online forum discussions. In Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. https://doi.org/10.24251/ HICSS.2017.284. Gillespie, T. (2018). Custodians of the internet: Platforms, content moderation, and the hidden decisions that shape social media. Yale University Press. Hindman, M. (2008). The myth of digital democracy. Princeton University Press. Jhaver, S., Birman, I., Gilbert, E., & Bruckman, A. (2019). Human-machine collaboration for content regulation: The case of Reddit Automoderator. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 26(5), 31. https:// doi.org/10.1145/3338243 Kenney, M. (2001). Mapping gay LA: The intersection of place and politics. Temple University Press.

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Loiseau, E., & Nowacka, K. (2015). Can social media effectively include women’s voices in decision-making processes. OECD Development Centre, 12(9), 2016. Marwick, A. E., & Caplan, R. (2018). Drinking male tears: Language, the manosphere, and networked harassment. Feminist Media Studies, 18(4), 543–559. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2018.1450568 Massanari, A. (2017). # Gamergate and the Fappening: How Reddit’s algorithm, governance, and culture support toxic technocultures. New Media & Society, 19(3), 329–346. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444815608807 Massanari, A. L. (2018). Rethinking research ethics, power, and the risk of visibility in the era of the “alt-right” gaze. Social Media + Society, 4(2). https://doi. org/10.1177/2056305118768302 Massanari, A. L. (2019). “Come for the period comics. Stay for the cultural awareness”: Reclaiming the troll identity through feminist humor on Reddit’s/r/ TrollXChromosomes. Feminist Media Studies, 19(1), 19–37. https://doi. org/10.1080/14680777.2017.1414863 Massanari, A. L., & Chess, S. (2018). Attack of the 50-foot social justice warrior: The discursive construction of SJW memes as the monstrous feminine. Feminist Media Studies, 18(4), 525–542. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2018. 1447333 Phipps, A. (2014). The politics of the body: Gender in a neoliberal and neoconservative age. Polity, eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) database. r/TwoXChromosomes. (2020a). TwoXChromosomes moderation policy. Reddit. com, r/TwoXChromosomes. http://archive.is/wip/REwMz r/TwoXChromosomes. (2020b, March 6). Do I have to be a woman to participate here? What about the subreddit name? What about trans women? … [MINI FAQ] Reddit.com, r/TwoXChromosomes. https://archive.is/X37EY RedditHelp. (2020). What is a moderator? Reddit.com, Reddit 101. https:// archive.is/ZTYTM Rivers, N. (2017). Postfeminism(s) and the arrival of the fourth wave. Palgrave MacMillan. Shen, Q., & Rose, C. (2019). The discourse of online content moderation: Investigating polarized user responses to changes in Reddit’s quarantine policy. In Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Abusive Language Online (pp. 58–69). https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/W19-­3507. Squirrell, T. (2019). Platform dialectics: The relationships between volunteer moderators and end users on reddit. New Media & Society, 21(9), 1910–1927. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444819834317 Workman, H., & Coleman, C. A. (2014). “The front page of the internet”: Safe spaces and hyperpersonal communication among females in an online community. Southwestern Mass Communication Journal, 29(2), 2–21.

CHAPTER 12

‘Intersectional, Queer Feminist Magazine’ Made by White People? An Analysis of Digital Feminist Debates on Popular Intersectionality in Germany Katrin Schindel

With the word ‘feminist’ displayed in giant letters behind singer Beyoncé during her 2014 MTV Video Music Awards performance, feminism arguably had moved into (Anglophone) mainstream culture. It is not only a mainstreamed version of feminism that has become popular (Banet-Weiser, 2018) though, but also intersectionality theory. Developed by Anglophone (queer) women of color who felt neither fully represented by the feminist nor the civil rights movement, intersectionality rose to huge popularity in academia following Kimberlé Crenshaw’s defining publications (1989, 1991). The concept has since travelled not only across disciplinary, geographical, and linguistic borders, but has also moved (back) into activist and digital spaces. I argue that a new form, popular intersectionality, has

K. Schindel (*) King’s College London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wiesslitz (ed.), Women’s Activism Online and the Global Struggle for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31621-0_12

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emerged in these spaces in recent years. This new form is very similar to intersectionality yet is distinctive in that it is mainly articulated and performed by white people. In this chapter, I will introduce my theory of popular intersectionality, based on Banet-Weiser’s notion of popular feminism, and discuss the workings of popular intersectionality through a critical discourse analysis of Zine_X, a German-speaking feminist blogger collective.

Popular Intersectionality According to Sarah Banet-Weiser (2018), popular feminism is highly visible in music, television, and advertising, and circulates easily, especially in online spaces. However, this does not mean that feminist politics are necessarily more visible. In fact, popular feminism, as Banet-Weiser argues, is marked by superficiality and a lack of interest in engaging with deeper systemic issues: “Popular feminism tinkers on the surface, embracing a palatable feminism, encouraging individual girls and women to just be empowered” (2018, p. 21; emphasis in original), but fails to elaborate on how we can empower young women and girls, or why it is that they need to be empowered in the first place. Moreover, Banet-Weiser argues that popular feminism is an exclusionary feminism that centers white, heterosexual, middle-class, cis women. That is, since popular feminism is dominated by white cis women’s discourses, it is lacking an intersectional perspective. While the term “intersectionality” itself was coined by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989, 1991), intersectionality’s key notion that most women experience discrimination not only based on their gender, but also their class and/or race (and other identity markers), had been articulated numerous times by other women of color before 1989 (see for instance Beale, 1995 [1970]; Bryan et al., 1993 [1985]; Chow, 1987; Combahee-­ River-­Collective, 1982 [1977]; Davis, 1981; hooks, 1986; King, 1988; Lorde, 2007 [1984]). Yet, intersectionality is now often celebrated—particularly by white academics—as a feminist success story (McCall, 2005) or a “buzzword” (Davis, 2008). Popular intersectionality, I claim, is similar to popular feminism in that it has become a “buzzword” beyond academia, and is now hypervisible in mainstream culture as well. Popular intersectionality is increasingly used in commercial spaces such as advertising (Sobande, 2019), but it is especially prevalent on social media and in digital feminisms and activism using social media. Popular intersectionality

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‘calls out’ popular feminism, or white feminism as it is often called, on the issues popular feminism deals with superficially. Most importantly though, it describes a backlash against popular and white feminisms while simultaneously being primarily performed by white feminists who declare their whiteness (Ahmed, 2004) through stating their awareness of their white privilege, in order to manifest themselves as ‘good’ feminists (Kanai, 2020). In her article “Declarations of Whiteness: The Non-Performativity of Anti-Racism” (2004), Sara Ahmed maps out six modes through which whiteness can be declared and performed. Ahmed argues that these acts often have the opposite effect, in that “declaring one’s whiteness, even as part of a project of social critique, can reproduce white privilege in ways that are ‘unforeseen’” (2004, paragraph 12). As Ahmed further explains, “Whiteness is only invisible to those who inhabit it. To those who don’t, the power of whiteness is maintained by being seen; we see it everywhere” (paragraph 14; emphasis in original). Entangled with declaring one’s white privilege is showcasing the efforts to “unlearn” racism and white ignorance—such as including an intersectional perspective in one’s thinking. However, there is another issue with white people demonstrating their efforts to declare their responsibility and learning: “One problem with being so used to the learning = good equation, is that we might even think that everyone should aspire to such learning, and that the absence of such learning is the ‘reason’ for inequality and injustice” (paragraph 37). The effect seems to be that good, responsible feminist practice becomes about showcasing one’s efforts, including distancing oneself from what is perceived as white feminism. Following this, I would like to distinguish two different types of white feminism. On the one hand, there is what Reni Eddo-Lodge calls “whiteness as a political structure” (2018, p.  78), or Alison Phipps’ “political whiteness” (2020). According to Phipps, political whiteness is common in mainstream feminism—a feminism that is mainly white, middle-class, and explicitly racist and transphobic. The main goal of mainstream feminism is to protect white womanhood, thus protecting white supremacy. Over the summer of 2020, literary author JK Rowling tweeting trans-exclusionary content became a poster child for this kind of ‘bad’ white feminism. Being a white feminist, on the other hand, can also mean to be white and a feminist. However, given that the current predominance of the first definition in mainstream and popular culture has led to the term ‘white feminist’ becoming a slur, feminists who are white often work hard to establish that they are not the ‘bad’ kind of white feminists. For example, in her research

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project on self-identifying feminists in Australia who use the Internet to primarily educate themselves about feminism, Akane Kanai (2020) identified a rejection of white feminism and a claiming of intersectionality: In seeking to renounce white feminism, my white participants tended to characterize white feminism with associated ‘bad’ personal traits of (deliberate) wrongdoing in the face of individual power and privilege. Being ‘intersectional’ as a feminist identity, then, became wholly consistent with being a good, white woman in these terms. (p. 19)

Consequently,  in my analysis, I will  distinguish between ‘bad’ white feminists on the one hand, who use political whiteness to establish their goals, and ‘good’ white feminists on the other hand, who try to distance themselves from said political whiteness by repudiating it. It is crucial to note that such a distinction does not reflect my personal judgement of feminists who are white. Rather, this analytical distinction aims to acknowledge the discursive distancing from ‘white feminism’ that I observe in German-speaking digital feminist spaces. Repudiating certain political positions in order to establish one’s identity is not new to feminism. As Christina Scharff (2016 [2012]) has shown, young German and British women repudiated feminism in the early 2000s, because—following the postfeminist, individualist, neoliberal zeitgeist— they saw themselves as already empowered and liberated, while depicting Muslim women as the Other in need of saving. I argue that this assumed need to save the racialized (and queer) Other, continues nowadays to operate through ‘good’ white feminists who employ popular intersectionality to point out how the racialized (and queer) Other is still in need of saving. Furthermore, I argue that ‘good’ white feminists’ articulations of popular intersectionality are apparent particularly in feminist and activist digital spaces. The current focus on one’s own intersectional thinking and practice that we observe in these spaces—intersectionality’s inward turn (Collins, 2009)—ultimately constitutes a continuation of neoliberal ideals and their entanglement with feminism (Rottenberg, 2019).

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Race and Whiteness1 in the German Context Intersectionality can be described as “travelling theory” (Said, 1983). Popular intersectionality is certainly a resulting phenomenon of intersectionality theory travelling in and out of academia, across borders, and between off- and online spaces. However, this raises some problems specific to the German context. As Kathy Davis (2014) points out, traveling theories require linguistic and cultural translations. When it comes to ‘race’, the concept cannot effortlessly be translated from English to German. The problematic nature of ‘Rasse’ is due to its historical use by the National Socialists to propagate their racist ideology. As Gudrun-Axeli Knapp (2005) explains: Rasse is a category that cannot be used in an affirmative way in Germany: it is neither possible to ascribe a Rasse to others nor is it acceptable to use Rasse as a basis for identity claims, which by comparison is a common practice in the US. And this holds true not only for scholarly contexts, but also for general public discourse, where even racists tend to avoid notions of Rasse. (p. 257; emphasis in original)

In an attempt to avoid the use of ‘race’, many (white) European scholars employ ‘ethnicity’ instead (Lewis, 2009). However, this term is problematic as well, since it “can serve to obscure the connection with racialised biologisation“ (Lutz et al., 2011, p. 11). In other words, the use of ‘ethnicity’ takes out the historical context of colonialism that ‘race’ inhabits. This problematization is caused in conjunction with the fact that research on racism and whiteness is often not regarded as necessary due to a denial of Germany’s colonial past (Haschemi Yekani et al., 2011). Although the academic field of Critical Whiteness Studies has gained more visibility in Germany in recent years (Arndt et al., 2018; Tißberger et al., 2006), it is still very much compared and contrasted to the U.S., where the field seems to have a better reputation and acknowledges its roots in Critical Race Theory and major contributions of Black and of color thinkers (al-Samarai & Piesche, 2018). These discrepancies and research gaps are symptomatic 1  While I  aim to  avoid a  dichotomy between ‘race’ and  ‘whiteness’, I  wish to  reflect on  the  varying levels at  which these terms have been engaged with  in  German society, but also recognise that “whiteness remains unnamed in its processes to construct racialized ‘other/s’ and demarcates this void through explicit and implicit parameters.” (al-Samarai & Piesche, 2018, p. 167)

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of the unease with which the white German mainstream deals with topics of race, racism, and whiteness—a sentiment that has continued following the global Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020, which brought more awareness of systemic racism to German mainstream culture.

Zine_X The analytical case study for this examination of popular intersectionality is a German-speaking feminist blogger collective which identifies as intersectional and queer feminist. The collective actively blogged between 2016–2020, but also posted on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, understanding themselves as a “cross-media magazine”. The terms ‘magazine’ and ‘blog’ will be used interchangeably to not disturb the flow of writing, though this project should be considered a feminist blog rather than a magazine in a journalistic sense due to its oftentimes colloquial language and a lack of journalistic standards. However, since feminist ‘zines’ are rooted in feminist pop culture and the riot grrrl movement (Peglow & Engelmann, 2013), Zine_X can be considered a (maga)zine in this sense, nonetheless. It is unclear how many people are involved and to what degree, but the ‘About Us’ page lists six board member profiles. I conducted an email interview with two of the board members and obtained their written consent to analyze the magazine’s blog and social media posts. Nonetheless, I use the pseudonym, Zine_X, and cite the date of publication of the post instead of the author (whose names/alias I removed from the posts before beginning my analysis), as I am not interested in critiquing individuals. Rather, the aim is to investigate the discourses on intersectionality and whiteness, which are exemplary of a bigger, current cultural phenomenon. I follow the example of Clare Hemmings (2011), who argues that “taking the authors out of the citation frame is thus a way of focusing attention on repetition instead of individuality, and on how collective repetition actively works to obscure the politics of its own production and reproduction” (p. 22). Since the collective’s social media pages mostly contain re-tweets or links to Zine_X’s blog posts, the analysis focuses on 61 blog posts, posted between September 2016 and July 2020. The blog posts have been filtered with a keyword search for the German and English versions of ‘intersectionality’, ‘intersectional’, ‘Black’, ‘poc/people of color’, ‘white’, ‘race’, ‘gender’, ‘class’, ‘ethnicity’, and ‘queer’. While ‘cis’ was not

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included in the original search term list, its frequent use became apparent in the initial data assessment, and it is therefore included in the analysis here. Blog posts were saved securely in pdf format during the data collection period and saved only once if they included more than one search term. All posts were subsequently analyzed using a critical discourse analytical approach. In this chapter, I am focusing on how intersectionality is articulated, in particular in relation to whiteness, and have identified five key themes. Before discussing these themes, I want to point out that I do not know the bloggers’ identities and embodiments (a common issue in digital research), though they acknowledged in the email interview that they “are at odds with the fact that [their] editorial team is so white” (February 16, 2021).2 Whilst the average blog reader might not be aware of this fact, what is important for the purpose of the study is that the magazine, despite claiming to aim to “give a platform to feminist, queer and intersectional voices” (Twitter bio), is white presenting through self-identification in the blog posts. This can be both directly, as in “I am white” (October 25, 2019), and indirectly, as in “we as white cis-women*”3 (February 1, 2017). Of course, this does not mean there are no bloggers of color among the group, but that the blog is presenting as if all writers are white. Moreover, when an audience is identified, it is often identified as non-­ Black—such as “this is what you can do as a non-Black person” (June 6, 2020)—or white, such as in the headline “I am white and a feminist—how can I avoid ‘white feminism’?” (October 5, 2018).

