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Abstract
This article investigates the renewed feminist politics that emerge from the interface of digital platforms and activism today, examining the role of digital media in affecting the particular ways that contemporary feminist protests make meaning and are understood transnationally, nationally, and locally. I consider the political investments of digital feminisms in the context of what Angela McRobbie has termed the “undoing of feminism” in neoliberal societies, where discourses of choice, empowerment, and individualism have made feminism seem both second nature and unnecessary. Within this context, I describe a range of recent feminist protest actions that are in a sense redoing feminism for a neoliberal age. A key component of this redoing is the way recent protest actions play out central tensions within historical and contemporary feminist discourse; crucial here is the interrelationship between body politics experienced locally and feminist actions whose efficacy relies on their translocal and transnational articulation. My discussion focuses on three case studies: SlutWalk Berlin, Peaches’ “Free Pussy Riot!” video, and the Twitter campaigns #Aufschrei and #YesAllWomen. My analysis ultimately calls attention to the precarity of digital feminisms, which reflect both the oppressive nature of neoliberalism and the possibilities it offers for new subjectivities and social formations.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Clara and Robert Vambery Professorship in Comparative Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park and by the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities.
Notes
1. “#yesallwomen—der globale #aufschrei … Weil erkenntnis der erste schritt zu gesellschaftlicher veränderung ist.” All translations from the German are my own.
2. See for example Carstensen (Citation2014), Myra Marx Ferree and Tetyana Pudrovska (Citation2006), Henrike Knappe and Sabine Lang (Citation2014), and Özer (Citation2014).
3. Rodino-Colocino (Citation2014) notes that hashtag feminism does not signal a new feminist wave, but rather highlights enduring mobilizing issues like sexual violence. By contrast, Knappe and Lang (Citation2014, 364) explicitly link digital feminism and fourth-wave feminism: “[Fourth-wave feminists] use the web to re-link older and newer organisations, foster stronger networks, and encourage outreach to a new generation. Fourth-wave feminism is thus defined by its focus on technology.”
4. A key tendency of neoliberalism is its drive to co-opt emancipatory social movements including feminism and gay rights, replacing their anti-hierarchical and redistributive politics with discourses of personal responsibility and individual empowerment (Lisa Duggan Citation2003) while at the same time transforming their signs and symbols into commodities. This tendency is evident, e.g., in the appropriation and commodification of Pussy Riot’s aesthetic since 2013 and in the decision of the initiator of #YesAllWomen to stop posting under that hashtag because “I am not for it being monetized and co-opted” (@gildedspine, Twitter posting, August 12, 2014).
5. Precarity emerged in the early 2000s as an organizing concept within both theoretical discourse and activist movements, where it served as a platform for collective protests, particularly in Europe. Deriving especially from a critique of the flexibilization of labor in neoliberal capitalism, the notion of precarity has been elaborated within European social thought, especially by French and Italian Marxists. The concept of precarity has also been adopted widely by German political activists and social theorists responding to the insecurity of life in neoliberalism. In a distinct but related line of thought, Judith Butler’s work has also focused increasingly on the precarity of life, in particular the vulnerability of certain populations (including LGBT people, women, sex workers, and migrants) who are at increased risk of exposure to violence or displacement and who lack state protections. On the concept of precarity, see Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello (Citation2005), Pierre Bourdieu (Citation1998); Butler (Citation2004a, Citation2009), Robert Castel and Klaus Dörre (Citation2009), Gill and Pratt (Citation2008), Barbara Götz and Irene Lemberger (Citation2009), and Guy Standing (Citation2011).
6. Notable contributions to this debate include bestsellers like Eva Herman’s Das Eva-Prinzip (The Eve Principle, Citation2007), which criticizes women for prioritizing careers over families, and Thilo Sarrazin’s Deutschland schafft sich ab (Germany Abolishes Itself, Citation2010), a racist indictment of Germany’s declining birthrate and growing immigrant population.
7. See for example the feminist blog Mädchenmannschaft.de, founded 2007; the feminist publication Missy Magazine, founded 2008; and books including Thea Dorn (Citation2007), Eismann (Citation2007), Meredith Haaf, Susanne Klingner, and Barbara Streidl (Citation2008), Jana Hensel and Elisabeth Raether (Citation2008), and Mirja Stöcker (Citation2007).
8. “Popkultur durch feministische Strategien perforiert und erschüttert werden [sollte].”
9. “Popfeminismus muss als eine neuartige Erscheinungsform des Feminismus … aufgefasst werden.”
10. Comprehensive guides to German webpages and blogs devoted to gender and feminism can be found at “Stoffsammlung.” Accessed December 18, 2014. http://feminismus101.de/stoffsammlung/; and “Frauen und Medien: Die wichtigsten Seiten im Netz.“ Accessed December 18, 2014. https://www.journalistinnen.de/journalistinnenbund/ueber-uns/der-verband/meldungen/items/links-zu-frauen-und-medien.html.
