The New Politics of Online Feminism

In The New Politics of Online Feminism, Akane Kanai argues that for young feminists, online feminist culture often poses more dilemmas than it solves. Moving beyond a narrow characterization of online feminism as a site of activism and resistance, Kanai attends to the feminist quandaries of being politically conscientious as life on- and offline become inseparable. Kanai suggests that while it has seemingly never been more important to avoid complicity with patriarchy, racism, and other oppressions, the self has remained the central site of agency and transformation--casting politics in terms of individual scrupulousness, diligence, and improvement. Under these circumstances, a feminist lens becomes about benchmarking, comparing, and anxiously avoiding the public mistakes that others make in online life. Kanai foregrounds the importance of moving beyond the polarities of correct and incorrect feeling to enable the everyday practices of listening to and learning about experience and difference.

Akane Kanai is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick and author of Gender and Relatability in Digital Culture: Managing Affect, Intimacy and Value.