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Blogging the Third Wave?

Citizens' Media, Intimate Citizenship, and Everyday Life

Jenny Gunnarsson Payne

Is the blog a tool for young girls to take over an increasing part of public space? Is there a democratic and feminist potential in the increasing blogging phenomenon, or are blogs just another forum where young girls show themselves and others by way of a narrow representation of The Perfect Girl? What does girls' domination of the blog world tell us about our society – and what type of reactions do they provoke?¹

(http://www.hogkvarteret.se/)

The questions raised in the epigraph above were circulated as publicity for a panel debate entitled “The Blog – Young Girls' Way to Power?” that was held in April 2010 at the queer feminist club Högkvarteret in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. The issues proposed for the public debate are of a piece with a broader tendency in recent scholarship that investigates the vast increase in female and feminist blogging activity. Generally, it has been argued that the activity of blogging possesses some inherently feminist qualities. Together with other forms of “cyberfeminist” practices, it has been said of blogs that they have the potential to cross boundaries – not only between nations and cultures, but also across the divisions separating the public from the private spheres, the institutional from the personal domains, civil from commercial society. When integrated in the everyday lives of still mainly young (and most often female) feminists, they offer a relatively accessible way of turning “the personal political” (Beetham & Valenti, 2007, pp. 2–3).

The most common type of blog – the diary-like “life log” – has been described as “a remarkable intersection between the traditionally feminine act of diary writing and the traditionally masculine environment of Information Communication Technologies,” or even as an “emasculation” or a “re-gendering” of this domain (Doorn, van Zoonen, & Wyatt, 2007, p. 147). Yet others have dismissed blogs as a vehicle for feminist politics on the grounds that they offer little more than individualized forms of expression, failing to provide a sustainable form of movement media. Quoted in the British Guardian newspaper, sociologist Nina Wakeford expresses apprehension about the place of blogs in the feminist movement. While she concedes that blogs might be useful as a tool to spark debates, she further claims that their function in activism harbors obscurity:

Notably, the apparent ambiguity regarding blogging in terms of its feminist potential has a striking affinity with previous debates regarding the late modern phenomenon of “postfeminism.” Postfeminism is an ambiguous term that has come to accommodate a wide range of meanings, describing everything from a feminist backlash to so-called contemporary “third-wave feminism.” The cultural theorist Angela McRobbie (2009) has extended and reformulated the notion of postfeminism, arguing that what the term captures is not so much a simple conservative backlash discourse as a way of affirming feminism on the one hand, while, on the other, “installing a whole new repertoire of meaning” that speaks more about how the goals of feminism have already been achieved, thus making feminism seem obsolete and old-fashioned (McRobbie, 2004, p. 259). It is McRobbie's understanding of postfeminism that I shall employ in the argument being developed in this chapter.

Postfeminism, McRobbie argues, is an antifeminist cultural trend, where feminism has been “taken into account” but only for its obsolescence to be proven (2009, p. 130).² The postfeminist trend is, on this reading at least, inextricably linked to larger neoliberal political processes in which gender politics has been “disarticulated,”³ uncoupled from previous political alliances made by the second wave of feminist struggle. Such disarticulation, McRobbie argues, explains how many feminist gains – achieved over the last three decades – are currently being eroded in the name of “modernization.” This “modernization” resembles a logic of “undoing,” undermining previous feminist alliances between both women and various political struggles (McRobbie, 2009, pp. 24–26). Gender issues become reformulated mainly in terms of simplistic notions of individual liberty, reducing freedom to professional and consumer choices (cf. Tasker & Negra, 2007, p. 2). It is worth pondering the specific relation between postfeminism as a way of describing the present situation and the recent explosion of girls and women engaged in blogging – not least considering the popularity of vastly consumer-oriented fashion, makeup, and dieting blogs (including so-called pro-anorexia, or “pro-Ana,” blogs). We need to interrogate whether the term postfeminism is an apposite way to designate the present horizon within which feminism is operating.

Already in the aforementioned Guardian article from 2006, the total number of feminist blogs was estimated at 240,000 (Cochrane, 2006; see also Beetham & Valenti, 2007). In contemporary Sweden, where the vast majority of the population has Internet access and the “digital divide” between men and women is now statistically insignificant, recent published data show that the majority of Swedish bloggers are young women; in fact, while only 8% of Swedish Internet users (and 6% of the general population) over the age of 12 are active as bloggers, blogging is rapidly increasing amongst girls and young women. As of 2010, the majority of females between 12 and 25 (and two-thirds of women between 16 and 25) either are active as bloggers or have previous experience of blogging themselves – and as many as 93% of girls between the age of 12 and 15, and 78% of women between the age of 16 and 25, are reading other people's blogs (Findahl, 2010, p. 47). In the face of such empirical evidence, a number of critical questions ought to be raised. Is this rapid increase of girls' and women's blogging merely an extension of such general post-feminist developments? Can blogging at all serve as a feminist tool? More specifically, is feminist blogging contributing only to individualized forms of expression, based on the empowerment of single individuals, or does the weblog have a role in both the construction and endurance of collectivist forms of feminist politics?