11. “[B]loggen, sie twittern unter Hashtags wie ‘#Aufschrei’ oder ‘#yesallwomen,’ sie machen Videos. Sie gründen Tumblr-Blogs … Sie nutzen einfach alle Möglichkeiten und Plattformen, die das Netz bietet. Und vor allem analysieren sie, wie all diese verschiedenen Ereignisse mit Sexismus zusammenhängen.”
12. FEMEN’s global influence has been disputed, and estimates regarding its size vary. It has been widely reported in the US press that the group numbers as many as 150,000 members worldwide (see for example Jeffrey Tayler Citation2013), but members often drop out soon after they are recruited.
13. See Feminist Frequency’s “Link Round Up: Feminist Critiques of SlutWalk,” May 16, 2011. Accessed December 28, 2014. http://www.feministfrequency.com/2011/05/link-round-up-feminist-critiques-of-slutwalk/.
14. “Demo gegen Sexismus, sexualisierte Gewalt, und ihre Verharmlosung.”
15. See especially The Crunk Feminist Collective, “SlutWalks vs. Ho Strolls,” May 23, 2011. Accessed December 28, 2014. https://crunkfeministcollective.wordpress.com/2011/05/23/slutwalks-v-ho-strolls/; and Black Women’s Blueprint, “An Open Letter From Black Women to the SlutWalk,” September 23, 2011. Accessed December 28, 2014. https://www.facebook.com/notes/blackwomens-blueprint/an-open-letter-from-black-women-to-the-slutwalk/232501930131880.
16. For an account of the group’s history, see FEMEN (Citation2014).
17. “Kein Kleidungsstück rechtfertigt sexuelle Gewalt.”
18. Several protesters carried posters written in English, including the second motto quoted here. Images of the event can be viewed at the Flickr website. Accessed December 28, 2014. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunsurfersfotostream/7995100983/.
19. See for example Chitra Nagarajan (Citation2013).
20. For an extensive discussion and analysis of this debate in English, see Stop!Talking, “You Walk Alone,” September 23, 2012. Accessed November 5, 2014. http://stoptalk.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/you-walk-alone/.
21. “[D]as Problem an den Slutwalks.” See Noah Sow, “Was das Problem an den Slutwalks ist,” Der Braune Mob/Der Schwarze Blog, September 22, 2012. Accessed November 5, 2014. http://blog.derbraunemob.info/2012/09/22/was-das-problem-an-den-slutwalks-ist/.
22. “Wir lieben die Idee einer solidarischen Bewegung.” May 13, 2013. The Facebook post is archived on SlutWalk Berlin’s website: “Gibt es in diesem Jahr einen SlutWalk in Berlin?” Accessed December 28, 2014. http://slutwalkberlin.de/.
23. See FEMEN, March 19, 2013. Accessed December 28, 2014. http://www.femen.org/en/news/id/294.
24. For more on Muslim women’s activism in connection with FEMEN and SlutWalk, see Eileraas (Citation2014) and Salime (Citation2014).
25. See photos archived on Muslim Women Against Femen’s Facebook Page, beginning on April 4, 2013. Accessed December 28, 2014. https://www.facebook.com/MuslimWomenAgainstFemen/timeline?ref=page_internal.
26. See Muslima Pride’s Facebook Page, April 6, 2013. Accessed December 28, 2014. https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=460608334015552&id=460232800719772&set=a.460559367353782.1073741826.460232800719772&source=46&refid=13.
27. Peaches, “Free Pussy Riot!,” August 15, 2012. Accessed November 5, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaJ7GzPvJKw.
28. In her opening courtroom statement at trial in 2012, Pussy Riot’s Masha defended the group’s action by explaining, “[T]he prosecution argues that we intentionally bought clothes for this performance. The materials of our case directly refute this point. Tights and dresses are a part of the Pussy Riot image, and the balaclavas, identified in the indictment as ‘masks,’ are not a disguise, but a conceptual element of our image. Pussy Riot does not want the focus of attention on girls’ appearances, but creates characters who express ideas” (Pussy Riot Citation2013, 39). Masha’s statement refutes attempts to co-opt Pussy Riot’s artistic performance into discourses of consumerism, while also stressing that the group’s costumes are a conceptual element meant to distract from individual identities and create a symbolic image of collectivity. In so doing, Pussy Riot’s costumes resist and call attention to constructions of femininity that have become increasingly hegemonic in neoliberalism, spurred on by the beauty industry and global media.
29. The journalist Annett Meiritz published a personal account in the news magazine Der Spiegel about sexism in the Pirate Party, prompting the journalist Laura Himmelreich to publish an article in the illustrated magazine Stern about being harassed by the prominent politician Rainer Brüderle, a candidate in the Free Democratic Party running for national office (see Laura Himmelreich Citation2013; Annett Meiritz Citation2013).