Articulations of Intersectionality and Whiteness Intersectionality as a Buzzword The keyword search for the whole magazine revealed 14 blog posts that use the word ‘Intersektionalität’ (intersectionality) or ‘intersektional/ intersektionell’ (intersectional). For a blog (with overall 197 posts) that claims “to render intersectional, queer feminist reporting” (About Us 2  All interview and blog quotes discussed in this chapter have been translated from German to English by myself. 3  It used to be common practice among German feminists to spell ‘women*’ with an asterisk to indicate the social construction of the term, and to include trans women—a practice that recently has been debated as it actually singles out trans women from the status of womanhood.

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page), this does not seem much, albeit one does not always have to use the term ‘intersectionality’ when applying an intersectional analysis. Moreover, 37 blog posts include the search term ‘weiß’ (white), while only 16 posts include ‘schwarz’ (‘Black’) and 6 include ‘people of color’ or ‘poc’. Black and people of color are usually merely mentioned in these instances, whereas the discursive focus of the blog lies on the role of white people in intersectional feminism, which will be discussed below. Furthermore, when intersectionality is addressed, it is often just used as a “buzzword” (Davis, 2008): [about creating an online zine on the topic of anxiety] I wanted to reach people internationally and include worldwide perspectives. I wanted intersectionality, every facet of this topic and all kinds of media that can be included in a free, digital PDF document. (July 27, 2018) Some of us are very lucky to be part of awesome, open, intersectional feminist circles, in which we are accepted, respected and listened to. (August 3, 2018)

In the blog posts in which these quotes are identified, these are the only moments where intersectionality is mentioned. Further explanations of what intersectionality is about, and why it would be important to include intersectionality in an online zine on anxiety, or what makes intersectional feminist circles better than other feminist circles (let alone, what an intersectional feminist circle is) are lacking. It appears that the use of intersectionality functions here as a form of “white noise” (Rault, 2017), in the sense that it creates a relaxing, feel-good atmosphere. Or, in the words of Umut Erel et  al. (2011), intersectionality functions as “a mainstreamed shortcut that can instantly ‘politically correct’ your output, the pain-free way” (p. 72). That is, in purely naming intersectionality, the sense is created that ‘good’ white feminists are at work. Intersectionality and a Focus on Whiteness Besides instances in which intersectionality is used as a buzzword, there are a number of articles that define intersectionality. Notably, these definitions often focus on whiteness through opposing white women, or ‘bad’ white feminism, with intersectionality:

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Intersectionality engages with multiple discriminations. There are many women* who are not only affected by sexist discrimination or misogyny, but also other forms of discriminations, such as racism, transphobia or classism. Intersectional feminism is an answer to other strands of feminism which ignore such multiple discriminations or even promote them and who focus (have focused) on the support of white, usually middle-class as well as able-­ bodied cis women. (Glossary ‘Intersectionality/intersectional discrimination’) The term intersectionality plays a huge role here. This word stems from the English term intersection, which means Kreuzung. The idea that structural categories can’t be looked at individually and independently from each other is called intersectionality. Here a few examples for a better understanding: White heterosexual women* often profit from ascribed features that result from the structural categories Race and sexual identity, whereas women of colour (non-white women) and/or queer women* are affected by multiple discrimination structures. (October 20, 2016)

The first quote, which is from the magazine’s glossary entry on intersectionality, following a definition of intersectionality, presents intersectional feminism as “an answer to other strands of feminism.” Although the plural is used here, it becomes clear that what is meant is a feminism that supports “white, usually middle-class as well as able-bodied cis women”, that is, ‘bad’ white feminism. While this is factually not incorrect, I argue there is a danger in the repeated portrayal of these women as ‘bad’ feminists, as it contributes to centering the white individual’s endeavor to better itself. Moreover, the statement ignores that intersectionality has also been an answer to the sexism that women of color (in the U.S.) experience from men, including men of color in the civil rights movement (Wallace, 1982). Looking at the second quote, the definition of intersectionality is followed by a number of examples, of which the first one explains how white, heterosexual women benefit from these structural categories. In making this the first example, intersectionality is again articulated as opposed to white women or ‘bad’ white feminists—an opposition that is key to the critique of ‘bad’ white feminists that I will discuss next. Instead of centering on how discriminations are intersected, the authors highlight how white, heterosexual women benefit from white and heterosexual privilege first, thus focusing on their (own) whiteness (Morrison, 2021).

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Critique of ‘Bad’ White Women and White Feminism Most of the blog posts that include the term ‘white’ are critiques of ‘bad’ white feminists (Nash & Pinto, 2021):4 Feminism that deals only with hostility towards women often reproduces other forms of oppression, like for example racism or trans misogyny, or does not include these, for example, when addressing homophobia, poverty and exploitation. Solely white, heterosexual, able-bodied cis women, who are ‘only’ restricted by misogyny, profit from such a feminism. I want intersectional feminism, which fights for a good, free, beautiful life for everyone! (21 December 2017) ‘White feminism’ means a feminism that centres white cis women from the middle-class. These women utilise feminism first and foremost to gain advantages for themselves—be it feeling especially activist in chic shirts with feminist prints or breaking the glass ceiling. It’s a feminism that is not interested in questions of (ascribed) background or class and that ignores the multiple oppressions of minorities. (October 5, 2018)

The first quote, once again, portrays “white, heterosexual, able-bodied cis women” as the only ones profiting from a feminism that is not intersectional. This is followed by “I want intersectional feminism, which fights for a good, free, beautiful life for everyone!”, which insinuates that ‘bad’ white feminists do not want such a life, or at least not for everyone. Once again, intersectionality is used as a buzzword to oppose political whiteness. The second quote, defining ‘white feminism’ (note here that the use of quotation marks can be read as a means of distancing the author from white feminism), caricaturizes a white feminist’s look and behavior. This element of ridicule serves to further ostracize ‘bad’ white women from (intersectional) feminism. In the same blog post, the author asks, “How does ‘white feminism’ articulate itself today?” (October 5, 2018) and the answer is: pussy hats, headscarf, gender pay gap, tone policing. The first element, pussy hats, is particularly interesting since it relates specifically to the U.S. context, but also because an earlier blog post on craftivism suggested readers take part in the pussy hat project (January 24, 2017). While it is unclear whether the magazine’s editorial team is aware of this discrepancy, it could be interpreted as an instance in which the creators reproduce 4  A fair number of articles also address white cis men which, due to limited space, I am unable to discuss here.

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discourses by Black and trans feminists in the U.S. (without citing those Black and trans feminists). Moreover, the article goes on to ask, “I am white and a feminist—how can I avoid ‘white feminism’?” as well as “What to do about ‘white feminism’?” (October 5, 2018), which is reminiscent of the style of a self-help manual or women’s beauty magazine (‘What to do about zits?’) and focuses again on the white individual. It alludes to the bloggers’ awareness that white feminism is ‘bad’ and that they need to demonstrate their efforts to ‘unlearn’ this bad behavior in order to become ‘good’ white feminists (Kanai, 2020). ‘Good’ White Feminist Checklist Following the discursive logics of the blog, an easy way to avoid being a ‘bad’ white feminist is to follow what I call the ‘good’ white feminist checklist. These checklists appear in several of the analyzed blog posts, often in the form of actual lists. For example, a blog post titled “List of anti-racist resources—this is what you can do as a non-Black person” (June 6, 2020) lists the following resources: English and German books by Black authors, films and (streaming) series by Black filmmakers (all U.S.  American), two podcasts by Black Germans, and a long list of Instagram accounts, mostly by people of color. What catches the eye immediately is the heavy U.S. focus of the list, which demonstrates the influence of Black feminists and activists in the U.S. on (white) feminists and activists in Germany—and the travelling of popular intersectionality. Moreover, it shows the importance of self-education, which Kanai (2020) notices as key among her white interview participants as well. Most importantly, though, it exhibits an integral problem of popular intersectionality: the simultaneous awareness and non-awareness of white people of how to deal with white privilege and ‘unlearn’ racism. This becomes apparent when looking at another list in the same article: Maybe you’ve been one of these people and now you don’t know how to behave, here are some basics:



1. Recognize that you have White Privilege. 2. Grapple with your own racist stereotypes (which we all have). 3. Sit down and inform yourself (see list below for suggestions). 4. Make sure, that BI_PoC voices are being heard (listen to them). 5. Inform other people with White Privilege.

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6. Use your White Privilege: Don’t let racism pass through, be antiracist loudly. (6 June 2020) Whilst the importance of recognizing, using, and informing others about white privilege is highlighted three times, no suggestions are offered on how exactly to do these things. In addition, instructions such as “Sit down and inform yourself” combined with a pointer to the aforementioned list of cultural resources, not only demonstrates the previously discussed unease of white Germans around topics of race and whiteness, but also patronizes and infantilizes the white reader, thus enforcing white fear of not knowing “how to behave” (June 6, 2020). Although the bloggers’ instructions seem very unspecific, they do point out the importance of actions: “After you go through this list, it is important to also become active. So don’t just subscribe, but really work on making White Supremacy become history” (June 6, 2020). Even though the blog post provides a list of things to subscribe to (including Instagram accounts), it ends on this note without further expanding on how to “become active” or how to make “White Supremacy become history.” This phenomenon is not uncommon in alternative digital spaces such as (activist) blogs—even though there is no character limit in place, the bloggers seem to replicate the vernacular (Gibbs et al., 2015) of other media platforms (Wiesslitz, 2019) such as Twitter or Instagram. Similarly simplistic advice can be found in other blog posts as well: if you want to call attention to racism, but you yourself are white: look for other activists and pass on the microphone! Ask them for an interview or offer your blog as platform for guest posts or share their tweets and Facebook posts… Of course you can be a straight person and call attention to LGBTT*QI topics. But you shouldn’t speak for others. So, whenever there’s an opportunity: pass on your microphone, the stage is big enough. (February 19, 2017)

The call to “pass on your microphone” is made twice, as well as an attempt to explain what this could look like in practice. The blog post suggests, “offer your blog as platform for guest posts or share their tweets and Facebook posts”, however, this implies that the white reader not only has blog and social media posts with a far reach, but also that people of color and queer activists need the help of (heterosexual/cis) white people in sharing their social media content. The bloggers thus focus on (their)

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individual responsibility, rather than structural critiques of social media platforms that dictate algorithms of visibility. This is where the efforts to become a ‘good’ white feminist tip into white saviorism, I contend. Declaring White Privilege As Sara Ahmed (2004) argues, “whiteness gets reproduced through being declared, within academic texts, as well [sic] public culture” (2004, paragraph 11). I argue that it does not end with a declaration alone, but that these declarations in my case study are often accompanied by expressions of white saviorism. For example, after discussing the Kenyan film Rafiki (2018, dir. by Wanuri Kahiu), the blog post ends with a focus on the author’s white privilege and how they can use this “to help other queer people in the world”: The film changed my perspective a bit… And another feeling stayed with me: solidarity. I want to solidarise with queer people in other countries. I do not want to exclusively help gay boys in central European countries, just because these are the kind of fights that are more approachable to us in Germany. The question that Rafiki poses—and to which I don’t have an answer yet—is: how can I use my own white privilege to help other queer people in the world? (August 9, 2019)

Through portraying white (queer) people in Germany and Europe as more privileged than queer people in the rest of the world (read non-white people), this passage not only re-establishes the norm ‘German—white— privileged’, but also positions the author as potential savior of said non-­ white, queer people (Finnegan, 2022). Moreover, it also erases European queers of color (El-Tayeb, 2011). A similar dynamic is at work in another blog post, in which the author discusses an initiative by a big German newspaper, which aims to get people from all walks of life together to discuss societal issues: Though my position is indeed a privileged one: I am white, I am cis, I am slender. Thanks to academic education and perusal, I have a lot of arguments that I am able to articulate. The fact that I‘m a woman is the only structural point of attack that one can spot at first. (October 25, 2019)

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Pointing out that the author has “only [one] structural point of attack” not only creates a hierarchy of oppressions, but also insinuates that due to being at the top of such hierarchy (and also “thanks to academic education and perusal,” another privilege that is declared here), the author is more capable of surviving an argument with someone who might not be an intersectional feminist. Although not stated directly, the quote evokes the notion that the author might need to speak on behalf of less privileged people, which could be considered another mode of white saviorism. Popular intersectionality’s white saviorism can also be trans-­exclusionary sometimes, as the focus on “female sexual reproductive organs” as a defining feature of womanhood shows in the following example: I as well went on the streets against Trump on 21st January. For all women*, I thought. Being told afterwards that my feminism is happening in a privileged bubble because I am white and a woman who was lucky to have been born with female sexual reproductive organs, is very uncomfortable. (February 1, 2017)

Although the author of this post presumably intends to express their knowledge of an intersectional feminism that is inclusive of trans women, the aforementioned simultaneous awareness and non-awareness of white people is at work here. That is, an over-diligence to negate one’s own cis privileges—and thus becoming a ‘good’ white cis feminist—leads to the reproduction of the norm ‘German—white—cis—privileged’. This can also be seen in a question raised later in the same blog post, “How can we as white cis-women* improve our feminism?” (February 1, 2017). Again, the focus is on ‘good’ white feminists improving their behavior and their role in intersectional feminism, which ultimately fades the experiences of (queer) women of color who coined intersectionality in the first place, into the background.

Conclusion In contemporary digital German-speaking feminism, intersectionality is articulated in a popular way, that—similar to popular feminism—displays only a superficial version of intersectionality. This version is marked by intersectionality’s inward turn (Collins, 2009), which manifests through a focus on the white individual’s responsibility to become a ‘good’ white feminist. This inward turn is further facilitated by the affordances of the

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neoliberal capitalist platforms on which these articulations occur. Although blogs would allow for more space to develop an argument, the bloggers in this case study seem to recreate the vernaculars (Gibbs et al., 2015) from other social media platforms like Twitter or Instagram, which are defined by a character limit and thus promote short, punchy statements. Simplistic dichotomies of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feminism are easily created this way which, in a culture of backlashes and cancelling, engenders the desperate need to be on the right side of intersectional feminism. However, the consequence is that articulations of popular intersectionality that center the white individual’s endeavors to become a ‘good’ white feminist, lead to the erasure of those who developed intersectionality theory to raise awareness to their experiences of intersecting, structural oppressions in the first place: (queer) women of color. Moreover, through opposing whiteness and focusing on a critique of ‘bad’ white feminists, these articulations create a hierarchy of oppressions in which women/queer people of color are placed at the bottom and in need of a white savior—the irony being that intersectionality theory refuses to regard systemic oppressions as hierarchical in the first place (Lorde, 2018 [1983]).

