Documenting Harassment, Sexism, and Misogyny in Digital Feminist Spaces

Abstract

Chapter 3 presents results from a qualitative content analysis and thematic textual analysis drawn from four case studies: Hollaback!, Everyday Sexism, Who Needs Feminism?, and #BeenRapedNeverReported. The chapter presents one of the first attempts to analyze these popular feminist campaigns by answering the question of what kinds of experiences of harassment, misogyny, and rape culture the public are sharing on feminist digital platforms. We begin here to develop a key argument that digital feminist activism is far more complex and nuanced than one might initially expect, and is used in a multitude of ways, for many purposes, drawing on a range of different conventions or vernacular practices. Taking a cue from critical technology studies, we attend to emerging vernacular practices that we argue have been shaped by platform architecture, affordances, and conventions, which work to simultaneously encourage and discourage certain narratives from certain groups of people.