MASARYK UNIVERSITY Faculty of Social Studies Department of Sociology

DISSERTATION THESIS

Brno 2020 Vanda Maufras Černohorská

Mgr. et Mgr. Vanda Maufras Černohorská

‘Thank you for leaving all your good advice at the door’:

On ASPEKT and Online Feminism

Dissertation Thesis

Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Kateřina Nedbálková, Ph.D Advisor: doc. Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky, Ph.D

Brno 2020

I hereby declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the referenced sources and literature.

In Prague, 21 July 2020 Vanda Maufras Černohorská

3 Acknowledgments

Through the writing of this dissertation, a process that took seven long years, I have received a great deal of support and assistance. First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor doc. PhDr. Kateřina Nedbálková, Ph.D for her intellectual guidance, valuable comments, and endless patience in times when life kept distracting me from my academic endeavour. I am also very much indebted to my advisor doc. Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky, Ph.D. who has thought me how to “write sociology” and provided me with continuing encouragement through the years. This dissertation as well as my own intellectual path has been greatly influenced by a 2015/2016 research visit at the Centre for Cultural Sociology (CCS), Yale University. I would like to thank Professor Jeffrey C. Alexander for enabling me to become part of an exceptionally stimulating environment, and to the CCS Workshop participants for providing me with invaluable comments and pointing me in many new directions. This remarkable academic and personal experience was possible thanks to the support of the Czech Fulbright Commission, to which I am grateful. Parts of the dissertation were published as an article in Gender, Equal Opportunities, Research (2016) and book chapters in The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Feminism (2019) and Feminist Circulations between East and West (2019). I am thankful to the anonymous reviewers as well as the books’ editors who contributed with their critical remarks and comments to the improvement of this study. This research would not have been possible without all those who have kindly agreed to take part in the interviews. I am thankful for their time and willingness to share their thoughts, ideas, and memories with me. I would like to also thank to my friends who cheered me up along the way and offered their comments, proof-reading assistance, and editing skills. Last but not least, I wish to thank my family for always having my back, and to Clément and Noam for granting me with a “room of my own” in the final stretch of the dissertation writing.

4 Abstract

Title: ‘Thank you for leaving all your good advice at the door’: On ASPEKT and Online Feminism

Author: Vanda Maufras Černohorská

Key words: online feminism, ASPEKT, digital technologies, new media, contemporary feminist movement, Slovakia, Central and Eastern European region

This study explores the relationship between digital technologies and the contemporary feminist movement, with a specific focus on the online-based feminist landscape in Slovakia. The dissertation is based on in-depth case study of ASPEKT, one of the oldest and most notable feminist organizations in Slovakia, and its relation to these new platforms and online tools. Founded a few years after the fall of the Communist regime in the Central and Eastern European region, the organization has been a vocal advocate of feminist ideas for almost three decades, providing rich study material. With its primary focus on feminist literature and philosophy, as well as publishing and educational activities, it represents a unique segment of the feminist scene that values theoretical work and consciousness-raising activities, while being actively involved in many campaigns addressing practical concerns such women’s reproductive rights or domestic and sexual violence. The study analyzes how the feminist organization ASPEKT and its members and collaborators use and approach online tools and platforms, and how their engagement in online feminism has been influenced by their values and their work’s thematic scope, their generational affiliations, as well as the socio-political and historical context they operate in. I further situate this case study in the context of a broader investigation of the Slovak online feminist scene by considering emerging “new voices” – the most notable online-based projects recently founded by members of a younger generation of Slovak feminists. I thus

5 strive to offer a nuanced analysis of the Slovak feminist movement in relation to the complex and constantly shifting terrain of the global digital sphere, which has the potential to transform civil society and mainstream discourse on both the local and transnational level. My project critically addresses existing theoretical approaches and earlier research studies of the relationship between feminism and digital technologies as well as more general theoretical concepts related to new media and network society. The research specifically contests the theoretical presumption put forward by Manuel Castells that digital technologies are leading us to greater homogenization (the “global village” argument) with communication itself as the ultimate value that binds us together. Subsequently, in my research, I move beyond the celebratory versus dystopian binary that ascribes to digital technologies either salvation or damnation qualities. Lastly, while researching online feminism with emphasis on specific historical, social, and cultural context, this study offers more nuanced alternative to those existing research studies that are analysing (usually Western-based) contemporary feminism and its relation to digital technologies without necessary reflection of its materiality. Based on the research design that combines two main sources of data – interviews and online-based materials produced within the scope of selected organization and projects, it can be concluded there is a strong relationship between ASPEKT’s approach to digital media and the context it derives from and operates in – mainly its historical evolution, thematic scope, and “feminist experience.” By emphasizing the preservation of its history, legacy, and past achievements, as well as core values related to its specialization in feminist literature and philosophy, the organization’s approaches to the online sphere contradicts some of the assumptions put forward in existing theoretical literature — namely the conceptualization of digital technologies as being dynamic and future-oriented. Such a compelling take on digital technologies, as the analysis suggests, derives from the organization’s nostalgia for the long lost authenticity of the early post-1989 years coupled with the experience of feminist organizations and activists (or women) being often left out from mainstream chronicles. The research results also contents the above mentioned theoretical presumption that new media and digital technologies are leading towards greater homogenization and detachment from the socio-political and historical context. I instead argue that digital

6 technologies present a diversifying rather than a unifying force, while being deeply rooted in the materiality and specificity of social existence and concrete social and geographical attachments. Subsequently, the dissertation critically reflects on the overly-positive narrative of the “limitless reach of new media” in the existing theoretical literature. The research confirmed that even though new media platforms and digital tools enhance greater connectivity between organizations and their supporters and improve organizations’ overall mobilization potential, this does not mean that they would be able to penetrate all possible spheres of society, reaching to groups previously untouched by the organizations’ work. Fundamentally, the presented study formulates a broader theoretical presumption that new media and digital technologies are changing not only the face of contemporary feminism, i.e. the form, but also the character of the movement and the scope of its agenda. Such a notion can be further expanded outside the topic of contemporary feminism. In the end, digital technologies are becoming inseparable components of multiple aspects of our everyday existence. They influence not only how we do things but also what we do, how we relate to ourselves and to one another, as well as how we make sense of outside world.

7 Table of Contents

1. INTRODUCTION ...... 10

2. DEVELOPING THE APPROACH TO ANALYSIS ...... 21

2.1. UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF NEW MEDIA & DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES...... 21

2.1.1. NEW MEDIA – AN OVERVIEW ...... 22

2.1.2. NEW MEDIA AND CIVIL SOCIETY ...... 24

2.1.3. LIMITLESS REACH VERSUS THE DIGITAL DIVIDE ...... 27

2.1.4. HABERMASIAN ONLINE SPACES AND THE ISSUE OF "CLIKTIVISM"...... 29

2.2. FEMINISM IN THE AGE OF DIGITAL ACTIVISM ...... 31

2.2.1. ANTI-FEMINIST BACKLASH AND "GENDER IDEOLOGY" NARRATIVES ...... 31

2.2.2. UNDERSTANDING ONLINE FEMINISM - POST-FEMINISM, THE WAVE NARRATIVE AND/OR BEYOND...... 34

2.2.3. CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING NOW AND THEN ...... 36

2.2.4. GLOBAL PHENOMENON, LOCAL PERSPECTIVE – CRITICAL REFLECTION OF CASTELLS’ NETWORK SOCIETY ...... 41

2.3. THEORETICAL SUMMARY – POINTS OF DEPARTURE ...... 46

3. METHODOLOGY ...... 50

3.1. EPISTEMOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK ...... 50

3.2. (FEMINIST) RESEARCH ETHICS...... 53

3.3. RESEARCHING NEW MEDIA AND DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES ...... 55

3.4. RESEARCH DESIGN AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS ...... 57

3.5. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS ...... 59

4. ANALYTICAL PART ...... 64

4.1. ASPEKT – FROM EARLY YEARS TO FIRST ENCOUNTERS WITH ONLINE ACTIVISM ...... 64

4.1.1. THE TROUBLE WITH FEMINISM BEFORE AND AFTER 1989 – UNDERSTANDING THE CONTEXT ...... 64

4.1.2. ASPEKT’S EARLY YEARS – BUILDING UP SLOVAK FEMINISM DURING THE TRANSITION PERIOD ...... 68

4.1.3. EUROPEANIZATION, TRANSNATIONAL CONNECTIONS AND FIRST STEPS INTO THE ONLINE SPACE ...... 74

4.2. FEMINISM 2.0, THE ASPEKT’S EDITION ...... 80

4.2.1. TO BE REMEMBERED – PRESERVING ONE’S LEGACY THROUGH A VIRTUAL LIEU DE MÉMOIRE...... 81

4.2.2. ON MOBILIZATION POTENTIAL OF NEW MEDIA – EXAMPLE OF THE ISTANBUL CONVENTION CAMPAIGN ...... 85

8 4.2.3. INCLUSIVITY – REACHING OUTSIDE THE “FEMINIST BUBBLE” AND ENGAGING YOUNGER GENERATION ...... 92

4.3. NEW VOICES – A BRIEF EXCURSION INTO THE ONLINE FEMINIST SCENE IN SLOVAKIA ...... 99

4.3.1. EVERYDAY, ACCESSIBLE OR FOR INTROVERTS – NEW WAYS OF DOING FEMINISM ONLINE ...... 101

4.3.2. TRADITIONAL AND NEW – A TALE OF TWO WORLDS? ...... 105

4.3.3. THE PERKS OF DOING FEMINISM ONLINE – ONLINE HARASSMENT AND THE QUESTION OF SUSTAINABILITY ...... 108

4.4. DISCUSSION ...... 112

4.4.1. INTERPRETATIONS – KEY FINDINGS ...... 113

4.4.2. IMPLICATIONS – THEORETICAL CONCLUSIONS ...... 117

4.4.3. LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ...... 120

5. CONCLUSION...... 122

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 125

9 1. Introduction

“Thank you for leaving all your good advice at the door.” This is a motto one can encounter upon entering the premises of ASPEKT, one of the oldest feminist organizations in Slovakia founded in 1993, a few years after the fall of the Communist regime. The motto, being half playful and half serious, refers to ASPEKT’s early history when the organization’s projects and initiatives expanded beyond the region and members started to cooperate with foreign feminist organizations and activists. While most of them approached ASPEKT with open arms and minds aiming toward cooperation and mutual enrichment, some feminists came with ready-made suggestions that were well-intended but did not really reflect the specific historical and cultural experiences of Slovak and Czech feminists. ASPEKT’s response to such advice was that they too strive for enhancement of feminist ideas, but that they wish to choose their own path. In other words, that all those coming should leave their “good advice” at the door. The emphasis on autonomy, its history, and contextual experience is something the organization values even upon entering the so-called information age, an age that is characterized by the rising prevalence of new media and digital technologies that significantly influence multiple sides of our contemporary society, including the ways social movements, organizations, and activists operate. In the opening chapter of my dissertation, I briefly introduce the general topic of my thesis – new media and digital technologies and their relation to contemporary feminism – including some of the key literature. Secondly, I mention the origin of my interest in the subject followed by the study’s research aim, research questions, and design. Lastly, I outline the dissertation’s sections and chapters.