References Ahmed, S. (2004). Declarations of whiteness: The non-performativity of anti-­ racism. borderland, 3(2) https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/13911 al-Samarai, N. L., & Piesche, P. (2018). Whiteness. Krisis: Journal for Contemporary Philosophy, 2, 167–171. https://archive.krisis.eu/whiteness/ Arndt, S., Eggers, M.  M., Kilomba, G., & Piesche, P. (Eds.). (2018). Mythen, Masken und Subjekte [Myths, Masks and Subjects] (3rd ed.). Unrast Verlag. Banet-Weiser, S. (2018). Empowered: Popular feminism and popular misogyny. Duke University Press. Beale, F. (1995 [1970]). Double jeopardy: To be black and female. In B. Guy-­ Sheftall (Ed.), Words of fire: An anthology of African-American feminist thought (pp. 146–155). The New Press. Bryan, B., Dadzie, S., & Scafe, S. (1993 [1985]). The heart of the race: Black women’s lives in Britain. Virago Press. Chow, E. N.-L. (1987). The development of feminist consciousness among Asian American Women. Gender & Society, 1(3), 284–299. https://www.jstor.org/ stable/189565 Collins, P.  H. (2009). Foreword: Emerging intersections—building knowledge and transforming institutions. In B. T. Dill & R. E. Zambrana (Eds.), Emerging

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intersections: Race, class, and gender in theory, policy, and practice (pp. vii–xiii). Rutgers University Press. Combahee-River-Collective. (1982 [1977]). A black feminist statement. In G. T. Hull, P. B. Scott, & B. Smith (Eds.), All the women are white, all the blacks are men, but some of us are brave (pp. 13–22). The Feminist Press at The City University of New York. Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalising the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989, 139–167. http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1989/iss1/8 Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299. https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039 Davis, A. Y. (1981). Women, race & class. Vintage Books. Davis, K. (2008). Intersectionality as buzzword: A sociology of science perspective on what makes a feminist theory successful. Feminist Theory, 9(1), 67–85. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700108086364 Davis, K. (2014). Beyond the canon: Travelling theories and cultural translations. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 21(3), 215–218. https://doi. org/10.1177/1350506814529628 Eddo-Lodge, R. (2018). Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race. Bloomsbury. El-Tayeb, F. (2011). European others: Queering ethnicity in postnational Europe. University of Minnesota Press. Erel, U., Haritaworn, J., Gutiérrez Rodríguez, E., & Klesse, C. (2011). On the depoliticisation of intersectionality talk: Conceptualising multiple oppressions in critical sexuality studies. In Y.  Taylor, S.  Hines, & M.  E. Casey (Eds.), Theorizing intersectionality and sexuality (pp. 56–77). Macmillan. Finnegan, A.  C. (2022). Growing up white saviors. Journal of Applied Social Science, 16(3), 617–636. https://doi.org/10.1177/19367244221082023. Gibbs, M., Meese, J., Arnold, M., Nansen, B., & Carter, M. (2015). #Funeral and Instagram: Death, social media, and platform vernacular. Information, Communication & Society, 18(3), 255–268. ­ https://doi.org/10.108 0/1369118X.2014.98715. Haschemi Yekani, E., Michaelis, B., & Dietze, G. (2011). ‘Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’ Queer interdependencies as corrective methodologies. In Y. Taylor, S.  Hines, & M.  E. Casey (Eds.), Theorizing intersectionality and sexuality (pp. 78–95). Palgrave Macmillan. Hemmings, C. (2011). Why stories matter: The political grammar of feminist theory. Duke University Press. hooks, b. (1986). Sisterhood: Political solidarity between women. Feminist Review, 23(1), 125–138. https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.1986.25

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Kanai, A. (2020). Between the perfect and the problematic: everyday femininities, popular feminism, and the negotiation of intersectionality. Cultural Studies, 34(1), 25–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2018.1559869 King, D. K. (1988). Multiple jeopardy, multiple consciousness: The context of a black feminist ideology. Signs, 14(1), 42–72. https://doi.org/10.1086/494491 Knapp, G.-A. (2005). Race, class, gender: reclaiming baggage in fast travelling theories. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 12(3), 249–265. https://doi. org/10.1177/1350506805054267 Lewis, G. (2009). Celebrating intersectionality? debates on a multi-faceted concept in gender studies: themes from a conference. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 16(3), 203–210. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506809105310 Lutz, H., Herrera Vivar, M. T., & Supik, L. (2011). “Framing intersectionality: An introduction”. In Lutz, H., Herrera Vivar, M. T., Supik, L. (Eds.), Framing intersectionality: Debates on a multi-faceted concept in gender studies, (pp. 1–22). Ashgate Publishing. Lorde, A. (2007 [1984]). Sister outsider. Crossing Press. Lorde, A. (2018 [1983]). “There is no hierarchy of oppressions”. In L. A. Saraswati, B. L. Shaw & H. Rellihan (Eds.), Introduction to Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies: Interdisciplinary and Intersectional Approaches, (p.  76). Oxford University Press. McCall, L. (2005). The complexity of intersectionality. Signs, 30(3), 1771–1800. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/426800 Morrison, J. (2021). Invoking intersectionality: discursive mobilisations in feminism of the radical left. Social Movement Studies, 20(6), 635–651. https://doi. org/10.1080/14742837.2020.1858779. Nash, J., & Pinto, S. (2021). A New Genealogy of “Intelligent Rage,” or Other Ways to Think about White Women in Feminism. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 46(4), 883–910. https://doi.org/10.1086/713298. Peglow, K., & Engelmann, J. (Eds.). (2013). Riot Grrrl Revisited: Geschichte und Gegenwart einer feministischen Bewegung [History and present of a feminist movement] (2nd ed.). Ventil Verlag. Phipps, A. (2020). Me, not you. The trouble with mainstream feminism. Manchester University Press. Rault, J. (2017). White noise, white affects: filtering the sameness of queer suffering. Feminist Media Studies, 17(4), 585–599. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 14680777.2017.1326557 Rottenberg, C. (2019). The rise of neoliberal feminism. Oxford University Press. Said, E.  W. (1983). Travelling theory. In The world, the text, and the critic (pp. 226–247). Harvard University Press. Scharff, C. (2016 [2012]). Repudiating feminism: Young women in a neoliberal world. Routledge.

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Sobande, F. (2019). Woke-washing: “intersectional” femvertising and branding “woke” bravery. European Journal of Marketing. https://doi.org/10.1108/ EJM-­02-­2019-­0134 Tißberger, M., Dietze, G., Hrzán, D., & Husmann-Kastein, J. (Eds.). (2006). Weiß—Weißsein—Whiteness. Peter Lang. Wallace, M. (1982). A black feminist’s search for sisterhood. In G.  T. Hull, P. B. Scott, & B. Smith (Eds.), All the women are white, all the blacks are men, but some of us are brave (pp. 5–12). The Feminist Press at The City University of New York. Wiesslitz, C. (2019). Internet democracy and social change: The case of Israel.

CHAPTER 13

“Ca_Va_Saigner” (“There Will be Blood”): Digital Menstrual Activism in France Maria Kathryn Tomlinson

Introduction As multiple social media accounts have been created over the past few years with the intent of destigmatizing menstruation, one could be forgiven for thinking that this movement is a completely new phenomenon. In fact, as with many social movements, it marks a resurgence of a lengthy feminist battle. The main difference, of course, between the current movement and previous waves of menstrual activism has been the invention of a brand-new vehicle for the amplification of feminist voices: social media. Social media have provided a platform for feminists worldwide to increase the visibility of menstruation in the public space, such as by sharing images of menstrual blood or candid narratives about menstrual experiences. With its long history of feminism and menstrual activism, France is an ideal context through which to explore the potential of the digital space to transform longstanding normative discourses about menstruation. In

M. K. Tomlinson (*) University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wiesslitz (ed.), Women’s Activism Online and the Global Struggle for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31621-0_13

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France, we can trace menstrual activism back to the 1970s during which second-wave feminists put pen to paper in order to break the silence around menstruation. Second-wave feminists aimed to deconstruct pejorative patriarchal discourses about menstruation and replace them with a more feminist language that celebrated, rather than denigrated, menstrual experience (Cardinal, 1975; Leclerc, 1974). These feminist aims to end menstrual stigma and encourage women to adopt a more positive attitude toward menstruation are very much reflected in the contemporary “Period Positive” digital menstrual activism website (https://periodpositive.com). Hashtags such as #PeriodPride and #StopAuTabouDesRegles [End the Taboo around Periods] very much embody these second-wave feminist discourses.1 We can find numerous francophone digital spaces that also embody these feminist aims. For example, the Instagram account “Coup de Sang” and the blog “Passion Menstrues” ask women to share their personal experiences of menstruation. “Passion Menstrues,” originally set up in 2015, has become so popular that its creator, Jack Parker, published a related book entitled “Le Grand Mystère des Règles” (2017). Podcasts have also become a popular vehicle for menstrual activism in France. For example, “La Menstruelle” is hosted by a team of six women who seek to normalize menstruation by talking about a variety of topics including menstrual health, products, and activism. The contemporary movement, however, is not solely limited to period positive discourses. Many campaigners strive to ensure that all menstruating women and people, regardless of their socio-economic status, can access menstrual products. This aim is apparent in hashtags such as #stopprecaritemenstruelle (end period poverty). The term “Period Poverty,” which was originally coined by the media as an eye-catching alliterative title, refers to people who struggle to afford menstrual products (Astrup, 2018). This consideration of how women’s experiences are shaped by their socio-economic status echoes the spirit of intersectional feminists who criticized second-wave feminists for ignoring how women’s experiences are influenced by intersecting aspects of their identity (Lorde, 2017). For example, “#7achak” was originally created for a campaign in Morocco that sought to inform the public that 70% of women in Morocco cannot afford to buy pads (Ninauve, 2019). The hashtag is based on an Arabic 1  All translations are my own. Quotes from the “Ca_Va_Saigner” and Leclerc are translations into English from French.

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term used to apologize for behavior that society considers embarrassing and has been widely shared within the Arab community in the francophone world. Other aspects of contemporary digital menstrual activism include educating people about menstrual health issues, such as endometriosis; raising awareness of the environmental impact of disposable products; and advocating for the inclusion of transgender and non-binary people who menstruate in conversations about menstruation (Bobel & Fahs, 2020). Hence, by using terminology such as “women and people who menstruate” when discussing everyone who menstruates, this chapter reflects activists’ aims to raise awareness of the menstrual experiences of both women and gender non-conforming people. This chapter focuses on the digital activism of Ca_Va_Saigner [There Will be Blood] because it embodies many of the aforementioned aims.2 A group of university students created this Instagram account, and the related hashtag #CaVaSaigner in May 2019. As of June 2021, the account has 13,800 followers. The page posts photographs of menstruating women and gender non-conforming people, menstrual blood, and menstrual activism. The Instagram account owners create their own content as well as share content created by other menstruating women and people. As with many Instagram pages, there is a focus on aesthetics (Retallack et al., 2016). The group advocates for social change in terms of how menstruation is perceived, experienced, and managed. For example, the account’s profile image, which consists of blood-stained underwear, signals not only the group’s wish to increase the visibility of menstruation but also to raise awareness that some people cannot afford menstrual products. The profile description includes a link to a petition that calls on the French government to provide free period products to all menstruating women and people. Echoing second-wave feminist works, the page description states: “Stain the patriarchy!” (Ca_Va_Saigner, 2021). This statement illustrates that the group, too, blames the patriarchy for menstrual stigma and also, perhaps, for the lack of action taken by governments to ensure that all women and people who menstruate have access to products. In addition to their petition, group members planned a mass protest for June 15, 2019. For this campaign, they asked their followers to take to the streets of Paris with red stains on their clothes and to share photographs of this 2  We follow Markham and Buchanan (2012), Recommendations from the AoIR Ethics Working Committee (Version 2.0), and excluded any identifiable details in order to protect individuals’ privacy.

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protest. Thus, from a glance at its page, we can see that the group embodies many of the values of fourth-wave feminism, including “a sharing of voices, engagement with global politics, [and a] focus on intersectionality” (Retallack et al., 2016, p. 86) This chapter, however, focuses solely on the digital element of Ca_Va_ Saigner. To examine how the group uses Instagram to advocate for social change, this chapter examines 50 group posts from 2020. The analysis draws both on feminist sociological studies and second-wave feminist theories. The latter situates Ca_Va_Saigner within a long stream of French feminist dissent against menstrual discourses that are rooted in patriarchy. By analyzing the prevalent ideologies in these 50 posts, this chapter examines how Ca_Va_Saigner uses the digital space to raise awareness of a diversity of menstrual experiences and to destigmatize menstruation. Nevertheless, this study also considers the limitations of social media and problematizes the group’s use of this digital space.

Protesting the Patriarchy: From Second-Wave Feminism to Contemporary Sociological Studies about Menstruation The 1970s saw a flurry of feminist activity that sought to break the silence around menstruation and theorize why it is a shameful subject and taboo. Second-wave feminists illustrated that pejorative patriarchal discourses about menstruating women, such their being unhygienic, ill, and hysterical, are the root cause of societal stigma (Cardinal, 1975). A theory that remains central to current feminist thought about menstruation was articulated by Kristeva (1980) in her pioneering work “Les Pouvoirs de l’Horreur” [The Powers of Horror]. Kristeva argues that people respond with abjection to bodily substances such as menstrual blood because they remind us of our corporeality and mortality. According to Kristeva, society insists that menstrual blood remains concealed to avoid facing this horror. In “Parole de Femme” [Woman’s Word], Leclerc (1974) links abjection and taboo to patriarchy. She underscores the irony that menstrual blood is a sign of femininity and yet, in order to present an image of womanhood that is acceptable within patriarchal society, a woman must conceal that she is menstruating. She adds, “I know that my blood provokes disgust and repulsion and so I wear a tampon […] And just like that, it is never mentioned again” (p.  62). To combat this stigma, Leclerc urges her

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readers to fight negative patriarchal stereotypes about the female body and, instead, to create a positive language through which to articulate their menstrual experiences. Leclerc adopts this approach in her work by creating her very own “parole de femme” that allows her to celebrate her menstrual cycle. Leclerc exclaims, “watching and feeling the gentle and warm blood flowing out of you once a month is bliss” (p. 48). The ideas of abjection, patriarchy, stigma, and shame that we can find in second-wave feminist texts are still strikingly evident in contemporary sociological studies. Sociologists argue that negative patriarchal attitudes are to blame for the insistence that all signs of menstruation, such as blood and products, remain hidden and unspoken (Bobel & Kissling, 2011; Erchull, 2013). Wood (2020) refers to this norm as the “concealment imperative” (p. 316), a term that emphasizes how self-monitoring can be understood through the Foucauldian paradigm that the behavior of social actors is regulated by societal power structures. Ussher (2006) draws on Foucauldian theory to argue that women, because they have internalized a critical gaze that positions them as monstrous, bloated, and uncontrollable, monitor their bodies closely. In this way, they can conform to an idealized image of femininity that is promoted within the society in which they live. Sociological studies reveal that the media reinforce the concealment imperative and pejorative societal stereotypes about menstruation. Chrisler and Johnston-Robledo (2013) state that the media “have constructed a stereotype of menstruating women […] as violent, irrational, emotionally labile, out-of-control, and physically or mentally ill” (p. 11). As Fahs (2016) illustrates, these discourses reinforce certain societal ideologies that may restrict women and people who menstruate: “[women] face an onslaught of images and ideas that treat menstruation as disgusting, tainting, and even frankly disabling; such narratives promote the idea that a woman’s period could paralyze her from her participation in sports, career, or family life” (pp. 94–95). These more contemporary critical works, because of their intersectional approach to menstruation, represent a move beyond their feminist predecessors. Hughes (2018), for example, states that a person’s attitudes and corporeal experiences of menstruation are informed by “the differing intersections of class, gender, culture, racial and socio-economic identity” (p. 4). Thus, unlike second-wave feminism that has been criticized for its monolithic approach, contemporary studies and menstrual activists emphasize the need to ensure that all menstruating women and people are given a voice while also taking into account their different experiences.

