Inhabiting Or Occupying the Web?: Virtual Communities and Feminist Cyberactivism in Online Spanish Feminist Theory and Praxis

This article examines the relationships between gender and technology in Spanish feminist praxis online and argues that different perspectives on online feminist community-building offer distinct responses to cyberactivism, which is considered central to sustaining efforts for social change. To ascertain whether Spanish virtual communities and cyberactivism have the potential to address the challenges posed by the relations between gender and technology, we analyse feminist scholar Remedios Zafra's theoretical proposals, and the different ways in which this theory intersects with the cyberactivism put forth by two feminist web portals, Ciudad de Mujeres and Mujeres en Red. We will discuss to what degree particular Spanish feminist theory and practice online adapts to or challenges utopianism regarding the liberating potential of technology. We will also examine how, in the face of critical arguments about such liberatory possibilities, two options present themselves for women's effective use of technology: inhabiting or occupying the web through the construction of feminist communities online.