Abstract
To contribute to research on digital activism, sexual harassment, and structural feminist intersectionality, our chapter explores India’s #MeToo movement as framed by the popular digital zine Feminism in India (FII). FII is acknowledged as an open-to-all, digital safe-space and inclusive media platform that is created and curated by Indian women—writers, editors, journalists, and activists. A thematic analysis of digital features about #MeTooIndia published in FII between 2018 and 2020, a time coinciding with the urgency of the social movement, led us to identify five key perceptions. The themes range from survivors’ stories of sexual harassment, and how power and privilege are systemically used and abused, to the normalization of victim-blaming and shaming. Indian media’s part in creating or censoring awareness about sexual harassment, and social media’s role in offering support or solutions to its victims/survivors are also themes that have revealed cultural forms of toxic misogyny and sexual violence that are structurally intersectional and uniquely local to India’s #MeToo contexts. Our chapter argues how women-led digital platforms like Feminism in India have the power to forge reciprocal relationships with their connective publics and give all women and activists the tools to contextualize social injustices and implement culturally sensitive interventions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The data used as examples in this chapter follow AoIR’s (Markham and Buchanan, 2012), ethical guidelines to protect privacy and anonymity, and exclude any identifiable details of the authors, persons, or stakeholders whose texts, cases, sensitive information, or quotes are cited in the chapter.
- 2.
“Dada” is a part of Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati and other Indian vernacular and regional vocabularies, and signifies “older or elder brother” and/or “grandfather.” In this case, the word dada refers to an older-brother.
- 3.
Secondary survivors are close friends, family, colleagues, etc. of sexual violence victims/survivors, and often are the people in whom the primary abuse victim confided about their abuse, or who may have witnessed the act of sexual violence or abuse against the primary victim.
References
Basuroy, T. (2022, September 7). Gender internet usage rate in urban and rural India 2019–2021. Statista.com. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303352/india-gender-internet-usage-rate-by-area/#statisticContainer
Boyatzis, R. E. (1998). Transforming qualitative information: Thematic analysis and code development. Sage.
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
Burke, T. (2017, November 9). #MeToo was started for black and brown women and girls. They’re still being ignored. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/11/09/the-waitress-who-works-in-the-diner-needs-to-know-that-the-issue-of-sexual-harassment-is-about-her-too/
Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1229039
Crenshaw, K. (2015, September 24). Why intersectionality can’t wait. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2015/09/24/why-intersectionality-cant-wait
Dey, A. (2019). Sites of exception: Gender violence, digital activism, and Nirbhaya’s zone of anomie in India. Violence Against Women, 26(11), 14230–11444. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801219862633
Dutta, D., & Sircar, O. (2013). India’s winter of discontent: Some feminist dilemmas in the wake of a rape. Feminist Studies, 39(1), 293–306. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23719318
FII. (2018). Feminism in India. https://feminisminindia.com/
FII. (2019). Feminism in India. https://feminisminindia.com/
FII. (2020). Feminism in India. https://feminisminindia.com/
Frith, H., & Gleeson, K. (2004). Clothing and embodiment: Men managing body image and appearance. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 5(1), 40–48. https://doi.org/10.1037/1524-9220.5.1.40
Gajjala, R. (2018). When an Indian whisper network went digital. Communication, Culture & Critique, 11(3), 489–493. https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcy025
Government of India. (2018, July 27). Lok Sabha unstarred question NO.1763: Sexual harassment of women at workplace. Ministry of Women and Child Development. http://164.100.24.220/loksabhaquestions/annex/15/AU1763.pdf
Gupta, H. (2016). Taking action: The desiring subjects of neo-liberal feminism in India. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 17(1), 152–168. https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol17/iss1/11
Haq, R. (2013). Intersectionality of gender and other forms of identity: Dilemmas and challenges facing women in India. Gender in Management: An International Journal, 28(3), 171–184. https://doi.org/10.1108/GM-01-2013-0010
Hookway, N. (2008). “Entering the blogosphere”: Some strategies for using blogs in social research. Qualitative Research, 8(1), 91–113. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794107085298
Jackson, S. J. (2016). (Re)Imagining intersectional democracy from Black feminism to hashtag activism. Women’s Studies in Communication, 39(4), 375–379. https://doi.org/10.1080/07491409.2016.1226654
Johnson-Hostler, M., & O’Neil, M. (2018, April 17). Reframing sexual violence: From #MeToo to Time’s Up. Stanford Social Innovation Review. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/reframing_sexual_violence_from_metoo_to_times_up#
Keelery, S. (2020, July 7). Internet usage in India—statistics & facts. Statista.com. https://www.statista.com/topics/2157/internet-usage-in-india/
Kolhatkar, S. (2018, October 24). The startling rise of India’s #MeToo movement. Truth Dig. https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-startling-rise-of-indias-metoo-movement/
Kumar, R. (2018, December 7). Why the “Me Too” movement in India is succeeding at last. OpenDemocracy.com. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/me-too-india-succeeding-at-last/
Kupers, T. A. (2005). Toxic masculinity as a barrier to mental health treatment in prison. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 61(6), 713–724. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20105
Lavrakas, P. J. (2008). Encyclopedia of survey research methods. Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412963947
Mani, L. (1992). Cultural theory, colonial texts: Reading eyewitness accounts of widow burning. In L. Grossberg, C. Nelson, & P. Treichler (Eds.), Cultural studies (pp. 392–408). Routledge.
