Oral Presentation Institute of Australian Geographers & The New Zealand Geographical Society Conference 2014

Digital activism and geographies of feminism: The power in spontaneous cultural interventions (16473)

Jessica McLean 1
  1. Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, Australia

The current feminist revitalisation is evident in multiple spaces, most prominently, and arguably most powerfully, in digital activism moments and movements. This paper compares and contrasts three distinct Twitter-originated sites of feminist intervention-  #destroythejoint, #everydaysexism and #yesallwomen - to depict geographies of feminism today, and demonstrate the diffuse networks of power propelling this feminist revitalisation. I argue that far from being moribund 'clicktivism', these feminist interventions are vital, affective and effective. The potential in these critical sites to refigure cultural norms around gender relations is apparent and simultaneously confounding within paradoxical spaces in digital realms and beyond.