It is hoped that this chapter will go some way toward responding to these questions by approaching the phenomenon of feminist blogging as a form of practicing citizenship. I shall do so first by situating feminist blogging within a larger historical context of media production in the feminist movement. This will be achieved by thinking of the particular forms by which feminist media have been produced within each of the “three waves of feminism.”⁴ From here I wish to argue that feminist media production can be thought of as a form of citizens' media. Thereafter, I shall present three different feminist blog projects, investigating the various ways in which these blogs practice what in recent literature is discussed in terms of “intimate citizenship” (cf. Plummer, 2003) – a conceptualization of citizenship that I take to embody the multifarious meanings of “intimate,” including not only connotations of the body and of sexuality, but also in terms of “private,” “personal,” and “close.”

From Suffrage to Blogging: Generations of Feminist Media

While presently feminist blogging can be understood as a very “timely” and novel phenomenon, feminists using and making their own media have been a constituent part of the history of the women's movement (cf. Steiner, 1992).⁵ First, I shall begin by establishing that feminist media have historically been a crucial means for feminist struggle to achieving citizenship.⁶ It should be quite easy to see that for the first-wave feminists, media such as newsletters, pamphlets, and posters served unequivocally as an important means by which to argue for formal citizenship rights. Consider, for example, the ways in which both the suffragist and antislavery activist Sojourner Truth (born Isabella Baumfree) sold photographs – so-called cartes de visite – of herself as a means to both disseminate her politics and to support herself financially (Irvin Painter, 1994), or how her fellow suffragists in the United States, as well as many other countries, devotedly produced not only their own press, but also other forms of media such as cartoons, postcards, and posters as a crucial way to argue for equal rights and to facilitate political mobilization (cf. Di Cenzo, 2003; Di Cenzo & Ryan, 2007; Perry, 1994).

Equally, media production played a significant role during the second wave of feminism, which in the spirit of 1968 published titles such as the US news journal Off Our Backs (since 1970), UK magazine Spare Rib (1972–1993), and the later UK internationalist feminist newspaper Outwrite (1982–1988). The Norwegian radio station RadiOrakel (ongoing since 1982), self-proclaimed as the world's first ever feminist radio station, the German magazine Emma (since 1977), and numerous Swedish feminist bulletins (e.g., Amazon, Lilith) all began during the 1970s and 1980s.⁷ In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a new generation of feminists turned to self-publication, perhaps most notably as part of the rise of what in the Anglo-Saxon context is referred to as “the grrrl zine revolution” (Green & Taormino, 1997, p. xxi): a growing number of girls and women who began to produce their own do-it-yourself media in the form of “zines”⁸ – small, non-, or anticommercial DIY publications that are generally produced and distributed by a single individual or small editorial collective (cf. Duncombe, 1997).⁹ In Sweden, feminist zines started to circulate some years later than their English-language counterparts. While it should be noted that not all these zines explicitly expressed sympathies with the Anglo-Saxon zine network, they had in common with their “grrrl zine” peers a strong commitment to the characteristic DIY ethos of zine culture, as well as the tendency to speak with a personal voice about topics such as politics, popular culture, music, media, sexuality, and feminist issues.

Since the 1990s, technological developments have facilitated the distribution of paper zines – for example, by email communication, spreading information on list-servs, and the occurrence of online “distros,” which make available a larger number of zines for sale. In addition, many zines have launched their own websites. For some of the feminist zines, new and accessible computer technologies have meant new opportunities to produce very professional-looking media products, while cheaper digital (offset) printing methods have increased this development further by pushing down printing expenses. Alongside these developments, both in Sweden and internationally, a number of ezines were established with titles such as Darling, Corky (Sweden), Geekgirl (AUS), gURL (US), and The F-Word (UK), especially between the late 1990s and the early 2000s (Armstrong, 2004; Ladendorf, 2004). Subsequently, as Web 2.0 technologies have developed, many ezines have been replaced by the more user-friendly and interactive blog, a so-called “push-button publishing tool” that has often taken the form of a frequently updated online diary (Schilt & Zobl, 2007).

