Is cyberfeminism a buzzword or is it a concept that appeared to truly portray a true revolution for feminists? The word “cyberfeminism” was first used in the 1990s, when women started looking for alternative spaces to express and claim their identities. According to Paasonen (2011), the theory of cybernetics, which conceptualized humans, animals, and machines as a technological continuum, is where cyberfeminism first emerged. Cybernetics is a technological science that enables the investigation of the potential for communication between humans, animals, and technology (p. 346). Cyberfeminists are people who actively seek out and use the Internet’s (or cyberspace’s) space as an alternative medium to express their ideas and claim their identities.
Feminism is a critique of the current oppressive patriarchal regimes, and cyberfeminism provides a unique alternative space, “a room of one’s own,” to assert one’s identity free from patriarchal tyranny (although there may be some doubts about how free this space is). Therefore, ideally, all cyberfeminists should identify with what feminism has to offer. With the use of online resources, several feminist protests have taken over the public realm in recent years, which indicates a significant shift in the logic of conventional communication, organizing, and political action processes.
While women are still underrepresented in media generally, social media fosters a more equal playing field, allowing the voices of women from a wider range of backgrounds and nations, with or without conventional authority, to be heard. The ability to connect the many venues, activities, and resources with unprecedented visibility distinguishes this new kind of revolt, even though historically this movement has been organized in a reticular manner with nodes and connections at various levels.
Digital engagement: Two sides of the same coin
Blogs, digital media, performances, installations, audiovisual productions, slogans in hashtags linked to protests, marches, architectural interventions, and a long list of other methods are used to organize demonstrations. In a nutshell: interconnected behaviours inside and outside of the digital environment have produced a public and collective narrative from women’s experiences. Information and communication technology, have made it possible to translate offline performances into massive campaigns like never before. Digital platforms have a tremendous deal of potential for distributing feminist theories, fresh perspectives on sexism, and innovative means of protest that have come to define the feminist movement of the twenty-first century.
Even if social media is enabling women to access new levels of connectivity, community, and involvement as well as an additional degree of activist power they would not otherwise have, there are still negative effects. Women are nonetheless vulnerable to an online backlash that may be more devastating than what they experience in open spaces while using technology to expand their reach and flex their feminist muscles. As a society, we are benefiting from the Internet, but we also face challenges like privacy and security concerns, online bullying and harassment, and poisonous anti-feminism.
Cyberfeminism in Latin America
In Latin America, this emerging logic has also gained relevance in the last five years. Sancho (2018) locates the first manifestation articulated on the networks with the hashtag #Niunamenos (#NotOneLess) which emerged in Argentina in 2015, it placed the discussion of femicide as a shared emergency in the region. In 2016, Ecuador acted as the epicentre of another demonstration for the defence of the right to mobility and security under the hashtag #ViajoSola (#ITravelAlone).
In March 2017, countries such as Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico joined the call for the First International Women’s Strike, a work stoppage called through the networks to denounce inequality, discrimination and gender violence in workplaces. In October of the same year, the translation of #Metoo to #YoTambien revealed stories of sexual harassment not only in the entertainment industries but in all social spheres with female participation. By 2018, the #Olaverde (#GreenTide) that represented the fight for the decriminalization of abortion in Argentina spread to other Latin American countries, which adopted the headscarf, the slogans and the agenda of political actions to guarantee the right of women to free abortion.
In each stage, a local and particular circumstance led to a collective and global mobilization that made clear the systemic character of the systems of gender violence that women in these nations experience daily, thanks to the access to digital platforms these movements got traction and visibility.
Barriers in Cyberfeminism
It would not be correct to say that this cyberspace that women inhabit is an absolute sacrosanct space and women are increasingly facing harassment online in today’s world. Even among men and women who frequently use social media, there is still a gender gap, just as there are gendered barriers for women in public spaces, there are gendered barriers for women online, from online harassment to increased visibility that can result in targeted repression.
Another limitation of cyberfeminism’s scope would be how it is limited to those with accessibility to the Internet, which in developing nations like India, would mean, primarily, the educated, upper class (upper caste), and predominantly urban women. Until a time when the Internet is available as an alternate space for nearly all women, there is no possibility of inclusive feminist cyberspace.
The cyberfeminism that began in the 1990s has come a long way, women actively seek the Internet to create a niche, a “room one’s own” that perhaps allows them greater mobility than the “real” world but it is still a new room with much more potential to be inclusive to all women in the world.
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Sources:
Paasonen, S. (2011). Revisiting cyberfeminism. Communications, 336-352. Retrieved October 11, 2022 from http://www.jenjenson.com/courses/gendertech/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/64485919.pdf
Sancho, G. (2018). El devenir feminista de la acción colectiva: las redes digitales y la política de prefiguración de las multitudes conectadas [The feminist future of collective action: digital networks and the politics of prefiguration of connected crowds]. Teknokultura, Retrieved October 10, 2022 https://doi.org/10.5209/TEKN.59367