Tasnuva Bindi
As a starting point, we agreed that the
crux of our blog is how the Internet has allowed feminism to remain an active
social movement in a time where progressive technological change has impacted
the way society and politics operate. We would discuss, specifically, how various
social media and blogging sites (e.g. Jezebel; The Dawn Chorus; The F Word) are
being used as a space for discursive political action; their influence on the
way people discuss and debate gender and gender-related issues; and their
implications on individual and community identities. What will make our blog
different is that it will focus on women and how women engage in
online discursive activism.
Feminism: An Uncomfortable Topic?
Having pitched the idea to several
people, it became clear from their responses that the subject of feminism is
one that evokes certain ideas and assumptions about women who pride themselves as feminists – for
instance, one person mentioned that “feminists
tend to be self-righteous and victimised in their personality, so make sure
your blog isn’t a typical, annoying feminist rant ‘cause I probably wouldn’t
read it and neither would most people unless they’re internet trolls who’ll
just roam around your site to tease and harass you!”. This opinion and
several other similar ones were voiced, somewhat surprisingly, by young women who
seemed to have a particular aversion to what they believed to be feminism – ‘an oversensitivity to everything’, ‘trivial and unnecessary politics’, ‘a pride game’, 'active hypocrisy' and even 'sexism in reverse’. Based on these viewpoints, it seems that there are a good number of young women who have misunderstood feminism. This is not to point a finger at them for not understanding; after all, there are plenty of women who call themselves feminists when in fact, they are sexist - the very thing that feminism fights against - and so it is quite understandable why some young women have formed such a negative opinion of feminism. The good thing here is that our blog will help change that. One of the advantages of online discursive activism is the very fact that it's online - the Internet is not restricted by time and place; it is accessible from various technological devices and is a popular medium among young people.
On further reflection, we felt it would be a good idea to make our blog diverse to accommodate the
interests of various audiences (i.e. men and women, feminists and non!). Although
controversial topics will be discussed, we don’t want the entirety of our blog to
be about the ways in which women are objectified, bullied or degraded through
the media; rather, we would touch on all kinds of contemporary gender-related
issues that would apply to audiences whether they are male, female or intersex. Essentially,
our blog is three-fold – we are: 1) creating a space for conversation; 2) introducing
conversations (i.e. providing the readers with food for thought); and 3) changing
conversations (i.e. presenting various viewpoints on existing issues and encouraging
self-examination). In this sense, we are not only talking about online
discursive activism but engaging in it!
Not Just A Rant 'n' Rave!
In additon, our blog will have its positive,
celebratory and light-hearted sections, where we will disseminate positive and
inspirational news stories, post questionnaires and polls and even open a forum for blog authors and readers to share pictures, videos, jokes
and stories.
Feminist Humour
In their article, 'Between Feminism and Funny(mism)', scholars Limor Shifman and Dafna Lemish (2010) point out that, given the number of Internet users involved in reading, creating and circulating gendered humour online, it is surprising that there isn't much literature that touches on the topic. And so, inspired by a few articles I
read online – i.e. ‘Wisecrack: Feminism and Comedy’, ‘Seriously, Feminists Humor is Hilarious’ and 'Mad World: Who's afraid of (being) the big bad feminist?' that talk about feminist humour and how people perceive it - I thought it would be interesting to
dedicate one section of our blog to discussing the production and circulation
of feminist humour on the Internet. This is not to be mistaken with sexist humour; and I say this because often sexist jokes against men are labelled as 'feminist humour' - for instance, see John Mark Ministries 'Feminist Humor'. On the one hand, the motivation behind circulating such humour is the fact that there is a long history of women being the butt of sexist jokes; however, fighting fire with fire (or in this case, sexism with sexism) may not necessarily be an effective strategy for encouraging changes in broader social discourse. It only reinforces the kind of behaviour that women are so often offended by. Or perhaps this is just another case of mislabelling?
When I think of feminist humour, I think of comediennes such as Wanda Sykes and Margaret Cho - women who touch on controversial topics using admirable wit. Similarly, satire will be one of the approaches we use to inform, entertain and educate our blog readers on controversial topics.
To commission or not? Class consensus (thankfully) says yes.