10 New media and digital technologies have been instrumental in the development of many aspects of contemporary society. Interpersonal communication (Elliott and Urry 2010; Bredl, Hünniger, and Jensen 2014), media production (Carroll and Hackett 2006), and political participation (Mossberger et al. 2008), among other forms of social interaction, have been significantly reshaped in the information age. Sociologist and scholars from other disciplines have further elaborated on the influence of digital technologies on the state of civil society (Dalghren 2005; Edwards 2009; Kaplan and Haenlein 2010), and have explored new forms of virtual collaboration and communities (Desai 2013). Additionally, many are examining new media’s potential for social movements, organizations, and activists (Van De Donk et al. 2004), asking how far can online activism and participation reach into the “real world” (Jennings and Zeitner 2003; Livingstone, Bober, and Helsper 2005; Bennett 2003). While some authors conceptualize online activism as “clicktivism” or “slacktivism” with limited impact on political realities and decisions (Christensen 2011), others counter-argue that online-based activities— including maintaining a personal blog or being active on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Tik Tok — play a significant role in the contemporary activist landscape and have been unjustly overlooked by the academic community (Holt, Stromback, and Ljungberg 2013). On a more theoretical level, many scholars, with Manuel Castells (1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2009, 2012) being the most prominent one, put forward a hypothesis that new media and digital technologies are a homogenizing power creating an unified global village. In Castell’s theory of a network society, the network is the glue that holds society together. It is a key structuring element of the contemporary world, with communication power (enabled by new media and digital technologies, i.e. network) as its regulatory principle. Castells claims that in the network society, communication between different cultures is possible “on the basis not of shared values but of the sharing of the value of communication itself” (Castells 2009: 38). In this dissertation, I aim to subject this theoretical perspective to further critical inquiry. In theoretical literature, the general focus on the relation between digital technologies and online activism has gradually became more specific and narrow, covering particular thematic fields, including feminism. Theoretical literature elaborating on the significance of these new tools and platforms for the feminist movement and gender equality

11 enhancement is extensive and still growing (for ex. Wolmark 2003; Gurumurthy 2011), with scholars focusing on new opportunities (Traister 2007, Youngs 2007), as well as challenges (Gajjala and Oh 2012; Hasinoff 2014) that accompany this technological shift. At the same time, since a significant part of the anti-feminist backlash has moved online (esp. in the form of the “gender ideology” rhetoric, see Kuhar and Paternotte 2018), new media platforms are becoming important arenas for challenging these critical discourses, misconceptions, and “fake news” that are coming hand in hand with the backlash. The online sphere can also foster, as some scholars argue, a revival of the once-vivid tradition of consciousness-raising communities (Gillis 2014). New media and digital technologies also have a consequential influence on the discussions and conceptualizations of the feminist movement’s development. While some theorists see online feminism with its more individualistic and creative forms of activism as part of the post-feminism age (McRobbie 2004, 2009; Robinson 2009), others – continuing in the “wave narrative” – see it as an indispensable part of the third (Baer 2016) or fourth (Cochrane 2013) wave of the movement. Regardless of the classification, feminist scholars seem to agree that while looking at the presence of feminist voices online, the movement is not declining but rather changing (Budgeon 2011) and, as some suggest, even expanding (Kennedy 2007; Thornham and Weissmann 2013). The many forms of contemporary feminism are diverse but the reliance on the internet seems to be a strong constant (Munro 2013). The relation between digital technologies and the contemporary feminist movement presents an umbrella thematic scope of this research. The specific aim of this dissertation is to present a case study of ASPEKT, one of the oldest and most notable feminist organizations in Slovakia, and its relation to new media and digital technologies. I will explore how digital tools and platforms are becoming indispensable for organizations such as ASPEKT as well as individual users and enable the emergence of new modes of activism within the feminist movement – embodied by online feminism. The case study is positioned within a broader investigation of the Slovak online feminist scene, providing a detailed overview of ASPEKT’s transition towards the network age as well as an analysis of “new voices” – the most notable online-based projects founded by a younger generation of Slovak feminists in recent years. Throughout the dissertation I approach – on a theoretical as well as a practical level – new

12 media as a global phenomenon, which, in a similar manner to feminism, has the potential to transform civil society and mainstream discourses on the transnational but also local level. Together with Youngs, I emphasize that the “[r]ecognition of the materiality of feminism – that is concrete social and geographical attachments and particularities – is implicit in any critical reflection on Western feminist knowledge and principles” (Youngs 1999: 56). The same perspective is necessary when it comes to theorizing digital technologies. My interest in new media and digital technologies and the feminist movement has a rather straightforward origin. I am an avid user of new media platforms and digital technology tools, a lifelong feminist, and I have always demonstrated an inclination towards critical scrutiny of “the everyday.” In the past decades, the online space has become embedded in our day-to-day lives. It influences how we communicate, travel, study, work, do research, consume and produce information, participate politically, pass leisure time, form friendships or even intimate relationships. It penetrates our bodies and minds in such a persistent manner that it hardly feels intrusive anymore. In other words, it has become part of “our everyday” which is – for its omnipresence – often left unnoticed and unproblematized. With a similar self-confidence as when entering people’s daily lives, new media and digital technologies settled in the world of social movements and organizations, including its feminist division. As a result, the feminist movement witnessed a gradual transformation, with traditional organizations adopting digital tools and strategies and new online-based projects and initiatives rapidly emerging. Intrigued by this shift, I decided to focus on feminist blogging as a new way of consciousness raising in my master’s thesis (Černohorská 2012). The study explored the use of feminist blogging as a way of increasing awareness (i.e. consciousness) about relevant issues in the mainstream discourse, mobilizing new supporters, and reinforcing feminist ideas. While trying to evaluate the potential influence of blogging over the enhancement of the feminist agenda, the thesis reached its limitations in terms of how we can measure such effect. It concluded that there is, indeed, a high potential of feminist bloggers to turn some problem that was previously ignored by mainstream media and broader public into the issue involving important stakeholders such as businesses (with high stakes in online platforms due to advertising purposes) or political representatives and online platform users. However, such effect and its scope is hard to

13 capture and even when one focuses on a pre-selected number of influencers (meaning feminist blogs here) and their involvement in one specific online campaign (which was the case of my master’s thesis), one can hardly capture the potential effect of digital technologies in its full depth and scope. Following this research experience, I decided to continue to focus on new media and digital technologies but from a slightly different angle. No longer was I interested in whether an online campaign resulted in changes in the social media platform’s policy or how many followers were reached by a particular blog post or social media page. Rather I grew more and more interested in the relationship between digital technologies and their users – specifically feminist activists but also regular consumers turned into feminists and activists upon using digital technologies. While overlooking the constantly growing global feminist online scene, I pondered how feminists perceive new media and digital technologies. Where do they see their potential benefits and negatives? Do these new tools and platforms allow them to feel like they belong to the feminist community? Or does the digital age enable them to be involved with feminist ideas on a more personal, individualistic, and do-it-my-way level without the necessity to affiliate oneself with a concrete organization, a specific type of feminism or a national feminist scene? Are the categories of the feminist movement and feminist activism still relevant in the contemporary network-driven society and if yes, how are their defined? These and many other questions were streaming through my mind creating vast and untamable area of interest that needed to be further specified if to be pursued in the form of dissertation research. With the aim of further narrowing my research scope, I have decided to focus on one specific organization and scrutinize how its members use and approach new media and digital technologies. Through this analysis, I would be able to identify not only how digital technologies influence the way of “doing feminism” but also to what extent they impact what kind of feminism we do. In another words, how they affect the form as well as the content. I was planning to critically reflect on some of the existing theoretical assumptions regarding the nature and character of new media and digital technologies, namely that they are leading its users and entire communities towards a greater homogenization and detachment from their socio-political and historical context (Castells 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2009, 2012). Hence, I wanted to find an organization whose historical evolution, thematic scope, and

14 socio-political context are specific enough that – if there is indeed a relationship between the context and the use of digital technologies – it would visibly become imprinted in their way of “doing feminism”. The organization that met this criteria and the selected focus of my study was the Slovak feminist organization ASPEKT. Founded a few years after the fall of the Communist regime in the Central and Eastern European region, the organization has been a vocal and active advocate of feminist ideas for almost three decades, providing rich study material. With its primary focus on feminist literature and philosophy, as well as publishing and educational activities, it represents a unique segment of the feminist scene that values theoretical work and consciousness-raising activities, while being actively involved in many campaigns addressing practical concerns such women’s reproductive rights or domestic and sexual violence. As for the research design, I decided to build my analytical aim around the case study approach (Stake 1995, Yin 2012, Flyvbjerg 2016) because it allows the researcher to fully focus on detailed description and analysis of the case within a specific context. This enables her to capture the uniqueness of the case as well as to highlight the commonality of the identified themes and topics. In order to apprehend ASPEKT’s approach to new media and digital technologies, I lent great importance to the context the organization derives from, including its evolution during the transition period and the early 2000s, which were marked by an increasing Europeanization of the regional feminist scene. Additionally, after the identification of key topics of ASPEKT’s relationship with online tools and platforms, I expanded the contextual analysis by incorporating of what I call “new voices” – the most noteworthy online-based projects founded in recent years by young Slovak feminists. By including these projects, I aim to further scrutinize the key topics that emerged from the first part of my research focusing on ASPEKT and to better understand the current (online) feminist landscape in Slovakia. On a practical note, the research design combines two main sources of data – interviews and online-based materials concerning selected organization and projects. By online-based materials, I mean web pages, webzines, online archives including archived project materials, reports, events-related information and invitations, and social platform profiles. To sum up, in this research, I am interested in the relation between new media and digital technologies and contemporary feminism with a focus on how ASPEKT – the feminist

