“Emasculation nation has arrived”: sexism rearticulated in online responses to Lose the Lads’ Mags campaign

In the spring of 2013 a British feminist campaign sought to have men’s magazines, such as Zoo, Nuts, and Loaded, removed from the shelves of major retailers, arguing that they are sexist and objectify women. The campaign—known as Lose the Lads’ Mags (LTLM)—received extensive media coverage and was the topic of considerable public debate. Working with a data corpus comprising 5,140 reader comments posted on news websites in response to reporting of LTLM, this paper explores the repeated focus on men and masculinity as “attacked,” “under threat,” “victimised,” or “demonised” in what is depicted as a sinister new gender order. Drawing on a poststructuralist feminist discursive analysis, we show how these broad claims are underpinned by four interpretative repertoires that centre around: (i) gendered double standards; (ii) male (hetero)sexuality under threat; (iii) the war on the “normal bloke”; and (iv) the notion of feminism as unconcerned with equality but rather “out to get men.” This paper contributes to an understanding of (online) popular misogyny and changing modes of sexism.     

“We wouldn’t say it to their faces”: online harassment,women sports journalists,and feminism

In April 2016, a US-based independent sport media organization Just Not Sports launched #MoreThanMean, a digital media campaign to raise awareness about online harassment of women in sports journalism. The video quickly reached 3.7 million views and generated widespread coverage in mainstream news media, sports media, and online-only outlets. Using the #MoreThanMean campaign as a case study, this study assesses how discourses circulate in the sports media environment and, in particular, how feminist messages travel as the content moves from social media to mass media. This study engages with post-feminism in order to examine how various producers of media content position online harassment and sexism in sport and society. While the campaign positioned online harassment as gendered workplace discrimination, the mainstream and sports media coverage typically centralized men in the discussion. Feminist perspectives were constrained to platforms with a progressive, women-centered, and/or explicitly feminist take. Implications for digital feminist activism in the context of sport are discussed.     

Online feminist protest against sexism: the German-language hashtag #aufschrei

Abstract

Twitter is becoming a discursive but also contested space for articulations of feminist protest. A hashtag that collected experiences with everyday sexism in the German-speaking world was #aufschrei, which became the 2013 hashtag of the year. In exploring the role of online feminist protest in the construction of alternative meanings, this paper draws on theories of the public sphere. Specifically, we build upon a communication studies model that refers to mutually permeating spheres of discourse in three layers, the simple, intermediate, and complex, each of which exhibits its own communication forms and forums. The methodology includes both a quantitative and a qualitative content analysis of #aufschrei tweets and of feminist blogs in order to comprehend argumentation patterns and networking practices. We argue that Twitter adopts the function of a simple public, where values and norms are negotiated at an everyday level. Feminist blogs create an intermediate public, in that they generalize experiences and are oriented towards networking. However, the persistent number of anti-feminist and sexist messages on Twitter likewise shows that online debates on gender topics have been increasingly infiltrated by these positions. Against this backdrop, in the conclusion, we discuss the feminist activist potential of #aufschrei.     

Towards a language of sexual gray zones: feminist collective knowledge building through autobiographical multimedia storytelling

This article examines the narrative and discursive feminist labor of the Swedish 2010 Twitter-initiated #talkaboutit campaign focusing on sexual “gray areas.” The campaign sought to lessen the perceived gap between experience and discourse and work towards an adequate language encompassing difficult sexual situations presented as residing in the gray area between choice and coercion. Autobiographical narratives of negative sexual situations amounting to something less than rape were summoned, produced, and intensively disseminated online and in print media. I mainly analyze the autobiographical stories produced by what could be called the core members of the campaign as they signal the purpose of collective autobiographical storytelling as well as what is sayable and culturally exigent. I analyze how new grounds of contention in between sex and violence are staked out focusing equally on the feminist act of personal/political storytelling and on the story told about sexual “gray areas.” The article discusses the tension between the feminist collective, side-by-side, mode of storytelling and knowledge building and the equally present neoliberal narrative arc which culminates in a subject personally responsible for acting differently next time.     

