Contemporary Feminism Research

Munro, Ealasaid. 'Feminism: A Fourth Wave?'. Political Insight 4.2 (2013): 22-25. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.

• "the internet has created a ‘call-out’ culture, in which sexism or misogyny can be ‘called out’ and challenged. This culture is indicative of the continuing influence of the third wave, with its focus on micropolitics and challenging sexism and misogyny insofar as they appear in everyday rhetoric, advertising, film, television and literature, the media, and so on" 

Younger people are engaging with media in a critical way and actively discussing it's how it could affect society. This 'call-out' culture creates a generation of individuals who are aware of the importance of challenging media and the politics behind it.

• "The existence of a feminist ‘fourth wave’ has been challenged by those who maintain that increased usage of the internet is not enough to delineate a new era"

Internet activism is also known as "slacktivism" because it doesn't involve engaging with these issues in person (most of the time). However online activism can and has triggered large scale protests which might not have received the same attention without the word being spread online. 

• "the uptake of new technologies such as Twitter is growing in geographical areas where women still face social injustices – in Turkey, for example, women make up 72 per cent of social media users"

The result of this is that the movement is becoming active in corners of the globe where it previously wouldn't have been able to reach. The internet has ultimately made the movement more accessible.

• "Earlier this year, Facebook was forced to confront the issue of gender-based hate speech on its webpages after initially suggesting that images of women being abused did not violate their terms of service. In the UK, websites such as The F Word and The Women's Room, and online campaigns such as The Everyday Sexism Project and No More Page 3, have attracted thousands of supporters who find that the internet works both as a forum for discussion and as a route for activism."

• "There is concern that online discussion and activism is increasingly divorced from real-world conflicts"

As these discussions aren't happening face-to-face, some would argue that they become increasingly irrelevant to the real world. There are real people behind those computer screens though and they have valid opinions and experiences to offer. 

• "due to the closed nature of some social networks, feminist discussion is often ‘hidden’ from those who are not sufficiently networked"

The problem with the internet is that websites or forums can end up being very secluded from more potential users. Usually to reach a website you have to already know the address, or find it through an ad or search engine. If someone doesn't have links to sufficient relevant websites then there is the possibility that they cannot engage with it. 

• "Perhaps the shift to internet activism reflects the continuing lack of political representation in western democracies – at Westminster, for example, of the 23 seats around the coalition government's Cabinet table, only four are held by women"

As the movement isn't getting much attention from current politicians, people on the internet are responding to the lack of change and questioning why it is taking so long for women to reach equal positions. 

• "One of the key issues for contemporary feminism is intersectionality – the idea that different axes of oppression intersect, producing complex and often contradictory results

Intersectionality seems to be at the forefront of contemporary feminism. It is about acknowledging that different levels/types of oppression all affect each other. 

• "Academic feminists have been comfortable with the idea of intersectionality since at least the 1980s, when prominent third-wave feminists such as hooks, Gloria Anzaldua and Audre Lord spoke out about women of colour being sidelined within feminism. These feminists undermined the idea that gender alone was a sound basis for identification."

Although intersectionality has been a part of the feminist movement since the 1980s, some of the feminist advocates from the second wave were also homophobic & transphobic, which almost contradicts the whole idea. 

• "As a tactic, privilege-checking is about reminding someone that they cannot and should not speak for others"

• "The phrase ‘check your privilege’ was born on the internet, and young activists who grew up communicating via internet chat rooms appear to have considerably less trouble with the phrase than older feminists"

• "The emergence of ‘privilege-checking’, however, reflects the reality that mainstream feminism remains dominated by the straight white middle-classes."

• "many women tend to encounter feminism at university. Women who do not go on to further education face a barrier when attempting to engage with those academic debates that drive feminism."

• "The realisation that women are not a homogenous group has brought with it a set of new terminologies that attempt to ensure that those who hold a given identity are not spoken for, or carelessly pigeonholed."

• "On the internet, you may have your privilege checked, or in extreme cases you might be ‘doxed’ (have your personal files hacked, and distributed – the term ‘dox’ is derived from the .docx file format"

• "Terms such as WoC, cis and TERF are invaluable given the 140-character limit imposed by Twitter, and lend themselves to the practice of hash tagging"

• "The political potential of the fourth wave centres around giving voice to those women still marginalised by the mainstream"

Contemporary feminism (also known as the fourth wave) is about understanding that you cannot just have one category of women as this just marginalises and creates the idea that all women are from the same background or race. There are multiple oppressions at work within society and they all affect gender differently. Contemporary feminists use 'privilege-checking' to deduce whether they are speaking from an informed perspective based on their experience or their understanding of another's situation.