Elke Zobl

Online feminist protest against sexism: the German-language hashtag #aufschrei

Abstract Twitter is becoming a discursive but also contested space for articulations of feminist protest. A hashtag that collected experiences with everyday sexism in the German-speaking world was #aufschrei, which became the 2013 hashtag of the year. In exploring the role of online feminist protest in the construction of alternative meanings, this paper draws on theories of the public sphere. Specifically, we build upon a communication studies model that refers to mutually permeating spheres of discourse in three layers, the simple, intermediate, and complex, each of which exhibits its own communication forms and forums. The methodology includes both a quantitative and a qualitative content analysis of #aufschrei tweets and of feminist blogs in order to comprehend argumentation patterns and networking practices. We argue that Twitter adopts the function of a simple public, where values and norms are negotiated at an everyday level. Feminist blogs create an intermediate public, in that they generalize experiences and are oriented towards networking. However, the persistent number of anti-feminist and sexist messages on Twitter likewise shows that online debates on gender topics have been increasingly infiltrated by these positions. Against this backdrop, in the conclusion, we discuss the feminist activist potential of #aufschrei.

Rumours from around the bloc

In the past two decades, an increasing number of young women have taken the tools of media production into their own hands; feminist zines have evolved into a medium for transnational dialogue, community building, and networking. In focusing on the Plotki Femzine (2006, 2007), a Central and Eastern European (CEE) feminist print and online zine project, we use the theoretical framework of “rhizomatic media” to problematize existing scholarship on feminist zines. Much of this scholarship sees zines as venues that construct a sense of “authenticity” through the use of the autobiographical voice and an outright rejection of mainstream media practices. Considering the rhizomatic processes of alternative knowledge production in Plotki publication, we draw on post-structuralist gossip theory to examine the Plotki Femzine as a site of feminist discourse. In particular, we show how the Plotki Femzine builds cross-border collaboration and “spreads rumours” of a feminist kind.

Feminist Media Production in Europe: A Selected List of Projects

This list only presents a selection of the wide range of feminist and queer European media production. For more projects and information please refer to the ar ive sections on grassrootsfeminism.net and grrrlzines.net. Arrows (e. g. → E-Zine) indicate further references to a ange of media type, a re-laun /reconception or another medium produced within the scope of the same project. [All links e ed April 2012]

Online Cultures and Future Girl Citizens

This chap ter ex plores young women’s use of on line DIY cul ture, blogs, social net work ing sites and re lated tech nol ogies to open up ques tions about what counts as par tic i pa tory prac tice, and what is pos sible as pol i tics for young peo ple, and young women in par tic u lar, at the pre s ent mo ment. It sug gests that these ac tiv ities rep re sent new di rec tions in ac tiv ism, the construc tion of new par tic i pa tory com mu nities, and the de vel op ment of new kinds of pub lic selves, while also tell ing us im por tant things about the limits of the kinds of con ven tion al cit i zen sub ject po si tions off ered to young women at this time. In the cur rent ‘cris is’ of youth cit i zen ship, young peo ple are in creas ingly called upon to par tic i pate in the pol ity and in civ il so ci ety, and to devel op their civic knowl edge, and yet this is in an en vi ron ment of re duced op por tu nity for the mo bi li sa tion of a tra di tional cit i zen ship iden tity and its as so ci ated ac tiv ities. In ad di tion, as many have ar gued, con sump tion has re placed pro duc tion as a key so cial driver, and this has seen young peo ple tar geted as rights-bearers and de ci sion-makers as con sumers ra ther than in any more po lit i cal ly mean ing ful sense (Miles 2000). Thus while young people are al ien ated from po lit i cal de ci sion-mak ing they are also con tend ing with the com mer cial i za tion of their civ il rights, which are re con structed as choices, free doms and pow ers of con sump tion. Prod ucts and ex pres sions of youth cul ture and youth voice are in creas ing ly ap pro pri ated by big business, young peo ple have less pub lic phys i cal space to oc cupy (Bes sant 2000; White and Wyn 2007), and as Bau man (2001: 49) ar gues, what is le of the pub lic sphere is now ‘col o nised by the pri vate’ and ‘the pub lic dis play of private aff airs’; all of which leaves young peo ple with few er spaces for self-expres sion, cri tique and col lec tive de lib er a tion of po lit i cal and so cial is sues. This con text for youth par tic i pa tion has par tic u lar mean ings for young women. As ar gued by Mc Rob bie (2000; 2007) and Har ris (2004a), there is an in tense fo cus on young women as the van guards of the late mod ern

Streetwise Politics: Feminist and Lesbian Grassroots Activism in Ljubljana

In 1990, the American political theorist Nancy Fraser argued for the necessity of theorizing non-liberal, non-bourgeois and competing public spheres that were excluded from Jürgen Habermas’s influential theory on The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962). Her argument rested on the growing body of feminist and postcolonial revisionist historiographies whi , among other things, demonstrated that members of subordinated social groups “repeatedly found it advantageous to constitute alternative publics” (Fraser 1990: 67). Fraser’s main point was that “subaltern counterpublics” contested the exclusionary norms of the bourgeois public sphere by elaborating alternative styles of political behaviour and alternative norms of public spee . In these parallel discursive sites, subordinated people could “invent and circulate counterdiscourses, whi in turn permi ed them to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests and needs” (ibid.). Consequently they could enter the official public sphere on their own terms by representing themselves. The proliferation of counterpublics therefore lessens the ance of informal exclusion and leads towards greater democracy. For Fraser, “participation means being able to speak ‘in one’s own voice’, thereby simultaneously constructing and expressing one’s cultural identity through idiom and style” (69). Counterpublics have the power to articulate an issue in their own way – or in dialogue with other counterpublics – and insist on it until it is recognized as an issue of general concern. Fraser mentions “domestic violence” or “date rape” as terms that have entered the list of general concerns and legislature because of feminist efforts that originally started in weak counterpublics that possessed only opinion-making power.1 In societies where legal equality does not guarantee actual equality, feminist and lesbian counterpublics continue to fulfil two functions: the