Girls' Feminist Blogging in a Postfeminist Age

Jessalynn Keller

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317627753
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Digital Marketing
• Index: Business

Girls' Feminist Blogging in a Postfeminist Age explores the practices of U.S.-based teenage girls who actively maintain feminist blogs and participate in the feminist blogosphere as readers, writers, and commenters on platforms including Blogspot, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. Drawing on interviews with bloggers between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one, as well as discursive textual analyses of feminist blogs and social networking postings authored by teenage girls, Keller addresses how these girls use blogging as a practice to articulate contemporary feminisms and craft their own identities as feminists and activists. In this sense, feminist girl bloggers defy hegemonic postfeminist and neoliberal girlhood subjectivities, a finding that Keller uses to complicate both academic and popular assertions that suggest teenage girls are uninterested in feminism. Instead, Keller maintains that these young bloggers employ digital media production to educate their peers about feminism, connect with like-minded activists, write feminist history, and make feminism visible within popular culture, practices that build upon and continue a lengthy tradition of American feminism into the twenty-first century. Girls' Feminist Bloggers in a Postfeminist Age challenges readers to not only reconsider teenage girls' online practices as politically and culturally significant, but to better understand their crucial role in a thriving contemporary feminism.

1 Click Moments and Coming Out

Girl Bloggers and the Performance of Feminist Identities Online

I’m a feminist. Man, that feels good.

I’ve been a feminist all my life but didn’t realize it until a few weeks ago when I checked out a twenty-pound stack of books from the library … Somewhere along the line something clicked; maybe it wasn’t as glamorous as the whole light-bulb-over-the-head charade, but it was pretty dang life-changing …

When I realized I was a feminist I thought “what do I do now”? I was honestly scared to tell anybody about my new “discovery” because I wasn’t sure how they’d react. … But why did I have to feel this way? Like I was unearthing a dirty secret, my own straight girl’s version of coming out of the closet? Why am I scared for the future, of what people will think of me? The fact is, today’s world is dangerous for teenagers like me (and you, if you’re reading this) because the “f-word” is marred by too many stereotypes to count …

So I wanted to write a blog about something I actually understand. I’m not an award-winning physicist or world-renowned psychologist (yet!), but what I do understand is the stuff swishing around in my noggin. I want to write about life from my perspective – a feminist teen just trying to make sense of the world – and hopefully appeal to others who feel the same way …

—Renee, Sunday June 27, 2010, blog post

I’ve quoted the inaugural post of Renee’s blog at length because it provides a useful introduction to many of the issues I will discuss in this chapter: the private process of identifying oneself as feminist, the public assertion and performance of a feminist identity, the unique needs of teenage girl feminists, and the ‘good’ feelings that a feminist identity can generate. It also reveals how girls like Renee adopt blogging to explore – and, as I will argue, perform – emerging feminist identities. It is this relationship between feminist identities and blogging that informs the guiding questions of this chapter: How do girl bloggers understand their own feminist identities? In what ways do girls use blogging to better articulate and explore these identities? How do girls’ feminist identities challenge normative constructions of both girls and feminists? And what benefits do girls receive from performing a feminist identity?

Renee’s blog post also exposes the tension that the feminist label continues to carry in contemporary culture. Indeed, stereotypes of man-hating, bra-burning, and hairy-legged feminists still exist within popular consciousness, including within high school environments where feminism is often not part of the daily lexicon (Ringrose and Renold forthcoming 2016). Feminism itself is too often misunderstood as a movement about taking away men’s rights, promoting women as better than men, or a politics of times past, no longer relevant to North American women who supposedly have achieved equality. While these dominant discourses certainly inform the cultural climate of contemporary teenage girls and the way they understand feminism, I am suggesting that the feminist bloggers I discuss are actively changing this context, in part through their public embracing of feminist identities. Thus, this chapter maps how the performance of feminist identities reveals not only ruptures within postfeminist logic, but also the ways in which online spaces such as blogs have been significant spaces to problematize the charicature of the feminist found within postfeminist popular culture.

