Feminism and Religion in the 21st Century

Technology, Dialogue, and Expanding Borders

Gina Messina-Dysert, Rosemary Ruether, Gina Messina-Dysert, Rosemary Radford Ruether

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781134625314
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Sexuality & Gender in Religion

This anthology will explore the new directions of conversations occurring in relation to feminism and religion, as well as the technological modes being utilized to continue dialogue, expand borders, and create new frontiers in feminism. It is a cross generational project bringing together the voices of foremothers with those of the twenty-first century generation of feminist scholars to discuss the changing direction of feminism and religion, new methods of dialogue, and the benefits for society overall.

Part I Expanding Borders through Social Media

DOI: 10.4324/9780203509326-2

1 #FemReligionFuture

The New Feminist Revolution in Religion

Gina Messina-Dysert

DOI: 10.4324/9780203509326-3

The digital world has expanded borders for women and has offered tools for liberation in the form of blogging and other social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook. In the US, 42 million women are using social media alone, with blogs being the most influential platforms.¹ While male voices have largely controlled editorial pages and opinion pieces, the blogging world has offered women the opportunity to have their thoughts and ideas heard.

Women aren’t only dominating blogs, they are also 64 percent of the users on Facebook, 58 percent of users on Twitter, and 82 percent of users on Pinterest.² Through status updates, tweets, and pins, women become “micro-bloggers” and are able to articulate ideas, promote particular movements, and foster change in 140 characters or less. According to Jessica Faye Carter, “For women, social media presents abundant opportunities to lead, effect change, innovate, and build relationships across sectors, locally, nationally, and globally.”³ Globalization has made social media a valuable way for women to break through boundaries, communicate beyond various divides, and expand the scope of feminist dialogue while reflecting on viewpoints embedded in their own life experiences.

Where women’s participation in religion has often been suppressed due to its patriarchal structure, the digital world has offered women a voice. Whereas men have generally dominated leadership roles in religion and society overall, various forms of social media have offered women a space to articulate ideas, claim power, and further shape their communities—religious and otherwise. In this article, I will examine the feminist nature of social media and what has become known as the “online feminist revolution.” I will explore the ways that feminist scholars, students, religious leaders, activists, and community members are using social media as a powerful mode of communicating and will demonstrate how this revolution has offered a space for dialogue and expanded borders in the field of feminism and religion.

The Feminist Nature of Social Media

The development of online technology has created new methods for communicating, leading, and acting, and can be understood as feminist in nature. While social media is not always utilized in a feminist way, it is a useful tool for feminists to share their perspectives widely within a public forum and is also a medium that can be easily adapted to feminist causes. Social media embodies feminist values in a number of ways: it eliminates hierarchies, is based largely on personal experience, and provides women with the ability to connect with other women, regardless of geographical and situational boundaries.

A democratic participation process is characteristic of blogs and social media platforms; persons are able to share their views on topics that they find important and others can respond with their own perspectives. Both instances allow for reflection on personal experience and result in hierarchy being broken. In addition, the focus on personal experience and sharing one’s own story eliminates an authoritative tone. “Women are claiming their experience and voicing what is often not said within the confines of a patriarchal culture. In doing so, women are empowered and empower other women to claim their voice and speak their own truth.”⁴

Social media also addresses accessibility issues for women. Geography and other life circumstances often keep women from meeting in physical locations. However, blogs and other social media platforms allow women to “gather” in a space where they can dialogue about issues that are important to them while participating in relationship building. Through these platforms, women are able to engage in conversations that are otherwise not accessible. In addition, as Gwendolyn Beetham and Jessica Valenti state, “contemporary globalization has made the Internet—and blogs in particular—a valuable way for feminists to communicate through and beyond various divides.”⁵

There has been much debate about whether social media and the web offer tools and opportunities for new models of leadership. The Internet can be used to support and reinforce patriarchy and other forms of structural violence; certainly this is true. However, feminist movements online have demonstrated that development of leadership in such spaces can “provide a means of resisting the hierarchical, insular, monocultural structure of traditional institutions.”⁶

Feminists who use online technology are continually creating new ways to act, while sparking new conversations that urge feminism in the 21st century onward. Recognizing social media as a powerful resource, feminists use it to propel movements forward, amplify their voices, and create change. Because the web allows for decentralized movements that uplift numerous voices, anyone with the ability to use online tools can share their ideas widely and become a leader in the feminist movement.

Online Feminism

Feminist work within online spaces has become a significant implementation of contemporary feminism. Technology allows feminists to harness the power of social media to create dialogue and encourage activism around issues related to gender equality and social justice. As Courtney Martin and Vanessa Valenti argue, “No other form of activism in history has empowered one individual to prompt tens of thousands to take action on a singular issue—within minutes.”⁷ Thus, online feminism, also known as the “new feminist revolution,” has a widespread impact with endless potential.

The need for a public platform where women could voice their thoughts and opinions led to the rise of online feminism. Online forums, newsgroups, and blogs that surfaced early on provided a powerful space for feminist voices and propelled the next phase of the feminist movement forward. Beginning as simple sites, these spaces quickly grew into communities of hundreds of thousands. Those in search of platforms that allowed self-expression found them online through blogs and other social media platforms.

