Feminist activism in digital space: Postfeminist contradictions in #WhyIStayed

Abstract

Scholars have argued that digital spaces are key sites for feminist activism, which can be seen in the emergence of “hashtag feminism,” or the use of social media hashtags to address feminist-identified issues through sharing personal experiences of inequality, constructing counter-discourses, and critiquing cultural figures and institutions. However, more empirical research is needed that examines both the possibilities and constraints of hashtag feminism. Through a qualitative analysis of 51,577 archived tweets and semi-structured interviews, we trace the ways #WhyIStayed creates a space for feminist activism in response to victim-blaming related to domestic violence through voice, multivocality, and visibility. More specifically, we critically analyze postfeminist discourses within #WhyIStayed in order to examine contradictions within the hashtag event as well as how these postfeminist contradictions shape possibilities for feminist activism online.

Keywords

Domestic violence feminism hashtag activism postfeminism

Digital spaces are argued to be “fertile ground” for feminist activism, particularly through the affordances of blogging platforms and social media (Portwood-Stacer and Berridge, 2014: 519). An example can be seen in the emergence of “hashtag feminism.” Hashtag feminism involves the use of hashtags to address feminist-identified issues primarily through Twitter by sharing personal experiences of inequality, constructing counter-discourses, and critiquing cultural figures and institutions, including fellow feminists (e.g. Altinay, 2014; Clark, 2014; Jackson et al., 2018; Loza, 2014). Prominent examples of hashtag feminism¹ in the past several years have included #MeToo, #SolidarityisforWhiteWomen, #NotBuyingIt, #YesAllWomen, and #WhyIStayed, among others.

Existing research also points to the complexity of digital spaces as sites for feminist activism. Some question the potential for digital activism to effect substantive change in the context of neoliberalism (Baer, 2016) and corporate control over digital spaces (Megarry, 2017). Due to the affordances of digital space, activists can find themselves subjected to online harassment and abuse (Rodino-Colocino, 2014), as evidenced by #GamerGate (Massanari, 2017; Salter, 2017), and activist campaigns can become co-opted (Stache, 2015). Thus, research exploring feminist hashtags must attend to the ways feminist activism is both enabled and constrained in digital spaces.

In this project, we explore how hashtags create space for feminist activism through an examination of the hashtag, #WhyIStayed, which emerged in response to an instance of domestic violence committed by Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice against his then-fiancée, Janay Palmer. Specifically, through our analysis we locate postfeminist (Gill, 2007, 2016, 2017) discourses within the hashtag, tracing where contradictions emerge to interrogate their implications for the possibilities and constraints of hashtag feminism.

Hashtags and feminist activism

Hashtags (#) have become both a tool and a space for digital feminist activism. Hashtags mirror activist tactics like letter-writing and petitions, as individuals use hashtags to call out and speak to institutions including governments (Altinay, 2014) and corporations (Clark, 2014). Some have likened feminist hashtags to consciousness-raising circles from the second wave of American feminism (Clark, 2014), providing a space to exchange stories, politicize experiences, and collectively organize. Hashtags have also opened up space for women of color to critique patriarchy outside the movement as well as racism inside it (Jackson, 2016; Kuo, 2018; Loza, 2014). In this sense, not only can hashtag feminism “enable new kinds of intersectional conversations” (Baer, 2016: 18), but it can also provide opportunities to challenge and critique the internal dynamics of feminist movements, as seen in discussions within the hashtags #SolidarityisforWhiteWomen and #NotYourAsianSidekick that call out white feminisms and the exclusion and mistreatment of women of color (Kuo, 2018; Loza, 2014).

Hashtags also promise visibility to feminist issues and immediacy in responding to events in real time (Altinay, 2014; Latina and Docherty, 2014). Such visibility can allow for the construction and amplification of counter-narratives within digital spaces (Conley, 2014; Jackson et al., 2018; Thrift, 2014). In the #YesAllWomen hashtag, women’s personal narratives of gender-based violence challenged “exceptionalist discourses” around the Isla Vista killings (Thrift, 2014: 1090). In this case, the hashtag not only made visible women’s lived experiences following a tragic news event, but it also provided the means of “critical, feminist intervention in how we conceptualize and choose to narrate misogynist aggression and gender violence in American culture” (Thrift, 2014: 1091). This is possible in part because hashtags, in addition to being searchable, can become highly visible through mechanisms that identify “trending” hashtags on social media platforms as well as through regular media coverage of hashtags as events in their own right (Latina and Docherty, 2014). In addition, co-occurring hashtags and celebrity influencers can further heighten this visibility, as in Jackson et al.’s (2018) analysis of the ways #GirlsLikeUs contributed to extending and elevating the visibility of trans stories and concerns into the mainstream. Thus, hashtags hold potential to influence mainstream media and larger discourses around particular events or issues by making “disruptive discourses” accessible (Antunovic and Linden, 2015: 158).

Despite the promises of hashtag feminism, some scholars question its potential to effect change. The messy interconnections between individualism, digital space, and neoliberalism raise concerns about the depoliticization of feminist activism, particularly as it materializes online through personalized narratives (Baer, 2016). Although “the personal is political” remains a hallmark of feminist activism, some argue that neoliberalism has turned this mantra on its head (e.g. Mohanty, 2013), redefining the political as solely personal, and thereby stripping the activist power from sharing one’s lived experiences of oppression. In this way, some scholars question whether or not the “microrebellions of digital feminism” (Baer, 2016: 18) can truly produce cultural/structural change.