15 organization and its members – use and approach online tools and platforms, and how their engagement in “online feminism” was influenced by their values and the thematic scope of their work, their generational affiliation, as well as the socio-political and historical context they work in. Hence, such context together with the organization’s values and thematic scope present important component of this case study. Additionally, my context-based research would not be complete without a further excursion into the contemporary online feminist scene in Slovakia in the form of in-depth interviews with representatives of the most notable online-based projects founded by a young generation feminists, accompanied by an analysis of online-based materials related to these projects. The main research question of the dissertation is: How does ASPEKT use new media and digital technologies? This central question raises the issue whether there is a relationship between the organization’s history, thematic scope, core values, and the ways it makes sense of these new tools and platforms. If so, what is the character of this relationship? This research question is important and noteworthy of asking, I argue, as it helps us better understand not only how one particular organization approaches new media and digital technologies but also what the relationship is between how one “makes sense” of these new platforms and tools and the context one is surrounded by and derives from. Are ASPEKT’s historical or thematic specifics relevant to their way of “doing online feminism”? Where does the organization see the digital technologies’ opportunities and challenges? Is the fact that ASPEKT is an inherently feminist organization enhancing feminist ideas of gender equality somehow imprinted in its approach to the online sphere? And, importantly, to what extent and how is ASPEKT’s approach different to the strategies of newly emerging online-based feminist projects, the “new voices”? Ultimately, such questions might lead to a better comprehension of the character of new media and digital technologies and offer a critical reflection of existing theoretical literature and the conclusions of existing research studies on similar topics. Based on the results of my research, I aim to critically reflect especially on the theoretical presumption that digital technologies are leading us to greater homogenization (the “global village” argument) with communication itself as the ultimate value that binds us together put forward by Manuel Castells (1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2009, 2012). Subsequently, I wish to move beyond the celebratory versus dystopian binary (as also criticized by Alexander 1990) that ascribe to digital technologies either salvation or

16 damnation qualities. Lastly, while researching online feminism with emphasis on specific historical, social, and cultural context, I intend to offer a more nuanced alternative to those existing research studies that are analysing (usually Western-based) contemporary feminism and its relation to digital technologies without necessary reflection of its materiality. Lastly, I want to emphasize that I have intentionally decided to focus on the feminist scene in the Czecho-Slovak context, which is also my native region. While there is academic attention devoted to researching the feminist movement in these two countries (Funk and Mueller 1993; Wagnerová 1995; Kodíčková 2002; Linková 2003; Šmejkalová 2004; Bitušíková 2005; Hašková 2005; Wohrer 2005; Hašková and Křížová 2006; Vodrážka 2006; Císař and Vráblíková 2007; Vráblíková 2007; Kampichler 2012; Nyklová 2013; Kepplová 2013, 2014), the issue of online feminism and the influence of new media and digital technologies on the character of the local feminist scene has not yet been thoroughly explored. The reasons for such a research gap are numerous. New media and digital technologies (and online feminism specifically) are relatively new phenomena and academic production tends to be slow in terms of how fast it can produce research-based articles and publications. Additionally, the limited size of the online feminist scene in the Czech Republic and Slovakia (at least in comparison to the Anglo-American one) might lead to the false presumption that there is not much to study. Even I was guilty of that assumption when I based my master thesis on English-written feminist blogs and campaigns, thinking that they provide for a richer and more interesting analysis. I am planning to redeem this oversight with my dissertation research. The dissertation is divided into two main parts. The first one, 2. Developing the Approach to Analysis, is devoted to a theoretical introduction and overview of key concepts, literature, and research related to the main aim of the dissertation – new media and digital technologies and their significance for the contemporary feminist movement. To be more specific, part 2.1. Understanding the Role of New Media & Digital Technologies introduces the topic of new media (2.1.1. New Media – An Overview), while the following chapters cover more specific subjects such as new media’s influence on civil society (2.1.2. New Media and Civil Society) and the issue of uneven access to digital technologies and its impact on new media’s reach (2.1.3. Limitless Reach versus the Digital Divide). The last chapter of this sub-

17 section (2.1.4. Habermasian Online Spaces and the Issue of “Clicktivism”) elaborates on the concept of social network platforms as a public sphere of a Habermasian type and further looks into the critical concept of “clicktivism,” which is based on the assumption that online- based activism is a feel-good type of engagement with little impact on “real” political and social issues. The second part of the theoretical section, 2.2. Feminism in the Age of Digital Activism, is centred around new media and digital technologies’ role in and significance for the contemporary feminist movement. The chapter 2.2.1. Anti-Feminist Backlash and “Gender Ideology” Narratives is concerned with the contemporary backlash against the feminist movement that is, to a large extent, taking place online. In the following chapter, 2.2.2. Understanding Online Feminism – Post-Feminism, the Wave Narrative and/or Beyond, I am offering a concise overview of how new media and digital technologies influence the current theoretical discussions about the evolution of the movement. Reflecting on the assumption that the online sphere encourages the revival of the once-popular practice of feminist consciousness-raising, I am elaborating on new meanings of “the personal is political” within the digital age in the chapter 2.2.3. Consciousness-Raising Now and Then. The closing chapter of this theoretical subsection, 2.2.4. Global Phenomenon, Local Perspective – Critical Reflection of Castells’ Network Society, presents a critical reflection and assessment of the aforementioned theory of network society formulated by Manuel Castell. The next segment following the section covering the development of the approach to analysis focuses on methodology (3. Methodology). While the chapter 3.1. Epistemological Framework presents the dissertation’s methodological anchoring, which lies in an approach grounded in theory, the chapter 3.2. (Feminist) Research Ethics dives into some of the ethical dilemmas that have emerged prior and during my research, with the most pressing one being the question of the participants’ (non)anonymity. In 3.3. Researching New Media and Digital Technologies, I am looking into some of the specifics and challenges coming hand in hand with researching new media and digital technologies – namely the virtual ethnography (or netnography) approach and the issue of archivability of online-based data and the volatility of the online environment. The last two chapters of this section – 3.4. Research Design and Research Questions and 3.5. Data Collection and Analysis – outline the dissertation’s research

18 design, present research questions, and offer a detailed description of how the data in the study were collected and analysed. The second main section of the dissertation, 4. Analytical Part, presents key research findings. 4.1. ASPEKT – From Early Years to First Encounters with Online Activism is the first out of three sections, and elaborates on the main focus of the case study – the historical evolution of ASPEKT and the context it emerges from. While the chapter 4.1.1. The Trouble with Feminism Before and After 1989 – Understanding the Context covers the state of the feminist movement and the position of women under the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia and during the post-1989 period, 4.1.2. ASPEKT’s Early Years – Building up Slovak Feminism during the Transition Period provides an detailed account of the organization’s during the 1990s transition period. The subsequent chapter 4.1.3. Europeanization, Transnational Connections and First Steps into the Online Space analyses the influence of the country’s EU accession on the shape and character of feminist scene in Slovakia and discusses ASPEKT’s transnational work and its first encounters with digital technologies. Section 4.2. Feminism 2.0, ASPEKT’s Edition elaborates on three main topics that emerged from the analysis of ASPEKT’s online-based materials and interviews with the selected organization’s members and collaborators. 4.2.1. To Be Remembered – Preserving One’s Legacy Through a Virtual Lieu de Mémoire uncovers one of the most resonant topics in the analysis – the importance of memory and history and how digital technologies can ensure the preservation of the organization’s legacy and past achievements. In the chapter 4.2.2. On Mobilization Potential of New Media – Example of the Istanbul Convention Campaign, I am looking into the topic of greater openness and accessibility that potentially goes hand in hand with digital technologies use while referring to the example of the partially online-based Istanbul Convention Campaign in which ASPEKT played an important role. Chapter 4.2.3. Inclusivity – Reaching Outside of the “Feminist Bubble” and Engaging a Younger Generation focuses on the extent to which the organization uses new media and digital technologies to attract and include new collaborators and supporters, especially from the younger generation. The third and last part of the analytical section, 4.3. New Voices – A Brief Excursion into the Online Feminist Scene in Slovakia, summarizes the main results of the second part of my

19 research focusing on selected online-based feminist projects – Feminist.fyi, Kundy Crew, Kurník, and Sexistický kix. The chapter 4.3.1. Everyday, Accessible or for Introverts – New Ways of Doing Feminism Online dives into the topic of a more personalized take on feminism and the desire to establish a virtual “space of one’s own” that was – together with inspiration coming from the usually English-speaking online feminist environment – a driving force at the beginning of these projects. The chapter 4.3.2. Traditional and New – a Tale of Two Worlds? elaborates on how these “new voices” see themselves in relation to traditional feminist organizations and to the feminist scene in general. Lastly, chapter 4.3.3. The Perks of Doing Feminism Online – Online Harassment and the Question of Sustainability uncovers some of the negative aspects and challenges accompanying the use of digital technologies, such as the exposure of feminist activists to online harassment and surveillance as a consequence of their presence and work online. I am also touching on the question to what extent online feminism, an activity that is often voluntary and done in one’s free time, presents yet another “shift” that leaves activists drained and exhausted. The discussion section combines, analyses, and examines the key findings while formulating responses to the main research questions. Lastly, I identify the limitations of this study and offer suggestions for further research.

20 2. Developing the Approach to Analysis

The following section presents the dissertation’s overall theoretical grounding. It is divided into two parts, 2.1. Understanding the Role of New Media & Digital Technologies and 2.2. Feminism in the Age of Digital Activism, which are presenting relevant existing theoretical literature and research studies concerning two main topics of the dissertation — new media and online feminism. The aim of this section is to define key concepts and relevant theories, as well as to present pivotal publications that are significant to the research aim of this study. Subsequently, the concluding chapter of this section, 2.3. Theoretical Summary – Points of Departure, will evaluate the overall theoretical frame, highlight the major assumptions regarding the topics of new media and online feminism, and identify how the research study fits into this framework.

