As Nadine Moawad implies here in an interview, we are completely immersed in the internet culture of communication. Moawad even states that, "Everyone is getting online - quickly."
Now, most of what Moawad is talking about is the importance of internet based education and activism. She insists that the internet is the new aged way of communicating and reaching out to other activists. She mentions that there are nearly 6 million new internet users a year.
Moawad states that most of the information on the internet is fundamentalist and very exploitative to women. So many sexist conversations that are available at the click of a finger. In Lebanon, she explains, there is no government censored internet, which Moawad describes as a good thing, although there is institutional public censorship.
"The government doesn't censor what we say, but we do have really crappy internet, so that we're too tired to express what we really feel." Moawad goes to explain how hard it is to be an activist while under the watchful eyes of the government.
I can't imagine ever having my internet censored or not being able to write about what I believe in, having it published, or communicating with other feminists activists around the United States. This new wave of feminism, some still may believe that we're still in the third wave, is viewed as really simple, but can be complex and troubling, as well.
Which brings me to the point of this blog - Do you believe that we are in a forth wave of feminism? If you think yes, why? And also, do you believe that being so dependent on the internet for activism is a good thing, or do you believe that it hinders the movement?
As seen here, fourth wave feminism is often described as an internet based community. According to this blogger, being a fourth wave feminist is all about "being as inclusive as we can and really paying attention to privilege and intersectionality." Which one may perceive as problematic.
As stated in my previous blog entry, privilege can be understood in many different ways. I, personally, believe that a movement cannot be all inclusive and "seriously" paying attention to privilege and intersectionality if the majority of the movement is based on internet access and owning a computer. Not understanding that some people still do not have access to the internet and a computer in the United States is not at all inclusive and a huge problem.
How is one supposed to be apart of the new feminist movement if you can't afford it?
This is a very good point you raise about whether a Fourth Wave centered on the Internet can be truly inclusive. Not only do many women not have easy (orany) Internet access, even among those who do have good Internet access at home, how many visit feminist web sites? One of the bad sides of the Internet, in my opinion, is that it enables/encourages people to just read what they already agree with or are interested in. So the liberal feminist does not read any conservative evangelical women’s views and the woman really into quilting only visits quilting sites. I think we need to get out more in the public square where we have some chance of exposing our viewpoints to people who have probably never heard them. Maybe we should take advantage some of the visual alternatives we discussed in class to make "cartoon" posters to put up in laundromats, etc. There is a great article about a new populist, activist movement in the Britain called UK UnCut. Read about it on Alternet at http://www.thenation.com/article/158282/how-build-progressive-tea-party. It is a movement that uses the Internet, but has involved thousands of people demonstrating in the street – people who never demonstrated before. (Got people involved by using theme of "if X store actually paid all the taxes it owed, they would cover the proposed cuts in Y part of gov't safety net programs - so lets all go out and blockade that store.)
ReplyDelete