Digital feminisms: transnational activism in German protest cultures

Abstract

This Introduction provides the context for the articles in this special issue and identifies a set of reoccurring themes. After offering some historical background on the developments of feminist activism and feminist movements in the German context, the editors particularly highlight two main and interrelated thematic strands: feminist activism under or in neoliberalism and the complexities of negotiating questions of race and difference between women in feminist activisms in the highly visually determined digital age. Reflecting on the arguments in the different contributions in this volume, this Introduction seeks to suggest ways in which the ambivalent messages that digital feminist activisms create in the contemporary political moment become politically productive.

Keywords:

• Digital feminism
• German feminism
• neoliberalism
• racism
• difference
• activism
• protest cultures
• weblogs
• intersectionality

Acknowledgements

This special issue was supported by an Insight Grant from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Carrie Smith-Prei and Maria Stehle). Thanks go to Olena Hlazkova for her assistance in copy editing the final manuscript. Thanks also to Hester Baer, who collaborated with us on the special issue’s original inception.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Translation is our own. “Die Mannschaft liebt Feminismus und notiert hier Dinge und Nachrichten, die fröhlich machen oder uns die Nackenhaare aufstellen. Unser Blog soll Forum sein und Spielwiese, für alle, die sich eine bessere und gerechte Gesellschaft wünschen.”

2. For a more in-depth discussion of this, see Smith-Prei (2009).

3. For a critical discussion of these contexts, also see Baer (2012) or Scharff (2014).

4. “Ja, alles klar, Schwestern, ihr müsst eure eigenen Erfahrungen machen, aber: Bitte fangt nicht schon wieder von vorne an” (Schwarzer 2007, 172). See also Stöcker (2007) and Haaf, Klingner, and Streidl (2008).

5. See McCarthy (2011), Baer (2011), or Scharff (2014). This is particularly the case for the text Alpha-Mädchen (Haaf, Klingner, and Streidl 2008), where the authors themselves draw very clear generational lines from the second to the third waves. For example, Baer describes the well-published and sensationalised media debate triggered by the surprise success of Charlotte Roche’s (2008) novel Feuchtgebiete (Wetlands).