Yueying Wu 3/17/2014 ENGL 1102-092 Prof.

Cary

Project 3

Project 3: The influence of social media to modern day feminism My theme for this project is still about social media and feminism. This is the same topic as my last project but Im going to explore from a different perspective. As the international feminist third-wave literature pointed out, the face of feminism is not fading but rather changing towards social media, which can be called online feminism.[1] It is clear that new social media has influenced feminism from various aspects. For this project, Im going to explore why more and more feminists began to express themselves via modern social media such as twitter or Facebook and also argue about some of the problems it may have caused. In my opinion, there are two main advantages about online feminism. To begin with, the connection to new media has changed how women understand themselves. They are realizing they dont have to be voiceless and powerless any more. Women, especially younger women, connecting through new media are finding a new sense of self-empowerment. And they are using that power through social media.[2] Whats more, as some scholars mentioned, another advantage of the internet for feminist girls is that they cannot be controlled by adults.[3] In addition, another important reason to put resources into online feminism was to bolster the voices of writers from marginalized communities. Activists Courtney Martin and Vanessa Valenti mentioned in the article Feminisms Toxic Twitter Wars

that Women of color and other groups are already overlooked for adequate media attention and already struggle disproportionately in this culture of scarcity, and a lot of feminist dialogue online has focused on recognizing the complex ways that privilege shapes our approach to work and community.[4] However, some people also argued that the use of social media has caused some problems at the same time. Among those problems, the mostly focused one is that it has intensified the arguments between feminists and their opponents. It is well known that people are generally more aggressive and meaner to each other on Twitter. Thus its not hard to believe that twitter caused those unbearable personal attacks to and from feminists. However, evidence also shows that these kinds of attacks were generated long before twitter was invented. In Trashing: The Dark Side of Sisterhood, a 1976 Ms. magazine article, Jo Freeman has already described how feminists of her generation destroyed one another in a horrible way. Therefore, just as Martin says, How do we disentangle what part is about social media and what part is about the way women interact with one another? If theres something inherent about the way women work within movements that makes us assholes to each other, that is incredibly sad.[4] In conclusion, I believe overall online feminism is a positive change even considering the possible problems. It allows more people to know about feminism as well as express their opinions towards it. Although this may cause more arguments, they can as a result enrich the definition of feminism and adapted it to this modern society.

References: [1] Shelley Budgeon, Third Wave Feminism and the Politics of Gender in Late Modernity (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 156-181. [2] Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite. Tweeting for justice: Why social media is the new face of feminism onfaith. 8 March 2012. Web. 17 March 2014. < http://www.faithstreet.com/onfaith/2012/03/08/tweeting-for-justice-why-social-mediais-the-new-face-of-feminism/10030> [3] Ednie Kaeh Garrison, US Feminism-Grrrl Style! Youth (Sub) Cultures and the Technologics of the Third Wave, Feminist Studies, Vol. 26, No. 1 (2000), pp. 141-170. [4] Michelle Goldberg. Feminisms Toxic Twitter Wars The Nation. 29 January 2014. Web. 17 March 2014. <http://www.thenation.com/article/178140/feminisms-toxic-twitter-wars?page=0,0#>