Markham, A., & Buchanan, E. (2012). Ethical decision-making and Internet research 2.0: Recommendations from the AoIR ethics working committee. The Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR). https://aoir.org/reports/ethics2.pdf
Mukherjee, I. (2013). Blogs on domestic violence against immigrant South Asian women: A thematic analysis. [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. University of Illinois at Chicago.
Mukherjee, I. (2015). Digi-Blogging gender violence: Intersecting ethnicity, race, migration and globalization in South Asian community blogs against IPV. Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, 8. https://doi.org/10.7264/N33T9FHP
Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner India. (2011). Population enumeration data (final population). Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. https://censusindia.gov.in/census.website/data/population-finder
Onwuachi-Willig, A. (2018). What about #UsToo? The invisibility of race in the #MeToo movement. The Yale Law Journal, 128. https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/what-about-ustoo#_ftnref1
Pain, P. (2020). “It took me quite a long time to develop a voice”: Examining feminist digital activism in the Indian #MeToo movement. New Media & Society, 23(11), 3139–3155. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820944846
Papacharissi, Z., & Oliveira, M. (2012). Affective news and networked publics: The rhythms of news storytelling on #Egypt. Journal of Communication, 62(2), 266–282. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2012.01630.x
Patil, V. (2013). From patriarchy to intersectionality: A transnational feminist assessment of how far we’ve really come. The University of Chicago Press Journals., 38(4), 847–867. https://doi.org/10.1086/669560
Pazzanese C., & Walsh, C. (2017, December 21). The #MeToo surge against sexual abuse provides opportunities for pivotal social change, but challenges too. The Harvard Gazette. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/12/metoo-surge-could-change-society-in-pivotal-ways-harvard-analysts-say/
Phadke, S., Khan, S., & Ranade, S. (2011). Why loiter? Women and risk on Mumbai streets. Penguin Books.
Purkayastha, B. (2012). Intersectionality in a transnational world. Gender & Society., 26(1), 55–66. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243211426725
Purkayastha, B., Subramaniam, M., Desai, M., & Bose, S. (2003). The study of gender in India: A partial review. Gender & Society, 17(4), 503–524. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243203253793
Reuters Staff. (2019, December 6). Statistics on rape in India and some well-known cases. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-rape-factbox/statistics-on-rape-in-india-and-some-well-known-cases-idUSKBN1YA0UV
Roy, S. (2018, October 20). #MeToo is a crucial moment to revisit the history of Indian feminism. Economic & Political Weekly, 53(42). https://www.epw.in/engage/article/metoo-crucial-moment-revisit-history-indian-feminism
Samuels, G. M., & Ross-Sheriff, F. (2008). Identity, oppression, and power. Affilia, 23(1), 5–9. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886109907310475
Sengupta, S. (2017, December 22). The #MeToo movement: What happened after women broke the silence elsewhere? The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/22/us/the-metoo-moment-what-happened-after-women-broke-the-silence-elsewhere.html
Sharma, D. (2018, December 15). What is missing in the #MeToo movement? Economic & Political Weekly, 53(49) https://www.epw.in/engage/article/what-is-missing-metoo-movement-limitation-law-justice?
Sharma, S. (2015, February 20). Our laws can protect us when we know them! SafeCity. https://safecity.in/our-laws-can-protect-us-when-we-know-them/
Tella, K. K. (2018, October 25). #MeToo: An international conversation on sexual violence impacting feminist discourse across borders. Economic & Political Weekly, 53(43). https://www.epw.in/engage/article/metoo-international-conversation-sexual-violence-feminist-discourse-impact
Verloo, M. (2006). Multiple inequalities, intersectionality and the European Union. European Journal of Women’s Studies., 13(3), 211–218. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506806065753
Virdi, J. (2003). The cinematic imagiNation [sic]: Indian popular films as social history. Rutgers University Press.
Williams, M. G., Mukherjee, I., & Utsey, C. (2019). Mobility and affect in the #deleteuber mo(ve)ment. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856519883739
Wood, J. T., & Fixmer-Oraiz, N. (2017). Gendered lives: Communication, gender and culture. Cengage.
Yang, G. (2016). Narrative agency in hashtag activism: The case of #BlackLivesMatter. Media and Communication, 4(4), 13–17. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v4i4.692
Zonunmawii, V. (2018, October 20). India’s #MeToo movement underlines why survivors must be believed. The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2018/10/indias-metoo-movement-underlines-why-survivors-must-be-believed/
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mukherjee, I., Shah, P.V., Dexter, T.E. (2023). “Feminism in India” Framing #MeTooIndia: A Case of Digital Activism. In: Wiesslitz, C. (eds) Women’s Activism Online and the Global Struggle for Social Change. Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31621-0_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31621-0_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-31620-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-31621-0
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)