Furthermore, the affordances of digital space threaten the potential of hashtag feminism. As a hashtag increases in popularity, it risks being misused and its activist message diluted, either intentionally or unintentionally (Stache, 2015). Activists may find their messages co-opted, monetized, and/or erased (Rodino-Colocino, 2014). For example, Tarana Burke, a feminist activist of color, initiated #MeToo; however, when Alyssa Milano, a white celebrity, shared a #MeToo tweet with her large network, many media outlets credited her for starting the movement (Garcia, 2017). Similarly, women of color were rarely credited or amplified within #YesAllWomen—despite initiating and popularizing the hashtag—leading to the creation of the corresponding hashtag #YesAllWhiteWomen to call attention to these erasures (Jackson and Banaszczyk, 2016). Visibility can also be fleeting, as the virality of a particular hashtag can be difficult to maintain long term (Woods, 2014). In addition, the effectiveness of hashtag feminism can be inhibited through surveillance (Megarry, 2017), harassment and trolling (Mantilla, 2015), misrepresentation by mainstream media (Jackson, 2016), attempts to derail conversations, and the infiltration of hashtags by fake accounts (Ganzer, 2014). An example can be seen in Operation: Lollipop, an anti-feminist trolling effort in which fake Twitter accounts claiming to be feminist women of color were used to propogate hashtags like #EndFathersDay and #WhitesCantBeRaped in an effort to discredit and delegitimize feminist activism and ideals by associating them with absurdist claims (Ganzer, 2014).

Thus, the evidence for both possibilities and limitations has led scholars to claim, “we still know very little about what hashtags like #MeToo actually do; or whether and how they can produce social change” (Mendes et al., 2018: 237). Scholars have recently acknowledged hashtag feminism as characterized by complexity and contradiction (e.g. Megarry, 2017; Mendes et al., 2018). Few studies, however, analytically interrogate contradictions and their implications for hashtag feminism. To address the gap, this study thematically analyzed 51,577 #WhyIStayed/#WhyILeft tweets, as well as qualitative interviews with hashtag participants. Drawing on the concept of postfeminist sensibility (Gill, 2016), we trace the ways in which feminism and antifeminism, the doing and undoing (McRobbie, 2008) of feminism, operate in #WhyIStayed to both enable possibilities and impose constraints for hashtag feminist activism.

Postfeminism and postfeminist sensibility

In this study, we examine postfeminism as a critical object (Gill, 2017), specifically its contradictions and the implications of those contradictions for feminist activism on domestic violence. As Gill (2016) argues, “[E]ngaging with the contradictions of media culture is an important part of being a feminist media scholar . . . One of the strengths of postfeminism as a critical concept is that it attends to and makes visible contradictions” (p. 622, emphasis added). As Projansky notes, “postfeminism is by definition contradictory, simultaneously feminist and anti-feminist, liberating and oppressive, productive and destructive of social change. Whether critics see feminism or antifeminism as more dominant . . . is in the end a ‘matter of interpretation and degree’” (as cited in Genz and Brabon, 2012: 9). Given there is no fixed or shared meaning of postfeminism, Genz and Brabon (2012) understand postfeminism as a “network of possible relations that allow for a variety of permutations and readings” that is “context-specific and has to be assessed dynamically in the relationships and tensions between various manifestations and contexts” (p. 5). While feminist scholars acknowledge the fluidity and contested interpretations of postfeminism, in this article we follow Gill (2017) who has identified several core features of postfeminism, including the “emphasis upon individualism, choice and agency” and the “disappearance- or at least muting- of vocabularies for talking about both structural inequalities and cultural influence” (p. 607). As we demonstrate, it is these core features of postfeminism that are embedded in the discourses of #WhyIStayed.

For Gill (2007, 2016) postfeminism exists as a “postfeminist sensibility.” A postfeminist sensibility is a “critical analytical category” (p. 613), rather than an epistemological or historical term, that reflects the ways feminist and anti-feminist ideals are intertwined in contemporary media culture to construct the doing and undoing of feminism (McRobbie, 2008). Postfeminism as a sensibility, recognizes the way “in which postfeminism is not only created, expressed and circulated, but also received and reproduced” (Banet-Weiser et al., 2019: 2). Within a postfeminist sensibility, difference is reasserted in ways that emphasize personal choice and self-determination or individual empowerment, often obfuscating the structural dynamics that constitute difference both materially and discursively.

Furthermore, postfeminism, and postfeminist sensibility, is racialized as it is gendered, and women of color (and non-Western women) are positioned inside its interpellations and invitations (Butler, 2013; Springer, 2007). As Butler (2013) states, “Just as it does for white women, postfeminism requires its nonwhite participants to reject political activism in favor of capitalist consumption and cultural visibility” (p. 50). As such, Butler (2013) and others have called for an intersectional approach to postfeminism which recognizes it as a distinctive kind of neoliberal sensibility that reproduces inequalities related to gender, race, class, sexuality, and other forms of difference.

In the context of #WhyIStayed, examining postfeminism as a critical object thus compels us to examine how victim/survivor agency and subjectivity is produced in digital spaces, how neoliberalism infuses the ways in which understandings of domestic violence get articulated online, and how the visibility of feminism in digital spaces exists in a historical moment “at best highly contradictory and at worst profoundly misogynist” (Gill, 2017: 611). In examining postfeminist discourses, Gill (2016) implores feminists to “hold and think together the different meanings and affects involved in the contemporary visibility of (some) feminist activism” (p. 617, emphasis added). Thus, this study aims to “hold and think together” the contradictory meanings and affects within hashtag feminism. In doing so, rather than “seeing postfeminist media culture as a culture in which feminism is necessarily ‘in retreat,’” we seek to understand how feminism is “co-opted, selectively taken up, derided and entangled in complex ways” (Gill, 2016: 621) within the hashtag #WhyIStayed/WhyILeft, as well as its implications for digital spaces as sites of and for feminist activism.

Emergence of #WhyIStayed

TIME magazine recognized #WhyIStayed as one of the “Top 10 Hashtags that Started a Conversation” in 2014 (Gibson, 2014), and it has been touted as an example of the “power of hashtag feminism” (Bennett, 2014). The hashtag has continued relevance, as it has since been referenced in relation to #MeToo (Warner, 2017). In addition, by responding to an instance of domestic violence in a high-profile black heterosexual relationship, #WhyIStayed brings to the fore the need for attention to intersections of race, class, and sexuality within hashtag feminism writ large as well as within this specific hashtag.