2.1. Understanding the Role of New Media & Digital Technologies

This part of the dissertation is centred around a theoretical overview of new media. In chapters 2.1.1. – 2.1.4., I offer a brief introduction to the field followed by an overview of the relation between new media and civil society. I then focus on some of the specific features and questions that emerged from sociological debates on the issue of new media. I specifically ask whether digital technologies allow for greater democratic involvement due to its “limitless reach” or if there are some gaps and divides that hinder access to the online sphere. I am also elaborating on the character of online activism and offer some contesting sociological perspectives on its impact and relevance.

2.1.1. New Media – an Overview

The phenomenon of “new media” has been stirring the social science waters for the past twenty years and counting. While the study of new media has primarily emerged within the discipline of new media studies as part of social science research (Rice 1984, Chun and Keenan 2006, Lister et al. 2009), the definition and implications of new media have also affected many other fields from sociology, psychology, and economics to marketing, theory of literature, anthropology and beyond. Research into new media has evolved around communication technologies based on digital coding of content, predominantly connected to personal computers and other devices linked to communication networks. But while such a broad definition might serve as an umbrella point of reference for the majority of the researchers since the establishment of new media as a serious subject of interest in the 1970s (Wardrip-Fruin and Montfort 2003; Hassan and Thomas 2006), the main approaches and paradigms have gone noteworthy changes and (r)evolution in the recent two decades. Given the fact that the rich history of new media is not a subject of this dissertation, I will narrow the scope of interest of this theoretical section solely to its relevant sociological implications. With a certain level of simplification, there are two sociologically relevant shifts in the way scholars are approaching new media. Amongst the first theorists who brought a sociologically-based critical perspective to the new media field were Kevin Robins and Frank Webster (1986, 1989). The British theorists largely built their approach on rejection of the then popular dichotomy, the speculative futuro-optimism and firm techno- determinism. For Robins and Webster, new digital technologies present an integral part of society and social interactions rather than an external variable that would shift society one way or another (Webster and Robins 1986). This critical re-evaluation of technological determinism within the new media and sociology discourse (be it with positive or negative implications) comes hand in hand with Jeffrey Alexander’s classic essay “The Sacred and Profane Information Machine: Discourse about the Computer as Ideology” (Alexander 1990). As the founding father of cultural sociology points out, “[d]iscourse about the meaning of advanced technology demarcates one of the central ideological penumbra of the age”

22 (Alexander 1990: 161). His take on information technologies provides us with a critical revision of Weber’s concept of purely technical rationality (for Weber's types of rationality, see Kalberg 1980). As he claims, the more central role “the computer” (or new media and digital technologies in general) play in our contemporary society, the more one witnesses the deepening of what Weber would call “the rationalization of the world” (Alexander 1990: 161). However, this seemingly increasing rationalization is problematic. Alexander is far from denying that information plays important role in our society, “but to speak of a society guided by information is to suggest that, for these and other reasons, society now works with the efficiency and rationality of a giant (presumably thinking) machine” (Ibid.) Moreover, to claim we live in an information society is to look uncritically at the rationalization perspective. At this point, Alexander and cultural sociology in general remind us that even in modern society, one inclines towards ritual encounters with the sacred. Technological innovations – including the increasingly important role of new media – stimulate the expectation for salvation on one hand and the fear of apocalyptic destruction on the other. He emphasizes that technology is a sign with an internal referent, never standing in the society alone. “Technology is an element in the culture and personality systems; it is both meaningful and motivated. (…) It is concrete, imagistic, utopian, and satanic, a discourse that is filled, indeed, with the grand narratives of life” (Alexander 1990: 169). For the purpose of this dissertation, this viewpoint provides valuable perspective. Not only when it comes to reflecting on existing academic production regarding new media and digital technologies, but also when one seeks to make sense of these technological innovations, new platforms and tools in everyday life. An additional important milestone in the diverse history of evolution of new media studies is the gradual shift towards reflexive analysis of new media in light of newly emerging sociological topics such as globalization, post-colonialism, gender-related issues, performative identity or theory of discourse. This continuous movement towards more complex research is well reflected in Internet Culture, a collection of essays edited by David Porter (1996). In the foreword, he summarizes the common conceptual framework into a few key questions with the most relevant for the context of this dissertation being: “What are the distinctive, defining characteristics of the Internet as a cultural sphere?”, “How does the Internet affect our understanding and experience of community?”, “What is the sociology

23 of the so-called virtual communities and the precise nature of the communality they claim to embody?”, or “Finally, what are the political dimensions of Internet culture? Whose interests does it serve and how, and what are the directions and broader implications of the ‘progress’ it represents?” (Porter 1996: xiii – xiv). These types of questions and inquiries create a new research landscape that is both built on the back of the new media discipline while also providing a critical reflection of this phenomenon using newly emerging topics from the field of sociology. In the following chapters, I will take a closer look at the way sociologists approached new media and introduced it into the classic discussion regarding civil society. Through the dissertation, I will use the term “new media” and “digital technologies” in a broad sense, while referring to Kaplan’s definition which includes all web based services “that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content” (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010: 61). The crucial condition here is the “socialization aspect of Web 2.0 in general” (Hunsinger and Senft 2014), which allows for social interaction, collaborative opportunities, community creation, and horizontal distribution of information (Desai 2013). In the second part of the theoretical section of my dissertation, I will further narrow the scope and look into the theoretical feminism-oriented conversations exploring the potential for new media to promote gender equality and contemporary feminism.

2.1.2. New Media and Civil Society

There is a rich literature that covers the potential for digital technologies to impact civil society (as defined in Edwards 2009). While some of the classics from the fields of sociology and media studies express their concerns that digital tools and new media in general increase levels of social isolation or weaken existing communities (Putnam 2000), others highlight their potential to re-vitalize social relations and the civil sphere (for ex. Rheingold 1993, 2000, 2002, 2012; Castells 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2009, 2012). Those authors, who approach the Internet and related technologies from a more optimistic perspective, talk about how the Internet has promoted democratic involvement among citizens and facilitated the establishment of interest groups and alliances of activists, i.e. tendencies that are often

24 put in contrast with declining party membership and electoral turnouts (Webster 2001; Bennett 2003). Such theoretical discussions are “framed by the general international consensus, emerging since the early 1990s, that democracy has hit upon hard times” and completed with “the hope (...) that the Internet will somehow have a positive impact on democracy and help to alleviate its ills” (Dahlgren 2005: 147). One of the studies supporting these assumptions is research by Mossberger, Tolbert, and McNeal (2008). The research focuses on the potential for so-called digital citizenship, i.e. the ability to participate in society through online platforms for the promotion of democracy. While referring to a set of data from US national opinion surveys, they claim there is an evident connection between the access and ability to use the digital technologies and “the development of civil engagement among individuals” (Mossberger et al. 2008: 144). Furthermore, the authors suggest that the importance of digital citizenship lies not only in its influence over political participation but also in its effect on economic growth, wages, and other related issues. So as new media and digital technologies play an increasingly influential role in various segments of contemporary society, they are also becoming an indispensable platform for social movements, organizations, and activists who are striving to affect diverse segments of our everyday lives. Thanks to technological development, these groups have become equipped with such tools that make organization and communication faster, more flexible, and less dependent on otherwise more limited material and economic resources (Van De Donk et al. 2004). The use of digital technologies then becomes a logical response to a changing technological environment through the employment of tactical innovation. The exchange of protest marches and the distribution of agitation leaflets for cultural jamming1, online petitions, and viral campaigns is evidence of, as resource mobilization theorists would put it, “the changing repertoire of collective action” (Tilly 1978). As Porta and Diani (2006)

1 “Culture jamming is a strategy that turns corporate power against itself by co-opting, hacking, mocking, and re-contextualizing meaning” (Peretti cit. in Couldry, Curran 2003: 32). One recent example could be backlash that stormed online media after Protein World, a weight-loss company, installed (body-shaming) advertisement all over the London and New York. The protesters took the company’s caption “Are you beach body ready?” and made it a starting point of their sharp criticism. While posting pictures of re-written subway posters or people of all sizes and shapes in bathing suits combined witch captions such as “How to be beach body ready? Have a body, go to the beach.” or “Every body is beach ready.” and alike, they managed to transform the original message into source of public mockery and ridicule using social media and online platforms. (Dwyer 2015).

25 claim, the facilitation of communication among a movement’s supporters is one of the main benefits of using digital technologies and new media by social movements. With the growing number of online platforms and in turn possibilities for various online activities, there is an increasing amount of scholarly work concerning digital technologies-related issues ranging from the Zapatista movement in Latin America (Burch 2002) to the Occupy movement in the US (Fuchs 2014b) to protests in Egypt’s Tahrir square in 2011 (Alexander 2011). The scope of interest is far from limited to that of new media as a catalyst for radical protests and social change, but it remains one of the most prevalent types of academic endeavour in recent years (Gerbaudo 2012). On the other hand, “with Internet adoption in industrialized nations growing closer to saturation and time spent online developing alongside, online activity covers an expanding and increasingly relevant part of people’s lives” (Bredl et al. 2014: 47). Therefore, many analyses are starting to focus on the effect of new media and digital technologies over everyday life, routine tasks and mundane struggles (Harcourt 1999; Elliott and Urry 2010). Traditional media, being organized alongside mainstream patterns, often marginalizes alternative actors and voices. By contrast, digital technologies open those restrictive floodgates and enable greater diversification of the media discourse. Such space might serve as an arena for producing new communities, which would raise public consciousness about the significant issues and challenge the top-down flow of information.

Media scholars have extensively critiqued the democratic deficits inherent in a corporate-dominated, highly commercialized media system – its inequalities of access, representation and political/ideological power, its economic and structural integration with globalizing capitalism and consumer culture. (Carroll and Hackett 2006: 83)

With that being said, these new levels of organization not only facilitate the management of movements’ activities but also foster the alternative values that often form the core of civil organizations; namely the prominence of diversity, openness, informality, decentralization, and inclusivity. “The Internet can be considered to be inclusive in that it enables social movement organizations and network of activists to develop common ‘frames of meaning’ as well as actions” (Bailey et al. 2007: 98). Therefore, the importance of digital technologies

26 does not lie solely in an ability to overcome material boundaries such as economic resources or geographical distance but also in the capacity of these new tools and platforms to engage in discursive struggles over the shape of symbolic codes. In another words, alongside practical implications for everyday communication, organization and forms of activism), a new digitally networked environment also produces new forms of language, media and meanings.

