Short Abstract

This panel endeavors an academic discussion on popular feminism in digital culture and ‘terrain of struggle’ within coexisting structural dominances like neoliberalism and commodification, manosphere critiques, and digital misogyny; with a sight on social impact, and successes.

Long Abstract

Gill (2016) highlights a ‘new cultural life of feminism’, recognizing it as the ‘fourth wave of feminism’, accentuated through digital media based feminist activism, a thought that is an echo of Banet-Weiser, (2015), Valenti (2014) and Keller & Ryan (2014). Hill and Allen (2021) also recognize the easy reacquisition of the term ‘patriarchy’ within popular feminism without the necessary burden of feminist academic critique around the term, that has led to greater vocality in social movements including ‘smash the patriarchy’. This brings forth celebration in terms of an engaged feminism in popular culture aka popular feminism including multiple forms of feminism circulating within digital culture (Banet-Weiser), creating a broader acceptance of feminism, where feminism does not have to defend itself. Gill however cautions that the resurgence of feminism should not be misunderstood as the non-existence of anti-feminist or postfeminist thoughts. The multiple forms of feminism operate in ‘a terrain of struggle’ (see Stewart Hall), within themselves as well as the coexisting structural dominance of neoliberalism and commodification, race and ethnicity, class, age, sexuality, disability, gender and other existing eventualities of inequalities and exclusion. This creates opportunities for scholar’s to use an academic lens for understanding various forms of digital feminism and the associated interconnected phenomena around it. This panel hopes to bring forth an academic discussion on popular feminism in digital culture, with a sight on the social impact, looking at-

* feminism between different frames of global and trans-local, and as continuities between the physical and digital world.

*feminism and its commodification in the neoliberal digital economy.

* impact of digital feminism on sexualities and identities.

* manosphere and its critique of feminism

* digital feminism, misogyny and hate speech (looking at multiple modes of communication including texts, memes, reels, videos etc.), with reflections on policy discourses and action.

This Panel has 1 pending paper proposal.
Propose paper