#WhyIStayed, and the hashtag #WhyILeft that followed, speak to a prominent issue within feminist scholarship and activism—violence against women. In September 2014, TMZ released security-camera footage of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice punching his then-fiancé Janay Palmer in a hotel elevator earlier that year, knocking her unconscious (Van Natta and Van Valkenburg, 2014). In the wake of the video’s release, many began speculating publicly why Janay Palmer stayed with Ray Rice after the incident and why she had subsequently married him.² Beverly Gooden, an author and victim/survivor of domestic violence herself, took to Twitter and in a succession of tweets creating the hashtag #WhyIStayed wherein she shared her personal experiences to combat the victim-blaming leveled at Janay Palmer and other survivors of domestic violence (Gooden, 2014; Kaplan, 2014). For example, Gooden tweeted “All these folks trashing women for staying in abusive situations have NO clue what happens the moment you reach for a door handle,” and “I tried to leave the house once after an abusive episode, and he blocked me. He slept in front of the door that entire night #WhyIStayed.” The hashtag went viral and sparked parallel hashtags #WhyILeft and #WhenILeft. Writing of the hashtag on her own website, Gooden (2014) said,

I believe in storytelling. I believe in the power of shared experience. I believe that we find strength in community. That is why I created this hashtag. I hope those tweeting using #WhyIStayed find a voice, find love, find compassion, and find hope.

Existing research on #WhyIStayed (e.g. Clark, 2016; Cravens et al., 2015; Weathers et al., 2016) positions the hashtag as an empowering opportunity for individuals to voice their experiences. However, recent studies on digital movements to end intimate partner violence (e.g. Wood et al., 2018) highlight their complexities and call for more critical consideration of the larger impacts. This study analyzes postfeminist discourses within #WhyIStayed in order to examine contradictions within the hashtag event as well as how these postfeminist contradictions shape possibilities for feminist activism online.

Methods

This qualitative “big data” study draws on a dataset of 51,577 tweets tagged with #WhyIStayed and/or #WhyILeft, as well as semi-structured interviews with eight individuals who participated in the hashtag. In approaching this dataset qualitatively, we view “big data” as marked not just by quantity but by complexity and richness (Bisel et al., 2014). Through our analysis, we sought to gain both breadth and depth in our understanding and interrogation of the hashtag as a site of feminist activism. Furthermore, we chose to supplement the Twitter dataset with interviews to provide deeper insight into #WhyIStayed and individuals’ sensemaking of their participation and the hashtag’s impact overall. Our approach mirrors recent calls by feminist scholars to “explore the experiences of those who are participating in such initiatives, so we can understand the fuller picture and long-term effects and impacts of such feminist activisms” (Mendes et al., 2018: 244).

After soliciting support from the hashtag’s originator to study #WhyIStayed and receiving IRB approval to analyze the tweets and conduct interviews (see Cooky et al., 2018), we received access to the Twitter dataset from Big Mountain Data, an organization that focuses on data-driven solutions to domestic violence. Big Mountain Data provided tweets with the #WhyIStayed and/or #WhyILeft hashtags that was posted between 8 September and 1 December 2014—including the height of its popularity in early September and the months following—resulting in a total of 203,434 tweets. To focus on the unique individual tweets related to #WhyIStayed and domestic violence generally, we conducted an initial read and cleaned the dataset, removing retweets, duplicate tweets, and tweets that were unrelated to the hashtag. This process yielded a total of 51,577 tweets. Rather than sampling or selecting a subset of the tweets, we chose to analyze all the tweets to preserve the individual voices of those who participated in the hashtag (see Cooky et al., 2018).

Our qualitative analysis of the tweets occurred in two iterative analytic cycles. First, tweets were entered into NVivo qualitative analysis software and were analyzed using an interpretive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006). The purpose of this analysis was to inductively explore and make sense of salient patterns within the dataset. We began with an open-coding process of a third of the dataset to identify initial semantic and latent codes (Braun and Clarke, 2006). During this process, we identified thematic categories such as victim/survivor experience, hashtag discussed, spreading DV awareness, victim-blaming, and trolling or harassment. We engaged in reflexive writing and memoing both individually and collectively and met regularly as part of an iterative process to review codes, discuss initial themes, and develop a flexible codebook. After completing this first round of coding, each of us used this codebook to analyze the remainder of the tweets. To ensure the coding process was exhaustive, we continued to meet and discuss other emergent codes, review, and refine themes, explore multiple interpretations, engage in thematic mapping using whiteboards, and journal individually and collaboratively (Linabary et al., 2017). After completing our thematic coding, we then engaged in a critical feminist analysis of postfeminist discourses within the hashtag and their interplay with(in) the technological affordances of the platform to explicate the tensions and contradictions that we had observed within our initial analysis. At this stage, we revisited our codes and themes for latent meanings and asked structured questions of the data informed by our thematic analysis and engagement with the literature on postfeminism (e.g. Gill, 2016, 2017).

Concurrently, we began recruiting interviewees by posting calls for participants on Twitter using #WhyIStayed as well as other hashtags related to domestic violence. We conducted interviews with eight women who identified as victim/survivors and participated in the hashtag event, asking about their motivations for participating, the perceived impact of the hashtag, and how best to represent the tweets while protecting the confidentiality of participants. The interviews also allowed us to check and process our interpretations of the themes we were identifying in our analysis of the tweets with those who had participated in the hashtag (Tracy, 2010). Due to the sensitive nature of interviewing victim/survivors and our ethical concerns about potentially disclosing the identities of the participants, we intentionally did not ask demographic questions of our participants unless it was offered in the course of the interview. Some participants did discuss how their identities shaped their experiences, including issues of class, race, nationality, and culture. The interviews lasted an average length of approximately 1 hour. These interviews were recorded with permission and transcribed, resulting in 324 pages of text. The transcripts were then entered into NVivo for thematic analysis. After conducting open coding, we met to discuss and finalize themes. In this article, our analysis is primarily driven by the Twitter dataset but were also echoed by the interview data, which provided deeper analytical insight into how individuals experienced the hashtag.