Within the past fifteen years there has been significant scholarly and popular interest in girls’ understandings of feminism, particularly in what has been dubbed the “I’m-not-a-feminist-but” phenomenon, characterized as a popular stance among girls and young women (Budgeon 2001; McRobbie 2009; Zaslow 2009; Harris 2010; Zeilinger 2012). The seemingly contradictory identity positions taken up by young women – supposedly desiring feminist gains for equality yet ambivalent about feminism as a political movement – have been confusing for scholars and have led to a focus on the cultural contexts that inform such subjectivities. For example, Shelley Budgeon (2001) maintains that contemporary young women may not choose to identify as a feminist, but their actions or “life politics” and identities remain informed by feminist ideals. She argues that it is the cultural tensions, contradictions, and fragmentation of our neoliberal, cultural context that prevents young women and girls from adopting the feminist label. She writes,

Non-identification may display a refusal to be fixed into place as a feminist, but may also be a sign of the inability to position oneself as feminist because of confusing and contradictory messages about what feminism really is. This is a point of major significance. What is feminism? When an answer to such a question is so difficult to produce is it surprising that young women do not identify themselves as feminist? (23)

Likewise, recent ethnographic work examining girls and feminism, such as a large-scale study with eighty girls conducted by Emilie Zaslow (2009), also highlights the complexity of the feminist label for many contemporary girls. Zaslow found that while the majority of her teenage study participants agree with feminist ideals and are not hostile to feminism, many are ambivalent about embracing the feminist label, and instead describe their beliefs using a discourse of individual rights and choice, rather than a collectivist or redistributive approach to gender equality (See Fraser 2013). Zaslow understands this finding in relation to the postfeminist commercial girl power rhetoric popular during her participants’ youth, which focuses on individualism and choice as markers of an empowered feminine identity.

Similarly, Christina Scharff (2012) argues that young women are encouraged to repudiate feminism through prominent cultural discourses of postfeminism and neoliberalism, both of which privilege an individualist rhetoric that is in tension with the collectivist approach to structural inequalities that feminism takes up. Her study, based upon interviews with forty young women in the UK and Germany, reveals the “contested space that feminism occupies within the cultural space of postfeminism,” making visible two interpretive frames through which young women understand feminism; as valuable, but no long necessary, or as extreme and ideological (Scharff 2012, 40). Scharff’s most significant intervention is the way in which she theorizes repudiations of feminism within the heterosexual matrix, arguing that the “trope of the feminist” as unfeminine, man-hating, and lesbian is imagined as a constitutive outside of the heteronormative order, “haunting” her participants, despite the lack of tangible evidence that such a feminist exists. According to Scharff then, the trope of the feminist is not merely a negative stereotype, but reveals the complex ways that performances of gender and sexuality shape dis-identification with feminism.

Defining the “F-word”

The previously mentioned studies highlight how problematic both defining feminism and defining who is a feminist can be, issues that are certainly not new but are constantly shifting in relation to both broader cultural contexts and particular social situations (Scharff 2012). While it is clear that limited definitions are not desirable for my research, it nonetheless remains important to have a focused understanding of the word ‘feminism’ that can inform this book. I add my own voice to this debate with caution and focus my discussion on how my participant bloggers define feminism and their own feminist identity, rather than my own understanding of these terms. I take up Scharff’s (2012) insistence that feminism must be approached “flexibly” and that we should understand feminism as a discursive category, which recognizes the multiple iterations of the word, better understood as feminisms in the plural (Scharff 2012; Butler 1990).