This brief exposé of feminist media production during the three waves of feminism not only reflects changes in the women's movement's political priorities over three centuries but also draws attention to some central technological developments, each of which have had a significant influence on the material conditions under which feminists have produced their media. Feminist movement media have largely been framed by three major technological “revolutions”: the printing press, the copying machine, and the digital revolution (including the personal computer and the Internet). Though care should be taken to avoid the suggestion of any technological determinism, it is worth noting that each of the aforementioned technological developments has had a profound impact on the conditions of possibility for the production of feminist movement media in different historical contexts.

These technological developments have offered new possibilities for feminist self-publication. While feminists of the first wave were largely dependent on the printing press, the media strategies of second-wave feminists also included the cheaper and more accessible photocopier, which allowed quick and inexpensive reproduction and subsequently came to play such a crucial part in the circulation of zines in third-wave feminism. This technological shift vastly increased the possibilities for feminists to begin producing media at home, without having access either to substantial financial resources or to technological expertise. This development has prospered even further in the wake of new information and communication technologies (ICTs), which have facilitated self-publication for anyone with access to a home PC, basic computer skills, and an Internet connection. Hence, feminist media production of the third wave exists in a partially individualized and personalized mediascape that has made social media such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, and blogs an integrated feature of many people's everyday lives. With this in mind, we now turn to a discussion of what kind of politics is possible within the context of feminist blogging.

Feminist Media as Citizens' Media

While it is obvious, as previously mentioned, to understand the first wave of feminism as being concerned with citizenship, I shall argue that it is fruitful to investigate contemporary feminist media production through the lens of citizenship too – even if the modes of feminist media discussed in this chapter have emerged at a time and in a place where women's formal citizenship rights have long been established. In doing so, I am positioning my research within a theoretical tendency that reflects a recent shift of emphasis within critical citizenship studies, where scholars have gone from regarding citizenship merely as a legal status to calling attention to practices (such as routines, customs, norms, and everyday habits) of making citizenship. In short, this shift entails an analytical distinction between formal citizenship (i.e., citizenship as status) and substantive citizenship (i.e., citizenship as practice), and where the latter is understood as constitutive of the former (Isin, 2008). For the feminist movement, this means that it has developed over an extensive period of time through a plethora of diverse “citizenship practices,” such as theater, music, arts, and crafts, festivals, manifestations, meetings, networks – and, of course, media production (cf. Isin, 2008, pp. 17–18).

In similar terms, Clemencia Rodriguez (2001) has formulated a notion of citizens' media that builds on the political theories of Kirstie McClure and Chantal Mouffe, both of which provide a far-reaching understanding of “the political,” an understanding that includes not only “juridical demands upon the state” but also a “quotidian politics – a politics which extends the terrain of political contestation to the everyday enactment of social practices and the routine reiteration of cultural representations” (McClure, 1992, p. 123). Rodriguez convincingly argues that citizens' media have the capacity to actively transform the hegemonic mediascape by challenging social codes, legitimized identities, and institutionalized social relations and to empower “the community involved” (2001, p. 20). With a frequent use of everyday narratives and personal voice, contemporary feminist media (such as zines and blogs) can be said to embrace precisely this “quotidian” dimension of politics – even though their “politicizing of the personal” has not always been recognized as political. As others have pointed out, however, both off- and online media function as a way of sharing information, of building and of politicizing a community or network of girls and women (Harris, 2007, p. 46). New information and communication technologies have resulted in new and previously unanticipated social change that has afforded a new generation of Internet-savvy feminists to integrate online activities into their activism as well as their everyday lives (Aragon, 2008, p. 73).

As this chapter hopes to go some way to demonstrate, feminist blogging can, and indeed does, function as a form of practicing “substantive” citizenship – or, in other terms, as a form of citizens' media. In doing so, it not only helps to build feminist networks and collective identities, but also it contributes to a redescription of gendered identities, behaviors, and regimes in novel ways, thereby putting what are generally understood predominantly as private, individual, and intimate problems on the political agenda.

“Bare Breasts”: Blogging and Collective Action

In early November 2007, the online version of the magazine Ottar (published by the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education, RFSU) announced that there was a “new feminist wave of bare-breast actions” in public swimming pools. The event that precipitated a swathe of political activity occurred just a month earlier, in the university town of Uppsala. Two students, Ragnhild and Kristin Karlsson, had been expelled from the Fyrishof public swimming pool for public indecency; both had refused to cover their breasts whilst swimming. After this initial event, the expelled women made an official complaint to the Equal Opportunity Ombudsman (JämO) and published an opinion piece in the leading newspaper Dagens Nyheter (September 18, 2007). The complaint was rejected on the basis of insurmountable norms surrounding male and female bodies in contemporary society, where the situation of swimming topless is not comparable between the sexes. This, then, would justify the different treatment of men and women in this instance. Contemporary regulations regarding the selling of services and goods are such that in some cases it is permissible for women and men to be treated differently. Matters of “decency” would constitute one such example.

