by Wenjie Huang

Can social media drive a new wave of feminism?

I believe that social media has made the new wave of feminism becomes possible now, as it facilitates the growth of women’s connection and empowerment. For individuals, developing awareness is important. Perception of people influence their intention and even actions. When individuals all realise that they need to fight for equality in the society, they will become a strong group that sparing no efforts to improve women’s social status. A lot of youngers have realised that they are of no difference to men. This motivates girls and women to pursue the life that they want.

 The power of social media in driving social movement

We all know that the media environment has been evolving, while social media have become popular communication tool since early 2000s when Facebook was launched (Broadbandsearch.com, 2020). I am interested to argue that #MeToo social movement plays an important role to improve women’s awareness about gender equality. Of course, women’s social status might still be an issue, especially in the countries and regions where women are still considered less valuable than men.

With social media, people now have the opportunity to generate and publish information to the public as social media has the feature of user generated content (UGC) (Luca, 2015). The creation of #MeToo movement was initially just personal sharing, which it attracted attention of women and men who share the feelings that women need to voice up and get united to seek equal rights for women. The #MeToo movement was started by a sexual assault survivor and activist named Tarana Burke but it did not attract much attention in the beginning. After actress Alyssa Milano twitted about #MeToo, this hashtag went viral and got 6.5 million tweets in 3 months (Chou, 2018). The success of this social media movement lies in its viral effects. Information can be circulated virally in the social media communities, which makes information spread within minutes.

What is the power of social media community?

An extended community is created when people share their opinions using #MeToo (Manikonda et al., 2018). People grow their intention to use social media to share useful information that help women. The power of this hashtag was elevated when the scale of followers and users is large on social media (Leopold et al., 2019). Women who suffer from inequal treatment and sexual harassment are given a space to express, which is a relief of people. More importantly, this empowers women to enhance their awareness about the importance of gender equality. Gender is a concept constructed through cultural and social means (Zimmerman and West, 1987).

Anonymity is an important principle on social media, which drives honest sharing of women about their experience (Elbagir, 2020). Clark-Parsons (2019) brings up that networked feminists emerge after #MeToo. Feminist activities have been organised for women to pursue gender equality, as it is still a general issue recognised (West and Fenstermaker, 2016). The development of social media provides a new platform for feminists to share their opinions and help women to seek their equal rights. Before the introduction and availability of social media, people can only have access to news through TV or newspaper. As these media are controlled by either governments or private owners, individuals have no access to authentic information of individuals. What is worse, people’s opinions are not heard on these news networks.

UGC allows individuals to share their comments and feedbacks, especially because of its interactive function. Individuals are not only audience of news content, but they have become owners of media. Authenticity and trustworthiness of social media are perceived high. Feminism becomes popular following the social movement of #MeToo, since some critical principles about gender equality are circulated and reinforced on social media (De Benedictis et al., 2019). Neoliberal feminism also grows, which is a trend for  powerful women to discuss about gender equality as they find it morally worthy (Ghadery, 2019).

Following the influence of #MeToo social movement, there have been changes in legal system in the US to protect the benefits of women (Tippett, 2018). This example suggests that social movement like #MeToo contributes to changes in the society. Law protects people in the society, while law is not of no bias. This is evidence to show that #MeToo has the capacity to make law makers think of optimising the legal regulations to better adapt to the changing world and changing needs of women. Seeing that there is improvement made for women to improve their situation is very inspiring and encouraging.

References

Broadbandsearch.com (2020) History of social media Available at: https://www.broadbandsearch.net/blog/complete-history-social-media#:~:text=By%202004%2C%20social%20media%20had,integral%20part%20of%20our%20lives.

Chou S (2018) Millions say #MeToo. But not everyone is heard equally.

Clark-Parsons R (2019) “I see you, I believe you, I stand with you”:# MeToo and the performance of networked feminist visibility. Feminist Media Studies. 1-19.

De Benedictis S, Orgad S and Rottenberg C (2019) # MeToo, popular feminism and the news: A content analysis of UK newspaper coverage. European Journal of Cultural Studies 22(5-6): 718-738.

Elbagir Y (2020) Anonymity helps # MeToo movement extend its reach.

Ghadery F (2019) # Metoo—has the ‘sisterhood’finally become global or just another product of neoliberal feminism? Transnational Legal Theory 10(2): 252-274.

Leopold J, Lambert JR, Ogunyomi IO, et al. (2019) The hashtag heard round the world: how# MeToo did what laws did not. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal.

Luca M (2015) User-generated content and social media. Handbook of media Economics. Elsevier, pp.563-592.

Manikonda L, Beigi G, Kambhampati S, et al. (2018) # metoo through the lens of social media. International conference on social computing, behavioral-cultural modeling and prediction and behavior representation in modeling and simulation. Springer, 104-110.

Tippett EC (2018) The Legal Implications of the MeToo Movement. Minn. L. Rev. 103: 229.

West C and Fenstermaker S (2016) Doing difference. Routledge.