2.1.3. Limitless Reach versus the Digital Divide

This development of shared frameworks is, to a large extent, enabled by the interactive character of the Web 2.0: a collaborative mechanism based on user-created content. As Dahlgren emphasizes, “citizens’ practices were becoming very diversified; the affordances that allowed for easily achieved user-generated content (UGC) were promoting more active modes of participation” (Dahlgren 2015: 24). For some theorists, this openness goes hand in hand with the seemingly limitless reach of these platforms. “The Internet uniquely lacks technological limitations on how large its database of content can grow and how many people around the globe can be connected to it” (Campbell, Martin, and Fabos 2012: 45). But while there is a clear consensus when it comes to relevance and significance of studying Internet-related phenomena, many voices are calling upon the importance of remaining reflexive and critical (Downey and Fenton 2003; Chadwick and Howard 2009). Overly excessive claims about the limitless nature of digital technologies overlook several important issues; one being the so called digital divide. The digital divide is a complex matter that manifests itself on several different levels. Firstly, there is a global gap when it comes to basic access to digital technologies that runs alongside the division between the Global North and Global South (Norris 2001). Secondly, researchers are devoting more and more attention to the divide that exists within one society or region, and which often reinforces existing social inequalities (Dijk 2005). However, this gap between the so called information poor and information rich does not reflect only the barriers to accessing these platforms, but also the subtler and more knowledge-based obstacles which define how and how efficiently one is approaching the digital technologies

27 (Cammaerts 2003). Even though the gap has narrowed in many ways, significant differences continue to exist; especially in relation to education, age, and race (Warschauer 2004). One of the issues that is disrupting a more optimistic approach to digital technologies as a platform that can empower people who have been previously silent or whose voices have not been heard is the so called “googlearchy” (Hindman 2008). The concept refers to an idea that the potential limitlessness of the new media sphere is to a large extent distorted by the rule of the most excessively linked key words, news, blog posts, and information in general. That means – in a nutshell – the link structure of the overall digital network restricts the content one sees while browsing online. So while in theory, one can search for all the available information, in practice, most opportunities for accessing alternative voices are being fairly restricted. Users then end up getting and – in return – also searching for very narrow and already familiar excerpt of the information reality (Vaidhyanathan 2011). As a result, users only reinforce themselves in their opinion and ideas, strengthen their already existing circles and ties, and don’t really encounter different or conflicting views to their own. Even when it comes to alternative or safe spaces were one can voice his or her traditionally marginalized voice and ideas, there is the potential downside of further fragmentation (Barber 2003) and the so called ghettoization. “The Internet also (potentially) contributes to the fragmentation of the public sphere and/or ghettoization of (often-male) like-minded individuals” (Bailey et al. 2007: 98). However, the concept of “googlearchy” or – broadly speaking – a rule of any other major player in the online sphere such as Facebook, the most popular social networking site to the date (Fuchs 2014a), is not limited to restricting access to available data. Additionally, these companies collect data about users’ browsing history, location or gender, and sell them to advertising clients, i.e. engage in economic surveillance. Even though – technically speaking – the users agree with such practices through ticking the box about the sites’ cookies policy or electronically signing the newest terms and conditions, it still contradicts the prevalent ideas about the democratic potential of new media and digital technologies. “Facebook advances ideology in its privacy policy by guarantying users that it protects their privacy, but in the same privacy policy it enables the commodification of user data advertising” (Fuchs 2014a: 173). Leaving aside the economic aspect of this type of data- gathering and surveillance, users are sharing personal information and content that can be

28 put into different context or used in originally unintended situations which might result not only in data or identity theft but also in subtler issues such as public shaming or cyber bullying. Furthermore, the omnipresent nature of our everyday interaction with the world of digital technologies and new media is progressively blurring the once popular distinction between the online and offline world as two separate spheres that can be entered, exited, and re-entered. These developments are also tightly connected to an assumption that the dividing line between the public and private sphere is under re-negotiation (Meikle and Young 2012). Specifically, with mobile devices being used not only for everyday communication but also for socializing, education, and political engagement, the very distinction of what is truly a personal issue, and what is public – or political for that matter, is getting increasingly harder to define.

2.1.4. Habermasian Online Spaces and the Issue of "Cliktivism"

One of the networks that is being largely discussed when it comes to the blurring of distinction between private and public, or private and political, is Twitter: an online social networking and micro blogging site where users post and read short messages, or “tweets”. Lately, quite a few researchers have been associating Twitter – especially after 2011, a year when protests sprung from Cairo, to Madrid, and New York – with the term “revolution” while describing the emancipatory power of this communication platform for political protest (Gerbaudo 2012; Trottier and Fuchs 2014a; Fuchs 2014b). These authors approach Twitter as new public arenas of political engagement and communication and refer heavily to the 2011 protests, uprisings, and occupying activities as an example of such technology- driven shift. “Twitter revolution claims imply that Twitter constitutes a new public sphere of political communication that has emancipatory political potentials” (Fuchs 2014a: 280). They see this and similar social network platforms as a public sphere of Habermasian (1991) kind where people discuss not only art and culture but also form their opinion on economic and political issues, engaging in discussion which subsequently forms public opinion and prevalent (or more commonly termed “trending”) topics of shared interest. Habermas himself originally saw newly emerging mass media as a force that leads to apolitical attitudes in contrast to a classical culture which fosters rational engagement.

29 However, in the foreword to the second edition of The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, he admits that such perspective on the role of mass media in the public sphere – which he has originally formulated – was too simplistic. Nevertheless, some theorists go even further and, in contrast to authors who treat these new public arenas as a space to produce and consume media messages (Mandiberg 2012), they suggest that it also serves as sphere for mobilizing, getting together, and engaging in protests or any other related action. “With the arrival of globally accessible publishing, freedom of speech is now freedom of the press, and freedom of the press is freedom of assembly” (Biagi 2008: 172). Such claims are mainly built on the assumption that the horizontal, collaborative, and participatory character of new media is changing the way civil society works. Moreover, it is also tightly connected to the beliefs that at least some of the protests and fights could be completely fought and won within the digital sphere. And while it is possible to find examples of protests that were executed solely online, some agree that “social media cannot replace collective action that involves spatio-temporal presence” (Fuchs 2014a: 186). Simply said, meeting, organizing, and protesting online cannot really trump face to face interaction, the materiality of protest action, and the experience of getting together with fellow movement-members and protesters. An example of such analysis that follows this theoretical argument could be found in Edwards’s research on the Dutch women’s movement where he tries to find out how the use of the Internet forms the organizational infrastructure of the group and its influences its capacity to affect the mainstream political agenda. His research analyses not only how the “physical” organizations collaborate with the digital technologies and how such uses influence the effectiveness of their mobilization and problem articulation, but also explores the new “virtual” collaborations and how they enrich the overall women’s movement organizational capacity (Edwards 2004: 161 – 180). Concluding that there are significant changes in the inner structure of the movement, Edwards is far from seeing the internet as a tool for a radical shift in the established power nexus in which the movement and political actors operate. As he, together with other scholars, states: “although the availability of new communication technologies makes traditional organizations somewhat dispensable for mobilization purposes, a certain institutionalization remains necessary in order to exert a more lasting political influence” (Edwards 2004: 176).

30 One of the critical concepts, which further questions the role of online activism in contemporary world, is the “clicktivism” or “slacktivism”; commonly described as feel-good type of activism such as signing an online petition or sharing a Facebook post or posting a tweet that has no political impact besides giving those who participate in that endeavour false sense of self-worth and an illusion of having impact on the relevant issues without taking any actual effort or risk (Morozov 2009). Notwithstanding, one cannot overlook all the examples of online-based activism, which has meaningful impact in a sense that forces multinational corporations to take down a sexist advertisement or rethink the dehumanizing conditions in their sweatshops. Further, there are also those impacts which are merely impossible to objectively measure such as trans-visibility online campaigns and trans- positive discussions and their role in introducing the traditionally marginalized issue of trans-experience into mainstream. Such ambiguity of the online activism phenomena only serves as an example of how difficult it is to grasp the complex nature of digital technologies and new media and the impact they have over the contemporary society.

2.2. Feminism in the Age of Digital Activism

The following part of the theoretical section focuses on the state of contemporary feminism in the digital age. The chapters 2.2.1. – 2.2.4. cover several key topics – firstly, I look into how the movement is influenced by newly emerging anti-feminist narratives that are taking place in the online sphere. I then present an overview of the current theoretical discussions about the evolution of the movement in relation to digital technologies, including the revival of the consciousness-raising tradition and critical feminist reflections on the global and local component of network society.

2.2.1. Anti-Feminist Backlash and "Gender Ideology" Narratives

Discussions about the state of contemporary feminism take the form of several narratives. Alongside theoretical dialogues taking place in academia and within the activist circles (for overview see Tong 2009), there are numerous and often reoccurring discussions shaping the public discourse with the ones vilifying and downgrading the movement being generally more prevalent. One of the most widely articulated and repeated is the story about the

31 gradual end of the movement and the ideas it promotes. “Feminism is pronounced ‘dead’ on a regular basis, especially by anti-feminist commentators eager to ram the final nail into the coffin, but also, sometimes by established feminists” (Redfern and Aune 2010: 1). Such negative backlash is nothing new. Rather, it is a recurring phenomenon which has been prevalent in both the public perception of and personal attitudes towards feminism through the long history of the movement (Faludi 2006). One of the more recent forms of such anti-feminist narrative, targeting mainly the civil society and academia, have spread across European countries (Kuhar and Paternotte 2017) including the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This negative sentiment, targeting both the work and founding ideas of feminist and gender equality-oriented organizations and researchers goes hand in hand with the overall dismissive attitude towards the civil society and academia (or more precisely humanities). The current anti-feminist campaigns’ rhetoric uses the term “gender ideology” to encompass all forms of activism, policy proposals, and debates connected to women’s rights and the LGBTQ+ movement. It resonates especially strongly in the areas concerning gay marriage, gender sensitive education, women’s reproductive rights, the trans community, and violence against women and girls. The “gender ideology” rhetoric also targets academia, specifically research institutions which rely on theoretical production that is based on the notion of gender as socially constructed category (Kuhar and Paternotte 2018). The anti-gender campaigns are coming from several different actors, most notably right-wing positions and the Catholic Church, but also seemingly more constructive neoliberal voices (Verloo and Paternotte 2018). The anti- feminist rhetoric has its tradition in the region in both, the pre-and post-communist context. Before the Velvet revolution in 1989, “feminism in general terms (always in the singular and contrary to its actual left-oriented modern history) was presented by official propaganda as ‘bourgeois ideology’, which had nothing to say to ‘socialist’ women” (Šmejkalová 2004: 169, italics in the original). In the transition period and further in the early 2000s, feminism was perceived as a leftist ideology, a communism in disguise, whose primarily goal is to introduce arbitrary “equality” and to limit people’s individual differences and desires (True 2003; Saurer, Lanzinger, and Frysak 2006). The current trend sees feminist and gender equality efforts as part of an orchestrated political strategy (EPF 2018), whose goal it is to impose minority values on average people