At all stages, we practiced “collaborative feminist reflexivity” (see Linabary et al., 2017) through individual journaling, collaborative reflexive journaling, and regular group discussions. In this we discussed our emotional responses to the data, collaboratively reflected on how power manifested in the coding process, and interrogated how to represent the voices of participants without compromising their privacy and safety. In addition, the interviews provided an opportunity to discuss with participants the ethical issues related to the research project. These discussions informed our choices related to representation of the tweets. In order to reduce the likelihood that tweets could be identified, we present the tweets in summative and composite form in this study. While we recognize this limits the “thick description” characteristic of qualitative study, we do so to ensure the confidentiality of our participants, many of whom have experienced domestic violence and require attention toward the anonymization of their stories (for further discussion, see Cooky et al., 2018; Linabary and Corple, 2019).

Contradictions in creating (digital) space for feminist activism

We identified three core themes in the analysis of #WhyIStayed/#WhyILeft: (a) voice, (b) multivocality, and (c) visibility. Within each theme, we describe how the hashtag both enabled and constrained feminist activism, which we argue illustrates postfeminist contradiction. In doing so, we trace from the micro-level of the individual victim/survivor to the macro-level of social understandings of domestic violence.

Contradictions of voice

The hashtag allowed for both victims/survivors to share stories that had previously gone unspoken and others to respond to those stories about domestic violence at the individual level. These responses tended to position responsibility for domestic violence on the individual, overlooking structural and institutional factors that contributed to domestic violence. These contradictions within the hashtag regarding voice are discussed below.

Twitter users and interviewees demonstrate how the hashtag provided a platform by which individuals could voice experiences that have been otherwise silenced. Due to social stigma and the prevalence of victim-blaming discourses surrounding domestic violence, victim/survivors often remain silent about their experiences, whether they “stay” in the relationship or not (Goodmark, 2008). For example, Twitter users and interviewees shared how family members, friends, clergy, and even doctors and therapists asked them what they had done to incite the violence of their partners. This type of victim-blaming by those closest to victims/survivors often discourages those who face abuse from voicing their experiences.

#WhyIStayed, however, went beyond providing a platform for a traditionally silenced group; the hashtag offered a specific invitation to share those stories that are especially stigmatized and hidden—the reasons one stayed with an abusive partner. In doing so, many shared forms of abuse often not seen as “legitimate” by others (DeKeseredy and Schwartz, 2011), such as verbal, emotional, and psychological abuse. For example, tweets stating that the victim did not think she was abused because “he never hit me” were frequent in the hashtag. Similarly, many users shared instances of psychological manipulation in which abusers forced victims to believe the abuse was their fault. This kind of violence silenced victims/survivors as they either did not recognize the abuse themselves or were fearful of sharing what would be unrecognized by others. As an interview participant described,

The hashtag was really helpful in just understanding that what I was going through was abuse . . . that everybody else was feeling the same thing that I was feeling and they had the same reasons for why they felt like they had to stay, why they felt like they were confused after these actions, and it was like really comforting to know that.

In this sense, hashtag participants made sense of their experiences by reading others’ tweets and sharing their own stories. In addition to non-physical forms of violence, many victims/survivors shared about self-esteem, shame, and emotional attachments to their abusers; reasons for “staying” that also silenced their stories. For example, victims/survivors shared feelings of self-blame for “choosing” an abusive partner, for allowing a marriage to “fail,” for not standing up for themselves, or for trying to “save” their abusers.

As individuals wrote about their reasons for staying with abusive partners, they mentioned how these stories went unspoken in other contexts. For instance, many tweeted that prior to participating in the hashtag, they had never shared their experiences of abuse. Some interview participants indicated that others “didn’t want to hear about it.” Only with the hashtag’s invitation and a critical mass of victim/survivors and others validating their experiences could they share their stories. Some even created a Twitter handle just so that they could engage with others’ stories and share their own. Interviewees also described the healing and empowering nature of “owning” one’s story, and sharing it without shame. As one participant described,

What I do think that [the hashtag] absolutely did is opened up this platform for people to come out and say, “I’m not afraid to share my story. And it may just be today, and it might just be for a week, and then I’ll decide that I’m done with this, or that I don’t need it.” But giving people permission and an outlet to say, “This is what happened to me . . . And I’m going to use this opportunity to not only share for myself, but to help other people understand”.

Similarly, many spoke to the desire to share information that could reveal the complexity of abuse to others, and potentially prevent them from experiencing the same pain. The potential for the hashtag to give voice to a traditionally silenced group and experience demonstrates its utility for feminist activism.

However, the hashtag provided both a platform by which individuals could voice experiences that have been otherwise silenced/stigmatized and at the same time a platform for blaming victims for their own abusive situations. Many Twitter users criticized the reasoning of victims/survivors to stay as being “petty,” or gave “advice” to users that reaffirmed victim-blaming discourses. For example, some tweets accused victim/survivors of being “too weak” to leave their abuser or not providing “good enough” excuses for why they stayed. Others questioned the parenting of victims/survivors who stayed, suggesting they were not “good mothers,” even when users tweeted that their partner threatened to harm the children if they left. Similarly, because many of the tweets of or about victims/survivors discussed psychological rationales for staying in an abusive relationship (e.g. low self-esteem, loving the abuser), many Twitter users gave “advice” targeting perceived psychological and emotional deficiencies of victims/survivors. For example, tweets discussed the importance of learning to “love oneself,” to value one’s own well-being, and to “choose” to leave abusive relationships. Several interview participants reported either experiencing or witnessing responses that questioned why women did not leave. These responses place individual responsibility on the victim/survivor to end the abuse, and, by extension, “solve” the social problem of domestic violence.

By doing so, these tweets reaffirm individual responsibility and choice by largely ignoring the abuser’s role in producing the emotional/psychological realities (e.g. gaslighting) that keep victims/survivors in abusive relationships as well as the larger social and structural forces that (re)produce domestic violence. Although a few Twitter users placed the responsibility on abusers by questioning why the hashtag was #WhyIStayed instead of #WhyDoesHeHit, the majority of tweets focused on individual victim/survivors—their stories and responsibilities. Even fewer tweets addressed structural issues, such as the criminal justice system, as discussed in later sections. Thus, the #WhyIStayed hashtag created both a platform for individual victims/survivors to experience personal empowerment through voicing their experiences, and a micro-level positioning of abuse, particularly the psychological rationales for staying with abusive partners which reaffirmed forms of victim-blaming the hashtag was intended to combat.

