It is undeniable that social media plays an increasingly
important role in mobilizing support for causes and campaigns. It has become an
important platform for presidential elections, and will soon be saturated with
gendered commentary following Hillary Clinton’s recent announcement to run for
President. After all, unlike Republican candidates Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and
Ted Cruz – who all announced their run in speeches and rallies – Hillary
Clinton recently released a video on social media to announce her run. Thus,
the question remains: how does the use of social media impact women?
As Nisha Chittal recently stated, “a new wave of feminism is
here, and the most powerful weapon is the hashtag.” #Askhermore trended during
this season’s award shows, encouraging reporters to ask female celebrities
other questions besides what they were wearing. #Notbuyingit trended during the
Super Bowl in an effort to call out sexist ads. And #whyIstayed trended after a
talking-head asked a survivor of a domestic violence scandal why she stayed,
prompting other survivors to share their own personal stories on social media.
And the list goes on.
Chittal goes on to explain how social media has democratized
feminism, making it accessible to anyone with internet access and the desire to
fight patriarchy. In a sense, she describes how the Internet is able to negate
spatiality, creating solidarity among women nationwide, which allows for a more
effective space for public dialogue.
However, despite Chittal’s optimism, her argument isn’t
entirely convincing, because at the end of the day, the Internet is a
double-edged sword. Women can champion causes by using the Internet as a public
forum, but that doesn’t mean the public won’t respond. And unfortunately the
public seems to exist in a very patriarchal and misogynist form.
A recent study done by Sydney University found that women’s
voices are marginalized on the Internet. Women make up only between 3 and 35
percent of comments on the Internet. The professor who conducted the study
stated that these findings are consistent with research about women’s voice in
public spaces—spaces that are consistently dominated by men. And more over, she
stated the imbalance seems to be driven by everyday gender dynamics, in which men
routinely dominate women.
So if men are dominating the conversation on the Internet,
what exactly are they saying? In a recent Op-Ed, Ashley Judd illustrates what
can happen to women who express unpopular opinions on social media by
describing her own experience of receiving responses that sexualize, objectify,
insult, degrade, and threaten physical violence. After receiving such backlash
in response to an unpopular comment about a March Madness basketball game, she
stated in the context of twitter, “what happened to me is the devastating
social norm experienced by millions of girls and women on the Internet. Online
harassers use the slightest excuse (or no excuse at all) to dismember our
personhood.” And she has a point.
If you read through some of the hateful, sexist tweets Judd
received in response to her comment about a basketball game, you might think
her particular experience is particularly extreme. It is not like every single
woman who posts something about feminism on the Internet is going to receive
responses that threaten violent sexual assault, right? The point is, I’m not
sure we should be praising social media just yet. It is an incredible medium to
garner support and spread information, and we should not refrain from using it
out of fear for negative responses. But it’s important to keep in mind that as
a public forum, it reinforces the fact that the public still responds to women
with patriarchy and misogyny. And a response only takes one anonymous tweet.
No comments:
Post a Comment