Shortly after this public debate, similar events were organized in swimming pools across Sweden. Again, the result was often the same: the expulsion of women from the venue. Responsible for this chain of events was the network Bara Bröst, a movement initiated by a group of women in southern Sweden sympathetic to Ragnhild and Kristin Karlsson. This, in turn, led to significant media attention in local and national Swedish media – but also in international papers such as the Brisbane Times and the Washington Post. That these events garnered much attention might not be surprising, given their typically “media-friendly” topic and provocative direct actions – but why, one may ask, did this issue so swiftly translate into a national feminist campaign? The following explanation is given on the Bara Bröst blog:

Importantly, the goal of the network ought not to be understood in terms of an issue of sexual liberalism, at least not in the first instance. Rather, the very purpose was to “provoke debate about the unwritten social and cultural rules that sexualize and discriminate the female body.” Bara Bröst claims that female breasts are not part of female genitals and therefore ought not to be treated as such. The blog itself serves as a rather straightforward means of informing people about their activities and principles, mobilizing supporters and participants for their campaign – which is clearly aimed at the Swedish government.

This focus placed on the government as the main target of the campaign transpires not only through the articulation of a specific demand seeking to challenge a specific law, but also in the range of political strategies in which the network is engaged, where politics is defined in terms of lobbying one's elected members of parliament. One such example is a blog entry that contains a prewritten letter that readers are encouraged to reuse and send to Swedish MPs and local municipalities responsible for public swimming pools. Another is the traditional use of petitions. As the quote from the blog reveals, the aim is to shed light on and to challenge the ways in which what we can call gender “regimes” are reproduced in part by the governing bodies of the nation-state. In this manner, this very specific one-issue campaign and related direct actions link the seemingly banal question of swimming topless with fundamental sociocultural norms. What this campaign was capable of showing was the contingent nature of what are otherwise regarded as sedimented everyday practices, and how such practices are upheld by both public policy in particular, and by the law in general. Whilst the direct actions themselves perform a break with naturalized conventions, the blog serves to inform both supporters and “the generally interested public” about latest developments and future actions, as well as seeking to gain new supporters for its campaign. In this regard, the blog functions as a space where the action can be explained and its case argued for.

However, in addition, Bara Bröst uses the blog's possibilities for reader's comments, available as part of the blog tool, so that supporters (as well as opponents) can have their say on the issue. A blog entry entitled “Why does Sweden need a stronger discrimination law?,” for example, initiated a debate that included as many as 207 readers' comments, expressing everything from encouragement – general comments of support – to harsh criticisms, misunderstandings, and even sexist remarks and disturbing threats. Many of the discussions generated on the blog used argumentation based on personal preferences and feelings as well as logical reasoning for and against topless-friendly swimming pools. Others, however, resorted to aggressive antifeminist comments, to which supporters then responded. The following is an example posted by two opponents:

While this type of exchange might be described as far removed from what we normally would wish from a “democratic debate,” the choice not to moderate even such comments reveals the conflicts surrounding this issue, and therefore extends the function of this space beyond traditional political campaigning. Hence, it is clear that Bara Bröst is not only “sparking debates” in the mainstream media, it is also creating an unusually inclusive space for political discussion – and, as such, constitutes one of the few public forums in which antifeminist remarks such as the above can be directly responded to by the people who are themselves subjected to such comments.

The crucial question remains, however: can these strategies be said to entail more profound societal changes beyond a few provocative newspaper headlines, outside of the blogosphere? It should be noted that, despite activists initially being expelled, the campaign did have a few successes, which were reported on the blog, with public swimming pools allowing topless women to swim on their premises. Moreover, the movement spread across the sea to Denmark, where, after similar direct action, the swimming pool in Vesterbro announced that topless swimming would be allowed during specified hours.

Importantly, the case of the Bara Bröst blog shows that feminist blogging can do more than merely spread information and “spark debates.” The feminist blogosphere should not be regarded as a sphere divorced from real-life feminist activism. On the contrary, the weblog can serve an important function in providing a meeting space that facilitates collective political mobilization and the creation of activist networks. The Bara Bröst blog is an example of how, at first glance, what might be understood as a simple case of single-issue politics need not necessarily be a question of the kind of feminist disarticulation of which McRobbie speaks, but should, rather, be understood in terms of active construction, that is to say, a rearticulation of feminist politics. As is the case with much contemporary feminism (in Sweden and beyond), the Bara Bröst network offers such an example.

