Blogging, Tweeting, Pinning, Posting: Using Black Feminist Criminology to Examine the Tactics of Women Organizing in the Digital Era

• In Event: Feminist Criminologists of Color on the Impact of Perceptions, Media, Crime, and Justice on Women and Girls of Color

Abstract

The purpose of this presentation is to examine the distinctness of virtual feminisms; specifically, how women of color utilize virtual technologies. To better situate their realities, I employ Black Feminist Criminology and probe the need for a Critical Cyberfeminist framework. Black feminist consciousness is needed to interrogate the potential of cyberfeminist thought, which is a construct developed to allow a voice to women who wish to participate in technology on their own terms. By incorporating Black feminism into the techno/cyberfeminist discussion, I envision a critique that could remove the confines of dominate structures in virtual feminisms and dismantle the privileges of Whiteness and masculinity. Women are employing innovative methods within virtuality and contemporary examples reveal just how “savvy” women can be in their efforts to utilize digital technologies: using narratives and privileging personal stories while blogging; tweeting to organize marches around Jordan Davis, Trayvon Martin, etc.; conducting virtual sit-ins in virtual communities; boycotting stereotypical video games, among others. Although re-appropriating technology in these manners is not novel or innovative, what makes their tactics significant is that women of color have finally been afforded an outlet to participate and have their voices heard.

Author

• Kishonna Gray, Eastern Kentucky University