Feminist Digital Counterpublics: Challenging Femicide in Kenya and South Africa

Abstract

What happens when misogyny leads to increasing murders of women, whose lives are considered not worthy because their respectability is under attack? What do feminists do in a global moment when antifeminist backlash emerges with fervor in politics, policy, and social spaces to reverse and challenge feminist progress? Rage happens. This article explores the role of rage in the development of African feminist digital counterpublics on Twitter. Through two Twitter hashtags, #MenAreTrash and #JusticeForSharon, I illuminate how anger emanating from increasing rates of femicide in Kenya and South Africa catalyzes the evolution of feminist communities of knowledge, solidarity, and resistance on Twitter. The rage illustrated in this article is considered in relation to longer histories of burnout and fatigue with nonresponse from the state and from male allies. Through these digital spaces, a process of building alliances and challenging antifeminist movements emerges. Feminist engagements around these hashtags are a site of concrete resistance against online misogyny as well as its material manifestations through femicide. In a context where antifeminist movements see digital spaces as sites to mobilize antifeminist sentiment, paying attention to digital feminist counterpublics is critical to understanding gender justice and freedom.