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Certain contemporary studies echo those that criticized Leclerc for her idealism. These studies highlight that period positivity and online movements are too idealistic, and that alternative forms of activism may be more affective in addressing menstrual inequalities. Przybylo and Fahs (2020) coin the term “menstrual crankiness” for a discourse that they believe is better suited to the contemporary purposes of menstrual activism. Menstrual crankiness embodies a positive attitude toward menstruation while also adopting a realistic stance on related pain (such as cramps and migraines) and acknowledging the diverse experiences of menstruating women and people. By foregrounding “pain, access, and justice,” this “cranky” approach “pushes beyond the framework of empowerment” (Przybylo & Fahs, 2020, p. 376). They use a discourse of human rights to emphasize the importance of ensuring that menstruating people of all genders can access the products and health services that they require.

Feminist Digital Activism The contemporary menstrual movement, of which Ca_Va_Saigner is part, can be situated within the context of fourth-wave feminism. This movement uses digital tools for awareness-raising and empowering women (Darwin & Miller, 2020). Fourth-wave feminism strives to create a sense of solidarity across the globe while also recognizing the importance of approaching women’s oppression from an intersectional perspective (Munro, 2013; Retallack et al., 2016). Feminist scholarship has celebrated the internet as a tool through which women can be effectively mobilized, inspired, and educated (Baer, 2016). Hashtags are one way through which such mobilization can take place, and these have been the focal point of a variety of academic studies that examine the impact of contemporary feminist movements (Cwynar-Horta, 2016; Morrison, 2019). A discourse of empowerment is at the heart of fourth-wave feminism and this has led to transnational campaigns that aim to empower women via social media. The “body positive” movement for example, which has inspired other activism such as the period positive campaign, is one that strives to empower women by encouraging them to feel proud of their bodies rather than succumbing to societal pressures to be thin (Darwin & Miller, 2020). This movement was originally intended to celebrate “fat bodies” and thus give voice to women who are marginalized by mainstream media. Over the last few years, however, its messaging has become diluted through its co-option by mainstream media and brands as well as

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through the circulation of hashtags such as #allbodiesarebeautiful (Cwynar-Horta, 2016). Nevertheless, despite this potential for messages to be co-opted, academic studies tend to frame social media as an empowering place for marginalized women who have traditionally been silenced by mainstream media to express their thoughts and inspire feminist resistance (Willem & Tortajada, 2021). Indeed, social media offer a space through which marginalized women, as well as more privileged feminist activists, can disseminate discourses and images that mainstream outlets would deem too taboo or trivial to publish. In the case of Ca_Va_Saigner, the group can bypass mainstream media censorship and instantaneously share images of menstrual blood and menstruating people with the public.

Methodology This study examines a dataset of 50 posts by the Ca_Va_Saigner Instagram account. These posts were originally posted between January 16, 2020 and October 9, 2020. These posts represent the most recent 50 posts when the data were collected on October 9, 2020. This chapter uses multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) to uncover the ideologies that the Ca_Va_Saigner campaigners disseminate through Instagram. MCDA is a method used to identify the discourses that are expressed in both written and visual communication (Machin & Mayr, 2012). MCDA is a form of social semiotics “which is aligned with the project of revealing discourses, the kinds of social practices that they involve and the ideologies that they serve” (Ledin & Machin, 2018, p. 29). Since menstrual activists use the textual and graphic aspects of digital space in their efforts to change societal norms, ideas, and values, MCDA is particularly appropriate for analyzing women’s digital activism. As activism is about both promoting certain ideologies and criticizing others, this chapter draws on Foucault’s work on counter-ideologies. Foucault (1975) reveals that counter-­ ideologies provide a weapon for marginalized people to dismantle the power imbalances in society, such as those pertaining to gender and socio-­ economic status. Since one aim of menstrual activism is to redress the gender imbalance that women experience due to the fact that they menstruate, this paradigm of counter-ideology provides an apt framework with which to analyze posts by the Ca_Va_Saigner campaigners, which are anti-­ patriarchal in nature (Bobel & Fahs, 2020). We can argue that the aim of activists to render menstruation more visible is a counter-ideology because, by openly speaking about menstruation or by posting images of menstrual

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blood, activists directly counter societal insistence on concealment (Foucault, 1975). To reveal how posts by Ca_Va_Saigner promote certain ideologies while rebelling against others, this chapter examines the posts’ semiotic resources. Drawing on Barthes’ (1964) work, the analysis pays particular attention to how the semiotic resources on this Instagram page, including photographic images, such as people, objects, colors, and settings, produce certain meanings. Additional factors for consideration include the viewer’s position in relation to photographs, such as the use of camera angles and “indexical signs” that suggest movement (Hartshorne & Weiss, 1931). For example, bent knees index that someone is about to jump, and potentially connote vitality or excitement. The affective potential of the Instagram posts is also of importance. Not only can strong emotional responses inspire a viewer to agree (or disagree) with menstrual activists, but also, as feminists such as Kristeva (1980) have theorized, affect is central to societal perceptions of menstruation. Since, as Kristeva illustrates, Western societies have traditionally responded with horror and disgust to menstrual blood, this affective response needs to be challenged so that menstruation can be normalized.

Destigmatizing Menstruation Of the 50 posts by Ca_Va_Saigner, 39 include photographs of menstrual blood in everyday situations. These posts contain images of menstrual blood on products or running down women’s legs. The semiotic features in these photographs support the group’s efforts to normalize periods: We see menstrual pads inside women’s underwear as they sit on the toilet, menstrual cups being emptied, and women sitting on their bed with menstrual blood stains on their underwear. These images pose a powerful counter-discourse against the concealment imperative because they present online audiences with menstruating bodies, menstrual blood, and products (Foucault, 1975; Wood, 2020). The calm nature of many of these images, which are often overlayed with filters that dilute the colors, normalize menstruation by portraying it as a casual everyday experience that deserves representation in the public space (Ledin & Machin, 2018). We can argue that the sedate color palette in these photographs, which include sepia, blues and greens, creates a counter-discourse to societal associations between menstrual blood and horror (Ca_Va_Saigner, September 4, 2020i; October 5, 2020k; Ussher, 2006). By instilling a

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sense of calm around menstruation, these photographs engage the audience on an affective level. By imparting a sense of calm and mundanity around menstruation, they lie in stark opposition to abject and sensationalized responses toward menstruation that are perpetuated by more traditional media (Chrisler & Johnston-Robledo 2013; Kristeva, 1980). The texts that accompany the photographs also pay testament to the group’s aims to destigmatize menstruation. One post emphatically illustrates their ideology that circulating images of menstruation on social media is an effective way to challenge societal perceptions of menstrual blood as unhygienic. This post depicts an image of blood running from a menstrual cup onto the floor and includes the following statement: Period poverty is real. Showing periods is a necessity. To fight against this taboo, we need to make it visible. Showing something proves it exists. Our periods exist, and they are neither dirty nor ugly, there are merely proof that our bodies are in good health […] LET’S MAKE PERIODS MORE VISIBLE (Ca_Va_Saigner, May 28th 2020d, capitalized text in original).

The emphasized text draws attention to the main aim of the group’s activism: to increase the visibility of menstruation in order to reduce menstrual stigma. This effort to destigmatize menstruation is evident in the variety of ideologies that are embodied in this post. Firstly, it uses a discourse of realism to emphasize that period poverty is not a myth. This likely represents a direct response to user comments that criticized both their posts and their campaign in June 2019. For example, one of the campaign posters opened up a dialogue about the existence of period poverty. Some users claimed that period poverty is not an issue in France because it is a developed country, whereas others stated that menstrual products are affordable (Ca_Va_Saigner, June 3, 2019). In addition, the post dated May 2020 reiterates a common belief among activists that there is a lack of realistic images of menstruation in the mainstream media. As sociologists illustrate, traditional media efface the lived experiences of menstruating people because these media reiterate negative stereotypes, sanitize women’s experiences, and ignore the struggles of menstruating women from poor socio-economic backgrounds (Erchull, 2013). A caption that is pasted over the image of menstrual blood reads “Showing periods is necessary to fight against this deadly taboo” (Ca_Va_Saigner, May 28, 2020d). This particular counter-­ideology underscores the importance of depicting menstrual blood in a public space

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and subverts societal discourses that are rooted in a patriarchal conception of menstruation as a peril (Ussher, 2006). By saying that the taboo around periods is itself deadly, their message playfully inverts discourses that position menstruation a reminder of death (Kristeva, 1980). As this post from May 2020 celebrates menstruation as a sign of good health, it resonates strongly with many other posts on the “Ca_Va_ Saigner” page that celebrate menstruation through language and imagery. The group’s attempt to change perceptions of menstruation using a celebratory discourse is highly evocative of the work of Leclerc (1974). One post combines a lexical field of nature with a photograph of a menstruating woman whose vulva is partially obscured by a large flower with delicate pink petals (Ca_Va_Saigner, June 18a, 2020f). These semiotic resources underscore that menstruation is a natural process and frame it as a beautiful work of art. The caption refers to menstruation as an “an act of nature” and states that a 28-day menstrual cycle “resembles that of the moon and the earth with its fertility, grains and fruits.” It also asks the viewers to “reconsider what is pure and impure.” Hence, by associating menstrual blood with other aspects of natural beauty, this post challenges a societal perception of menstrual blood as impure. The word “douceur” [sweetness/softness] is used to describe the image’s ability to “make the patriarchy tremble.” Indeed, this exact term is also used by Leclerc to challenge patriarchal disgust toward menstruation and to celebrate her own menstrual experience (1974). The group’s specific reference to the patriarchy in this context echoes second-wave feminist texts that blame “patriarchy” for the denigration of women’s menstrual experiences. By anchoring these posts within their historical context, we can see that Ca_Va_Saigner offers a contemporary digital reimaging of Leclerc’s “parole de femme.” In six of the posts, menstruating bodies are photographed in movement (Ca_Va_Saigner, May 8, 2020c; September 7, 2020j). We can argue that these posts specifically tackle the societal ideology that positions menstruation as a disabling threat to women’s participation in sport and exercise (Fahs, 2016). The stigmatization of exercise during menstruation is perpetuated by mainstream media (Rosewarne, 2012). For example, by collating embarrassing stories of menstrual mishaps, women’s magazines reinforce fears about leaking. Swimming is a sport that is particularly surrounded by taboos. Many advertisements, in order to promote the effectiveness of their menstrual products, seek to dispel the myth that menstruating women should not swim (Erchull, 2013). The Ca_Va_ Saigner page targets this particular taboo in a photograph that is captioned

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“Lovely memories from the riverbank” (Ca_Va_Saigner, October 5, 2020k). By positioning a woman’s body against a background of natural beauty that includes trees and a river, this photograph reinforces the group’s ideology that menstruation is a natural and beautiful aspect of female experience. The model’s face is cropped from the top of the image. She is wearing a black bathing suit and menstrual blood is trickling down her legs. The soft focus and sepia tones emphasize her happiness in this moment. The menstrual blood leaking outside the swimsuit is therefore not positioned as embarrassing and shameful but as normal or even invigorating. This sense of joy is embodied in her bent knees, which act as an indexical sign that she is about to jump into the water (Hartshorne & Weiss, 1931). This jumping connotes happiness and freedom. The individualization in this extreme close up of her body, alongside the fact that she is named in the caption, sets up a personal relationship between the model and her audience, who are invited to imagine themselves jumping into the water with her (Ledin & Machin, 2018). In this way, the audience is encouraged to exercise during their menses and not allow this natural biological process to restrict them. It is interesting to note that the model is wearing a black costume. As advertisements usually put women in white clothes in order to prove that their menstrual products prevent embarrassing leaks, this Instagram post offers a counter-discourse to the ideologies of shame and concealment that are often perpetuated by brands (Foucault, 1975).

Menstrual Crankiness The group’s objectives can be understood through Przybylo & Fahs, (2020) concept of menstrual crankiness. This is evident across the group’s Instagram page, whose posts combine positive language and references to pain, health conditions, and poverty. Of the 50 posts, we can argue that 10 engage directly with a discourse of injustice. Five of these posts articulate a sense of injustice that the government is not prioritizing a cure for endometriosis, although, as one post states, “1.7 million people in France” suffer from this condition (Ca_Va_Saigner, May 28, 2020d). Another post that entitled “Getting priorities straight” includes a photograph of a wall on which big black letters declare: “Find solutions to painful periods instead of traveling to Mars” (Ca_Va_Saigner, May 29, 2020e). The black and white filter on the image stresses the somber and profound intent of the message (Ledin & Machin, 2018). Through this comparison, the post

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voices the great sense of injustice that a common debilitating condition is receiving less government attention than “needless” space travel. Ca_Va_ Saigner reinforces the idea that while endometriosis sufferers lack freedom, others are using their own freedoms for fanciful journeys to space, rather than trying to help them. By framing the lack of medical solutions to endometriosis in this way, the post uses menstrual crankiness to uncover the government’s ableism, sexism, and capitalism. Indeed, in another post, the group refers to the French government as a “capitalist-­patriarchal system” (Ca_Va_Saigner, May 28, 2020d). Thus, Ca_Va_Saigner takes the ideological stance that capitalism and the absence of women in power are to blame for period poverty and poor menstrual health. They argue that the government reinforces the taboos around the female body for capitalist gain in order to avoid financing menstrual health research or menstrual products. This rejection of patriarchy and capitalism expresses the feminist, egalitarian, and “cranky” ideologies of Ca_Va_Saigner and foregrounds the group’s desire for justice (Przybylo & Fahs, 2020). Another central element of menstrual crankiness is inclusivity. Indeed, we can see that Ca_Va_Saigner uses the digital space to advocate for the inclusion of menstruating people of all genders. The group refers to “personnes menstrué.e.s” [menstruating people] and posts statements such as “periods have no gender.” One post, which depicts a hand holding tissue paper that contains a blood clot, declares “Les règles ne sont pas facile pour toustes” [Periods are not easy for everyone] (Ca_Va_Saigner, June 18b, 2020g). The group’s use of “toustes” is significant because it includes male and female pronoun endings. Menstrual crankiness emerges through the image of the blood clot. This clot, which is photographed in a bathroom setting, represents a realistic, everyday experience of menstruation, and is evocative of health conditions such as endometriosis or fibroids (Denny & Weckesser, 2019). The post’s discussion of menstrual pain and its inclusion of transgender menstruators also express menstrual crankiness. Through gender-neutral language and references to both male and female menstruators, Ca_Va_Saigner ensures that both cisgender women and transgender people who menstruate feel represented by their activism. This combination of gender-neutral and gender-specific language is an effective way of avoiding criticism from both trans-exclusionary feminist groups and the LGBTQ+ community. As illustrated in a tweet written by JK Rowling that criticized a charity for using the term “people with periods,” some groups, including trans-exclusionary radical feminists, argue that gender-neutral terminology “effaces women” (The Independent, June

