What's in a Hashtag? Feminist Terms for Tweeting in Alliance

‘I wanna kill my rapist’: Margaret Cho’s #12DaysofRage campaign as promotional digital activism

“…Digital feminist activism is the act of producing, circulating and discussing feminist content online. It can take different forms, from memes (Brantner et al, 2020;Rentschler & Thrift, 2015), to blogs (Baer, 2016;Kuo, 2016), to hashtags (Cole & Atuk, 2019;Lopez et al, 2019), span a range of platforms and be used in a 'multitude of ways, by different groups for a variety of purposes' (Keller et al, 2018, p. 5). Digital media is one of the cornerstones of 'fourth wave' feminism (Retallack et al, 2016), because it opened the door to more accessible forms of feminist movement organizing (Zheng, 2015) and wider distribution of feminist knowledge (Keller et al, 2018).…”

“…Built into the hashtag is the function of connectivity that has the potential to open new ‘discursive spaces’ allowing feminists to ‘invent and circulate counter discourses, which in turn permit them to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs’ (Sills et al, 2016, p. 937). Hashtag feminism has been shown to assist in creating meaningful connections between individuals (Bowles Eagle, 2015; Cole & Atuk, 2019; Lopez et al, 2019; Mendes et al, 2018), attracting attention from mainstream media on diverse topics (Brimacombe et al, 2018; Horeck, 2014; Yin & Sun, 2021), and shifting conversations, online and off, to individuals or movements that are often ignored or derided (Akinbobola, 2019; Higgs, 2015; Jackson et al, 2018; Williams, 2015, 2016). Hashtags can also act as an accessible educational tool, even when people choose not to actively participate in the creation of content (Peters & Besley, 2019).…”

“…Other users told their stories in great detail over several tweets. #12DaysofRage gave survivors an ‘extra-juridical approach’ (Cole & Atuk, 2019, p. 29) to speaking and being heard. The legal system is notorious for being inaccessible and potentially re-traumatizing to survivors of sexual violence (Boux & Daum, 2015; Kim, 2018).…”