We Strike, Therefore We Are? A Twitter Analysis of Feminist Identity in the Context of #DayWithoutAWoman

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In this article, we explore the collective identity of feminist activists as expressed on Twitter in the context of "Day Without A Woman." We conceptualize collective feminist identity by drawing upon literature on identity, feminism, and social movements. We expected to find a politically-defined group boundary around supporters of "Day Without A Woman." Using the online tool Netlytic, we collected tweets posted from accounts in Washington D.C., New York City, and Los Angeles. In a preliminary step, we performed a word count analysis and coded frequent words within the collected tweets into categories of meaning. Based on these categories, we drew a sub-sample of tweets, which we scrutinized in-depth using discourse analysis. Through this qualitative analysis, we show that the group boundary of the supporters of "Day Without A Woman" is defined by the common denominator of their negative relation to Donald TRUMP. While the supporters stress the relevance of feminist claims, barriers to identifying as a feminist seem to persist, as reflected in those whom we call "flexi-feminists." The boundary between supporters and non-supporters of "Day Without A Woman" hence seems to broaden from a line to a space which can be occupied without complete group entry. In this space and beyond, supporters express feminist identity through an "us" versus "him" logic.
Translated title of the contributionWir streiken, also sind wir?: Eine Twitter-Analyse der feministischen Identität im Kontext des #DayWithoutAWoman.
Original languageEnglish
Article number16
JournalFQS - Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung
Volume20
Issue number2
Number of pages33
ISSN1438-5627
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 25.05.2019
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, Institut für Qualitative Forschung,Internationale Akademie Berlin gGmbH. All rights reserved.

    Research areas

  • Management studies - collective identity, contemporary feminism, Social Movement, Twitter analysis, critical discourse analysis, U.S. presidential elections

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