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2020). Although this is not the prevailing belief within the menstrual activist community, many activists have chosen to refer to both women and people with periods “as a way to both broaden the language of menstruation while still marking menstruation as feminized, and menstrual negativity as grounded in misogyny” (Bobel & Fahs, 2020, p. 1010). In this way, activists are able to potentially avoid disruptive counter-discourses that undermine the inclusive aims of their activism. Francophone activists can more easily manipulate their language to be gender inclusive because, as we can see in the Ca_Va_Saigner posts, they can easily use multiple French adjective endings to include transgender men and cisgender women. Nevertheless, the inclusive ideology of Ca_Va_Saigner is undermined by a lack of representation of people from ethnic minority groups, and a lack of testimonials from menstruating women and people who have experienced period poverty. Only three women of color appear in the 50 photographs, thereby opening up the group to the same criticisms that were also directed at the second-wave feminists: that their conceptualization of menstrual experience is based on a white privileged view. Many of the comments on their page, such as those that refer to them as “bobos” [Yuppies], support the view that the photographed white middle-class women cannot speak for those who have experienced period poverty (Ca_ Va_Saigner, June 3, 2019). Even though Ca_Va_Saigner acknowledges less privileged menstruating women and people, and thus we can argue that the group takes a less monolithic approach than second-wave feminists, it, too, can be criticized from a postcolonial perspective for speaking for others (Lorde, 2017). Indeed, these 50 posts do not amplify the voices of women from ethnic minority groups or women who have personally struggled to access menstrual products. The models in the 50 posts are all slim, and lack diversity. We can argue that the inclusion of only slim bleeding bodies clashes with the group’s period positive discourse and its efforts to destigmatize menstruation for all menstruating women and people. As sociological studies about “self-­ objectification” argue, in societies in which slim bodies are celebrated as the idealized feminine, menstruating women are more likely to internalize a critical gaze that marks them as monstrous, unruly, and bloated (Erchull, 2013; Ussher, 2006). As Lupton (2013) argues, a societal perception of menstruating bodies as unruly parallels negative societal stereotypes that express disgust toward women’s body fat. By portraying only slim bodies, the Ca_Va_Saigner page not only hides the reality of menstruating women

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who experience bloating, but also conforms to the societal valorization of slim bodies. In this way, these images of slim bodies may reinforce Instagram users’ feelings of self-objectification and leave them feeling alienated. Thus, the combination of exclusively slim bodies and a lack of ethnic minority representations undermines the group’s message of destigmatization and inclusivity.

Angry Feminists The group’s aims to disrupt societal norms and confront viewers with the reality faced by those who cannot afford menstrual products are very much embodied in the rebellious imagery and discourses in their Instagram posts. This trope of the “angry feminist” who is tired of being silenced is reflected in the discourses and semiotic resources of 12 posts. For example, a photograph of a placard that states “The cup is full and there will be blood” is juxtaposed with the hashtag #marchedenuitfeministe [feminist march at night] (Ca_Va_Saigner, March 8, 2020a). This imagery of a menstrual cup spilling over is a metaphor for their anger at the existence of period poverty. The phrase “there will be blood” evokes the feeling that they are willing to employ forceful methods to ensure that menstrual products are freely provided to all. Another post includes a photograph of a woman’s middle finger that is raised and covered in menstrual blood (Ca_Va_Saigner, April 19, 2020b). If we juxtapose this post with the anti-­ patriarchal ideology that is expressed on other posts by Ca_Va_Saigner, we can argue that this photograph signals that the group are “giving the finger” to patriarchal ideologies that instruct women to conceal their menstrual blood (Leclerc, 1974). The combination of this hand gesture and the text that reads “this post is dedicated to all bitches” signals that the group is driven by a collective feminist anger toward patriarchal norms. By pointing the finger outward, this image situates the viewer in the position of the model. Thus, this post creates a strong sense of solidarity with their audience and invites them to join their protest against patriarchal norms. This antagonistic counter-discourse, because it connotes the sexism with which menstruating women must deal, reflects a central element of contemporary feminist menstrual activism (Bobel & Fahs, 2020). It is, however, important to acknowledge that the discourse of the angry feminist is highly ambivalent. On the one hand, we can argue that the anger that the group expresses echoes a discourse of menstrual crankiness because it stresses that period poverty and menstrual stigma emanate

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from the injustices that women face (Przybylo & Fahs, 2020). On the other hand, the group’s emphasis on their intense anger echoes patriarchal notions of the hysterical or angry feminist. As studies have shown, this stereotype is used to undermine the emotions and logic of women (Tomlinson, 2010). This discourse is also apparent in the media because it has a tendency to depict menstruating women as “out-of-control […] or mentally ill” (Chrisler & Johnston-Robledo, 2013). As Chrisler (2008) argues, this discourse of the “irrational woman” is used to invalidate women’s protests against sexism. Therefore, we can argue that social media users who have internalized such patriarchal ideologies, may deem that the actions of the Ca_Va_Saigner group are an emotional outburst, as opposed to a serious attempt to tackle a real issue. Thus, these actions potentially undermine the efforts of Ca_Va_Saigner by co-opting the group’s discourses of anger and frustration. Indeed, this sexist attitude starkly emerges in the pejorative comments that appear under various posts. For example, by labeling these activists as “cinglées” or “tarées” [crazy], certain users dismiss the rationale behind the Ca_Va_Saigner campaign (Ca_Va_Saigner, June 3, 2019). Nevertheless, by using the hashtag “#casseusesdambiance” [killjoys] or depicting women standing in confrontational poses, three of the most recent posts satirize these dismissive comments (Ca_Va_Saigner, July 5, 2020h; Foucault, 1975). This hashtag reappropriates the ideology of the “feminist killjoy,” who is criticized for her unhappiness and her vocal opposition to sexism (Ahmed, 2010). This hashtag illustrates that, by inciting such inflammatory remarks, Ca_Va_Saigner has achieved its aims to disrupt patriarchal norms. One post includes a photograph of a crouched woman whose menstrual blood is running down her leg. This photograph is captioned, “Us, when they tell us that we are not furthering our cause. All bitches are frustrated” (Ca_va_Saigner, September 7, 2020j). This caption confirms that the group is undeterred by misogynistic Instagram comments and that their frustration is shared by all women. The semiotic resources of the photograph depict the model’s defiance: She stares down into the camera lens, she has a powerful crouched stance with open legs, and her hand is placed under her chin to depict that she has strong opinions (Barthes, 1964). Her leaking, which is as a result of not wearing a menstrual product, symbolizes those who cannot afford products and the group’s intent to fight on behalf of these women. Her pensive gesture connotes that the group’s protest against the negative comments on their Instagram page, as well as its aims to end menstrual stigma and period

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poverty, are rational and well informed. Her placement above the camera lens portrays her superiority over those who disagree with the group’s protest methods. To use common vernacular, this post is a defiant “clapback” against critics of the Ca_Va_Saigner movement.

Conclusion To conclude, the overall findings of this chapter suggest that the Ca_Va_ Saigner Instagram page both embodies, but also modernizes, certain tenets of French second-wave feminism. The group’s aim to destigmatize menstruation through open discussion and celebration can be traced back to second-wave feminist texts such as Leclerc’s “Parole de Femme.” The period positive ideologies articulated by Ca_Va_Saigner offer a contemporary reimagining of Leclerc’s “Parole de Femme” within the digital age. Ca_Va_Saigner normalizes and celebrates menstruation not only through candid and celebratory language, but also by circulating photographs of menstrual blood in everyday situations. The digital space therefore provides activists with a new method that was unavailable to second-wave feminists. It also allows them to bypass the restrictions and censorship of mainstream media, which, due to the taboos and stigma around menstrual blood, would likely refuse to publish their images of menstrual blood. By posting images of menstruating bodies and used products, Ca_Va_Saigner can rebel against the concealment imperative in a way that is more visually striking and intrusive than is text. These photographs confront Instagram users with their own internalized prejudices against menstruation and may cause them to think about why menstruation is stigmatized and silenced. Another specificity of the digital space is that, unlike the second-wave feminists, fourth-wave feminist protesters can easily engage with their audience directly and quickly. The counter-discourses in some of the Ca_Va_Saigner posts illustrate the potential of this space to immediately address criticisms of the movement and quickly adapt the group’s approaches to menstrual activism. Perhaps, then, with further engagement with online audiences, they could better adapt their activism to ensure that the voices of underprivileged menstruating women, women of color, and non-skinny women, are also amplified. Indeed, although Ca_Va_Saigner represents an evolution from the monolithic approach of second-wave feminists, such as in their recognition of underprivileged women and transgender people who menstruate, they, too, have received criticism for speaking on behalf of others. Overall, this case study illustrates that the

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digital space has revolutionized menstrual activism because it provides a powerful medium to normalize menstruation and engage the public in frank discussions about this traditionally taboo topic.

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CHAPTER 14

“Feminism in India” Framing #MeTooIndia: A Case of Digital Activism Ishani Mukherjee, Priya V. Shah, and Tina E. Dexter

Digital media, and hashtags as the affective currency of social movements, create spaces for feminists globally to rally around women’s issues. Recent cases of digital activism in India including, #MeToo, #IWillGoOut, and #ibelieveyou, led by the soft power of Bollywood, have attempted to politicize, challenge, and fracture oppressive gender discourses. Research suggests that the framing of sexual harassment on social media—its virality, perpetrator accountability, and affect—feed into users’ perceptions of such injustices, either supporting or challenging them (Mukherjee, 2015). India has long battled the epidemic of rape and sexual violence against women. As far as numbers are concerned, as of 2017, more than 32,500 rape cases were registered with Indian law enforcement (Reuters Staff, 2019). India’s judicial system tried only 18,300 cases of rape against female victims, leaving almost 128,000 rape cases pending trial in Indian courts (Reuters Staff, 2019). The statistic of registered complaints under the Sexual Harassment at Workplace category in 2018, across all 32 Indian

I. Mukherjee (*) • P. V. Shah • T. E. Dexter University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wiesslitz (ed.), Women’s Activism Online and the Global Struggle for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31621-0_14

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states and union territories was reported at 533 (Government of India, 2018). These are just official counts and do not even begin to cover the unreported, censured, or actual number of sexual crimes that are rampant in Indian workplaces, public spaces, and beyond. One of the country’s darkest moments came in the winter of 2012 when Jyoti Singh, a 23-year-old woman, was violently gang-raped, fatally eviscerated, and left to die on the streets of Delhi during her commute. There have been innumerable cases like Jyoti, spanning decades and across India; Many died, and most of the survivors lived in shame. The Nirbhaya (“Fearless”) case, as Jyoti Singh’s case came to be known after her violent gangrape and death, opened the floodgates to a new wave of digital feminist activism in India, and marked the country’s unofficial entry to the #MeToo movement. Yet, despite public outcry against rampant sexual violence in India, the system is currently failing its survivors and activists (Sengupta, 2017). What we need are brave publics and braver media. When done right, digital spaces can help us reimagine our fractured social, cultural, and political realities by including polyphonous and peripheral perspectives. One such space is Feminism in India, a “digital intersectional feminist platform” that claims to “unravel the F-word and demystify all the negativity surrounding it”—the “F-word” being feminism in India, a term that has often been depoliticized or rejected (feminisminindia.com). To contribute to research on digital activism, and women’s roles in it, our chapter explores the framing of structural intersectional feminisms in India’s #MeToo movement from 2018 to 2020, as found in the popular digital zine Feminism in India or FII. We selected FII as our case study because it is relevant to current feminist movements, it is powerful, it presents itself as a digital safe-space created and curated by Indian women— writers, editors, journalists, and activists—and, it “amplifies the voices of women and marginalized communities using tools of art, media, culture, technology, and community” (feminisminindia.com).

Literature Review Sexual Harassment: Definitions, Derivations, and Deviances Sexual harassment is not a recent criminal epidemic. It has habitually plagued women and sexual minorities in the workplace, and beyond. Fear of social, economic, professional, and cultural consequences has silenced

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most victims and survivors (Pazzanese & Walsh, 2017). Wood and Fixmer-­ Oraiz (2017) define sexual harassment (SH) as unwanted and sexually inappropriate conduct (spoken, physical, mental, symbolic, etc.) that makes one’s position or success in different public and private settings contingent on agreeing to sexual acts. They describe sexual assault, such as rape, as forced sexual action on/against an individual or without their consent. The fact that acts of sexual violence often defy strict categorization or labeling is not surprising. This is because attempting to define such complex oppressions will invariably exclude one or many factors (e.g., culture, society, politics, economics, race, religion, gender, ethnicity, class, caste, ability) that go into making it simultaneously unique and systemic (Mukherjee, 2015). It is also because SH instances are civic, communal, and cultural injustices that warrant us to evaluate and select diverse interventions that can be used on both structural and individual levels to advocate against these crimes (Johnson-Hostler & O’Neil, 2018). SH laws in India are not clear cut. Sex-based discrimination and harassment in India have often been conflated. The Indian Penal Code [IPC] does not clearly isolate the context or definitions of specific forms of sexual abuse that women face in organizational and public places. The legalese and terms such as “her modesty,” “simple imprisonment,” and the “privacy of such woman,” used in the IPC downplay the seriousness of sexual misdemeanors by yet again validating victim-blaming tropes where the onus of the crime rests on the female body and mind (Sharma, 2015). In India and other countries where SH is endemic, legal appeals for justice are often met with sexism, silencing, gaslighting, moralistic mansplaining, as well as dated prescriptions for feminine conservatism (such as telling women how to act and dress), all that serve to sanction the predatory men will be men trope. #MeTooIndia: Context, Alternatives, and Doubts When the #MeToo campaign started making news in the US, it also started making news globally. Bollywood joined the #MeToo bandwagon in 2018, with several actors claiming they had been sexually abused in the Indian film industry. Award-winning filmmaker Shonali Bose, actor Tanushree Dutta, and other influential women in the industry signed a statement promising not to work with proven offenders (Kolhatkar, 2018). Once the #MeTooIndia digital campaign went viral, with high-profile Bollywood celebrities sharing their stories of harassment, people started to listen and

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talked about taking further action. Predictably, however, under India’s justice system, most cases that were brought to court were dismissed and were not taken seriously. Sharma (2018) surmises that gender and sexual violence in India are difficult to label as they can take on many forms to make the victim feel violated or powerless. Consent is one of those rights to respect before one furthers sexual engagement. To prevent the incidence of SH, Sharma (2018) advises Indians to talk about sex and consent more openly—no doubt an onerous task since talking about sex and sexuality is still considered taboo. Women are taught not to think about sex, while men are taught to pursue women touting the no means yes mantra (Sharma, 2018). In social contexts of sexual policing, hashtivisms like #MeToo can challenge rampant sexism by creating spaces for survivors to talk about issues that are allegedly taboo, thus raising awareness of the SH endemic in India. The #MeTooIndia movement also came with baggage. In India, disbelief and victim-blaming are impediments facing women who have shared their #MeToo stories or have accused powerful male assailants. Several men’s rights groups have complained that Indian women are misusing rape laws for personal revenge (Zonunmawii, 2018). The intersectionality of abuse that Indian women dealt with in the wake of #MeToo was made worse by emotional manipulations, threats, and blackmail from perpetrators who often forced them to withdraw legal cases. Structural Feminist Intersectionality Intersectionality studies gendered, racial and other forms of violence by looking at multiple sources of oppression (Samuels & Ross-Sheriff, 2008). Kimberlé Crenshaw, who is the key proponent of the idea of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991) and who insists that we need intersectionality more than ever to address current social injustices (Crenshaw, 2015), has suggested the idea of structural intersectionality as a corollary of its postcolonial theorization. Structural intersectionality is set in motion when multiple structural inequities and their intersectional variables oppress and disadvantage people based on culture, race, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, identity, etc. (Crenshaw, 1991; Verloo, 2006), an approach we believe is suited to theorizing the local and systemic iterations of the larger #MeToo movement. Tarana Burke, who coined the MeToo moniker in 2006, agrees on the universality of sexual violence, but criticizes the inadequate responses and

