Under the watchful eyes of men: theorising the implications of male surveillance practices for feminist activism on social media

Abstract

While early internet research often explored social media’s potential for increasing political participation, scholars are now problematising the manifestations of state and corporate control over political activism in these spaces. Yet despite an increased academic focus on the shape and implications of online power relations, there is a noticeable lack of critical theory that considers how strategies of male dominance on social media platforms influence feminist activism. This article conceptualises individual men as monitorial actors invested in surveilling feminist speech online, and brings together literature from within feminist, social movement, and critical internet studies to address this research gap. Situating contemporary feminist activist tactics in relation to second-wave priorities, this article extends current conceptualisations of the dangers of social media surveillance practices for political action. It draws on recent examples of online feminist organising to elucidate the ways in which social media platforms provide men with increased opportunities to surveil feminist activity. The article calls for further research into the ways in which male surveillance practices on social media platforms are shaping women’s ability to organise for social change.

Keywords:

• Feminist theory
• social media
• surveillance
• feminist activism
• violence against women

Acknowledgments

A version of this article was first presented at the University of Sydney at the GTFO: Empowered Users, Objective Violence and the Governance of Social Media symposium in 2015. The author would like to thank those in attendance, and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.

Notes

1. Another way feminist theory was developed during the second wave was through the circulation of short conference papers at women-only conferences, and via newsletters. These publications often explicitly stated that they were to be read only by women (Browne 2014; Brownmiller 1999; Jeska Rees 2007).

2. A recent example is the jailing of 23-year-old British woman Isabella Sorley for sending misogynistic tweets to feminist campaigner Caroline Criado Perez ( The Guardian 2014).