This approach is necessary in part due to the varying responses I received from bloggers when I asked them to define feminism. Several of my research participants articulated definitions of feminism that align with a liberal feminist ideology, while alluding to the complexity that arises when putting feminism into practice. For example, Courtney, a twenty-one-year-old college student says that “[m]y definition of feminism is simply gender equality. Not only under law, but also socially. Just because we have laws that say everyone is equal, not everyone is treated as such.” Here, Courtney recognizes that feminism must be more than just formal laws, but a cultural shift in attitude that involves “treating a woman who works and a woman who stays home with the children with the same respect. It’s accepting women who don’t shave or wear makeup as well as those that prefer those things [sic]. It’s seeing an equal distribution of women of different colors, shapes, and sizes in the media.”

In a similar vein, nineteen-year-old Madison claims, “My definition of feminism is the belief in women’s economic, social, and political equality.” However, she stresses an attention to intersectionality as a central part of her feminism. “I think it’s important to remember that there are lots of different types of women. Feminism should help ALL women. We cannot be free if one of our sisters is still bound by her race, sexual orientation, or gender identity. Intersectionality plays a large role in the feminism I practice and believe in.” It is not surprising that liberal feminist ideology is prevalent amongst my participants. As Bonnie Dow (1996) notes in her study of television programming from the 1970s and 1980s, it is liberal feminism that is most often incorporated into popular media, making the tradition’s individualist discourse of equality, opportunities, and rights the most familiar feminist discourse to many Americans.

Liberal feminist values also align with perceived American values, and are consequently more palpable to the public than the rhetoric of radical or socialist feminists, for example. Because liberal feminism emphasizes legislative changes in order to open up opportunities to women rather than a more substantial alteration of unequal social relations, it is non-threatening to the status quo, particularly men. Indeed, scholars such as Lisa Duggan (2003) have analyzed the ways in which ‘equality’ has recently become a central part of conservative neoliberal rhetoric that privilege a “‘color-blind’ anti-affirmative action racial politics, conservative-libertarian ‘equality feminism,’ and gay ‘normality’” (44). And while Duggan’s discussion of the neoliberalization of equality is markedly different from the liberal feminism that supported suffrage, the Equal Rights Amendment and sexual harassment lawsuits, it is important to recognize how discourses of equality remain prevalent in both ideologies.

Nonetheless, comments like Courtney and Madison’s also point to the influence of third wave and U.S. third world feminisms to my participants’ definitions of feminism. As Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake (1997) note, third wave feminists acknowledge the necessity of complicating the category of ‘woman’ by recognizing the multiple experiences and oppressions women face based upon race, class, sexuality, ethnicity, age, religion, national identity, ability and other identities. This third wave perspective owes much to the U.S. third world feminists who have rightfully problematized the notion of ‘sisterhood’ and made visible the experiences of women of color within feminism since the early 1980s (Sandoval 2000; Moraga and Anzaldua 1981). As a result, I’ve discovered that the language of intersectionality is common among many young feminists today.

Given that the rhetoric of choice is a central part of postfeminist culture (Scharff 2012; McRobbie 2009; Gill 2007), I was surprised that only one of the bloggers I interviewed emphasized choice as a central part of her definition of feminism, although others, such as Courtney, certainly allude to it. Amandine, a seventeen-year-old high school senior suggests that “[f]eminism is all about giving people choices. Women can keep or terminate a pregnancy without being judged either way. Men can become fashion designers without people automatically assuming they’re gay. Women can become CEOs and balance a healthy family life too.” While Amandine’s definition problematically glosses over the structural inequalities that present certain men and women with more ‘choices’ than others, her definition makes sense considering not only the potential influence of postfeminist discourses on girls today, but also the ways in which third wave feminism has conceptualized feminism as more fluid, flexible, and individually shaped (Dicker and Piepmeier 2003; Karlyn Rowe 2003; Heywood and Drake 1997).