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invisibilities rendered to women of color who were victims or interventionists before or during the #MeToo wave (Burke, 2017). When SH survivors are economically and socially disadvantaged, their oppression doubles. Counselors and female activists who work to politicize and make public the horrors of sexual violence are often silenced, threatened, dismissed, and/or may not receive access to adequate resources, considering that the underrepresented have survival needs, outside of SH interventions, that must be addressed first (Burke, 2017). This rerouting of resources ends up complicating the situation of already victimized women. To address these gaps, structural intersectionality proposes that gender should not be used as the sole analytic frame without also considering how realities of race, immigration status, historical context, and class locations influence women’s experiences (Samuels & Ross-Sheriff, 2008). Purkayastha (2012) explores Indian gender politics using a structural approach to  intersectionality that allows for a deeper understanding of those who are not as privileged. Historically, the study of gender in India has led to ideological disagreements over gender discrimination issues (Purkayastha, 2012). These debates have also led to complex differences of thought on how issues such as sexism, power, intersectional oppressions, and social disparities, uniquely operate within urban, rural, transnational,  and class-caste locations (Purkayastha et  al., 2003). Most Indian women across these spaces face layered oppressions, as well as the impact of locally-positioned heteropatriarchal mandates that relegate them far from equal when compared to men (Patil, 2013). Consequently, to understand these spatial patriarchies that perpetuate sexual abuse in complex, postcolonial nations like India, one must look at the local and systemic makeup where women are largely viewed as domestic or social subordinates (Haq, 2013; Patil, 2013). Structural considerations such as caste, class, and colorism also play a vital role in the social and transnational construction of Indian womanhood. Haq (2013) discusses Indian society’s preference for lighter skinned women, arguing how social status, caste, and class locations are markedly better for women with fair skin, and how this kind of racism and colorism is used as the basis for discriminatory treatment of women. The use of cultural tropes such as the Sati-Savitri model of ideal Indian womanhood socially positions women along a spectrum of blame and shame whenever the status quo of heteropatriarchy is challenged (Mani, 1992; Virdi, 2003). In cases of domestic violence, rape, SH, honor killings, or even in/ fertility, women bear the burden of blame, including the onus for not

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conceiving or birthing daughters (Haq, 2013). It is, therefore, an intersection of systemic oppressions that have disadvantaged Indian women from urban, rural, and diasporic spaces in ways that are culturally and historically local and unique—these systemic intersections are now being politicized within discursive digital spaces of activism. Women and Digital Activism: FeminisminIndia.com Digital activism is the use of social technology by people who want to raise awareness or rally action for a public concern or injustice. Activism online is mobilized via social media and digital news sites that make use of the viral power of hashtags for reaching their audience (Papacharissi & Oliveira, 2012). Hashtags have become the cultural currency of the digital sphere, populating platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. It is mostly when users can proactively affix to a hashtag an ideology connected to any social injustice, or make it relevant in its labeling, that a prospective moment for advocacy or activism grows in digital narrative spaces (Papacharissi & Oliveira, 2012; Williams et al., 2019; Yang, 2016). As wise as it is to be cautious of the limitations of digital advocacy, specifically slacktivism or armchair activism (Yang, 2016; Jackson, 2016), what is legitimate is the urgency to pay heed to social problems that such hashtivisms have created for our networked publics (Williams et al., 2019). It is this very focus on social problems and their relations to time, space, and materiality that are affected by digital publics at historical moments (Jackson, 2016), and within digital narrative spaces like Feminism in India, that we want to dissect in our chapter. Twenty-first-century iterations of Indian feminist movements have been led by and for women, both on the ground and in online spaces. This third wave of feminist activism started gaining visibility with well-known instances of sexual violence against powerful women (Dutta & Sircar, 2013; Roy, 2018), and led to more interventionist and intersectional, local, and transnational campaigns between 2009 and 2017, including Pink Chaddi [Pink Underwear], Blank Noise, Take Back the Night Kolkata, Pinjra Tod [Break the Cage], #Nirbhaya, #DelhiProtests, #MeToo, #LoSha, and Why Loiter? Such women-led movements challenged regressive, religious, and right-wing structures of heteropatriarchal control that have historically oppressed Indian women—their bodies, sexual autonomy, freedom of movement, and access to public spaces. These feminist movements have opened up new forums to speak out and rally against public

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safety concerns, street harassment, and rape culture (Dey, 2019; Phadke et al., 2011; Roy, 2018). One key advantage of this horizontal digital order is the curation of spaces that allow new generations of Indian women to create political interventions in ways that were not available before (Dey, 2019; Gajjala, 2018; Roy, 2018). There is, of course, some objection to this neoliberal form of digital feminism that critics claim represents the consumerist ideals of middle-class, urban Indian women (Gupta, 2016; Pain, 2020; Roy, 2018), and often excludes rural and low-caste or Dalit women/activists in favor of high-caste or Savarna feminists. Research on Twitter activism and India’s #MeToo movement has also revealed the heavy burden of digital labors borne by Indian feminists in a gender-biased and state-controlled space that was already primed to ignore and belittle their advocacy efforts (Pain, 2020). Additionally, Pain’s (2020) interviews of female activists reveal the sexist nature of social media that shortchanges digital feminist activism. In the spirit of debate, it is fair to be critical of how (and how many) women can engage in activism in a nation where digital divides, online misogyny, state hegemony, mass-poverty, casteism, and/or basic survival of women in rural and urban areas are very real issues. That said, of the more than 1.2 billion people in India, where more than 500 million are females and a projected 658 million people are online, with a nationwide internet usage rate of 33.3% among urban and rural women as of 2021 (Basuroy, 2022; Keelery, 2020; Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner India, 2011), it warrants recognition that within digital spaces, Indian women are fighting to reclaim their power by sharing their own stories, encouraging others to do the same, and insisting that the crimes committed against women be brought to justice (Dey, 2019). Feminism in India [FII] is one such case in point of Indian women and their collective journalistic role in gender-based digital activism and social justice. FII is an “intersectional feminist media organization” that provides a space for digital journalists to write about gender, sexuality, and minority-­ related concerns, achievements, and advocacies (feminisminindia.com). Founded by Japleen Pasricha in 2013, the social media platform gives writers a space to publish stories, features, op-eds, posters, interviews, videos, etc. to help rupture the sociocultural taboo around addressing feminist issues in India (feminisminindia.com). The visual and textual materials engage readers across similar content, using hashtags, comment sections,

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and embedded links to credible news sources. The digital zine is published in English and Hindi, with some topical overlap to maximize accessibility and inclusion in readership. FII also conducts extensive research about online violence against women in India and has been internationally awarded for its work on digital advocacy and female/minority empowerment. Based on the context, supporting theory, media coverage, and social impact of the #MeToo movement in India, the primary research question framing our analysis asks: What themes related to systemic sexual harassment emerge in digital feminist discourses about India’s #MeToo movement?

Method Using the method of thematic analysis, we explore emergent themes around the digital mobilization of the #MeToo movement in India. Our goal is to create awareness about the critical role female activists, participatory digital media (in this case, Feminism in India), and their social artifacts (hashtags, #MeTooIndia) can/may play to create, support, redirect, restrain, subvert, disrupt, challenge, and/or change public dialogue and action around SH in India. Thematic analysis is an inductive, qualitative method of coding and analyzing textual data, commonly used for research conducted in nursing, psychology, sociology, communication, and other fields (Boyatzis, 1998; Braun & Clarke, 2006; Frith & Gleeson, 2004; Mukherjee, 2015). It aids in the study of social, cultural, communal, behavioral, political, ethnic, economic, and other phenomena that warrant “a closer look at implicit meanings that are socially created and mediated” (Mukherjee, 2013, p. 108). We followed a six-step thematic analysis method relevant to our qualitative research rationale (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Our data comprises 36 purposively sampled news articles (features and opinion pieces) from the feminist digital media organization, Feminism in India or FII (feminisminindia.com). We selected purposive or judgmental sampling for this study because of the nature of the research question, our proficient knowledge as qualitative researchers, and our ability to draw a non-random textual  sample that embodies a focused aspect of the larger population (Lavrakas, 2008). Our selection criteria for the data are twofold: (1) articles or features written in FII about Indian women’s experiences of sexual abuse in the context of India’s #MeToo movement, and (2) the presence of

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the hashtag #MeTooIndia as a key indicator that separates it from non-­ Indian or global iterations of the #MeToo movement. To select the purposive sample for this thematic analysis we used the keyword #MeTooIndia within the search widget of Feminism in India’s (English version) website to locate the articles suited to the rationale of our study. Articles containing the hashtag #MeTooIndia (or its syntactic variations) were yielded from the FII site, in keeping with the selection criteria of our digital sample. We focused on the English-language version of FII because of (1) our fluency in English, (2) our research goal, and (3) our focus on the #MeTooIndia hashtag, which is the English iteration of the global movement in India. The hashtag #MeTooIndia has been popular since 2018 and has circulated in various social media including Twitter, Facebook, and digital platforms such as FII. However, the hashtag and its related content cater to audiences of these platforms in ways that are specific to the platform’s affordances, the creator’s intentions, and the movement’s goals, even though there could be un/intentional overlaps. In our chapter, we present the preliminary findings on key emergent themes related to the #MeTooIndia hashtag and SH narratives, as found in 36 digital articles published in Feminism in India between October 2018 and September 2020. This timeframe was selected in keeping with the currency, virality, and aftermath of #MeTooIndia within FII, during this period. The data used for this study constitutes open-access and fair game-­ public domain content (Hookway, 2008) that only necessitated textual analysis and coding and did not require any ethnographic engagement with the FII writers or the digital media platform. Engagement with this chapter’s data complies with fair use requirements: The Feminism in India articles from which the exemplars have been selected were previously published and accessible to all. The use of all direct or indirect material from the sample (drawn from feminisminindia.com) and the chapter’s research literature has been appropriately cited and recognized as the copyright of the respective digital media platform/s, authors, and organizations that created or published it. Moreover, the exemplars from the FII articles used in the chapter do not violate the original author’s moral rights or intentions. They are used here as examples of gender-positive and socially progressive digital media within the context of scholarly review and critical analysis. To ensure data privacy, all direct quotes from sampled FII features, sensitive information, cases of SH, and names of stakeholders (if disclosed

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in the original FII article) have been paraphrased and/or anonymized in the following section.1 To ensure additional data anonymity for each FII exemplar provided, the corresponding hyperlinks have not been shared and the names of the FII writers have not been disclosed in the Analysis and References sections.

Analysis Our thematic analysis of FII’s digital articles yielded five key themes relating to sexual harassment [SH] and the #MeTooIndia movement, including (1) #MeTooIndia survivor stories; (2) use and abuse of power; (3) systemic blame, shame, and excuses; (4) media awareness (or lack of it), and (5) social media support and solutions. #MeTooIndia Survivor Stories The theme, #MeTooIndia survivor stories, includes unique stories of SH that Indian women have survived in public, private, and organizational spaces, and that were disclosed during India’s #MeToo movement, along with common responses to such violations, as evidenced in FII articles through author testimonies, survivor/advocate interviews or records from secondary sources. An FII writer starts their story by identifying sexist jokes and male microaggressions, including derogatory language and stereotypes of Indian women and wives, that are shared and humorized on social platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook. As this form of sexist humor is often shared by and among Indian men, their bonding over such closeted sexism foiled in humor functions to validate their toxic misogyny (FII, 2019). Many survivors and advocates used the #MeTooIndia platform to disclose stories of sexual abuse within intimate and work relationships, including penetrative and non-penetrative sexual acts, psychological sexual abuse, and manipulation. For example, a writer for FII shares her story of facing unwanted contact with a familiar male partner who publicly and inappropriately stroked himself against her and demanded nonconsensual 1  The data used as examples in this chapter follow AoIR’s (Markham and Buchanan, 2012), ethical guidelines to protect privacy and anonymity, and exclude any identifiable details of the authors, persons, or stakeholders whose texts, cases, sensitive information, or quotes are cited in the chapter.

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oral intercourse (FII, 2018). Another FII journalist discloses how a student was a survivor of sexual terrorism from an Indian academic and media personality who had molested her under the false pretense of teaching her a relaxation strategy that would improve her stage performance (FII, 2019). The exposure of this incident, along with ongoing #MeTooIndia activisms, empowered other traumatized female students to disclose their own stories of unwanted sexual encounters that many were forced to overlook because of the academic, patriarchal, and social clout of their harassers (FII, 2019). #MeTooIndia survivor stories uncovered the depoliticization of SH by powerful men and the institutions that support or suppress such deviant behavior, as in the above case where the accused also rejected charges of molestation and reduced it to a misunderstanding caused by what he called a dramaturgical technique (FII, 2019). Another FII author alludes to the controversial List of Sexual Harassers in Academia [LoSHA] that recently exposed predatory Indian academics, and reveals how a professor who had previously harassed her continues to do the same, or violates morally and professionally acceptable limits with others (FII, 2018). Stories involving stalking and its social normalization have been recounted by survivors. For example, an FII writer dissects the sexist and toxic dada2 culture in Indian academic, social, and public spaces that also trivialized the nonconsensual sexual trauma she repeatedly encountered. She recalls how despite taking a stand against her older-brother akin male abuser, he continued to stalk and harass her in public, threaten her at home and in most other spaces she frequented, to the extent that she felt unsafe visiting her own family (FII, 2020). As part of this theme, typical responses included abused women who dispelled common myths and defenses for SH and self-identified as survivors (not victims), having now had the opportunity, voice, and platform to seek justice. An FII author writes about the visibility and objectivity that the #MeTooIndia movement has granted to Bollywood celebrities like Tanushree Dutta who spoke out against her assault by the Indian film actor, Nana Patekar. Dutta’s call-out validates the soft power of Bollywood and its #MeToo rhetoric that has empowered women from all walks of life, including this FII writer, to call out their own experiences of sexual abuse 2  “Dada” is a part of Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati and other Indian vernacular and regional vocabularies, and signifies “older or elder brother” and/or “grandfather.” In this case, the word dada refers to an older-brother.