While the Bara Bröst blog constitutes an example of how the blog tool can indeed be used as an integral part of a feminist activism that is practicing citizenship in more “traditional” forms such as political debating, direct action, and petitions, we now turn to the politics of the feminist “life log.” As Findahl reports, in 2009, 64% of all Swedish blogs were such diary-like “life logs,” consisting of personal micro-stories of everyday life; 26% had a specialized content (such as a hobby or special interest), 6% focused on work life, and another 6% were political blogs (2009, p. 33). While it is difficult to categorize feminist blogs (where, as we know, “the personal is political”) into either of these subsets, my research shows that a majority of contemporary Swedish feminist blogs contain strong elements of diary writing. As we shall see, this more prototypical diary-like format would offer a space to practice intimate citizenship not only in the “sexual,” or “bodily,” sense of the term, but also in the sense of the “personal” and the “private.” In order to explore this further, let us turn to the blogs of Hanna Fridén: Feminist, Aesthetic Style Fascist and Linna: Write – Exercise – Talkative – Private. Judging by the fact that both of these blogs bear the names of their respective authors, the way in which the prototypical diary format is followed would suggest that here we are encountering precisely such individualized and person-oriented media. But does this initial impression hold on a closer reading? In order to deepen our understanding of the significance of feminist blogging as a form of citizens' media, I shall place emphasis on its importance for practicing what in recent years has been termed “intimate citizenship.”

Consciousness-Raising 2.0? Blogging against Anorexia

Operating under the slogan “80s child with a superhero complex. Saving the world, one PMT at a time,” the blogging persona of Hanna Fridén is represented as an empowered and strong young woman, whose fashion interests and meticulous detailing of her daily activities have attracted a dedicated readership. Similar to many other contemporary blogs by young women, her blog takes the shape of a “life log,” an online diary, as well as containing elements of a fashion blog. “Outfit of the day,” consisting of photographs of the author and comments on her chosen style, is a recurring feature on Fridén's blog; in this way, it functions as part of the wider phenomenon of the fashion blog – a phenomenon that recently has increased enormously amongst young girls in Sweden and has had a significant impact outside of the blogosphere in the mainstream media. The most prevalent feature, however, is Fridén's diary remarks, which readers are able to follow and have the opportunity to comment on. The diary presents Fridén's daily travails as a fairly well-known media personality (with a history as illustrator, professional blogger, journalist, and television show host for the youth television channel ZTV on her curriculum). Adventures range from her first experience of flying, to photographs of social events she has taken part in, to intimate matters such as her previous struggles with an eating disorder and toilet problems. When granted little more than the briefest of looks, this highly personal “life log” appears to match the description of a feminist individualization, not least because of its representations of Fridén as a young, “twenty-something,” successful, and stylish media personality. Does Fridén, therefore, offer an example of a post-emancipated woman – someone who, while overtly embracing feminism and its goals, no longer needs it? Is it true that there is no explicit political agenda that Fridén follows?

Although the entries on the theme of party politics increased somewhat from the time of the Swedish general election in 2010, this is by no means a clear-cut political blog in the traditional sense of the word. Only reluctantly does Fridén admit that if she has to choose, “it has to be the Social Democrats” – and when politics is mentioned, it is often invoked by way of precisely the kind of “single-issue politics” that could easily be interpreted as a disarticulation of feminism from other political movements.

For all of the above reasons, the blog could be understood as part of the larger postfeminist trend of women's issues and inequalities being “disarticulated” from the very political movements (such as the socialist movement) to which they have previously been linked. In one of the blog entries entitled “I detest party politics,” an explanation for its absence is offered. However, the reader discovers that such a “disarticulation” between women's issues and politics is not something that is valid for her “offline life”:

So what happens if one takes a closer look at Fridén's writings? I think it soon becomes clear that her rather low profile on the particular issue of party politics does not mean that her blog is devoid of political engagement. Alongside the personal remarks and outfits of the day, a strong engagement in the issues of current beauty ideals and their connection to eating disorders amongst women is articulated.

Having recovered from anorexia herself, Fridén has devoted much effort to informing others about the current situation of systematic undereating amongst young girls, not least through her appearances in the mainstream media such as on Swedish state television (SVT) and in the tabloid newspaper Aftonbladet. In Aftonbladet, where she is invited to discuss the contemporary blog debates, she expresses disappointment with developments not only in society at large, but also in the blogosphere (Swedenmark, 2009). She explains how she previously had great hopes that the blogging of “ordinary” girls would counteract the unhealthy beauty ideals represented in the mainstream media, and adds that she thinks the effect has been quite the opposite: “When blogs began to gain attention I was hoping for a change, as the girls who were blogging were normal, not just skinny. But instead [of the beauty ideal changing] they [the blogging girls] lost weight” (Swedenmark, 2009). Further, she criticizes other famous bloggers for discussing weight and diets and claims that such online behavior seriously undermines information work on eating disorders. This emphasis on Fridén's personhood should not, however, be understood as the final destination for her media practice. Rather, it serves as a stepping stone toward more collective processes, similar to the consciousness-raising activities of previous ways of doing feminism. It is a virtual collectivity, however, that occurs in the comments field of her many blog entries on the theme of eating disorders.