Contradictions of multivocality

Hashtags, as hyperlinked symbols, have become searchable and publicly accessible markers to both collate and engage in conversation. The barrier to participation is low, enabling almost anyone to search and view content using the hashtag, and anyone with a Twitter account can participate by tweeting with the hashtag. Such affordances enable the entry of multiple voices, perspectives, and experiences into the flow of conversation. Given these affordances of hashtags, the #WhyIStayed hashtag created both openings for counter-narratives of domestic violence and opportunities for disrupting feminist activism through harassment and co-option. Counter-narratives of domestic violence, including narratives situated at the intersections of gender, race, class, sexuality, nationality, and immigration status, challenged the dominant cultural imaginings of domestic violence victim/survivors (i.e. white, women, heterosexual) and offered nuanced accounts that challenged myths and expanded conventional understandings of domestic violence. At the same time, tweets were trolling and misogynistic and/or co-opted the hashtag for commercial or political purposes. These contradictions within the hashtag regarding multivocality are discussed below.

#WhyIStayed allowed for showcasing the diverse experiences and social locations of those who have experienced domestic violence, disrupting common assumptions. While the dominant domestic violence narrative involves a passive white cisgender heterosexual able-bodied female victim and an aggressive male perpetrator (Guthrie and Kunkel, 2015), the hashtag allowed for the sharing of experiences outside of what is considered normative. Among those sharing narratives of their experiences of #WhyIStayed included those of men who have been victims/survivors of domestic violence, of female perpetrators, of those in LGBTQ relationships, and of individuals who are disabled. For example, tweets described reasons for staying that were tied to expectations around masculinity, such as that one should “man up” or “be man enough” to take the abuse. Tweets also described how abusers made victims/survivors feel that their disabilities were their “fault” and no one else would care for them, which explained why the victim/survivor stayed in the abusive relationship. Tweets describing experiences in LGBTQ relationships illustrated the harm caused by normative understandings of domestic violence. One tweet described a cop saying that abuse does not occur between women.

Furthermore, these accounts complicate the domestic violence narrative by highlighting how domestic violence intersects with structures of gender, race, class, sexuality, and citizenship that mutually influence victim/survivors’ experiences. A victim/survivor discussed staying in an abusive relationship because she felt “guilty” about involving the police and putting “another black man” into the criminal justice system. Another discussed fearing that a partner would abscond with her immigration papers making her unable to work and therefore unable to care for her children.

Collectively, these tweets serve to challenge assumptions about domestic violence and broaden perspectives both on what counts as domestic violence and who can be a victim/survivor. As one interview participant described,

If I know that it happens to one in four women, if I know that, you know, um, abusers don’t fit into this one specific socio-economic background or race, or anything like that—if I—if I know that they’re all over the place, that’s terrifying. And so, instead of acknowledging that and sort of, you know, empowering ourselves by like, better educating our children or better educating ourselves, we just push it away and alienate the people who have done it. Because, if we can say, “They’re nothing like me” or, “I would never do what they do,” then that’s a lot easier than saying, “Okay, I may fall victim to the exact same thing that she just suffered from, and that’s terrifying.”

In doing so, it provided opportunities to confront assumptions that domestic violence is something that happens to “other” people.

The same affordances that create space for multiple voices and experiences of domestic violence simultaneously opened up the conversation for trolling and co-opting. This finding also represents collapsing contexts within digital space (e.g. Marwick and boyd, 2011), wherein a user may tweet to an imagined audience, but others in or out of their network can access this content beyond the intended viewers. Our interview participants discussed tweeting with other victim/survivors in mind, hoping their tweets would make the difference for someone else. However, the public nature of the hashtag became a calling card for those who sought to mock the idea of #WhyIStayed or harass those who participated. Several interview participants indicated observing harassing or trolling tweets, which were particularly jarring as victim/survivors. As one participant described,

There are definitely people on Twitter (and all social media for that matter) who like to stir the pot and cause trouble. I definitely saw people who were using the hashtag #WhyIStayed to poke fun at victims of abuse, to criticize them, and also to make light of abusive situations. Personally those types of posts really get to me because I can’t understand how people can find any of it funny.

These tweets often utilized the same narrative structure of victim/survivor tweets while making fun of reasons for staying, or drawing on gendered or heteronormative stereotypes. For example, we came across multiple instances of “Dick so bomb #WhyIStayed” or references to the victim making or not making food (e.g. “#WhyIStayed she made me a sandwich”) or women’s appearance (e.g. “#WhyILeft she got fat”). Furthermore, some tweets openly scoffed at the hashtag, resorted to gendered name-calling or insults, or included targeted harassment “@” individuals. These included tweets referring to those sharing their stories as “liars,” “stupid,” “bitches,” “dumb dependent hookers,” “gold digging thots” (thot: that ho over there), and “man-hating feminists.” Some referred to victim/survivors’ tweets as “fake” and “sob stories” and suggested those posting “love to play” the victim. Several tweets even included threats of violence or abuse toward victim/survivors in the hashtag. Such forms of gender-based trolling and harassment are not unique to #WhyIStayed and have become commonplace in digital spaces where women share their experiences or opinions (Mantilla, 2015).

In addition, some users co-opted the hashtag for commercial or political purposes. The most high-profile example was DiGiorno’s tweet: “#WhyIStayed You had pizza.” While the employee running DiGiorno’s social media account claimed to be unaware of the focus of the hashtag when this tweet was posted (Stampler, 2014), the tweet hijacked the conversation and a portion of its media coverage, as hundreds of tweets followed condemning the action, offering support or justification, providing advice to the company, or imitating the tweet. For one interview participant, this was her first introduction to the hashtag—learning about DiGiorno’s tweet and then discovering what the hashtag’s purpose actually was. Her anger and frustration at DiGiorno’s tweet was less about what the company did and more about the broader response, which included people further making fun of the hashtag. She noted,

But I was really pissed at the people who were commenting about the company, being like, “Ha, ha. This is such a dumb hashtag,” like, people were posting some real offensive things—I don’t remember exactly what it is, I just blocked it out, because I was really, really upset. I was like, “See? No one gets it. No one gets it.”

