Introduction to Digital Feminisms

Langlit.org , 2023

This article investigates on the emergence of feminism in all digital platforms by creating massive transition internationally and locally. The new found liberty of free speech on social media has been efficiently used by the feminists to ridicule the oppressive nature of social norms neglecting women. They also utilised the platforms to reach every corner of world to establish gender equality and justice. The revolution was not conventional like the other three waves of feminism but it was based on believes of self-projection and governance. It promoted the engagement of the feministic consciousness by adding more political value. The digital platforms created ample space for diverse feministic approaches flourishing in different parts of the world. It was no more limited to the Western countries. The hashtag system became the space for those feminists who represent individualistic story about violence, abuse, discrimination and .The new space for such narratives created new powerful narratives of literature aiming towards social change.

2018

Women's History Review, 2016

2014

Topia Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, 2006

made important contributions to the political economy of communications and its relations to digital technology. Despite the important insights of these scholars, most of this work does not address, incorporate or attend to gender in its conceptualization nor engage with any of the insights and/or contributions in feminist scholarship on technology. One of the few overt feminist critiques of the discipline came from Gertrude Robinson, a long time scholar in the field. In 1998, she explored how feminism has contributed to communication studies through its incorporation of "gender as one of the primary social organizers which works in conjunction with economic and political relationships," yet this work continues to be marginalized. We hope that in this short offering we can characterize the rich and evergrowing critical feminist perspective on digital technology and reveal the ways in which this work can enhance, invigorate, and perpetuate/innovate the important contributions Canadian scholars have made to the discipline in communication studies.

2019

Furious: Technological Feminism and Digital Futures is an angry feminist intervention disputing the masculinization of computational culture and cultural theory. It draws on feminist genealogies, traditions of writing and approaches to science and technology in order to provide an alternative to heavily material and object oriented turns and to the masculinism, scientism and anti-feminism that dominate both cultural and knowledge production. The book highlights the need to contest the regressively gendered and very often sexist politics of digital media forms, practices and study. It stresses the need to counter ideologies of scientism and anti-feminism and to reconnect feminist practices of thinking and writing with the contemporary problematic in order to re-conceptualize digital media and broader technological futures, pervasive mediation and increasing automation.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014

While early day Internet research often hailed "Cyberspace" as an arena where individuals would be liberated from the social shackles of their biological gender, a growing body of research makes evident the exaggerations present within these romanticized claims. Though the online gender divide is rapidly eroding, the Internet remains rooted in society at large. While digital technologies can challenge normative views, they therefore often maintain status quo. Consequently, there is a need to revisit old claims and challenge traditional notions of "Digital Gender". In this vein, this manifesto reports and synthesizes findings and discussions from an international workshop titled "Digital Gender: Theory, Methodology and Practice", held at Umeå University, Sweden, in early 2014. Against this backdrop, we chart out a new agenda for research on how the digital intermingle with the social in the production of gender. In particular, we argue that scholars must move past the idea of Internet as a separate-virtual-realm and direct attention to the increasingly complex ways that digital technologies permeate social practices, altering the very fabric of society itself. On the one hand, we stress the need for research that focuses on how particular Internet technologies help maintain as well as challenge normative views of gender. On the other hand, we stress the need to uncover how particular material properties of digital technology affect the (un)making of such views. Overall, we also stress the need for scholars of gender to move beyond binary oppositions and to be appreciative of intersectionality in their analyses of digital gender construction.

Information, Communication & Society, 2008

This article questions the underlying social and political factors explaining the revival of feminism, and analyzes how feminists use digital media to promote their cause. It presents the results of a two-year research project on feminist activism in France; however, many results have broader implications for the evolution of feminism in Western countries. The survey is based on an ethnographic online observation of nine feminist collectives, on face-to-face interviews with activists, and on a qualitative survey of ordinary feminists. We examine the diversity of feminist collectives and how digital media have contributed to the rise of a new leadership and of new organizational practices. Young activists are experts in producing visual narratives (images, video, etc.), in using unconventional repertoires of action (humor, satire, etc.) and in networking. They make events and campaigns which are widely echoed in the public sphere and the mediation of digital media leads to a form of performative activism. Connectivity widens the audience and contributes to the building of virtual communities. However, the high visibility of digital feminism led to the rise of a virulent cyber-sexism. Finally, questions remain about the empower-ment of feminists at a time when conservative forces are re-emerging in Western societies.

he history of feminist engagement with digital technologies highlights one key takeaway: the need to integrate gender justice and economic justice concerns in feminist political action. The vision of the internet as an enabler of the range of social, economic, cultural and political rights of women and gender minorities, individually and collectively, cannot be actualised in the absence of recognition of their right to communicate -to the agency it bestows, and the structures it contains. The history of the right to communicate reveals the contestation between powerful status quoist forces and those who seek transformative, global change for justice and equality.