In one of her many blog entries on this theme – for example, “Wake up, State, a whole generation of girls are starving to death!!” – Fridén raises strong criticisms against the Swedish state for ignoring the problem of a growing number of self-starving young girls:

She continues by criticizing the state for supporting the national fashion industry financially, despite the industry's maintaining the same unhealthy skinny ideals as the international fashion scene, and for its decision to make the diet pill Allí freely available over the counter. Fridén announces: “The party who will take these issues seriously, I will vote for in the next election. [...] This is not a marginal issue or any such shit, it's one of the absolutely most important issues of today.” Although some comments remind the author and readers that a svelte figure is not necessarily a sign of anorexia, the vast majority of comments are supportive, either simply thanking her, or sharing personal experience of their own, a friend's or a relative's eating disorder, or contributing information such as links to organizations and support centers where those suffering from eating disorders can turn. One comment informs readers that the aforementioned dieting pill has an 18-year age limit, though it is countered by Fridén's claim that the rule is not followed in practice. Another comment simply states that: “You are so bloody right! I am with you! All the way!” Many others show their support by hyperlinking from their own blogs, encouraging others to do the same.

As others have argued before me, virtual spaces like this can, and indeed do, function as a form of consciousness-raising activity, not unlike feminist consciousness-raising groups of the 1960s and 1970s (Kennedy, 2007; Wood, 2008). Tracy L.M. Kennedy argues, for example, that “As early feminists recognized, telling stories is often only the beginning of a larger feminist process of engaging collectively to pursue social reform” (2007, n.p.), and she continues to argue that blogging offers precisely such opportunities today (Kennedy, 2007). Although there are some similarities between consciousness-raising practices, the crucial differences from the consciousness-raising of the second wave ought not to be ignored, since they carry particular significance for the ways in which we can understand contemporary feminist practices on their own terms. For what differentiates much consciousness-raising activities of second-wave feminism is that while personal storytelling was used, a shared female experience was generally presupposed, constituting something of a master-narrative, that is to say, a unitary understanding of a universal experience of living as a woman in a patriarchal society.

Third-wave feminism is generally understood to pursue a more “anti-essentialist” political agenda, placing a stronger emphasis on diversity. On this basis, third-wave feminism has signified a feminist generation that has been accused of being overtly individualist and lifestyle-oriented, and of lacking any significant political agenda (Pilcher & Whelehan, 2004; Siegel, 1997). It has, in other words, often been understood as “postfeminist,” in the above meaning of the term. But while many available blogs (such as the vast number of contemporary fashion blogs) could indeed be labeled as postfeminist, this is no grounds for judging blogging as a feminist tool per se. While the rise of “the feminist blogger” may seem like an explosion of individual narratives without any unified political program, this tendency should be placed within the more general late modern Zeitgeist in which precisely such practices of “storytelling” operate as a central tactic to enact what sociologist Ken Plummer (2003) has baptized “intimate citizenship.” In late modernity, Plummer argues, there is an absence of metanarratives. Late modern society is characterized by rapid changes in our personal lives across the globe (most notably in the Western industrialized world). Concomitantly, this has led to an increasing number of activities demanding existential decisions at the most intimate level: “from test tube babies and cybersex to lesbian and gay marriages and families and single parenting” (Plummer, 2003, p. x). This has opened up a new space for an increased production of “micro-narratives” of everyday experiences. Precisely such intimate stories constitute a main feature of feminist blogs. An interesting case, worthy of further exploration in relation to the connection between online activity and feminist politics, is the weblog of Linna Johansson, who has, amongst other things, written about the vicissitudes of childrearing and familial experience.

Micro-Narratives of Motherhood: Politicizing Childbirth and Breastfeeding

The birth story told by Linna Johansson is “only” a single individual's experience of labor; it does not make any claims on the “truth” about childbirth. Yet I would argue that it constitutes a powerful counternarrative that “talks back” to popular stereotypes of the process of labor as “natural,” “beautiful,” and “miraculous.” In Johansson's story, childbirth is, instead, described as a painful, ugly, and fully expendable experience. She writes about the aftermath of childbirth in terms of what can perhaps best be described as austerity and alienation, a feeling of non-belonging; the narrative certainly does not describe the well-rehearsed cultural image of the new mother who in an instant forgets the pain of labor as she holds her newborn baby in her arms for the very first time.