32 (Kuhar and Paternotte 2018) and to destroy bedrocks of contemporary society, most notably the nuclear heterosexual family. Despite the fact that the Catholic Church is usually more of a peripheral voice in the Czech Republic, one of the most atheist countries in the world (Evans 2017), it manages to speak to a broader audience thanks to its links to the anti- Brussels rhetoric, which pairs well with the rising anti-EU sentiment in the country (Eurobarometer 2019). In Slovakia, where the Church’s position is significantly stronger, such sentiment is even more reinforced being channelled through mainstream public as well as the country’s political representation. The European Union (and potentially other international actors) is accused of imposing a foreign and “morally questionable” agenda onto poorer states of the global South (and East, in this case) through financial ties (Korolczuk and Graff 2018). The current situation negatively affects feminist and gender equality organizations whose work is being supported through national and international grants (which is the case for the majority of such organizations). These organizations are labelled as “foreign agents”; they are accused of having low social credibility, compared to initiatives funded through their local bases, which is usually the case for anti-gender or religious groups. Subsequently, this sentiment is then reproduced by part of the political representation and has a direct impact on the issue of funding and systemic support of the gender equality agenda. As for EU funding, the state (that is de facto redistributing the EU funds) is directing most of the grants into work and family reconciliation (EWL 2018). In the context of the “gender ideology” rhetoric, the online sphere is becoming one of the most important arenas in which established feminist organizations are able to challenge this anti-feminist and populist discourse. As large portion of the anti-feminist misconceptions are being created and shared online, new media activism offers a possibility of how to debunk and fight back against disinformation or “fake news”. With decreasing funding and funding that is directed only into specific parts of the gender equality agenda, new media provide a platform where diverse and “less popular” topics can be promoted and further mainstreamed into the public discourse.

33 2.2.2. Understanding Online Feminism - Post-Feminism, the Wave Narrative and/or Beyond

The critical discussions about the state and relevance of contemporary feminism does not consist only of hostile opposition that labels feminist oriented activism and academic production as an orchestrated propaganda project. There are productive theoretical debates and ongoing voices that constructively question whether the ways we conceptualize and think about the feminist movement and ideas are still relevant and valid. One of the positions within the conversation which questions if the concepts used in the current discussions about feminism are fully reflective of the complexity of the 21st century is a widespread phenomenon commonly referred to as “post-feminism”. This phenomenon often manifests itself through alternative gender projects or strategies related to individualism and consumerism (Tasker and Negra 2007). While some theorists approach this discussion as a sign that feminism in its traditional sense “is no longer needed, it is a spent force” and therefore will be replaced by a “repertoire of new meanings” (McRobbie 2004: 255), others suggest that the term “need not imply the demise or redundancy of feminism (...) [and see] the post as ‘coming after’, without necessarily meaning that the earlier versions of feminism have been superseded or killed off” (Robinson 2009: 9). In coexistence with the post-feminist perspective, there is also rich theoretical literature trying to conceptualize contemporary feminism, including online-based feminism, within the framework of the “wave” narrative. While the general consensus states that the relevance and character of feminism is not declining but rather changing (Budgeon 2011), there are contesting viewpoints regarding to what extent contemporary feminism creates a new distinctive wave. And if it does, what are its face, goals, and strategies and which wave are we in? Marking a change in political ideology (Mackay 2015), some authors are stating that while the second-wave feminism2 focused on challenging existing political structures on the basis of a shared and collective experience of oppression and subordination of women as a group, more recent forms of feminism constituting the third wave of the movement are centred around identity-based politics and stronger individualistic approach (see Gillis et al. 2004). Additionally, the third wave has been labelled as inclusive (Zack 2005) with

2 The second wave feminism is being used to describe period in the movement’s history from the early 1960s to the late 1980s within the American and Western European region. The third wave of the movement is usually defined as starting in the late 1980s, again in the Western context (Mackay 2015).

34 intersectional, post-colonial and (as mentioned at the beginning of this chapter) even postfeminist tendencies. Feminists self-labelling themselves as “third-wavers” incorporate diverse strategies and theoretical basis into their repertoires, the one thing they usually have in common is their critique of how second wave feminism has inadequately addressed and incorporated differences between women into their theoretical production and everyday activism and strive to overcome these flaws (Schuster 2013: 11-12). In another words, while the second wave stresses continuity with its predecessors and their ideas, third wave – Bailey argues – “seems to identify itself as such largely as a means of distancing itself from earlier feminism, as a means of stressing what are perceived as discontinuities with earlier feminist thought and activity” (Bailey 1997: 18). Theoretical literature sees third wave feminism in a more positive light: as less homogenizing and more critical towards its second wave predecessors whose collective position was largely based on the needs of white Western middle class women. However, there is a more critical approach. This approach focuses on tendencies within the contemporary movement often labelled as popular feminism. In light of the recent development of feminist activism (both offline and online), there are voices emphasizing that this new popular “feminist lite” or “fun feminism” is no more than empty label anyone can apply as she or he pleases because “it has lost all sense of intellectual rigour or political challenge” (Kiraly and Tyler 2015: x). This line of scepticism towards the “seriousness” and “realness” of some of the forms of contemporary feminism is based on critique of (neo)liberal politics that – as Kiraly and Tyler assert – is an inherent part of this popular feminism. As such, it creates a false sense of freedom and agency, i.e. a presumption that women’s liberation is one’s individual struggle rather than complex and ongoing deconstruction of oppressive system. For more critical theorists, the discourse of individual choice and personal ability (and responsibility) to work on a better and more empowered self, have resulted in making feminism seem redundant and obsolete, “unnecessary for women, especially in the West, where structural inequalities are increasingly viewed as personal problems that can be resolved through individual achievement” (Baer 2016: 20). Even though such critical voices are not dismissing present-day feminism as such, they offer a condemnatory view on a significant – and further growing – part of the movement. These discussions are especially relevant while reflecting on different forms of online (not only

35 feminist) practices often labelled as “feel good activism”; a phenomenon that I will elaborate on in the following chapter and then further through the second part of the dissertation. The conceptualization of contemporary feminism within the wave narrative would not be complete without the viewpoint of the feminist movement entering the fourth wave. Less frequent but no less relevant, there are theoretical voices claiming that the changes in feminist strategies and modes of activism have been so significant and distinct that they mark a new stage in the movement’s development. For some scholars and feminist commentators, digital based activism presents a paradigm shift in feminist protest culture and as such denotates a fourth wave of the movement (Cochrane 2013; Evans 2015). As Munro argues, “contemporary feminism is characterised by its diversity of purpose, but the reliance on the internet is a constant” (Munro 2013: 22). Overlooking the eruption of voices all over the online sphere amplifying feminist-conscious ideas in an innovative and creative ways during the past two decades, feminist authors are enthusiastically claiming that the movement is “alive and kicking” (Thornham and Weissmann 2013: 1). As believed by many, new media and digital technologies have introduced significant changes into civil society and feminist activists are using these new platforms and tools in great numbers. “Through different channels and for different reasons, women have harnessed the creative, social, communicative, political, cultural, and economic potential of the Web in many different ways” (Youngs 2007: 6). Those voices and projects are very diverse and, in many cases, different from what has traditionally been labelled as part of the feminist movement, but does not reduce their range of influence, quite the contrary. Thus, the potential benefits of feminist engagement with new digital technologies – or in another words the question of online feminism – have attracted significant attention among theorists from various corners of the academia.

2.2.3. Consciousness-Raising Now and Then

New media and digital technologies provided feminist activists with rich varieties of new tools and strategies. The growing popularity of new pro-feminist communities within cyberspace is often put in context with the consciousness raising tradition. As Gillis points

36 out, it could be a successful tactic for utilizing the potential of new technologies in the revitalization of once vivid practice:

The communication technologies of cyberspace are regarded as the opportunity needed to bring about the global feminist movements of the new millennium (…). The Internet is thus vaunted as the global consciousness- raising tool which the first and second waves lacked. (Gillis et al. 2004: 185)

Within these theoretical discussions, the potential of digital technologies and new media is seen as a revival of once vivid practice. The presence of feminist activists within cyberspace is used as an argument for the movement’s timeliness and wellbeing. As Kennedy sums up: “In the twenty-first century, there has been considerable feminist-backlash, anti-feminist sentiment, and talk about feminism being dead. By simply looking at the presence of feminists on the Web, we know that this assertion is false” (Kennedy 2007: 7). In this context, the use of new media by feminist activists is seen not only as a mere reaction to the changing technological environment but also as a chance to disrupt the mainstream anti-feminist discourse which is partially produced by mass media. Additionally, it reaches beyond the resource-oriented perspective when some of the voices bring into the discussion the notion of a sense of belonging and community, i.e. the ability to locate oneself within a system of relations which is a necessary prerequisite of collective action (Melucci 1996: 73). Such tendency can be found in various analyses and sources – for example in a special issue of The Scholar and Feminist Online devoted to the topic of digital technologies and feminism, Traister describes how she grew up with the sense of being the only feminist far and wide. But when she “entered” the online world, she experienced the sense of welcoming community.

