Social movements are digital. The Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street movement are common examples. In this article, Newsom and Lengel look at women’s use of online social networking to aid social change during the uprisings. I think this is an incredible example of female storytelling, not only because of the revolutionary ideologies behind these women, but the utilization of kinship networks to disseminate information, and how the expansion of these networks is the closest thing I can visualize to a unified “sisterhood”.
Newsom and Lengel say, “this study locates the online activist third space between the concepts and experiences of power, revealing a space of contained empowerment, specifically in the context of women’s role and agency in the revolutions in Tunisia, December, 2010 – January, 2011 and Egypt, January - February 2011.” It is within that third space that I see an expansion of the ‘private sphere’, a world typically run by women and ignored by men. This ‘bleed’ brings the issues that the activists find important into the ‘public sphere’ through an alternate route.
They also discuss the dissemination networks and gendered power dynamics as information moves from activists to other activists, from activists to governments, from activists to international communities and from governments to international communities. The interactivist communications were typically between women, while the interactions with governments were private versus public sphere interactions.
The framing that they found within the international (Westernized) communities was a response typical of, “Western feminisms as they view third world women as victims to be rescued by Western values and feminist motives.” (34) In their conclusion, they state that, “Arab women’s efforts in recent years have been most noticeable and globally recognized when they fit within global and Western narrative norms.” (37), which is not particularly surprising given the historical record of Western feminists (or Western civilizations and their interactions with the Middle East). However, looking at these interactivist communications, the authors found that these, “gendered online spaces are examples of contained empowerment: liminal sites where normative rules are suspended in favor of generating alternative norms.” (38)
While communications between Western and Middle Eastern feminists are still strained, the ability of these online spaces to provide a supportive community, what I see to be an extension of the kinship network, is obvious. I find these forums essential for bridging the gap between the Western and Middle Eastern private spheres. While the information flow between the activists and the government or the Western world is inevitably sifted and sorted through a masculine lens, it is possible through these forums to connect people without these intermediary steps, and I think it is in this kind of direct communication where I find the most hope.