#iamafeminist as the “mother tag”: feminist identification and activism against misogyny on Twitter in South Korea

This article explores feminist activism via the hashtag #iamafeminist on Twitter in South Korea. This hashtag became an important platform for feminist identification and activism against misogyny following its start in 2015 as a way to resist prevailing anti-feminist sentiment in Korea. In addition to opposing stigmas regarding identifying as a feminist, #iamafeminist affords an inclusive frame that can promote feminist identification by sharing personal motives for and stories about being a feminist. Although critics dismiss the potential of hashtag activism due to its ephemeral nature, I argue that #iamafeminist—which I call the “mother tag”—was able to persist for three months by continuing to connect with real-time gender issues and by initiating activism against misogyny both online and offline.     

Sexism Re-Loaded … or Sexism Re-Presented?

If part of the project of a feminist media studies is to explore the various ways in which sexism operates through the media, then how might this be achieved? Any answer to this question will depend upon how the concept of “sexism” is understood. Much existing research has tended to approach sexism as an etic, analyst-driven phenomenon; that is, as something to be defined by the analyst during the study of media representations that may be sexist, but that are very rarely about sexism. In this article, however, attention is given to the hitherto largely unexplored idea of sexism as an emic, participant-driven phenomenon that gets defined within media representations that are, very directly, about incidents of sexism. Newspaper reports of an incident of sexist behaviour in the world of English Premier League football are analysed for the ways in which they re-presented complaints about that behaviour. Developing the concept of “irrelevant precision,” this article shows that and how those re-presentations worked to undermine the legitimacy of the complaints and, by implication, the idea that anything sexist had taken place. The article concludes with a discussion of how this concept contributes to the project of a feminist media studies.     

Guest Editors' Introduction

This discourse analysis explores traditional and feminist articulations of rape in online mediated discourse regarding the sexual attack on CBS journalist Lara Logan in Egypt in February 2011. Examination of 175 stories and links in the top ten news blogs in the United States showed that the blogosphere contested traditional rape narratives that blamed Logan for the attack and conceptualized rape through a more varied means. In doing so, bloggers engaged in a struggle for meaning, and mainstreamed feminist understandings of sexual violence within the online public space.     

Authorship and professional digital presence in feminist blogs

This research traces the shift from stand-alone, personal blogging toward professionalized use of social media. To exemplify this process, we draw attention to the transition from pseudonymous to identifiable authorship in feminist blogging. This transition toward professional digital presence is important for two major reasons: first, it reveals how oppositional politics is part of the commercial circuits and neoliberal market logics of identity management; second, it underscores the ways in which online harassment of feminist bloggers can harm their public identities and negatively impact their larger professional self-making. Further, we suggest that feminist bloggers perform a dual role of social media influencers and web-based public intellectuals as they affectively participate in the political sphere through systematic production of oppositional knowledge and counter-discourses. The paper concludes with a reflection on the significance of professionalized feminist blogging as a site of creative, intellectual, and relational labor.     

Under the watchful eyes of men: theorising the implications of male surveillance practices for feminist activism on social media

Abstract

While early internet research often explored social media’s potential for increasing political participation, scholars are now problematising the manifestations of state and corporate control over political activism in these spaces. Yet despite an increased academic focus on the shape and implications of online power relations, there is a noticeable lack of critical theory that considers how strategies of male dominance on social media platforms influence feminist activism. This article conceptualises individual men as monitorial actors invested in surveilling feminist speech online, and brings together literature from within feminist, social movement, and critical internet studies to address this research gap. Situating contemporary feminist activist tactics in relation to second-wave priorities, this article extends current conceptualisations of the dangers of social media surveillance practices for political action. It draws on recent examples of online feminist organising to elucidate the ways in which social media platforms provide men with increased opportunities to surveil feminist activity. The article calls for further research into the ways in which male surveillance practices on social media platforms are shaping women’s ability to organise for social change.     

Working with abused older women from a feminist perspective

Domestic violence in older families is often referred to not as family violence but as elder abuse. This chapter will begin by discussing how perceptions of this type of violence impact informal and formal interventions. The prevalence and etiology of domestic violence are described, along with how the joint forces of ageism and sexism affect older female victims. National, state, and local efforts to prevent and remediate the abuse of older women are also covered. In conclusion, the author presents implications for working with groups and individual abused older women from a feminist perspective.     

Working with Abused Older Women from a Feminist Perspective

SUMMARY

Domestic violence in older families is often referred to not as family violence but as elder abuse. This chapter will begin by discussing how perceptions of this type of violence impact informal and formal interventions. The prevalence and etiology of domestic violence are described, along with how the joint forces of ageism and sexism affect older female victims. National, state, and local efforts to prevent and remediate the abuse of older women are also covered. In conclusion, the author presents implications for working with groups and individual abused older women from a feminist perspective.     