In their introduction to Catching a Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st Century, Alison Piepmeier and Rory Dicker (2003) caution against what they call a “feminist-free-for-all,” where any choice a woman seemingly makes is positioned as feminist, without an analysis of broader social power structures. Indeed, scholars such as Zaslow (2009) have demonstrated that this free-for-all stance toward feminism is prevalent among their young research participants. It also shares some similarities with Tavi Gevinson’s articulation of feminism. While I will discuss the eighteen-year-old blogger and her feminist publication, Rookie, in chapter five, her definition of feminism is important to consider here. In a March 2012 TedxTeen talk, Tavi argues that, “feminism is not a rulebook, but a discussion, a conversation, a process.”¹ I asked my participants for their comments on Gevinson’s take on feminism, and their thoughts reveal important elements of their own understandings of feminism.

For example, eighteen-year-old Kat, says that she “semi-agree[s]” with Gevinson, explaining that “[w]hile [feminism] isn’t a book of rules, I think there are certain things you have to believe in order to be a part of the feminist community, including equal pay, reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, etc. There are certain things you have to agree with.” Kat’s comments reveal that to her, feminism must address larger structural inequalities (e.g. equal pay), and attention to intersectional oppressions (e.g. LGBTQ rights). Kat’s feminism, then, is not only about individual choices and actions, but is tied to a social analysis that recognizes the complex ways that power works, revealing the influence of both third wave and radical feminisms.

While Renee agrees with Kat, maintaining “there are certain beliefs that basically come with the feminist job description,” she stresses a definition of feminism that still leaves room for growth and, as she states, “ever-changing identities.” She explains,

When I first started writing, for example, I saw feminism more as a set of rules or beliefs that I should follow and explore. But as I blogged more and started having conversations with other feminists, I started seeing feminism as something much more broad and abstract that could be applied to many areas of my life – whether as a confidence boost, a sense of internal drive and accomplishment, or a lens through which I could view the things life was throwing at me. In this way, feminism has become much more personal. It’s no longer a club I feel I have to prove myself to be a part of, it’s something I can mold and shape to work for me.

Renee’s comments suggest how important accessibility is to her understanding of feminism, something that seems appropriate considering her age. To Renee, discourses of feminism must be something that she can access and apply to her own life in order for it to make sense to her.

The responses I have described earlier point to what Scharff (2012) calls the “multiplicity of engagements with feminism,” and reveals the diverse ways that feminist identities and feminism is imagined by the bloggers I interviewed. There are numerous reasons for these varying understandings of feminism – race, class, sexuality, and other identities, home environment and social location, specific interests and activist engagements, and education – to name a few. I will address these issues throughout this book, parsing out the multiple ways that girl bloggers negotiate, produce, and articulate feminisms in order to demonstrate that girl feminist bloggers are not a homogenous group or subculture, but representative and productive of the differences folded into contemporary feminisms. However, I now turn to discussing some of the similar sentiments about feminism shared by the bloggers I interviewed, including an enthusiastic investment in their own feminist identity.

A “First Dose of Feminism”: Considering Feminist Identities

Because my study consists of a purposefully chosen sample of girls who identify as feminist, it is not surprising that a feminist identity is a significant part of their lives. Nonetheless, I believe that it is important to stress the enthusiastic response I received when I asked girls about their feminist identities, because these expressions reflect an affective dimension of a feminist identity that I will take up later in this chapter. Renee tells me, “I’m not exaggerating when I say that feminism is a HUGE part of my overall identity” and that she views her feminist identity as “a very, very positive thing.” Likewi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Transforming Feminist Conversations? Girls, Blogging, and Feminist Politics in the Twenty-first Century
• 1 Click Moments and Coming Out: Girl Bloggers and the Performance of Feminist Identities Online
• 2 “Still Alive and Kicking”: Defining a Girl-Centered Feminist Activism
• 3 “Loud, Proud, and Sarcastic”: Young Feminist Internet Communities as Networked Counterpublics
• 4 “I’ve really got a thing for Betty Friedan”: Girl Bloggers and the Production of Feminist History Online
• 5 Performing a Public Politics: Feminist Girl Bloggers and New Citizenship Practices
• Conclusion: Toward a Girl-Friendly Feminist Future
• Index