Complaint and the World-Building Politics of Feminist Moderation

Bibliographic Data

ID2227261
AuthorsBonnie Washick (corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume45
Issue3
Pages555-580
Publication date2020-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSigns: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0097-9740 • E-ISSN: 1545-6943
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/706469
OpenAlexW3010492404
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited22

Can feminists’ complaints be voiced such that they participate in transforming that of which they complain? Or is complaining what feminists cannot but do in a constitutively masculine public sphere, whose conventions distinguish and privilege men’s speech and work to keep “men’s speech” attached to men’s bodies? I argue that feminists’ efforts to “go public” on digital platforms have led to the development of practices of writing, reading, and engaging strangers that promise an affirmative response to my first question. I further argue that we may fail to see digital feminist counterpublicity as political and agentic, owing to an implicit and visceral attachment to an abstract masculine political subject. To make these arguments I first analyze how feminist scholars think about feminist complaint. I then reconstruct a history of feminists’ efforts to voice their complaints on Usenet, a formative precursor of today’s social media. Doing so allows me to elaborate the counterpublic world-building politics immanent in the communicative practice of many of today’s digital feminisms

Complaint · Moderation · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Gender Politics and Representation · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology

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