Zimmerman DH and West C (1987) Doing gender. Gender and Society 1(2).

Grace Baker

A couple of years ago third wave feminism, particularly choice feminist movements, were being questioned and discussed. It may seem outdated, then, to be rehashing old problems. However, in light of new Instagram community guidelines (yawn), Instagram has become a sort of microclimate of society. It highlights the ever emergent problems of choice feminism.                          

So what is choice feminism?

The original fight against choice feminism began in 2006 when Linda Hirshman coined the phrase in order to denounce it. It puts a label to concepts that had taken over feminist movements in the 1980’s. It pushed back against the strict idea that women should neglect the home and get to work. Instead, this new ideology purported that after years of oppression women should be able to make whatever choices they want. Deciding not to work, having a plethora of children, being promiscuous or not, shaving or not and the list goes on.

Women should simply be empowered in their choices and all such empowerment is deemed feminist under the choice feminist banner.

It can be seen as arising out of criticisms levelled at feminism; that it is too radical, too exclusionary, and too judgemental (Ferguson 2010). Choice feminism, instead, does not really challenge society. It ensures that everyone can be included in feminism (we wouldn’t want to lose any allies!). It also guarantees that people cannot be judged since all choices are valid and, therefore, not open to moral indignation. Choice feminism is, thus, increasingly used by women in order to present their empowerment as feminist.

For example, Emily Ratajkowski recently published an article ‘Buying Myself Back’ and not too long ago ‘Baby Woman’. She claims that her empowerment is, quite simply, owning her body and presenting it however she wishes. This has been framed as feminist activism. I think this is dangerous.

Choice feminism has the ability to take feminism out of context.

It skims over the intricacies involved, especially within intersectional feminism. Kimberlé Crenshaw highlighted the important ways in which race, gender and socio-economi

c background intersect in the lived experience of women. This theory has since been broadened to include a wide range of different disadvantages people may face. Such intersections are highlighted when we contrast the way in which @emrata, as she is known on Instagram, is able to post empowering pictures compared to Nyome Nicholas-Williams.  

Nyome (@curvynyome) posed topless wearing black bicycle shorts only. This picture was frequently taken down by Instagram as it was deemed to ‘break their rules’. This resulted in the circulation of the ‘I want to see Nyome’ campaign.

 

 

 

In comparison, Emily can pose fully naked but for a flower over her vulva, among many other risqué photos, and yet these pictures are not removed.

Both images comply with the Instagram guidelines as neither show full nudity nor nipples. However, Instagram explained that it was a former policy on ‘boob squeezing’ that had caused Nyome’s photo to be taken down. In my opinion, Nyome’s photo does not include any more ‘boob squeezing’ than Emily’s. Instead, she is attempting to cover more of her bigger boobs. The rules, therefore, have been applied unevenly. I think it is worth looking at why this may be the case.

Emily has white privilege, pretty privilege, skinny privilege (to name a few). Her posture is also more open and alluring whereas Nyome’s is closed off which could be seen as intimidating. Nyome’s buzz cut hairstyle also presents as more androgynous. Therefore, it can be assumed that Emily fits better into the economy of the male gaze.

 

Thus, though it can be incredibly empowering to freely express your sexuality and make money from it, not everyone is given this choice.

It seems impossible, then, to say that Emily’s choices are feminist.

They still buy into the commodity of women, into the male gaze, and into what society deems to be beautiful. Such ‘choice feminism’ clearly hides important aspects of intersectionality. In this case being a black, plus-sized, less womanly (on societies’ standards) individual means her choices are lacking.

So what is the solution?

We need to delete choice feminism and actually create a feminist political stance.

This includes making judgements, creating change in society, and in some cases excluding those stuck in the status quo. This is okay.

We may not always get it right. Judging is a political skill and we all need practice. It is the skill of defining and explaining what actions and choices actually benefit the feminist movement. It is creating arguments for the case and hoping other people jump onboard. We may fail. If we do, we need others to hold us accountable. Therefore, we need to be open to the risks of being political, feminist activists. We need to find ‘pleasure in politics’, as Ferguson advocates, even when it feels incredibly uncomfortable.

It is time to embrace not just feelings of empowerment in our choices, but the uncomfortable feeling of being in the realm of risk.

Emily Ratajkowski’s articles:

https://www.lennyletter.com/story/emily-ratajkowski-baby-woman

https://www.thecut.com/article/emily-ratajkowski-owning-my-image-essay.html

Instagram Community Guidelines:

https://help.instagram.com/477434105621119/?helpref=hc_fnav&bc[0]=Instagram%20Help&bc[1]=Privacy%20and%20Safety%20Center

References:

Ferguson, M. L., (2010), ‘Choice Feminism and the Fear of Politics’, Perspectives on Politics, 8(1), pp.247-253

Hirschman, L. R., (2006), Get To Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World, New York: Viking

Crenshaw, K., (1989), ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine’, University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1), pp.139-168