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and resist the systems and ideologies that have normalized its perpetration in Indian society (FII, 2018). #MeTooIndia survivor stories reported a host of responses and emotions that both victims and secondary survivors3 have encountered, felt, and/or shared in digital spaces. These emotions include fear, depression, desire for retaliation, cultural and social pressure to give in, vulnerability, and suicidal ideation. An FII (2020) writer acknowledges the agency that a public movement like #MeToo has granted to Indian women, especially survivors of sexual abuse. However, she is also very aware that retaliating against harassment is not easy since many women who attempted to retaliate were further assaulted and bullied by their abusers (FII, 2020). Many women were spurned for calling out their sexual abuse, many had a hard time finding employment, and many were labeled “troublemakers” for daring to shake up the gender status quo (FII, 2020). #MeTooIndia survivor stories also made space for the reactions of secondary survivors who went through a host of emotions including feeling helpless, ashamed, anxious, guilt-ridden, worried, and unhappy, and because of how lost or powerless they felt in the situation to be able to respond to a primary survivor’s story of sexual trauma or introduce some intervention (FII, 2020). Use and Abuse of Power The theme use and abuse of power charts the centrality of power and abuse of privilege in SH instances against Indian women and situates it as a key determinant of India’s #MeToo movement. The most complex way that power is used and abused is in the sexual perpetrators’ total disregard for consent. An FII author from the Indian queer community admits that they had no choice but to consent to unwanted sexual acts with their abusive partner, or else they would face extreme anger and physical violence (FII, 2018). Another FII writer exposes the double standards of the IPC (section 1860) regarding the issue of marital rape, which assumes implied consent in sexual acts between legally coupled partners (FII, 2020). The author notes that Section 9 of the 1955 Hindu Marriage Act makes legal allowances for a husband to demand that his spouse engage in sexual 3  Secondary survivors are close friends, family, colleagues, etc. of sexual violence victims/ survivors, and often are the people in whom the primary abuse victim confided about their abuse, or who may have witnessed the act of sexual violence or abuse against the primary victim.

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activity, which is proof enough of how undervalued a woman’s consent is in matters of sex and bodily autonomy (FII, 2020). The use and abuse of power includes instances of patriarchal misogyny. These are actions based on ideologies of patriarchal privilege and are individually or institutionally enforced by restraining, abusing, and/or reprimanding women who challenge the status quo. An FII testimony uncovers the deep-seated misogyny supporting India’s rape culture by noting a recent case of a rape victim whose attacker was only given anticipatory bail, while she was publicly shamed by a male judge who discredited the survivor’s accusation because she did not “appear like a victim” to him (FII, 2020). As the FII author (2020) clarifies, this legal misfortune is not only proof of how sexist the judge is, in this case, but it is also a reflection of the sexism inherent in the Indian judicial system. Replete in FII articles about #MeTooIndia were discussions of how toxic masculinity, defined as the social cluster of regressive patriarchal values, validates female subjugation, predatory behavior, or control (Kupers, 2005). For example, the author of an FII account (2018) writes of her own traumatic experiences of SH and the culture of toxic masculinity in India that validates such trauma, declaring that her intention is to show how pervasive misogyny is. This systemic toxicity ranges from explicit cases where men sexually victimize and rape women, to the more tacit yet treacherous ideology that generations of Indian men have held about being the greater sex who serve as women’s protectors and/or possessors (FII, 2018). So heavily socialized, rooted, and widespread is the ideology of toxic masculinity among a large segment of Indian men that few challenge it or find fault with it, either for fear of social rejection or because they do not wish to forfeit their patriarchal entitlement (FII, 2018). As victims of the use and abuse of power, many women have admitted to being sexually harassed by those they consider role models. A recent predatory call-out that displays the misogynist mindset and intellectual mask of India’s academic and entitled arenas was directed at a senior musician and co-founder of an iconic Indian folk-rock band (FII, 2019). The popular Indian musician, who is considered a cultural icon, has for years engaged in sexually explicit and pedophilic behavior, including inappropriate touching, soliciting sex, nonconsensual sex-talk on social media and in-person, and demanding provocative selfies, with mostly underage girls in close social and familial circles (FII, 2019). A young female’s claim that she was shaken and deeply saddened to witness and be a victim of sexual harassment from this older and powerful man whom she had known and

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admired for years gives more traction to this theme of how power is used and abused (FII, 2019). It is apparent, as the FII author explains, that this Indian musician is a sexual predator who has used his celebrity and social standing, not only to harass young women, but has often used his power to shift blame onto his victims and dismiss their allegations by having legal cases adjudged as inaccurate and slanderous (FII, 2019). Systemic Blame, Shame, and Excuses The theme systemic blame, shame, and excuses outlines the social, economic, gendered, legal, religious, ableist, classist, casteist, and other normative systems that excuse and support the cycle of sexual abuse by blaming and shaming victims, instead of holding abusers accountable. Activists and survivors across FII articles highlighted how structural sexism makes SH a pervasive crime. Some talked about society’s denial of SH as a human rights aberration, and the public apathy toward criminalizing it (FII, 2018). Indian families portrayed as misogynistic institutions, economic structures that are largely sex-discriminatory, and Indian legal and medical systems that stigmatize survivor trauma, were evident in many FII features. An FII writer points out how the deflection of perpetrator accountability has been historically entrenched in the Indian legal system ever since the infamous marital rape and death of eight-year-old child-bride Phulmoni Dasi in the 1890s. This case did lead to the Age of Consent Act of 1891, but in this context, Phulmoni Dasi’s husband’s conviction and his one-­ year prison sentence were not considered punishment for marital rape but for causing deplorable harm to a person by acting in a rash and negligent manner and risking their life (FII, 2020). Not much seems to have changed over a century by way of naming and punishing sexual miscreants. An FII gender advocate admits that despite the viral spread of #MeTooIndia in recent weeks, and the stories that expose how entrenched sexism and victim-­blaming are in India’s legal system, they become troubled when people talk about resorting to legal redress for SH and marital rape cases, particularly since the Indian constitution does not label the latter as rape (FII, 2018). Our data also exposes caste-, class-, and religion-based excuses for the sexual harassment of Indian women/girls. The five-tiered Hindu caste system (Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra, and Untouchables), in descending order of socioeconomic power and privilege, has historically pitted the

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four higher castes (collectively, Savarnas), against the untouchables or lower Dalit caste (Avarnas). Instances where Hindu women of Savarna or higher castes often blame and shame victims from the “historically oppressed” Dalit or lower caste (Kumar, 2018, p. 2) were critiqued in an FII article (2018). The author (FII, 2018) argues that Dalit or lower caste women encounter more systemic violence not only from men and the structures that support their actions, but also from patriarchally-primed Indian women from higher castes. She admits that being a woman from a higher caste, she is painfully aware that her own safety and privilege, and those of others like her, often come at the cost of Dalit women’s lived oppressions and insecurities (FII, 2018). Research (Pain, 2020; Roy, 2018; Tella, 2018) suggests that more inclusive feminist organizations such as Dalit Women Fight are using social media to stress that the war against systemic violence warrants acknowledgment of how caste differences dictate social and gender power hierarchies. Not considering how Indian caste systems and patriarchal structures intersect to complicate oppressions against Dalit or lower caste women means that feminist movements like #MeTooIndia are doing little to bring about social change (Tella, 2018). Evidence of religious superiority being used as a justification for SH, and places of worship as locations for such crimes, were referenced in the FII sample. An instance was cited in an FII article where a Catholic priest in India sexually molested an underage girl and impregnated her, only to force her parents to take responsibility for the child that was the result of him raping their daughter (FII, 2020). In revealing how religion is used as one more system that shames victims, excuses perpetrators, and partakes in the sexual objectification of Indian women, the same FII authors (2020) explain that the taboo and guilt that female victims of SH are burdened with, in the name of religion, is unthinkable. The fact that religious leaders are systemically and historically protected, despite many being sexual predators, is proof of the power that religious ideologies and their god-­ men hold on India’s larger population (FII, 2020). It is no surprise, then, that their abuse survivors are habitually refused justice and continue to be mentally and verbally harassed by different cultural, religious, and media outlets (FII, 2020). Empirical data related to this theme, therefore, aligns closely with the study’s theoretical framework of structural feminist intersectionality, which compels us to make sense of SH against Indian women, not simply as private instances of sexual abuse, but as complex, cultural, and locally-situated patriarchal oppressions that systemically excuse

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harassers and collectively discount the sexual agency of women, based on religion, class, caste, creed, and color (Haq, 2013; Patil, 2013). Media Awareness (or Lack of It) The theme media awareness (or lack of it) makes us aware of how mainstream Indian media has often stigmatized and silenced stories of SH, yet has also (more recently) made us aware of how problematic such representations can be. An FII (2018) article discloses the normalization and glamorization of SH in traditional Indian media and TV, sexual objectification in Bollywood movies, songs and lyrics that are misogynist, and slut-­ shaming adult media texts that support the male gaze and promote rape culture and sexual violence (such as cruelty, sexual slavery, captivity, degradation, etc.). Another FII feature (2020) addresses the need for Indian journalists to be empathic in their reporting of rape victims. In a society that privileges patriarchal hegemony, we frequently find prime-time media reports of sexual crimes and rape being framed in ways that are hostile and insensitive to victims and stakeholders, including the use of stark visual symbols (unblurred and shady backgrounds) and insensitive language (FII, 2020). On the other hand, the popularity of video streaming platforms (e.g., Netflix, Amazon Prime) and the growing viewership of progressive content that politicizes SH also find references in FII articles. This includes a thought-piece on Sumukhi Suresh’s Pushpavalli on Amazon Prime that disrupts the normalization of stalking in Indian popular culture in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, using a powerful and evolved woman protagonist (FII, 2018). An FII writer reviews the Netflix original film Guilty, which reveals why the #MeTooIndia movement was the natural recourse to seek justice for sexual harassment, when all other forms of legalism and complaints that had been lodged fell on deaf ears (FII, 2020). K. Pervaiz’s film Black Lake, as an FII writer explains, turns the tables on abused women being labeled as either victims or social pariahs (FII, 2020). Another progressive media text that advocates against systemic gender violence is the short film Devi by Priyanka Banerjee, which depicts the staggering frequency of rapes, and the climate of sexual unsafety women endure in India (FII, 2020). The urgent need for Indian media to create mass awareness of this social injustice turned out to be a key finding. To address this need, an FII writer asked award-winning journalist Ammu Joseph how one should

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handle misogyny in news agencies in the wake of Indian media’s responsibility toward the #MeToo movement (FII, 2019). Joseph’s response is that it cannot be eradicated from newsrooms “in isolation from the rest of society” (FII, 2019). It is only by mandating “a declared policy of active commitment to gender equality and equity, and zero tolerance for gender-­ based discrimination and harassment” that news and media organizations can “lead the way toward more gender-just institutions and, ultimately, a more just society” (FII, 2019). Social Media Support and Solutions The theme social media support and solutions highlights how social media, despite its frequent discursive forays with misogyny and sexist trolling, is stepping up and providing support for sexually abused women to reclaim agency and fight the system. Evidence of how much social media is vital to #MeTooIndia, its survivors, and advocates, by mainly offering feminist spaces and solutions to curtail its incidence, is overtly present in our sample. An FII journalist argues that the failure of structural and legal systems to provide interventions and redressal for SH perpetration has pushed female victims and activists to look to social media platforms for their accessibility and advocacy affordances (FII, 2020). Since our data comprise online articles from a digital feminist zine, its participatory architecture is akin to the workings of social media. It is not surprising, then, that our findings related to this theme can also be applied to the support and solutions that women-led digital platforms such as FII are advocating, including redressal mechanisms and challenges to structures that support SH (cultural misogyny/patriarchy, etc.). One FII article explains the importance of the POSH Act of 2013 or the main decree on workplace-related sexual harassment in Indian nonprofit and for-profit organizations (FII, 2020). Notably, in Bollywood, which has consistently bred and harbored sexism and toxic heteropatriarchy within a male-­ dominated film industry that is replete with casting-couch controversies, one FII writer (2020) suggests other redressal options such as the Cine and TV Artists Association (CINTAA). CINTAA deals with SH complaints within the fraternity and has acknowledged that the #MeTooIndia movement has indeed created pipelines for many victims to disclose their stories, their hurt, and their suffering to the public (FII, 2020). A large collective of FII journalists advocated solutions to counter SH using social media, and to support #MeTooIndia using educational and

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digital resources such as gender sensitization and not gender segregation (FII, 2018); the need for women to feel empowered in underrepresented industries (FII, 2018); the need to treat systemic causes and not just symptoms of SH (FII, 2018); initiating feminist collective hashtivisms such as #IWillGoOut to reclaim public spaces and private safe-spaces for women/girls (FII, 2018); creating awareness of social media’s role in “un-stereotyping” gender and SH (FII, 2018); promoting offline/online spaces of support and visibility for SH survivors such as The Alternative Story, which deliver intersectional, socially-conscientious, inclusive, affordable and survivor-focused feminist interventions and therapy (FII, 2018), and; positioning #MeTooIndia as an arbitrary label that makes survivors’ invisibility visible, while making one aware of the #MeTooIndia Support and Resource Base for survivors of sexual abuse (FII, 2018). Finally, an FII feature (2018) urges the recognition of #MeTooIndia as an intersectional digital intervention because it has provided an alternative platform for survivors to stand up against, and call out, their sexual harassers on digital civic media. The FII author’s final argument is that an advocacy effort that empowers women to communicate their stories of surviving sexual abuse publicly and powerfully (ranging from sexually unacceptable conduct to vicious rape) will be instrumental for Indian women to reclaim sexual autonomy and socioeconomic agency (FII, 2018).

Conclusion With so many controversies before it, traditional and social media have been key in raising public awareness about #MeToo, and about the scourge of SH in public and professional spaces. With many reputed Indian media personalities being accused of sexual misconduct by female colleagues and others, it is no wonder that news media’s role in #MeToo has also been called out (Pazzanese & Walsh, 2017). That means the journalists, actors, celebrities, academics, politicians, industry and corporate professionals, and ordinary people from all walks of life—and across genders, genres, and platforms—should reevaluate their role as part of a system that perpetuates harassment, and revisit their responsibility of holding accountable those who abuse power, especially in the post-MeToo era. The affordance of participatory digital platforms such as Feminism in India is their potential to be a social space for democratizing activism. FII is pushing us to identify the culturally unique silences and/or gaps that have continually disadvantaged #MeTooIndia victims and advocates

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(Onwuachi-Willig, 2018). As a journalistic tool of digital activism led by women, which introduces gender-complex fractures within the heteropatriarchal landscape of entitled Indian media, FII also promotes approaching local iterations of a global movement like #MeToo from a structural intersectional perspective. The advantage of adopting such a conceptual framework to understand discrete instances and systems of oppression that acknowledge heteronormativity as central to gender disparities (Verloo, 2006, p. 213) is to also understand how women experience womanhood and intersectional acts of violence in ways that are unique to their social, cultural and gender locations (Samuels & Ross-Sheriff, 2008). Paying attention to the unique complexities and located-ness of the experiences that women of color go through, in this case Indian women, does create room for a deeper analysis of the lived oppressions they encounter and their collective action against such oppression. Our themes reveal that FII has a reciprocal relationship with its connective publics. It helps them make informed sense of the local forms, frames, and systems that comprise SH in India, by giving women and activists the digital tools to contextualize social movements and create culturally sensitive interventions. More to the point, almost all Feminism in India’s #MeTooIndia stories act as online venues for gender advocacy by foregrounding the impact of #MeToo, #LoSha, #IWillGoOut and other hashtivisms, and collectively mark the growing trend of structural intersectional activism within the larger Indian feminist community.