Rape culture and social media: young critics and a feminist counterpublic

Social media sites, according to Carrie A. Rentschler, can become both “aggregators of online misogyny” as well as key spaces for feminist education and activism. They are spaces where “rape culture,” in particular, is both performed and resisted, and where a feminist counterpublic can be formed (Michael Salter 2013 Salter, Michael. 2013. “Justice and Revenge in Online Counter-Publics: Emerging Responses to Sexual Violence in the Age of Social Media.” Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal 9 (3): 225–242.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). In this New Zealand study, we interviewed seventeen young people who were critical of rape culture about their exposure and responses to it on social media and beyond. Participants described a “matrix of sexism” in which elements of rape culture formed a taken-for-granted backdrop to their everyday lives. They readily discussed examples they had witnessed, including victim-blaming, “slut-shaming,” rape jokes, the celebration of male sexual conquest, and demeaning sexualized representations of women. While participants described this material as distressing, they also described how online spaces offered inspiration, education, and solidarity that legitimated their discomfort with rape culture. Social media provided safe spaces that served as a buffer against the negative effects of sexism, and allowed participation in a feminist counterpublic that directly contests rape culture.     

“Hope in a hashtag”: the discursive activism of #WhyIStayed

Hashtag feminism, or feminist activism that unfolds through Twitter hashtags, has become a powerful tactic for fighting gender inequities around the world. Feminist media research, however, has yet to grasp the implications of this new form and social movement research has yet to model the conditions under which activists successfully mobilize online. This article builds on research regarding the potential and limitations of hashtag feminism to consider a question that remains understudied: what is the process through which a feminist hashtag develops into a highly visible protest? Through a case study of #WhyIStayed, which arose in response to a 2014 NFL domestic violence controversy, I frame hashtag feminism as an extension of the movement’s historically rooted discursive tactics. Hashtag feminism’s narrative form implies that the conditions for a successful online feminist protest parallel the elements of an effective dramatic performance. Using data collected from Twitter and news media, I identify the dramatic elements that propelled #WhyIStayed tweets from online personal expressions to online collective action.     

“It's Up to the Women”

In 1932, Ladies' Home Journal (LHJ) ran an extensive campaign, orchestrated by public relations pioneer Edward Bernays, to persuade American women to end the Great Depression through consumer purchases. Although the campaign failed, it is historically significant, illustrating how PR and magazines worked together to prescribe women's roles—a point little explored by feminist historians. While some women read the campaign hegemonically, others resisted its message, even adapting campaign language to suggest alternative plans. Foremost among these, I argue, was Eleanor Roosevelt (ER), whose 1933 book title, It's Up to the Women, is identical to the campaign's slogan. Attributed to ER alone, the slogan has been reprised in twenty-first-century Democratic presidential campaigns and used elsewhere. Patriotic shopping has also reemerged in recent crises. Although less important to feminists, FDR's (Franklin D. Roosevelt) famous “fear” line from his First Inaugural address resembles language in LHJ's campaign. Thus, the campaign can be seen not only as a site where the contested nature of women's roles was played out but one that illustrates how media language can be repurposed to shape changing cultural and political messages.     

From #aufschrei to hatr.org: digital–material entanglements in the context of German digital feminist activisms

Abstract

This article delivers a snapshot of what digital feminisms can mean today. It argues that a commonality of current digital feminisms is a stance against digital dualism and that it is digital–material assemblages that shape certain forms of digital feminisms. In particular, two relatively recent examples of digital feminist activisms are analyzed, and I suggest ways of understanding the interplay of materialities within them: Germany’s Twitter campaign #aufschrei and the German anti-trolling website hatr.org. Finally, I suggest a typology of digital feminisms with varying degrees of digital–material entanglements.     

Feminist power and its implications on Uganda’s malaria communication campaign

This paper examines power and its manifestation in Uganda’s “Stop Malaria Campaign.” It specifically questions the apparent radical feminism, which is conceptualized as a quest for power, and how such excesses drive implementation of the campaign. The paper explains data collected through focus group discussions and key informant interviews using feminist communication theory as informed by the critical ideas of feminism and power. These three ideas help to put into perspective: domination of the campaign by one gender, interpretation of the campaign’s objectives to suit that one gender, and communication methods used in the campaign. Analysis of the above three processes shows that men are the weaker gender in the malaria prevention drive, an idea that has clashed with the existing male chauvinism on which several families still thrive in Africa. A view that radical feminism should be seen as an organized form of power that needs to be checked if Uganda’s malaria communication campaign is to be implemented successfully is herein proposed, along with some solutions to the challenges.     