Johansson's story does not end here. It develops into a longer counternarrative about life with a young baby. Here another cultural stereotype of motherhood is contradicted, as the story from the maternity ward continues:

Despite not adding any of her own meta-analysis to this particular story, this micro-narrative has to be understood in its wider context as part of an ongoing struggle for intimate citizenship, in terms of both a longer struggle Johansson has undertaken in the public domain since the birth of her first child and a larger cultural struggle over the issue of breastfeeding. Johansson's position is that it is a woman's inalienable right to choose whether or not she wants to breastfeed her children. This is presented by way of highly individualized stories.

In Sweden, where the practice of breastfeeding is comparatively high in international comparisons – 97% of newborns and 67% of 6-month-old children are fully or partially breastfed (Socialstyrelsen, 2010, p. 8) – opposing voices are barely audible. And even though there are occasional debates in the mainstream media about breastfeeding – whether, for example, it should take place in public or not – breastfeeding nonetheless constitutes a sedimented and unquestioned “good.” As such, Johansson's repeated micro-stories have broken a taboo regarding breastfeeding, opening up a larger debate on the issue. In one of Johansson's many blog entries, readers have made the following comments:

Notably, neither of these comments advocates a single determined position on the issue. Both agree on a woman's right to choose. Though the odd exception does exist, the opponent in the general discussion is not women who choose differently from the writer but, rather, the medical establishment – most often represented by midwives – which is said to steer the choices mothers make, either persuading parents to complement breastfeeding with formula against their will, or the opposite. Clearly, not all comments support Johansson and her choice. Some commentators try to encourage her to “at least try,” while others accuse her of being selfish in her decision not to breastfeed. Nevertheless, it is striking how much emphasis is made in the comments on a felt normativity in meetings with medical establishment representatives (most notably midwives). As one commentator explains:

As this example goes some way to demonstrate, the emphasis on the “everyday” makes the weblog both a production and a reproduction of contemporary rearticulations of some of our most intimate experiences – here exemplified by individual experiences of childbirth and breastfeeding – but it also showcases how the blog in this case becomes a privileged site for practicing intimate citizenship. In keeping with Elzbieta Oleksy's conceptualization of intimate citizenship, Linna Johansson's micro-narrative exemplifies not only how our private decisions and practices in late modern society have become “intertwined with public institutions and state policies such as public discourse on sexuality, legal codes, medical system, family policy and the media” (Oleksy, 2009, p. 4), but also how the blog offers a platform from which, through the practice of everyday storytelling, citizens can challenge dominant regimes, policies, and practices concerning their intimate and quotidian experiences, helping to construct thereby virtual networks of solidarity.

Blogging Citizenship – Doing Feminism: Concluding Remarks

As this chapter has demonstrated, feminist media production has continued to thrive throughout what has commonly been referred to as the third wave of feminism. Although there is no general consensus about what exactly characterizes this third wave, it is usually defined on the grounds of generation, ideology, and/or historical context (Henry, 2004). As political theorist Jonathan Dean writes, “there is a perception that [the third wave] share(d) a certain commitment to openness, diversity and plurality that was perceived to be lacking in many dominant strands of second-wave feminism” (2009, p. 336). The attempts to characterize this third wave on the basis of historical or generational perspectives have often emphasized how this age cohort of younger feminists (born during the 1970s or after) has grown up in precisely the kind of postfeminist milieu that McRobbie describes as one in which feminism is simultaneously affirmed and denounced, that is, described as something that once was important but now has played out its role. As such, this “new” generation has been said to “live feminism in constant tension with postfeminism, though such a tension often goes unnoticed as such” (Kinser, 2004, p. 133) – something that is telling in both the oft-repeated conflation between postfeminism and third-wave feminism and the skepticism shown toward the practice of blogging, a skepticism expressed in the question: “Just who are they representing?”

In order to provide an answer to that question, we need first to acknowledge that the recent and rapid expansion of the Internet and new ICTs have meant that one can no longer equate feminism on the Internet with a specific “cyberfeminism.” Rather, the Internet has become an important domain for political activity for all strands of feminism. Second, we need to consider the ways in which the Internet has expanded the possibilities for production of “late modern” feminist micro-narratives – as both a continuation of the feminist tradition of feminist consciousness-raising and as a way to challenge the very principles of a shared experience between women on which the practice of consciousness-raising has often relied. Instead of using personal narratives to find a “common truth,” feminist storytelling of the third wave is said to place a stronger emphasis on diversity and multiplicity in personal experiences of gendered relations and modes of identification. Third, it is important to note that, despite the current feminist emphasis on diversity, the micro-narrating that takes place through feminist blogging should be understood neither simply as an effect of individualist postfeminist commodification of “feminism via the figure of woman as empowered consumer” (Tasker & Negra, 2007, p. 2), nor as a number of disparate isolated individual “voices.” For unlike postfeminist appeals to consumerism as female empowerment, feminist bloggers are engaged not so much in a practice of disarticulating feminism as in a continuous process of rearticulating feminism and feminist issues. Instead of contributing to an undoing of feminism, feminist bloggers are involved in a continual process of redoing, both in the meaning of carrying on already established feminist struggles (such as a critique of beauty ideals, motherhood, and bodily autonomy), and in the sense of articulating new feminist issues (such as the right to swim topless in public swimming pools).

