More and more women are engaging with feminism because of the internet; some even believe that we are witnessing the movement’s fourth wave. The online community provides us platforms from which to voice our opinions and safe places to host our discussions. However, it has also brought us LadBible, Twitter trolls and objectification far worse than the content of lad’s mags. The same things helping feminism to flourish are being used to equal effect by those intent on destroying it. So, do the benefits outweigh the negatives? Or is the internet harming the fight for women’s rights? Three of our writers air their views.
Warning: Article contains some explicit content.
By Hazel Creaghan
In an age where making a comment on the
internet cannot truly be ‘just so’, the rise of feminists with flaming fingers
and anger is rife. Where icons such as Caitlin Moran (my personal opinion is
not relevant here) blocks, deletes and rarely lashes out (anymore) at the
twitter trolls, the presence of somewhat ‘do-gooder’ feminists, who are in the
larger, public or celebrity, eye is pretty hard to find. Most forums on the
internet are a mixed bunch of misandry, outright anger, and disappointment
about the way that our unequal society behaves and is constructed.
The giant of this field, in my opinion,
remains to be the minefield of Tumblr. Awash with inspirational quotes,
pictures, banners, articles, rants and much more, the dashboards of Noughties
feministas can offer a snapshot of what it might mean to be a feminist in a
digital age. Selecting to follow people who publish images of fat, proud, LGBT
women with awesome tattoos and victory rolls with “We can ‘ALL’ do it!”
emblazoned across a series of posts can inform you of a whole host of issues
that you had no idea even existed. Things like ‘thin privilege’, ‘internalised
misogyny’, ‘ableism’, ‘reverse racism’ are banded about like hotcakes, and are
readily consumed. You could be three or four clicks and a paragraph of
word-vomit away from unleashing a backlash of cis-white men hate on that
website, and yet it is still just as popular amongst teenage girls wanting to
re-blog pictures of Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman holding hands with
a rainbow above them.
In one way, using it as a forum and for
following certain feminists has opened my eyes, helpfully, to a world where I
monitor my pronouns, value people’s opinions and take everything I see or read
with a different approach. A lot of users want to highlight issues, not promote
them, and a great deal is being done in terms of boosting awareness and opening
peoples’ eyes to certain causes and problems. Whilst there is a lot of terrible
‘content’ out there, the savvy few who wish to improve their word-power,
observation skills and argument style can follow a great number of
inspirational people, whose opinions can vastly change the way you view the
world. Also, there’s an abundance of great literature out there for you to read
and be encouraged by. Oh, and videos of cats.
By A.
As a general rule, we can all agree that the internet has
been absolutely crucial in raising awareness and changing the opinions of those
that may not have been exposed to the concept of feminism beforehand. Seeing the outrage at blatantly misogynistic
scandals in gaming helped me come to terms with the idea of fighting for equal
rights in my line of work in the entertainment industry, and it's energised a
lot of people to do the same in their own workplaces.
On the flipside, however, the internet makes it very easy
for people to form communities that snowball into pools of intensive hate,
fostering negative attitudes toward different groups of people. A good example of this is the Red Pill, a
reasonably extreme side of the men's rights movement. Although there are different facets, it
postulates that the western world has become increasingly hostile for men and
that traditional gender roles have been ruined, resulting in a lot of sexually
free, career orientated, 'exploitative' women who have become the
oppressors. As a result, many of these
men choose to reject social conventions and swear off women, go into pick up 'artistry', or create perverse dating market value tests, all
of which also harms the men in the process.
Although the vast majority of men don't subscribe to this
kind of thing, that doesn't mean that everyday sexism isn't regularly found
online, often reinforcing negative stereotypes through bad jokes and
comics. One of my favourite examples of
this is the 'Good Girl College Liberal' meme, which literally consists of a
topless girl who has no opinions, or at least doesn’t dare share them.
It's pretty common to find this mentality cropping up on
Reddit's default subreddits, with many women who choose to post innocent
pictures of themselves getting swarmed with creepy sexual comments. These instances might be seen as sort of harmless
from the outside, but their overwhelming message of objectification is far more
insidious.
At the end of the day, we've all heard the endless
kitchen/sandwich jokes that seem to have prevailed from the Triassic era and are
still sometimes considered funny. We've
all seen women get marginalised and discounted in their opinions because
they're women. There are scores of people
who discount 'geek girls' because they don't pass their nerd criteria and are
instead relegated to being attention whores.
And let's be honest, as someone who spends a decent amount of time on
the internet, it sucks! Having to legitimise
your position on an issue simply because of your gender is something that we
probably should have all grown out of by now.
The internet is a conversation, and you can't have a proper exchange if
you're shouting half of us down.
By Madeleine Whybrow
Even without the
internet, I knew I was a feminist. I knew that feminism was about fighting the
oppression of women, equal pay, freedom from sexual violence and the removal of
gender stereotypes.
I
also knew that I was straight, middle class, white and able-bodied. What I
didn’t know is how much this affected my experience and perception of
sexism. As I started interacting with
the online feminist community, I came across a whole new range of ideas and
experiences. In particular was the idea that all forms of discrimination (sexism,
racism, classism, etc.) are not independent but are all part of the same system
of oppression.
I began to
understand that things I didn’t even think of as being feminist issues most
definitely were. Fat shaming, the practise of mocking or deriding someone for
being overweight, is not just wrong, it is also something which affects women much
more than men. More than anyone else in society, fat women’s bodies are
examined, discussed, made fun of and shamed. Most of us have done it, many of
us don’t understand how damaging it is and, until the internet enlightened me,
neither did I.
Another hugely
overlooked issue is that of transphobia. Some of the most oppressed people in
the world are transgender, those whose bodies do not match their gender
identity. They face gender-based discrimination more severely than most, if not
all, cis-women and, worse still, it comes not just from misogynists but from
some feminists too. As a cis-woman, I simply didn’t realise how difficult it
must be if you don’t fit into society’s expectations of gender.
The list goes
on; the internet has opened my eyes to the oppression of people of colour, sex
workers, disabled people and many others, and how this fits in with feminism.
However, does it actually matter? Does it really make any difference if a few
privileged women are more aware of others’ suffering? Yes it does, because it creates alliances between feminists. I can’t possibly claim to know what it feels
like to suffer from these forms of oppression, or fight battles for other
people, but I can be an ally.
It means calling
out discrimination when its victim is too tired to fight back. It means
educating others when the oppressed person is sick of explaining the same things.
It means making sure you are always
aware of those less privileged than yourself.
The internet has
brought together all the different faces of feminism. It has given women who
would never meet in real life a way to share their stories and experiences. It
has united us in the fight against oppression; hopefully we will be stronger
together.
It is clear that the internet is bringing together feminists
in an unprecedented way. However, for every victory there is a defeat; for
every argument a counter-argument. The internet is pushing us into distinct
camps; dividing us between feminists and misogynists then sitting back as the
battles ensue. We are in the strange situation of being both united and
polarised at the same time. As a result of this process, feminism is swelling
in both numbers and influence. However, it is pushing us further away from the
people we would most like to change. Is the internet good for feminism? Almost
certainly. What remains unclear, however, is whether it is good for women.
To check out some extra bits and pieces, especially on the
Red Pill movement, here's some further reading -
Business
Insider's take on The Red Pill - http://www.businessinsider.com/the-red-pill-reddit-2013-8
The Red Pill
Manifesto - http://www.singularity2050.com/2010/01/the-misandry-bubble.html
Fake Geek Girls
- http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/08/does-misogyny-lie-heart-fake-geek-girl-accusations-or-it-self-loathing
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