Looking back, it feels as though all of that — all my youthful feminism — happened in a vacuum (…). Online, I found women (and men) who thought about feminism as much as I did, and who knew far more than I about its history, its legal applications, and its cultural implications (…). Their voices were, by turns, earnest and funny and academic and casual. They came from parts of the country I'd never visited, connected me to women I'd never have encountered otherwise (…). It was women and men coming together, over their keyboards, over the Internet, to address the issues that mattered most to them. A consciousness-raising session, of sorts, for the twenty-first century. (Traister 2007: unnumbered preface)

Historically, consciousness raising was a specific mode of activism that occurred within second-wave feminism which signalled the ushering in of a new kind of political organization (Pilcher and Whelehan 2004: 17). The everyday practice of consciousness-raising brings women’s individual experiences (of oppression, frustration, exclusion and so on) together in order to show them they are not “alone” while dealing with those issues. Feminist topics such as sexual violence or discrimination within the labour market are not – consciousness raising groups insist – personal issues, they are political problems that have to be solved on a more structural/institutional level. Few feminists claimed consciousness-raising would solve all problematic issues and undermine patriarchal domination by itself but it was a very first and important step towards equality. In order to subvert any kind of oppression, one has to understand its mechanisms and extent (see Chambers 2005).3 Broadly said, consciousness raising in the shape of an informal group served as an area where women could meet in an equal and (ideally) non-judgmental atmosphere and intensively discuss their personal problems, reveal their political dimensions, and suggest subversive solutions. Undoubtedly, the main benefit of the consciousness-raising phenomenon is in recruiting a large number of new members and supporters of feminist movements, which increased their political power. Most of the aforementioned examples cite more accessible and geo-transcendental character as one of the greatest advantages of online communities. However, taking part in the consciousness-raising feminist endeavour can take many other forms as well. So even things that might not appear as a straightforward and clearly targeted example of feminist activism, could be potentially seen as a specific expression of feminist ideas and struggle for gender equality. One of the less obvious examples could be personal

3 As mentioned earlier in the previous chapter while reflecting on the differences between second and third wave, consciousness raining tradition is not without its potential pitfalls. Firstly, some of the groups could promote conformity in terms of specific set of beliefs such as “care-focused feminism” (as found in Gilligan 1982), exclusion (no men in the group), or silencing of topics that were labelled as not “relevant” (for example the effect of disability to one’s gender identity). Secondly, some theorists are quite skeptical when it comes to the effect of consciousness raising on social change (see Bourdieu 2001). Lastly, the “raising” of one’s consciousness presupposes the existence of previous unenlightened (or better said “false”) stage and linear evolution from one phase to another. And, as Stanley and Wise foreground: “[i]t also sees this higher consciousness as one which enables people to escape from confinement within the purely subjective and the ‘false’ into a more objective state of consciousness” (Stanley and Wise 1993: 121). But regardless of some of the rather problematic implications, its main advantage lies in recruiting a huge number of new members and supporters of the feminist movement that increased its political power.

38 blogging that does not necessarily address feminist issues explicitly but has consciousness- raising and empowering potential. The key component is the transformation of a personal topic into a political one through making it visible and discussing it within a public space. This “blurring of boundaries” which is somehow symptomatic of the digital technologies discussion then fits the traditional feminist framework that has been consciously disrupting these dichotomies for several decades.

“Much of what occurs on feminist blogs is consciousness-raising, which was the bedrock of second-wave feminism and in many ways its most indelible legacy. The mindful connection of individual problems to societal ones is crucial and must happen continuously to counter-act narratives put forth in mainstream, non-feminist media.” (Zeisler 2013: 179)

However, the question of “personal is political” in the age of digital technologies is not the only topic re-framed by the feminist perspective. The discussion about the feel-good type of activism which has no significant impact on the outside world (as some theorists suggest) outlined above is also becoming problematic when seen through a consciousness-raising lens: To state that an online activity – be it personal blog discussing one’s coming of age or female to male transition, tweet about overly high taxes on feminine hygiene products or vlog offering gender analysis of the newest sci-fi movie starring a female linguist – has no relevant political impact, means overlooking an important factor. In a framework where even the most intimate and subjective questions such as sexual orientation, body image, and personal relationships are political issues (and vice versa), no activity that involves making one’s voice heard is unavailing. Clearly, quantification and exact measuring of the effect these activities have over actual public opinion and people’s individual consciousness is extremely difficult and problematic. Nevertheless, to ignore the role new media and digital technologies are playing when it comes to raising feminist consciousness would be one-sided and simplistic. As Zeisler points out, discussion about consciousness raising potential does not focus only on the voice, idea or story that is being publicly shared. For her, the very “speaking out” is in a way feminist-authored intervention. “This makes the authoring of, not just content, but representational strategies even more important as a political statement and as a claim over

39 and into more mainstream spaces” (Zeisler 2013: 174). This is also relevant in regards to the engagement of young women and girls who are active users of digital technologies on the one hand but their activities are often being ridiculed as driven by trivialities and insecurities on the other (Dobson 2015). The notion of visibility and display as an act of power eventually leads to a discussion about the idea that within the new media scene, one can represent himself or herself in a much more fluid, fragmented, and less rigid way. There are those authors who suggest that not only people play with their identities in an online setting but also that technology itself has an impact over and causes changes in the very conceptions of identity. As Hine emphasizes, the theoretical polemic should devote substantial attention to the revision of the relation between the digital technologies, online communities, and people’s identities. “From an experimental mode in which the technology acquired the inherent quality of impoverished communication, we appear to have moved to an opposing but equally determined view of the technology as leading to rich social formations and fragmented identities (Hine 2000: 20). This theoretical discussion originates within the work of one of the pioneering feminist theorists of digital technologies or – to put it more accurately – of cyberspace. Donna Haraway addressed the relation between technology and feminist empowerment in her ground-breaking essay “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1991) over two decades ago. As she implies, the existence of cybernetic organisms, or “cyborgs,” blurs the boundaries between what is human and what is machine and subsequently introduces the world beyond gender, a world where the archaic categories of men and women are replaced by fluid alternative identities.

High-tech culture challenges these dualisms in intriguing ways. It is not clear who makes and who is made in the relation between human and machine. It is not clear what is mind and what body in machines that resolve into coding practices. (Haraway 1991: 177)

Haraway and her successors (for ex. Plant 1998) are advancing a symbiotic perspective on women and technology. The cyberfeminist tradition has used this concept of “blurring the boundaries” in order to highlight the impact of new technologies not only on the “abstract” aspects of the gender order (i.e. the construction of new alternative identities) but also on

40 the more practical issues of networking and activism (Wolmark 2003). Cyberspace provides access to those ideas and identity politics that were previously excluded from the dominant sphere of knowing and therefore potentially allows emasculating of the dominant discourse (Wakeford 1997). However, more restrained and critical voices emphasize that in many cases, the online sphere becomes an arena to play out already existing power relations (Zeisler 2013). Cyberfeminism has become a celebratory narrative praising women’s mere presence online as empowering and subversive without acknowledging structural features of new media and digital technologies that might reproduce rather than deconstruct existing power relations (Gajjala and Oh 2012). In opposition to scholars spotlighting the visibility of feminist activists and their individual and collective achievements (Harris 2008; Keller 2012, 2013), one can notice a slight shift towards more critical or pessimistic take on emancipatory potential of online feminism (Hasinoff 2014) conceptualizing digital technologies as a powerful tool of social control (Langlois 2015) and recognizing “the structural constrains that shape feminist “the structural constraints that shape feminist activism on social media platforms and the problems of visibility for feminist organizers” (Megarry 2018: 1071). Additionally, the idea that the identity in online sphere can be “managed” rather than lived and performed independently regardless the existing gendered experience every new media user has is overlooking (as many neoliberal concepts do) broader social context. The way we convey our identity in the new media environment, the way we use, approach, and make sense of digital technologies – those are issues highly influenced by the social, historical, and cultural context of our lives.

2.2.4. Global Phenomenon, Local Perspective – Critical Reflection of Castells’ Network Society

The previous chapters offered reflection on the growing number of research trying to ascertain the specific impact of new media and digital technologies on the lives of women and girls (for ex. Harcourt 1999) and how these new spaces and opportunities enhance the work end effort of feminist and women-oriented organizations and projects across the globe (for ex. Edwards 2004). As I pointed out, in most such studies, digital technologies or – broadly said – new media are being perceived as a global phenomenon, which, in a similar

41 manner to feminism, has the potential to transform things on the transnational but also local level, affect organizations’ politics and matters that are deeply personal to people’s lives. At the same time, the global character of new media does not translate to digital technologies being perceived as a homogenizing force or unifying power creating uniformed global village. As Youngs stress, “[r]ecognition of the materiality of feminism – that is concrete social and geographical attachments and particularities – is implicit in any critical reflection on Western feminist knowledge and principles” (Youngs 1999: 56). The same perspective is necessary when it comes to theorizing digital technologies. However, many researchers do have a tendency to overlook the differences in the new media usage based on varying local conditions and background. One of the examples of such theoretical approach has been developed by Manuel Castells (1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2009, 2012), a prominent network society theorist who treats digital technologies as a unifying component that leads to the spatial and temporal reordering of contemporary experience. While coining the term “space of flows” and “timeless time”, Castells (1996) claims that information technologies are detaching us from our cultural identity and local context, hence result in greater homogenization. Evidently, digital technologies and new media are helping us to overcome geographical distances and reach out to people in different cultural contexts. They create communities, Habermasian public space, and – to some extent – transform the social movements that are using them, as Castells claims in his newer book (2012). But how we approach, use, and make sense of them remains (in a similar manner as when we “do feminism”) distinct and unique based on our position in and experience with the social world. When trying to understand what is problematic on Castells’ position, one must take a look at some of the key terms he is using while building up his theoretical framework. The paramount concept of his approach is the “information society”, which he has been expanding ever since the first volume of his information age trilogy, The Rise of Network Society (1996). For Castells, the information society refers to “the social structure that characterizes society in the early twenty-first century, a social structure constructed around (but not determined by) digital networks of communication” (Castells 2009: 4). Ultimately, Castells is trying to define the so called spirit of the time and he sees the ethos of the information age in the network. For him, the network is a glue that holds society together.