Thus, DiGiorno’s tweet derailed the hashtag from its initial focus, and contributed to victims/survivors feeling as though their experiences were not understood. In addition to DiGiorno, multiple other instances emerged of individuals using the hashtag to sell or promote products (e.g. books on Amazon, Android phones, radio shows), promote particular views (e.g. pro-life perspectives, anti-Muslim sentiment), or discuss politics (e.g. Scotland staying with or leaving the United Kingdom, Hillary Clinton’s relationship with Bill, the hashtag as a “Democratic ploy,” or a Republican “war on women”), demonstrating the ways multiple voices shift the conversation from its original focus, thus diluting the potential for social change. The trolling, harassment, and co-opting of the hashtag each illustrate the ways in which popular misogyny co-exists alongside forms of popular feminism (Banet-Weiser and Miltner, 2016).

Contradiction of visibility

#WhyIStayed was created to respond in real time to the victim-blaming of Janay Rice that was circulating in mainstream media outlets as well as to shed light on domestic violence as a lived experience. The critical mass of victim/survivor narratives lent credibility to the diverse and complex reasons victims stay in abusive relationships, making visible a collectivity of survivor voices on a social issue often dismissed or de-legitimized. As such, #WhyIStayed gave heightened visibility to “disruptive discourses” (Antunovic and Linden, 2015: 158), amplifying the complexity of domestic violence and the lived experiences of victims/survivors particularly through the affective responses of other users and further media coverage. At the same time, by engendering micro-level affective and victim-blaming responses, the hashtag minimized the visibility of domestic violence as a systemic social problem and reinforced dominant discourses. As a result, the hashtag limited feminist activist attempts to give visibility to the structural factors of domestic violence and to disrupt victim-blaming discourses, particularly those targeted at Janay Rice. These contradictions regarding visibility are discussed below.

Affective responses to the hashtag furthered its spread, amplifying the visibility of domestic violence and the lived experiences of victims/survivors. As with other viral digital movements, emotionally charged images or narratives often function “as a jolt or spark” that moves users to spread the content or participate in the conversation (Pedwell, 2017: 23). Many who participated in the hashtag and often those who had no direct or indirect experience with domestic violence identified and sympathized with victim/survivor narratives and responded emotionally to the stories of victims/survivors. The hashtag, as one interview participant stated, helped put people’s experiences into “bite-size, digestible chunks that people could identify with.” Tweets often described how “heartbroken” a reader of the hashtag was or how “touching” the survivors’ stories were. Often these tweets were accompanied by encouragement for others to also “read the hashtag.” This appeal to others to read the hashtag further heightened the visibility of the hashtag, thus amplifying the narratives of victims/survivors. The increased visibility also created entry points to the hashtag itself through which activists and advocates could distribute resources for those experiencing domestic violence. For example, some tweets included the power-control wheel, a visual representation of violence, power, and control manifesting in abuser behaviors, to educate the public on domestic violence. One interview participant also indicated that some organizations used her tweets as examples to illustrate “how women in abusive situations are misunderstood.” In this sense, some interview participants were hopeful that the hashtag was helping shift the conversation in the larger culture. As one interviewee stated,

Overall, I think the hashtag has shed light on a side of abuse that many people do not understand, and I think it has shifted the conversation from judging a woman for staying in an abusive situation to trying to understand her struggle . . . These relationships are very complex and I think at the very least the hashtag has started the conversation to shift to be focused on “how do we help the victims in these situations?”

Indeed, #WhyIStayed itself and broader issues pertaining to domestic violence also became amplified through tweets which included links to media articles, blog posts, books, and other writings on domestic violence. Several interviewees indicated they discovered the hashtag by seeing news articles or, in at least one case, watching Meredith Vieira discuss her experience with domestic violence on her talk show. Many tweets encouraged those on Twitter to “check this out,” linking articles on domestic violence from mainstream and progressive media publications such as the Huffington Post, National Public Radio, ABC News, and televised outlets such as the Today Show and Dr. Phil. The circularity of this was evident when many of those using the hashtag included a link to a Mic.com article, “19 #WhyIStayed tweets everyone needs to see” (Keller, 2014). Using the hashtag to share media sources about domestic violence, many of which included the experiences of victim/survivors or were written by victim/survivors, further amplified the discussion of domestic violence by providing more depth and nuance than that afforded in 140 characters.

Although the hashtag’s emotional resonance with readers heightened the visibility of domestic violence, it also engendered micro-level affective responses, and at times, even disengagement with the hashtag itself. Many participating in the hashtag said they got “so emotional” or “chills” reading victim/survivor stories. They found themselves so distraught, and were “crying so hard” that they needed to “log off” or “take a break from Twitter” in order to compose themselves. Certainly reading the tweets, particularly those from survivors, was an emotionally draining and difficult experience. We too found ourselves emotionally impacted by the stories during coding, especially given the sheer number of tweets outlining various forms of abuse seemingly unimaginable, especially for those who had not experienced such abuse. Thus, these responses may represent “compassion fatigue,” wherein repeated exposure to distressing content leads individuals to tune out or “log off” (Pedwell, 2017). These affective responses may also reflect an underlying fascination and voyeurism of someone else’s trauma and suffering. For some the hashtag may operate as a digital version of “misery porn,” a spin-off of “misery lit”—a genre of literature wherein the protagonist details their experience of trauma and/or abuse, with the reader occupying a voyeuristic subject position to consume trauma in a heightened emotional state (Addley, 2007). Misery porn enables an affective response that, rather than engage readers in meaningful forms of feminist activism, prompts them to simply proclaim how “powerful” or “heartbreaking” the stories are, or suggest someone should read them. Thus, these affective responses may reflect passive consumption—or disengagement—rather than action addressing domestic violence as a social problem.