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CHAPTER 15

Conclusion Carmit Wiesslitz

The debate over the internet’s democratic potential has fascinated internet researchers since web 1.0. The digital technologies that offer the ability to produce contents, share and disseminate information to the masses by “ordinary” people outside the financial/political/media hegemony represent the internet’s potential to function as an alternative public sphere and an instrument of empowerment for civil groups whose struggles for social change are denied adequate representation in the mainstream public discourse controlled by media corporations (Atton, 2010; Castells, 2015; Fuchs, 2010; Milioni, 2009; Schumann, 2014). Women are one such minority group that continues to be represented through stereotypes, in what is referred as symbolic annihilation1 (Amores et al., 2020; Gurrieri, 2021; Tuchman, 2000). Today, we find women activists operating in the

1  The term was coined and used by Gerbner and Gross (1976) to describe specific social groups’ absence of representation or stereotypical representation in the media.

C. Wiesslitz (*) Hadassah Academic College, Jerusalem, Israel e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. Wiesslitz (ed.), Women’s Activism Online and the Global Struggle for Social Change, Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31621-0_15

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online public sphere and manage their struggles across all online platforms. The studies in this volume illustrate the wide range of digital platforms that women use to produce and disseminate their campaigns for social change: emails, blogs, websites, and social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit. For women activists, the internet offers the potentiality for an alternative democratic space where they can act collectively and sound their voices freely, controlling content and messages that are disseminated across the world. Women activists’ use of the internet for social change across the globe raises several important questions that are explored in this volume: Are women activists realizing the democratizing potential of the internet, and its potential to serve as an alternative to mainstream media and as a public sphere for egalitarian discourse and collective action? Does the internet serve as a safe space for women activists around the world, facilitating a public discourse in which women from all demographic, national, religious, ethnic backgrounds can freely express their voice? Is the fourth wave of feminism creating a feminist discourse on the internet that is grounded in an intersectional perspective and promotes an inclusive discourse that welcomes all groups of women?

Women’s Digital Activism: Where Streets and Online Spaces Intersect The case studies presented in this volume illustrate how women activists around the world use the internet and social media to create solidarity, raise awareness, promote social learning, issue calls, and mobilize for action. In the digital space, groups typically denied unfettered access to the public discourse on mainstream media can voice their concerns. Women activists today are neither silent nor apologetic: They go on the offensive against patriarchal norms and political institutions and their representatives that preserve and reproduce sexist and misogynist attitudes and inequitable norms. Women make their voices heard on a combination of online and offline means, protesting on the internet and on the street, and are no longer afraid to shout their concerns. They amplify their voices by collaborating with other women’s groups across the world to develop joint campaigns and initiatives. These efforts are clearly documented in almost all the cases described in this volume: women challenge the political and legal establishment in Spain, blame the authorities for their lack of

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commitment to eradicate rape culture and gender violence in Latin America, march in the US, demonstrate against rape culture in South Africa, struggle against political repression in Iran, struggle against predatory gas corporations in Australia, and actively oppose radical right-wing politicians in Austria. The range of tactics they use varies. They may use non-violent action that might be stereotyped as “female” practices, such as the craftivism protest of the Australian nannas or the performative activism in the streets of Chile and Latin America, which are then carefully documented and shared online; or more defiant tactics that might be typified as “male” activism, such as the online protest against South Africa’s rape culture. These cases reflect the diversity characterizes women’s digital activism in recent years, and the context in which women’s groups around the world courageously and unapologetically select the medium most convenient for managing their struggles for social change. Women feel sufficiently confident to shrug off stereotypes of weak, incapable, and obedient women (Amores et al., 2020), rejecting and subverting society’s traditional patriarchal expectations. The internet expands women activists’ choices of strategy and tactics, and plays a key role in providing platforms and space where women activists promote and highlight their agendas of social change. Although social media are touted as the key platform for contemporary activism, women activists integrate those newer platforms with well-­ established digital media, such as organizational websites, which remain relevant instruments of activism and are no less important for collective action, ad hoc projects, and sustained activism over time. Especially in view of the current focus on social media’s uses and roles, an understanding of women’s digital activism requires attention to their use of older, well-established platforms that retain relevance, both for digital activism by social organizations that operate over time (Wiesslitz, 2019) as well as by activists involved in ad hoc protests or one-off campaigns. For example, in the case of the Women’s March in the US, while both social media and the website were instrumental in promoting active participants in protests and education and in disseminating the movement’s ideology, activists used the website primarily to obtain up-to-date information on events and information for the purposes of education and consciousness raising, while social media were used primarily for calls to action. They also used newsletters and mailing lists as a more “intimate” means of communicating with supporters. In their case and the cases of the women’s groups in

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Australia, Austria and Turkey, emails served as the primary platform for intra-organizational communication. Less so, WhatsApp, Messenger, and recently Zoom were also used by some of the women’s groups as “private” means of communication. Indispensable in social change struggles, the internet is both a powerful and an empowering tool in the hands of women activists. The internet not only empowers the women activists but also empowers their struggle, by facilitating sharing and viral dissemination. Yet, as the chapters of this volume illustrate, offline and online activism are complementary platforms of struggle, intertwined in women activists’ toolbox. Their use of the physical and virtual public spheres reflects strong interactions and cross-­ fertilization. Moreover, as Mendes et  al. (2019) argue, women’s digital activism must be studied with respect to the cultural and social events and developments of collective struggles. Many studies in this volume reflect an ecological approach to the study of digital activism (Wiesslitz, 2019), one that takes into consideration the environmental, social, economic, cultural, and political context. In the cases of Turkey, Australia, and Austria, for example, researchers interviewed the women activists to tap into their beliefs about the internet’s role and status in promoting their agenda and its relationship to their collective actions outside the internet. Their findings show that online activism takes place concurrently with— and complementarily to—offline initiatives. While women activists’ struggles are firmly embedded in a specific cultural context, the echoes of their struggles are reverberated by documenting their offline actions and disseminating them in the online public sphere. Dissemination is grounded in the affordances of the internet and especially social media, and is strongly linked to the sense of solidarity and community that women activists’ struggles prompt. Digital sharing practices and their viral effects (both are unique to the internet and especially to social media) are significantly used by women activists to highlight and disseminate struggles that take place both offline and online. In the case of the online activities related to the US Women’s March, for example, the activists’ initiative to distribute the organization’s information to members of their personal social circles illustrates the importance of the viral potentiality uniquely offered by social media, which allows an organization to promote its agenda through the actions of its “army” of volunteers and supporters (Wiesslitz, 2019). Virality gives prominence to, and resounds these struggles in the public discourse, compounding their influence by reproducing them across the

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world, transforming their local character to a global character, which attracts increasing numbers of women to join the struggle. Like #MeToo, a North American protest that spread to inspire women worldwide, the struggles described in this volume motivate women as they spread. The use of social media by the Iranian network of Mourning Mothers expanded their space of activism beyond the streets of Iran through shared images, video clips, statements and testimonies of mourning mothers who shared their personal stories of political oppression—These materials, which were shared and disseminated widely by the network’s supporters outside Iran created a sense of collective and belonging, connecting the women in Iran and their Iranians expatriate supporters outside the country, motivating the network’s supporters to demonstrate their support in the streets of Norway and upload materials to social media. The findings of the study on the La Tesis protest in Chile show that the struggle became viral on YouTube when women’s groups across Latin America and beyond reproduced the original protest performance and uploaded their local versions as videoclips to YouTube. In this case, YouTube played a crucial role in raising global awareness of the struggle initiated by Las Tesis, and in encouraging local adaptations of their performative activism in other countries. In practice, YouTube effectively served as a discursive community-building platform, connecting groups of women across countries and spaces and promoting a sense of belonging among the women who work together to fight violence against women in cities across the world. The studies in this volume demonstrate how social media reduce national and geographic spaces and create what Anderson (1983), discussing print media, termed “imagined communities.” The campaigns uploaded to social media generate affective communities across physical and cultural distances, through which women activists connect to other women based on a sense of collectivism and solidarity, and an affinity to like-minded women with similar experiences who wish to create social change (Mendes et al., 2019). Moreover, viral dissemination of digital feminist struggles expands the discourse and activism to increasing numbers of social circles of supporters and opponents, who sustain the discourse over time and heighten public awareness of the issue. For example, in the case of Spain, the #IDoBelieveYouSister campaign on Twitter attracted individuals who might not have otherwise participated in a discussion on the differences between rape and sexual abuse, and expanded the participatory dimension of public discourse by promoting the involvement of laypersons in a debate

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of a legal nature. This example of social learning, led by women activists, raised awareness of the problematics in distinguishing between rape and abuse, not only among women activists but among all the participants in the Twitter discussion.

Is the Internet a Safe Space for Women Activists? Does the digital public sphere constitute a safe and participatory space for women who seek social change? In the study of the internet’s democratic potential, some scholars describe the internet as an alternative public sphere to the traditional mainstream public sphere: a space where women and members of other minority groups that experience stereotyping and limited access to the mainstream public discourse can freely participate in a public discursive space in which they can make their voice heard and manage their struggles, unfettered by political, cultural, social, and economic barriers (Castells, 2015). The studies in this volume attest to a complex picture: In many cases, the internet offers women complete freedom of expression, a space where women feel safe to share their pain and struggle for social change, unconstrained by dominant patriarchic and hegemonic values. The Indian website Feminism in India (FII) illustrates the internet’s function as a safe space in which activists and victims of sexual abuse share testimonials of sexual abuse and reveal the discrimination and offenses committed against Indian women of certain castes, committed not only by India’s authorities and mainstream media but also by groups of high-caste Indian women. The FII website serves as the mouthpiece for women who have no place in Indian mainstream media, allowing them to sound their voice and their distress and express their criticism against powerful public actors such as the media and the political establishment. The Black women’s campaigns in Brazil and in South Africa also represent the realization of the internet’s potential as a safe space that champions the inclusivity of groups of women, in this case Black women, who are typically absent from the hegemonic mainstream public discourse or in which they are stereotypically represented (Gammage, 2016). For the Black women of South Africa, the internet offers a space in which they can unabashedly challenge the misogynist and patriarchal worldviews from which they suffer on a daily basis. The internet gives them a public sphere that is an alternative to the hegemonic public sphere, one in which they are free to protest and struggle against rape culture, and

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freely choose their communication strategies. Black women suffer oppression and discrimination on a daily basis, not only for their sex, but also for their status and race, and they are justifiably angry. Ryan (2019) argues that when Black women pursue social change, they are often blamed for being aggressive and angry due to their status and their race (in contrast to White women, who are not the target of such allegations). In the case of South Africa, women activists use digital media to fight back, express their anger and rage, and assertively point to guilty parties or propose modes of struggle that might be considered overly aggressive or controversial in other locations where culture, taste, and protest styles differ. What do these cases teach us about fourth wave feminism, recognition of intersectionality, and the spaces created by women’s online activism? Are women activists who manage their struggles for social change on the internet creating a safe space that fulfills its egalitarian potential and embraces all women of all colors, ages, and socio-economic backgrounds? Despite fourth-wave feminism’s awareness of the inequalities across women and within the women’s movement, the chapters in this volume indicate that women’s digital activism does not necessarily eliminate such inequalities. Although the internet does encourage the participation of women’s groups that are less audible in the hegemonic mainstream public discourse, several studies show that even the digital public discourse self-­ managed by women who struggle for social change is dominated by high socio-economic status women who advocate for and voice the concerns of less privileged women. That is to say, even when the internet serves as an alternative, unrestricted platform to sound the voices of silenced and excluded women, we find that disadvantaged women are less meaningful participants in discussions related to their own inequity, and their interests are represented by other groups of women. This is the case of FII in India, where women of other castes struggle on behalf of women of India’s lowest caste, in the case of Ca_Va_Saigner, where more affluent women protest against period poverty on behalf of less advantaged women in France, and in the case of the Mourning Mothers of Iran, whose struggle is supported by Iranian women living outside Iran. Fischer (2016) argues that although the internet offers many more opportunities for minority groups to participate in the digital media discourse, these opportunities remain linked directly to cultural, political, social, and economic contexts that exclude underprivileged women from the discourse. In the case of the women activists described in this volume, unequal opportunities to participate may be attributed to digital divides

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and differences in digital literacy, and to the fact that certain groups of women lack the access or the knowledge to produce and disseminate contents on the internet. Another reason for such inequality is also linked to women’s lack of cultural or political legitimacy to make their voice heard in public, such as in the case of Indian women and Iranian women, respectively. Not only do privileged women with resources struggle on the internet on behalf and in behalf of other women, we also find the use of censorship and delegitimization by women who manage the online public discourse. In some cases these safe spaces created and managed by women activists invite discourses that exclude and shun certain voices and impose a uniform narrative and language within the efforts to promote a feminist ideology that advocates equality and inclusiveness for all. Despite cyberfeminists’ utopian expectations for new media and their role in activism for social change (Wilding, 2006), several contributions to this volume demonstrate digital feminist activity’s potential to be what Jain (2020) calls exclusionist. The authors in the German feminist blog Zine-X, for example, present a problematic narrative through their efforts to chastise the language used by White feminist activists who are struggling on behalf of Black women. In another example, the moderators of a large networked women’s community on Reddit, established to provide a safe space for women’s perspectives on women’s issues, remove commentary that fails to align with the moderators’ views and by doing so adopt a policy of censorship and prevent freedom of discussion in a community that purports to be a safe space for women in this networked discourse. Silencing opinions and ideas is a betrayal of the notion of a safe space by the moderators who seek to dictate a specific voice and reinforce the community’s homogeneity rather than its diversity. As we learn from those examples, women activists who manage struggles for social change on digital platforms and create an online public discourse may fail to remove inequalities between women, despite their ideological commitment to an equitable discourse. In these cases, women activists adopt online self-management practices that endorse norms of aligning with the terms and values conventionally accepted by the feminist mainstream, determine what is and is not permitted to say, and delegitimize specific groups within the feminist women’s movement. Through such practices, women activists’ online discourse reproduces, albeit unintentionally, the otherness of certain groups of women.

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Recommendations for Future Research Taken together, the chapters of this volume present a complex picture of the variance in women’s struggles for social change around the world. To fill the research gap on activism of women, the contributors showcase the struggles of women who are typically excluded from mainstream public discourse and research discourse: older women; Black women; women in cultures in which women are traditionally silenced such as Iran, Turkey, and India; indigent women in countries ranging from Latin America to South Africa; and women in developed countries with limited representation. Alongside these are studies of women’s activism in western countries such as France, Germany, and Spain, where White or privileged women struggle in the name of and behalf of “other” women who suffer discrimination on multiple axes of identity. This volume does not, however, include studies on the complete range of digital struggles of women such as women with disabilities, women in the workplace, trans women, or other groups of women whose voices are absent in mainstream discourse— all of which merit the attention of the feminist research community. Women who are excluded from media discourse are finding ways to initiate and conduct their own brand of discourse, and it is our responsibility as feminist researchers to study the unique aspects of their activism and make them known to both the general and the academic public.

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