Social media: women’s movements go viral

Across the world, women are often silenced in public debates, ignored when trying to express themselves and often wrongly perceived as passive victims of harmful policies. While increased female political participation and women holding positions of power has in many cases improved women’s rights, it does not always guarantee that issues such as reproductive rights and gender-based violence will be tackled by governments.

Poland, despite having a female prime minister, is facing a dramatic backlash in the fight for reproductive freedom. Brazil and Argentina, countries that once had female presidents, are still struggling with mass outbreaks of violence against women.

Unable to receive substantial support from their governments, women across the world decided to take action. In the countries without censorship, they have an extremely powerful channel to gather, brainstorm and collectively fight for their rights: social media.

Hashtags against violence

Twitter is undoubtedly the most popular source of first-hand news. For women’s rights activists it is an essential tool to raise awareness and promote the case they are fighting for. The most successful Twitter campaigns gather thousands of followers, engaging the public to respond and take action. Hashtags are generally used to facilitate searching for certain content or following conversations.

In the case of women’s movements, trending hashtags have been a driving force behind widespread media campaigns, but as proved by #NiUnaMenos, they are equally powerful off-screen. Enabling women to organise themselves and spread the word before they went on the streets, the hashtag started a ‘Not One Less’ movement in Latin America.

Meaning ‘no more women’s lives lost to gender violence’, the hashtag spread across the continent uniting women in 17 countries, protesting together against femicide – gender-related killing of women. Sparked by the gang rape of a 16-year old in Rio de Janeiro this year and the 2015 murder of a pregnant 14-year-old girl in Argentina, #NiUnaMenos escalated with a series of massive demonstrations held on the 19th October. About 30,000 women were on the streets of Buenos Aires; in Peru, the estimate was between 200,000 to 500,000 participants. The incredible female solidarity reached out to Bolivia, Venezuela, Paraguay, Uruguay, Columbia, Ecuador, Brazil, Mexico, Panama, Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua.

The role of hashtag in this movement was crucial – widespread Twitter following enabled the engagement of women from other countries in the region and circulated the details of the event. By providing a safe digital platform for often subordinated and violated women, Twitter enabled them to form a strong, transnational group so they could openly protest against the misogyny and violence against women in their countries.

From Facebook to the streets

Meanwhile, on another continent, a newly-launched Polish social media movement had its moment of triumph. Gals4Gals (‘Dziewuchy Dziewuchom’) is a spontaneous grassroots organisation created in spring 2016 as a response to the proposed total abortion ban to replace the already extremely restrictive abortion law in Poland. Six months later, the group created on Facebook had almost 110,000 members and virtual branches in the main Polish cities and abroad with the capacity to organise a nationwide women’s strike.

Inspired by the Icelandic protest from 1975, when 90% of women refused to work, cook or look after children, Polish women went on the streets on 3rdOctober, calling it ‘Black Monday’. Popularised by the hashtag #blackprotest (#czarnyprotest), the strike was held in 143 cities, uniting approximately 98,000 people. Women were dressed in black as a symbol of grieving over their reproductive rights. The action was launched and promoted solely through social media and the event went viral, gaining further awareness worldwide. The hashtag #czarnyprotest was the most shared Polish hashtag in 2016, reaching 44.5 million people on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Can hashtags change the world?

It’s important to remember that there is a dark side to social media and women’s movements. Globally, women face increasing backlash and abuse on social media; threats of rape and death are alarmingly common and anti-feminist internet trolls are rife and largely unpoliced. With the rise of women’s movements using social media to campaign and organise, it is more vital than ever that women’s human rights defender are protected from all forms off abuse, online and off.

In terms of impact, in the case of Gals4Gals and Black Protest, social media became a birthplace of the first spontaneous women’s rights movement in Poland. Nonetheless, the policy implications and political response have been mixed. Although Black Protest was criticised by a number of politicians, the government put the proposed abortion ban on hold. Thorough coverage in the international media and supportive tweets expressing solidarity from feminists and celebrities across the world might have influenced the governmental debate on the topic. Here, social media emerged as a space to form an oppositional movement, with grassroots projects and direct action to begin with. When the government swings towards further oppression of women and their rights, social media emerges as one of the remaining outlets of democracy.

However, the question is whether successful social media campaigns lead to any substantial improvements in the lives of women. At the moment, about two months after #NiUnaMenos and #Blackprotest, it is still too soon to judge. The social movements are getting stronger, working on new campaigns and expanding as quickly as they emerged. In the long run, there is potential for women to gain tremendous support so the policy makers cannot ignore the problems they represent.

Time will show, but social media is changing the game for global women’s movements.