Identities: Feminism and new/digital media

Identities: Feminism and new/digital media

Everyday Sexism

1)

Laura Bates started the Everyday Sexism project because as a victim of sexual harassment herself, she deemed it imperative for other women to have the opportunity to speak out against things that they've dealt with. This helps provide a sense of solidarity for them in being able to stand for their own rights as women.

2)

The Everyday Sexism project is testament to how post-feminism is still needed within modern society. Women still face aspects of abuse in terms of things like sexual harassment and rape in the U.K, so really a project like this actually has to have a place in society. Not just U.K society, but western society as a whole to help reach this egalitarian state we wish to live in.

3)

Judith Butler's theory can be applied to the creation of the Everyday Sexism project as the abuse of the women was done with 'sexual pleasure/gain' in mind. Society through things like Page 3 has constructed a notion that the main positive of women is their 'biological endowments,' and this is where the abusive behaviour comes from.

4)

Angela McRobbie's work on female empowerment links to the project as we see here, women standing up in solidarity against a crime committed on them. However, the main empowerment is sourced from the way in which the women present what's been done to them. 'Success stories' often get reported of women detailing what they've done in opposition to sexism by men and this can end up inspiring other women to also make a stand against it, deriving empowerment from this. 

Media Magazine: The fourth wave?

1)

Networked feminism is what's the quite contestable, fourth wave of feminism. It's done with the goals of solving social equality issues that we see on modern technology. Examples of this include blogs and hashtags and these have assisted in almost 'resurrecting' both ideologies and communities thought to have been dead to the internet. While YouTube is utilised in helping set up, grow and oppose campaigns with sentiments of sexism in them, Twitter is the main platform modern feminism is expressed on. Hashtags like #WomenAgainstFeminism and #YesAllWomen exemplify this, trending on the social network represent the significance feminism still has now in society.

It can be viewed though as being a problem, especially with the supposed 'post-feminist' state that we now live in. This state means that many people have misconceptions about what feminism actually stands for and what it's currently still trying to achieve. The concept of 'man haters' is a particularly prevalent one here. Not only this the word 'feminist' also has associations with groups like the suffragettes who were renowned for their more active opposition to patriarchy, so it's considered being too strong.

2)

First wave: early 20th century, suffragette movement (right to vote).

Second wave: 1960s – 1990s, reproductive rights (pill), abortion, equal pay.

Third wave: 1990s – present, empowerment, reclaiming of femininity (high heels, sexuality etc. See Angela McRobbie's work on women's magazines).

Fourth wave? 2010 – ongoing, use of new technology and digital media (e.g. Twitter) for activism.

Personally I think we are now in a fourth wave of feminism and social networks are only testament to this. Certain hashtags can be seen here and there that do have links to the feminist movement  and we see what appears to be quite a large number of young people associating with these.

3)

Everyday Sexism

Everyday Sexism is a project that was started by Laura Bates 4 years ago that allows female victims of sexism to post examples of some of the abuse they have had to face committed by men. She set it up with the main concern of us not being in a post-feminist state in mind, something that many disagree with. The 50,000 entries made by users by December 2013 proved that Bates’ view was true, and fast forward three years after that and you see the Everyday Sexism project being one of the most highly-visible feminist digital campaigns that there are.

HeForShe

HeForShe is a campaign lead by Emma Watson concentrating on support by males for gender inequality. One of the reasons she believes this should be done is because ‘fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating,’ so the participation of males could help change that. In promotion of the campaign she’s participated in Twitter Q&A sessions, with her answers often rejecting the performance (Butler) aspects women are generally known for having. The campaign has though, been subject to criticism for making feminism too reliant on men which some argue actually helps undermine the ‘strong woman’ element that they feel needs to be developed more.

FCKH8

FCKH8 is a digital campaign that focuses on the modern representation of girls and the significant social inequalities that they often end up facing. It involved a video that featured young girls ‘f-bombing,’ and this was used to question what was actually worse between a girl swearing and the sexism that women have to face in society today. The video racked up over 1 million views in its first 3 months of being published but this didn’t stop the campaign from coming under fire. FCKH8 is a for-profit company that sells t-shirts so people felt that the feminist movement was really just being exploited as an advertising tool.

The Girl Can

This Girl Can is apparently, ‘the first fitness campaign’ that doesn’t either exclude or shame women in the photos, videos and quotes they share from them. The sexual exploitation that you would see in other campaigns is missing here meaning that body shaming doesn’t take place. Regardless though, this hasn’t meant that the campaign has had everyone positive about it as it has dealt with some criticisms by feminists online.

4)

I do think that as a society, we have entered a fourth wave of feminism. The use of social networks like Twitter and also video-sharing sites like YouTube exemplify this with the feminist communities that have been created on them through things like hashtags.  With this it appears that digital is the new path that feminism is now taking.