Knowing your audience: Investigating stillbirth knowledge and perceptions in the general population to inform future public health campaigns

BackgroundThe prevalence of stillbirth in many high income countries like Australia has remained unchanged for over 30 years. The 2018 Australian government Senate Select Committee on Stillbirth Research and Education highlighted the need for a public health campaign to encourage public conversations and increase awareness. However, there is little evidence about the community’s knowledge and perceptions towards pregnancy and stillbirth, nor their aspirations for a public health campaign.AimsTo assess the general knowledge, perceptions, myths and attitudes towards stillbirth to inform future public health campaigns.MethodsAustralian participants (n = 344; predominately women n = 294 (85.5%)) were recruited via Facebook.com. They completed a cross-sectional online survey designed to assess their knowledge of pregnancy and stillbirth, with additional questions on socio-demographic characteristics.ResultsStillbirth knowledge and awareness of incidence was low in this sample. Prominent myths, such as baby runs out of room in the uterus (n = 112, 33%) and baby slows down when preparing for labour (n = 24, 27%) were endorsed. Only 25% (n = 85) knew the prevalence of stillbirth in Australia (six per day). Almost two-thirds (n = 205; 62%) agreed that there needs to be a public health campaign, however one in five (n = 65; 20%) were concerned that talking about stillbirth with pregnant women may cause them to worry.Discussion and conclusionOur findings reinforce the need for a targeted campaign, which educates the general population about the definition and prevalence of stillbirth, stillbirth risks and modifiable health behaviours. Appropriate messaging should target pregnant women during antenatal care as well as their support and care systems (family, friends, and care providers).     

Distributed intervention: networked content moderation in anonymous mobile spaces

Given recent public focus on the use of digital tools to engage in discrimination and harassment, online platforms have come under increasing scrutiny to address online incivility. Many of these efforts have been critiqued for relying too heavily on technical tools or burdening individuals with the responsibility for reporting inappropriate actions. This research examines practices of digital bystander intervention on the anonymous localized mobile app Yik Yak. Through an analysis of the firsthand experiences of college students in the United States, this research identifies and investigates practices of networked intervention—that is, strategies of content moderation where success relies on collective action. Rooted in a general uncertainty and skepticism regarding reporting tools provided by the platform, findings suggest a preference for intervention practices that depend on distributed responsibility and networked activity. Taking inspiration from research on college bathroom graffiti—a parallel discursive environment—this paper employs the feminist theory of relational autonomy to explore the possibilities and limitations of networked intervention to cultivate individual and collective empowerment.     

Posing as art: the ambiguities of feminist body art and the misclassification of Natacha Merritt’s pornographic photographs

At the launch of the twenty-first century, the online pornographic photographs of Natacha Merritt, a young American woman (23 years old at the time), were categorised as art in two publications by art publisher Taschen, precipitating a critical acceptance of her work as such. This particular foray of pornography into an art context was briefly contested by one art critic; however, this relatively rare example of misclassification warrants further investigation in order to better understand the role played by what had, by the late twentieth century, become a pervasive post-feminist culture. Drawing on feminist media studies writing that analyses post-feminist modes of “self exploration,” and feminist art criticism on the ambiguities of feminist body art, this paper argues that Merritt’s “adult-oriented” online digital photographs are more persuasively situated within the increasingly prevalent online genres of the intimate blog and amateur porn. Acknowledging the risk of “collusion” inherent in feminist artworks that focus on the objectified female body, this paper concludes that a compelling critique of a post-feminist (pornified) culture resides in the reactivation of a politics of female sexual pleasure.     

Working with terminally ill older women: can a feminist perspective add new insight and direction?

While sexism and ageism in the health care system have been systematically documented, nowhere is the treatment of aging women more androcentric than in the care for the terminally ill. In fact, a terminally ill older woman is too often disadvantaged by a health care system which excludes her from decision-making and renders her powerless. In response, we propose a feminist approach to health care for terminally ill older women and argue that it is this approach which will not only put knowledge and power into the hands of women, but will change the fundamental ways in which women approach death.