Overview

From sites like Hollaback! and Everyday Sexism, which document instances of street harassment and misogyny, to social media-organized movements and communities like #MeToo and #BeenRapedNeverReported, feminists are using participatory digital media as activist tools to speak, network, and organize against sexism, misogyny, and rape culture. As the first book-length study to examine how girls, women, and some men negotiate rape culture through the use of digital platforms, including blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and mobile apps, the authors explore four primary questions: What experiences of harassment, misogyny, and rape culture are being responded to? How are participants using digital media technologies to document experiences of sexual violence, harassment, and sexism? Why are girls, women and some men choosing to mobilize digital media technologies in this way? And finally, what are the various experiences of using digital technologies to engage in activism? In order to capture these diverse experiences of doing digital feminist activism, the authors augment their analysis of this media (blog posts, tweets, and selfies) with in-depth interviews and close-observations of several online communities that operate globally. Ultimately, the book demonstrates the nuances within and between digital feminist activism and highlight that, although it may be technologically easy for many groups to engage in digital feminist activism, there remain emotional, mental, or practical barriers which create different experiences, and legitimate some feminist voices, perspectives, and experiences over others.

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9780190697884

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Reviews

The presence of an invincible, mendacious misogynist as one of the most powerful people on earth has provided the backdrop for a revival of feminist activism. The Trumpian turn will go down as a key defining moment in feminism's development in the digital sphere. Much of this feminism, fuelled by fury and expressed online, has met with a backlash which, ironically, makes use of the same social media tools. In Digital Feminist Activism this dynamic is admirably charted by Kaitlynn Mendes, Jessica Ringrose and Jessalynn Keller, for the first time in a book-length study. ... We need books such as Digital Feminist Activism to help us navigate the digital real world we now almost all inhabit. -- Emma Rees, Times Higher Education It's tempting to conclude that we live in an era in which we have reached peak misogyny. Then news breaks of another high-profile male sex offender exculpated, lauded, or even promoted and this conclusion seems perversely naive. In the face of what increasingly seems like the mother of all backlashes against feminist gains, Digital Feminist Activism offers a timely, rigorous, and finely-grained investigation of the multitude of ways women and girls are using digital and networked media - a medium so often used against them - to push back with a resounding NO MORE . In exploring not just the dangers but also the drudgery of contemporary feminist activism, this excellent volume explores not just what digital feminism is or does but how it feels. It is essential reading not just for those interested in how feminism is playing out in digital domains, but in the future of the movement itself. -- Emma A. Jane, author of Misogyny Online: A Short (and Brutish) History Digital Feminist Activism breaks politically urgent new ground as the first book-length study to examine how girls and women respond to-and challenge-rape culture in the digital era. This book is a timely feminist call-to-digital-arms, reminding us all of the powerful socio-political transformations that can come from collective feminist organizing and resistance. -- Tanya Horeck, Anglia Ruskin University

Author Information

Kaitlynn Mendes is Associate Professor in Media and Communication at University of Leicester. Jessica Ringrose is Professor of Sociology of Gender and Education at University College London. Jessalynn Keller is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication, Media and Film at University of Calgary.

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