Social media sites, according to Rentschler (2014) can become both "aggregators of online misogyny" as well as key spaces for feminist education and activism. They are spaces where 'rape culture', in particular, is both performed and resisted, and where a feminist counterpublic can be formed (Salter 2013). In this New Zealand study, we interviewed 17 young people (16-23 years) who were critical of rape culture about their exposure and responses to it on social media and beyond. Participants described a 'matrix of sexism' in which elements of rape culture formed a taken-for-granted backdrop to their everyday lives.They readily discussed examples they had witnessed, including victim-blaming, 'slutshaming', rape jokes, the celebration of male sexual conquest, and demeaning sexualized representations of women. While participants described this material as distressing, they also described how online spaces offered inspiration, education and solidarity that legitimated their discomfort with rape culture. Social media provided safe spaces that served as a buffer against the negative effects of sexism, and allowed participation in a feminist counterpublic that directly contests rape culture.

The (older) single woman has evoked numerous negative sociocultural stereotypes in recent (western) history, with 'being single' a fraught position for (heterosexual) women. Have shifts towards gendered equality changed this? We interviewed to 21 young heterosexual women in Aotearoa (New Zealand) about their experiences of being single. We focused on young adulthood (25-35), a time when having children might be a particularly salient concern. Women's experiences of being single were inextricable from their wider experiences of heterosexuality and pressures to enact a 'desirable' femininity. A thematic analysis identified four patterned sets of pressures, which we conceptualised as 'rules' that govern hetero-relating: 1) pressures and expectations surrounding beauty standards; 2) (allowing for) aspects of male control and 'superiority'; 3) acceptable/unacceptable gendered standards of sexuality; and 4) eventual and mandatory (heterosexual) coupling (by a 'certain' age). Participants remained largely subject to traditional ideas around heterosexual gender roles, with identifiable punishments for 'unfeminine' behaviour. Many women did articulate resistance and critique, even as most also expressed complicity. In this context, singledom was constructed as a 'defective' state -even if desired, suggesting it remains a complex and precarious position to occupy.