Furthermore, as the hashtag took on a life of its own and moved away from the catalyst event itself, it appeared to make most visible the individual experiences of domestic violence, rather than amplify critique of the social structures that construct the context by which victim/survivors stay in abusive relationships. This was observed in our analysis as the majority of the #WhyIStayed tweets involved personal narratives, yet very few comparatively addressed the structures that were implicated in the victim-blaming of Janay Rice (e.g. media institutions). Those tweets that were directed at media were a mixture of support for the coverage of domestic violence or the hashtag (e.g. “very well done with the #WhyIStayed discussion”), reactions to particular stories (e.g. “I can’t believe the caller said that”), and occasionally calling out the focus or language being used within coverage (e.g. “What about the victim?”). This lack of focus was further affirmed as most of those we interviewed did not recall or initially connect the hashtag to Ray or Janay Rice. Others indicated that they were not at first aware because it “was so far removed from that” incident but upon further reading into the hashtag they learned more about the connection between the victim-blaming of Janay Rice in media outlets and the origin of #WhyIStayed.

Perhaps most disconcerting given the impetus for the hashtag, the vast majority of the tweets discussing Ray and/or Janay Rice continued to blame Janay Rice. While some tweets did include comments about “standing up for Janay” or telling people not to “pass judgment” on her situation, more often they involved commentary that was critical of her and her choice to stay in a relationship with Ray. For example, many tweets included some version of accusations that Janay Rice was “staying for the money” or referred to her as a “gold digger,” suggesting she would leave Ray Rice if he no longer had an NFL contract. Even those offering advice to Janay Rice or commentary on the abuse would insinuate that Janay Rice was “in denial” or “lacking self-esteem.” Furthermore, some made a mockery of her experience, for example, telling her to “take the stairs” next time, a reference to the leaked security tape showing Ray abusing her in a hotel elevator. Some tweets even indicated that instead Ray Rice was the “real victim” and that Janay Rice was actually the “aggressor.” This victim-blaming of Janay Rice and the hashtag itself often trafficked in racist stereotypes (Collins, 2009). These stereotypes draw upon notions of the inherent aggressiveness and physicality of black men (and to a certain extent black women), stereotypes of black families as dysfunctional, as well as the cultural imagery of the ideal victim as white, middle-class, and female that suggests black women are somehow deserving of abuse, or at the very least, less sympathetic victims (e.g. Springer, 2007).

While the hashtag did provide visibility to disruptive discourses related to domestic violence, the emotional responses to those narratives and its uptake kept the focus of engagement on the micro-level, limiting the activist response directed toward changing the institutions and structures that are complicit. The heightened visibility of a micro-level response to the social/structural issue of domestic violence is perhaps best represented by the hashtag perpetuating the very behavior it sought to address—victim-blaming of Janay Rice.

Discussion

In this article, we traced the ways in which postfeminist contradiction exists in digital spaces of hashtag activism. Specifically, we examine how feminism and antifeminism and the doing and undoing (McRobbie, 2008) of feminism operate in #WhyIStayed to both enable possibilities and impose constraints for hashtag feminism. We found that the hashtag #WhyIStayed is both simultaneously liberatory (e.g. for those who were tweeting their experience and finding community) and oppressive (e.g. for those who were potentially re-victimized by trolling and harassment). #WhyIStayed is an example of a hashtag that aimed to intervene in victim-blaming related to domestic violence. The hashtag both invited individuals, who are often silenced or ignored, to share their experiences and to connect with other victims/survivors, and, as we have shown, the hashtag engendered responses that located domestic violence primarily at the micro-level, placing the responsibility on the individual rather than on structural or cultural dynamics that shape the decisions victims/survivors make to stay or leave. We also observed the ways in which the hashtag both created openings for multiple voices to participate in the conversation on domestic violence and introduced voices of those who would troll and/or harass victim/survivors or co-opt the hashtag for commercial or political benefit, thus illustrating an important feature of postfeminism—the co-existence of popular feminism and popular misogyny (Banet-Weiser, 2015, 2018). Moreover, we observed contradictions in how the hashtag both made visible the disruptive discourses created by amplifying a critical mass of victims/survivors narratives, and reinforced dominant discourses related to domestic violence, including victim-blaming.

Thus, our analysis illuminates the importance and utility of postfeminist contradiction for understanding feminist activism in digital spaces. Examining postfeminist discourses in hashtag activism necessarily involves engaging the contradictions and paradoxes produced in the interplay of feminism and antifeminism in contemporary society (McRobbie, 2008) and seeking to “hold and think together the different meanings and affects involved in the contemporary visibility of (some) feminist activism” (Gill, 2016: 617). In our analysis, postfeminist contradiction represents the simultaneity of the empowerment of communities (e.g. domestic violence victims/survivors, feminists, and women’s advocacy groups) alongside their continued marginalization through victim-blaming, trolling, and co-optation. Thus, postfeminist contradiction involves the co-existence of mutually constituting dynamics that simultaneously both enable and constrain feminist activism and its larger meanings and impacts.

For digital (feminist) activism, critically analyzing postfeminist contradiction requires interrogating the ongoing tensions between the possibilities of the technological affordances of social media platforms like Twitter with the material and discursive context of neoliberalism and postfeminism that emphasizes individualism, empowerment, and personal choice. The presence of postfeminist contradiction within digital spaces for feminist activism raises important questions for scholars and activists regarding the implications of social media as a space to advance social justice around domestic violence. In particular, while the hashtag might be “powerful” for individual victims/survivors and for those following the hashtag, our findings also call into question the hashtag’s potential to instigate change within institutions or structures, illustrating a central tension in postfeminism. As our analysis suggests, those who participated in the hashtag found validation, community, resources, and hope, despite the hashtag’s reproduction of victim-blaming discourses and its focus on micro-level solutions for addressing domestic violence. An analysis that does not attempt to disentangle the feminism from the antifeminism within postfeminist discourses may overlook the meaningful ways the hashtag changed the lives of victim/survivors providing community and consciousness raising. The hashtag also raised awareness of domestic violence, and provided a platform for the distribution of resources and services, as our interview participants as well as those who tweeted in the hashtag discussed. Therefore, we argue feminist scholars must be attentive to how the presumed shift from collective to individual-level mobilization in digital spaces can be understood in ways that still offer possibilities for feminist activism.

