Feminist futures: #MeToo’s possibilities as poiesis, techné, and pharmakon

ABSTRACT

In this article we argue that the #MeToo movement contributes tocombatting sexual harassment by acting as techné (tools), which offer a range of poietic (world making) possibilities given the contexts under which #MeToocirculates. We situate #MeToo as pharmakon (creation and constraint)to highlight how the movement enables new feminist possibilities for action and simultaneously restricts the movement’s limits. Drawing on existing coverage of #MeToo featured in popular media stories, we consider the layers of meaning and circulation of some key #MeToo tweets and their framings within media accounts of the movement. We focus on tweets that emphasize remembering experiences of misogyny, assault, and harassment, in addition to implicating social structures in perpetuating rape culture. In employing poiesis and pharmakon as orienting frames, we acknowledge both the discursive power a movement like #MeToo holds and the forms of occlusion, privilege, and marginalization that emerge.

KEYWORDS:

• Hashtag feminism
• metoo
• sexual harassment
• poiesis
• techné
• pharmakon

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Tara Conley (@taralconley) also created Hashtag Feminism (#F) found at hashtagfeminism.com, which tracks and amplifies online feminist discourse and social movements with a specific focus on black and women of colour feminism from 2013-2015.

2. Given the sensitive nature of #MeToo tweets, we do not include the names of Twitter users who respond to Najwa Zebian and have made subtle changes to the spelling and grammar of these tweets so that they cannot be traced back to the users.

3. Again, given the sensitive nature of #MeToo tweets, we do not include the name of this Twitter user and have made subtle changes to the spelling and grammar of this tweet so that it cannot be traced back to the user.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Brianna I. Wiens

Brianna I. Wiens is a queer, mixed race, woman-identified settler scholar. Wiens’s research is motivated by intersectionalfeminist politics to explore and applyfeminist philosophy and praxis as a form of techné to ask about the potential of queer and feminist technologies for hashtag activisms.Wiens is a Doctoral Candidate (ABD) in Communication and Culture at York University, a lecturer at the University of Waterloo, and a co-convenor of the qcollaborative, a feminist design lab. E-mail: [email protected]

Shana MacDonald

Shana MacDonald is a queer, woman-identified, settler scholar with Indigenous ancestry from the Qalipu Mi’kmaq of Western Newfoundland. Her SSHRC funded interdisciplinary scholarship is situated between film, media and performance studies, and examines intersectional feminism within social and digital media, popular culture, cinema, performance, and public art. Dr. MacDonald is also a convenor of the qcollaborative (qLab), a feminist design lab dedicated to developing new forms of relationality through technologies of public performance. E-mail: [email protected]