Although blogs to a much larger extent than most previous forms of feminist media (e.g., newsletters, bulletins, zines) are located within the vastly commercialized arena of the Internet – and hence at first glance might be more easily dismissed as part of a more general postfeminist trend – such a premature dismissal would risk blinding us to the ways in which blogs can function as citizens' media by both collectively and individually contesting social codes, institutionalized gender relations, and legitimized gendered identities, as well as the potential for blogs to mobilize for offline political activism and formulate demands regarding their intimate lives against state regimes. Hence, while I would not go so far as to claim that blogging is an inherently feminist activity – and while its role for women's organizations with regard to government representation might still, in many cases, be rather obscure – it can nonetheless be said that on the World Wide Web there exists a cohort of feminist bloggers representing a wide array of contemporary modes of being feminist – indeed, of doing feminism.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The work on this chapter was conducted mainly as part of my postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Ethnology, Religion, and Gender Studies at Stockholm University (2009–2010), as well as during my previous time within the collaborative research project Feminist Media Production in Europe (funded by the Austrian Science Fund, project no. P21187-G20). In addition, I would particularly like to thank David Payne for his proofreading of my use of the English language, as well as his intellectual feedback on previous drafts of this chapter.

NOTES

1 All quotes from Swedish websites and blogs have been freely translated into English by the author.

2 Many thanks to Elke Zobl for recommending this text to me.

3 The process of disarticulation, in short, describes the counter-logic of political theorists Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's concept of articulation, which is a primitive political operator, capturing the basic mechanism by which various political struggles (women's movements, workers' movements, environmental movements and so on) build cross-over alliances, expanding their political horizon with other collective identities and social movements (1985, p. 110).

4 It should be noted that while the metaphor of the “three feminist waves” constitutes a popular and widespread way of describing the history of the feminist movement, it has also been criticized for obscuring the diversity within various strands of feminism and age cohorts of feminists, as well as for its overemphasis on the Anglo-Saxon and Western European contexts (cf. Graff, 2007; Hemmings, 2005).

5 In the Swedish context, this is an empirical fact that has recently been the subject of celebration. In 2009, Swedish women's magazines and journals celebrated their 150-year jubilee. The Women's History Collections (Kvinnsam) in Gothenburg have been exhibiting (both on-and offline) a variety of women's journals to mark the occasion, from Tidskrift för hemmet (“Journal for the Home”) from 1858 to more recent titles such as the feminist zines of the 1990s and 2000s (Radarka, Bleck, Tigerskott i brallan) and the still extant magazines Bang, Femkul (currently entitled FUL_), and Kvinnotryck – as well as online variants such as queer ezine Trikster.

6 Bearing in mind its central role for the feminist movement already in the nineteenth century, when the so-called first-wave feminists began their struggle for citizenship rights, it is surprising how little has been written about both the history and the theory of feminist media production. The few exceptions to this general deficit have often focused predominantly on the very specific genres of feminist zines (also referred to as “grrrl zines,” femzines, or feminist fanzines) (Zobl, 2004a, 2004b) and cyberfeminist practices (e.g., Kearney, 2006), and most often on the Anglo-Saxon context. Feminist scholars such as Jayne Armstrong, Red Chidgey, Mary-Celeste Kearney, Marion Leonard, and Elke Zobl have carried out important investigations into the international zine networks. These pioneering studies are now being complemented with examinations of zines from other parts of the world (e.g., Chidgey, 2009; Zobl, 2009).

7 More recent examples of feminist media production globally are the Nicaraguan feminist quarterly La Boletina (since 1991, also available online since 2005); the Iranian independent feminist journal Zanan (founded in 1991, banned in 2008); and the Croatian magazine Kruh & Ruze (“Bread and Roses,” since 1993/1994).

8 Although there is no set standard for what a feminist zine can look like, many are produced by simple techniques (handwritten or typed, cut-and-pasted collages, drawings, photocopies stapled by hand), while others have developed into more “glossy” magazine-like products (cf. Harris, 2007, p. 46).

9 For more examples of feminist media, especially in the European context, see the online archive http://www.grassrootsfeminism.net/

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