Attention to context highlights the micro-level impacts of voicing one’s experiences, yet it also requires a critical reading of ostensibly feminist discourse as it materializes on a specific social media platform in a particular historical moment. What hashtag feminism looks like and how it manifests will be shaped by not only the hashtag itself but also what it responds to and how it is taken up over time. Given the ever-shifting landscape of social media and the emergence of new apps and platforms, the importance of timely studies cannot be denied. Yet, in doing so, we miss important facets of the hashtag regarding its longevity and impact which can be more fully understood with the perspective afforded by the passage of time. For example, at least one of our interview participants said she came across #WhyIStayed almost 2 years later. Her experience illustrates the hashtag’s ongoing potential as a resource for those who experience domestic violence, even long after a hashtag trends.

When examining the impact of the hashtag in terms of effecting institutional change however, the long-term impact is less evident. The NFL’s #NoMore Public Service Announcements, appearing during several Super Bowls, as well as social media campaigns and donations to domestic violence causes were an effort to respond to the incident. Although the NFL Players’ Association (NFLPA) formed a commission on domestic violence in response to the public fallout precipitated by the TMZ video showing Ray Rice abusing Janay Palmer, several members recently resigned from the commission, noting the lack of follow through by the NFL regarding the commission’s suggestions and recommendations (Epstein, 2018). The long-term impact of hashtag activism is further complicated by the fact domestic violence remains a problem for the NFL, with at least six players who had been accused of physical or sexual assault selected by teams in the 2017 NFL draft (Amour, 2017). Thus, in reflecting back on #WhyIStayed we are able to glean deeper, more complex understanding of its meanings that further speak to the entanglement of feminism and antifeminism and suggest the long-term impacts of hashtag activism in this case may be limited to the individual-level (e.g. survivors learning about domestic violence survivor communities through the hashtag) with less visible impacts on structural and cultural change within the NFL, for example.

A sociotechnical and historical situating of #WhyIStayed also brings to bear further postfeminist contradiction. As Megarry (2017) writes, “The encoding of male bias in platforms and practices should be of greater concern to feminist scholarship” (5). Gendered online harassment and abuse continue to increase, making the possibility of voicing dissent online potentially more risky now than it was at the time #WhyIStayed emerged. Scholars are now beginning to trace how these “digital geographies of fear” (Linabary, 2017: 206) and legacies of online harassment (Salter, 2017) and trolling (Mantilla, 2015) shape the participation of women online, particularly in feminist movements likely to incite gendered backlash. The increased harassment as well as surveillance, including that by for-profit companies and governments, leads scholars to question how and in what ways feminist activism may be erased or silenced in digital space (Megarry, 2017).

Critically engaging postfeminist contradiction also reinforces the importance of utilizing multiple methods and examining hashtag feminism at multiple levels (e.g. micro and macro). Multiple methods allowed us to “hold and think together” (Gill, 2016) the contradictory meanings of the hashtag event. An emphasis on individualism, choice, and agency was most significant within our qualitative analysis of the tweets, reinforcing the hashtag’s contradictory nature and its constrained potential to challenge the very victim-blaming discourses it set out to contest. However, the interviews with participants enabled the empowering and transformative aspects of participating in online activism to emerge in our analysis. Statements from interviewees indicating that even if one person sees their tweet about their experience and feels like they are not alone that “it’s worth it” highlight the profound personal and interpersonal impact that sharing one’s story can have—especially in the context of a social issue like domestic violence when lives are literally at stake. Although these ideas emerged in the tweets as well the interviews, taken together they tell a story that spans the micro to the macro and highlights the diverse and complex impacts of #WhyIStayed. Therefore, “holding and thinking together” encourages a deeper, more complex, and more thoroughly situated analysis than social media data alone provides. The importance of doing so echoes emerging calls from (feminist) social media scholars to thoroughly contextualize studies of online data through dialogue with participants and multiple forms of data collection (Mendes et al., 2018; Cooky et al., 2018; Corple and Linabary, 2019). When seeking the personal experiences of individuals, researchers gain understanding of the embodied, affective dimensions of participating in activism online, aspects of feminist digital activity that may or may not be as readily visible.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we encourage further re-visioning and re-imagining of what feminist activism looks like in the present political moment. We recognize the need to critically engage postfeminist contradiction to disentangle feminism from antifeminism in ways that allow for both an understanding of feminist hashtag activism’s possible impacts on individual users as well as its limits on how we come to understand domestic violence, and its contributions to broader social change. The long-term impact of hashtag activism is further complicated by the fact that domestic violence remains a persistent problem for the NFL and our culture. The rapidly increasing power for social media cultures and technologies to shape online activism not only hints that the impact of #WhyIStayed may look different today, but also requires scholars to attend to the contexts of online social movements. While large-scale analysis of all the factors that feed into an online social movement may not be feasible, supplementing one’s social media data and critically considering how socio-political and technical contexts influence feminist activism can be. From this study, several important questions emerge that should be addressed in future research, including to what extent does hashtag feminism offer transformational possibilities and for whom? What are the long-term impacts of hashtag activism on broader social change? How might we critically engage with(in) postfeminist contradiction in creative ways to reimagine feminist activism in the current political moment?

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Jasmine R Linabary

Notes

Author biographies

Jasmine R Linabary, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Theatre at Emporia State University in Emporia, KS. Her recent research has centered on issues of safety and inclusive participation in digital and physical spaces. Her work has been published in the Journal of Applied Communication Research, Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, Information, Communication & Society, Big Data & Society, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, Feminist Review, Communication Education, among others.

Danielle J Corple, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Wheaton College, IL. She studies organizations, media, and social change, with specific research interests in nonprofit/social enterprise communication, gender, and ethics. Her work has been published in Information, Communication & Society, Big Data & Society, and the International Journal of Social Research Methodology.

Cheryl Cooky, PhD, is an associate professor of American studies and women’s, gender and sexuality studies at Purdue University. She is the co-author of No Slam Dunk: Gender, Sport and the Unevenness of Social Change (2018, Rutgers University Press). Her research on feminism, sport, media and culture has been published in Communication & Sport, Journal of Sex Research, Sex Roles, Gender and Society, American Journal of Bioethics, Sociology of Sport Journal, among others.

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