Online feminism brings new energy to the table and allows the personal to become political. The capacity for sharing experience and building community offers women a voice and eliminates feelings of isolation. This is particularly powerful for young women who look to online blogs and forums to find feminism, and the result can be life-saving connectivity. Today, women lead as social media users. The Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project completed in 2011 found that the “power users of social networking” are young adult women between the ages of 18 to 29 years old.⁸

Because of this trend, many have come to identify “feminist blogs as the consciousness-raising group of the 21st century.”⁹ As Martin and Valenti explain,

The very functionality of blogs—the self-publishing platforms and commenting community—allow people to connect with each other, creating an intentional space to share personal opinions, experiences of injustice, and ideas, all with a feminist lens. Consciousness-raising groups were said to be the “backbone” of second-wave feminism; now, instead of a living room of 8–10 women, it’s an online network of thousands.¹⁰

The development of social technologies has resulted in a wide range of web-based tools that have produced online feminism as we know it today.

Online feminism also offers a new channel for activism. In the past, women’s suffrage and the second-wave movement took to the streets using protest signs and chants to advance the cause. Today, in the 21st century, feminists are using social media to promote feminist movements, raise awareness, and call for justice—all while organizing tens of thousands in minutes. As Martin and Valenti explain, “The rapid innovation and creativity that characterize online activist work are game-changers in the contemporary art of making change.”¹¹

Social media offers a new entry point for feminist activism and promotes citizen-produced media. For instance, online communities such as Feministing¹² and Feministe¹³ offer platforms where bloggers are commenting on current events using a feminist lens. In doing so, social justice issues that are ignored by mainstream media are highlighted and brought to the forefront while engaging gender dynamics.

In addition to raising awareness, online feminism often offers paths for action that create a collective effort for change. Organizations such as Move On¹⁴ and Hollaback!¹⁵ have successfully utilized technology to build communities, share information, advance petitions and pledges, and utilize other social media tools to mobilize feminist action online and on the ground.

While online organizations and communities are making an incredible impact in the feminist movement, offline organizing continues to be an important tactic to “galvanize the masses.” As Martin and Valenti point out, “Waves of protests across South Asia [in 2013] following the death of a 23-year-old gang rape victim in Delhi are just one powerful reminder of the impact that a collective group of people can make on the ground.”¹⁶

This said, these protests are also a terrific example of how offline movements are participating in online feminism and how feminist activism has spread to the online world. Those who marched in Delhi’s streets did so with technology in hand and were actively tweeting while protesting. The hashtag¹⁷ #Delhibraveheart was added to tweets and other social media posts, which allowed persons from around the world to participate in the movement. Those who were not in Delhi but also passionate about the movement were able to keep up with the protest while sharing their own thoughts through social media using the same hashtag. Although the initial reaction to the protests by government officials was weak, the combination of both street and online activism compelled a response.

Online activist work has become understood as a game changer in contemporary movements for social justice. Rallies and marches on the ground demand weeks and often months to prepare and organize people in a particular location. However, thousands can be mobilized in a matter of minutes via online feminism. “Whether you’re signing an online petition, participating in a Twitter campaign against harmful legislation, or blogging about a news article, technological tools have made it infinitely easier for people invested in social justice to play their part.”¹⁸

It must also be noted that online feminism has created a space for radical learning and accountability. There is no one single feminist movement; rather, numerous intersectional movements are working in tandem and learning from one another, resulting in an inevitable and thriving multiplicity. While the feminist movement has a complicated history and continues to battle various “isms”—including racism, classism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression—online technology has “allowed for a more open space of accountability and learning, helping to push mainstream feminism to be less monolithic.”¹⁹

Intersectionality, a theory of practice widely recognized within the world of online feminism, focuses on the “intersecting” identities that women hold and how they contribute to their overall experience of oppression.²⁰ Understanding privilege and the ways it impacts our work and positions within community is a major focus for online feminist dialogue. The trending hashtag #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen is an important example of how social media platforms have functioned to move the conversation forward and continue the struggle against “isms.”

Launched by Mikki Kendall, the hashtag “was intended to be Twitter shorthand for how often feminists of color are told that the racism they experience ‘isn’t a feminist issue.’”²¹ #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen quickly spread across Twitter, and persons from various backgrounds were chiming in to share their experiences and frustrations. The hashtag was then picked up by bloggers and across other social media platforms. Dirk von der Horst and Marian Williams both weighed in on the issue on the blog Feminism and Religion.²² NPR and The Huffington Post ²³ were also among major news sources that shared stories examining #SolidarityIs-ForWhiteWomen and the need for dialogue. The result was—and is—an ongoing conversation “between feminists about feminism and its future.”²⁴

The New Feminist Revolution in Religion

The intersecting of online feminism and religion has led to a new feminist revolution in religion that is expanding borders and building new frontiers. Recognizing the benefits and the potential of the online feminist movement, theologians and activists have collaborated to cr...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I Expanding Borders through Social Media
• Part II Feminism and Alternative Communities
• Part III Embodiment and Technology
• Contributors
• Index