42 With a new organizational scheme comes hand in hand the redefinition of material foundations of the overall society and our everyday existence. This reconstruction manifests itself through the gradual separation and dissociation of contingency and time sharing. Space of flows – which are made of modes and networks – are a new type of special existence that allows distant real-time interaction that exist at the same time, i.e. interaction without territorial continuity. The blurring of sequence of social practice then leads to the “annihilation” of time (Castells 1996). Within this setting, he introduces what he believes to be one of the greatest advantages of the network society and that is the so called mass self- communication. The key aspect of this novel activity is the capacity to produce self-generated messages such as video or blog and sharing them through the digital technologies channels, or networks. What is, according to Castells, historically unique and novel when it comes to this endeavour, is the articulation of all forms of communication into a complex, interactive, and digital hypertext (Castells 2009). The potential of this mass self-communication, which is enabled by horizontal networks, is to organize and articulate counter power and ultimately shift and transform power relations. In his more recent book Communication Power, he then conceptualizes power to be the most fundamental process in society, while explaining that society is being defined by values and institutions, and what is valued and institutionalized is then defined by power relations. As he concludes his argument, “power is based on the control of communication and information” (Castells 2009: 3). Within this framework defined mainly by the networks as a key structuring element of the information society and communication power as a regulatory principle, he starts to talk about the power of social movements, organizations, and other actors and the way they promote their values. “The more the movement is able to convey its message over the communication networks, the more citizens’ consciousness rises, and the more the public sphere of communication becomes a contested terrain” (Castells 2012: 237). In a straightforward manner, he draws a connection between the access to new digital platforms, the availability (or availability to access) alternative or newly introduced ideas and information, the changes in public consciousness, and shifts in power relations. Needless to say, the reality concerning (not exclusively) new media and digital technologies is much more complex. However, the main question here is: do these assumptions about spatial and time detachment or about raising

43 consciousness through communication power lead, in Castells’ theoretical framework, to greater homogenization and disconnection from local cultural context? At first glance, Castells refuses that his perspective results into the rise of homogenous global culture and greater convergence. He insists that the main trends are historic cultural diversity and fragmentation while claiming that “communities around the world fight to preserve the meaning of locality, and to assert the space of places, based on experience, over the logic of the space of flows, based on instrumentality” (Castells 2009: 35- 36). The process, which is being described as a grass-rooting of the space of flows, takes a more concrete form in his book Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet where Castells (2012) provides practical examples of diversity within the network society while referring to initiatives such as the Occupy Wall Street movement. To advance further in his theoretical argumentation, Castells addresses the question of successful communication which is, as he claims, based on a common language of values and beliefs (he treats culture as a set of values and belief that motivates peoples’ behaviour). Here comes the critical point as Castells proposes that the reason the communication between locally rooted actors within the global network society can work, is because the common shared values is the communication itself. “The common culture of global network society is a culture of protocols of communication enabling communication between different cultures on the basis not of shared values but of the sharing of the value of communication itself” (Castells 2009: 38). In sum, the culture within the network society is not made of content but of the process, i.e. the communication itself. In closing, the way Castells approaches the notion of values and culture in the age of network society does not comply with the main notion of this dissertation: that digital technologies and new media, and the meaning and potential we ascribe to them, are culturally and historically specific. In Castells’ understanding of the network society, the terms “values” and “culture” are becoming empty shells with no substantial content. “Global culture is a culture for the sake of communication.” (Castells 2009: 38) is the underlining presumption that structures Castells’ work and that ultimately compromise his initial claims about diversity and local grass-rooting. Castell’s demonstrates this approach even in his book on communication power where he focuses mainly on the United States context. But it does not prevent him from making a generic assumption about the nature of global network

44 society. As he claims, “I am convinced that the analytical perspective put forward in this book is not context dependent, and could be used to understand political processes in a diversity of countries including the developing world. This is because the network society is global, and so are the global communication networks” (Castells 2009: 9). Castells is one of the most prominent theorists of the “information society”, providing a robust and complex take on the changes and implications connected to the arrival of new media. And even though his sober, non-speculative, and very rigorous approach to the phenomenon should be appreciated, a more critical approach should be taken to his take on new media and network society as independent of the context in which the event, movement or any other studied object occur. This – I argue – is a narrowing and reductive perspective, which fails to take into account the influence of historical, cultural, and political circumstances on the specific ways people approach new media or – in Castell’s own words – the global communication network. He also very much neglects his own position as a researcher fully embedded in the Anglo-American or western academic tradition. With his famous quote “the brightness of the rising star often blinds the observer” (Castells 1999: 38) he warns fellow researchers who might get “blinded” by the novelty of new technologies and therefore overstate their potential. However, he himself got blinded by his effort to come up with so called one-size-fits-all analytical framework that would explain in almost positivist rigorousness the complexity of network society. In her article “Feminist Visions of the Network Society”, Gurumurthy (2014) reconceptualizes the basic notions of the network society theory from feminist and gender oriented perspective. She mainly focuses on the essence of the network age which lies in its democratizing and (at the same time) totalizing tendencies. As Gurumurthy points out, “the transnational public sphere creates new community constellations” and these new spheres require new ways of thinking and understanding of inclusion, participation and justice with focus on how feminist agenda is being incorporated into newly emerging power relations and spaces of debate (Gurumurthy 2011: 464-466). The complexity of digital technologies lies in the fact that they have symbolic power while creating new language, new media and therefore new meanings, cultural expressions and identities. Additionally, they possess the power to influence economic and political realities, as well as social connections. The notion of complexity of the network society is accompanied by its diversity, openness and

45 accessibility – qualities, that are often accepted without further critical examination. On that account, she emphasizes “[t]he primary logic of the hegemonic information society is of commodification in the name of participation and citizenship”. However, only those who are able to navigate “the digital capitalism that uses the commons and gift economy for expropriation” (Gurumurthy 2011: 466) are able to thrive within the network ecosystem. Gurumurthy recognizes paradigm change in the rise of network society and encourages feminist scholars to reflect on the new realities with its potential benefits but also new dangers using critical feminist lenses. As she put on display, Castell’s vision remains largely oblivious to the politics of gender and further reinforces the neo-liberal, emancipation-for-all take on the network society. His theory provides us with important basis for further exploration of new media and digital technologies. Nonetheless, I follow Gurumurthy’s footsteps while drawing attention to the importance of critical feminist perspectives which challenge neo-liberal theories of “rationality, self-interest and hyper- individuality” (Gurumurthy 2011: 469). Together with her, I argue that such a standpoint is better tailored to capture the complexities of the network society, as it is built upon invaluable experience with “a long historic struggle against colonizing technologies that appropriate gender power to reinforce neo-liberal, patriarchal orders, enslaving women's bodies and life worlds to the ‘cause’ of development” (Gurumurthy 2011: 464). Only when being able to recognize its hierarchical oppression and silencing, system of gate-keepers and surveillance and other totalizing tendencies, one can understand the deeply gendered construction of the network society, including its potential for emancipation and resistance.

2.3. Theoretical Summary – Points of Departure

The growing theoretical literature and research in the field of sociology, media, and other related studies is creating an enormous pool of relevant assumptions, hypotheses, and empirical data concerning the issue of digital technologies and new media. While most researchers would agree that these new platforms and tools are playing an increasingly important role in both civil society in general and various aspects of our everyday lives, there is hardly any prevalent or common consensus on their nature, character, and the ways in which one can most effectively and reliably measure their impact and influence. This multi-

46 paradigmatic landscape makes it almost impossible to come up with an exhaustive overview that would provide the readers with a complete summary of existing literature. This theoretical section therefore seeks to offer a brief insight into the field on the one hand and to outline the most relevant topics and questions on the other. In the first part of the theoretical section of my dissertation, 2.1. Understanding the Role of New Media & Digital Technologies, I first emphasized those theorists who are trying to think beyond the dichotomy between future-optimism versus techno-determinism (Robins and Webster 1986, 1989) while underlining the flagship text of these efforts, Alexander’s essay “The Sacred and Profane Information Machine: Discourse about the Computer as Ideology” (1990). Subsequently, I focused on the relation between new media and civil society, pinpointing some of the existing studies covering the connection between access to digital technologies and the development of civil engagement (Mossberger et al. 2008) and its influence over political protests and social change (Burch 2002; Alexander 2011; Gerbaudo 2012; Fuchs 2014b). I then presented the ongoing discussion about the influence of digital technologies on the promotion of democratic involvement among citizens and the revitalization of civil society in general. As mentioned above, some believe that the new media sphere is the perfect arena for collaborative and interactive engagement of groups of activists, as it allows them to bypass traditional media and potentially approach and appeal to an originally unengaged audience. The concept of new media as a public sphere of Habermasian type however advances overly-positive premises that fail encompass more critical interpretations, such as the unevenly distributed visibility, asymmetrical power relations, and unequal access to the technologies, but also to the skills necessary for navigating the new media arena. Hence, I focused on some of the obstacles hindering the “limitless reach” of digital technologies such as the so-called digital divide (Norris 2001; Dijk 2005) or googlearchy (Hindman 2008; Vaidhyanathan 2011). Furthermore, I looked into the theoretical debate regarding the relevance and effectiveness of online-based activism that is often being conceptualized as a feel-good type of “slacktivism” with limited influence (Morozov 2009). Trying to understand digital technologies and their role in contemporary society in its full complexity requires an acknowledgement of stories of engagement and empowerment, as well as matters such as targeted advertising and pervasive

47 commercialization, state and corporate surveillance or the thin line between sharing a blog post and making a revolution. In the second part of the theoretical section, “Feminism in the Age of Digital Activism”, I briefly outlined the connection between some of the current trends and narratives influencing the state of contemporary feminism and the way in which the movement and activists approach new media and digital technologies. While anti-feminist backlash has always been a prevalent force shaping the movement’s existence (Faludi 2006), in the recent years we have witnessed new anti-gender equality efforts and strategies with one of the most vocal being the “gender ideology” narrative (Kuhar and Paternotte 2017). Coming from right-wing positions and the Catholic Church, the diminishing rhetoric is being spread mostly online, through social media platforms, blog posts, and specifically established websites. In this context, new media and digital technologies-based activism is becoming an important sphere where feminists (meaning established organizations, smaller and more independent initiatives but also individual activists) are able to promote their ideas and goals as well as to challenge disinformation and alarmist accusations. Secondly, new media activism in the context of the contemporary feminist landscape can be seen not only as a response strategy against the backlash but also as a change in the repertoire of actions, an evolution of strategies and changes in how one “does feminism.” These variations are sometimes seen as part of the “post-feminism” stage (Tasker and Negra 2007), introducing new forms of feminist activism based on more individualistic approaches to the movement’s repertoire of action and strategies. At the same time, as cyberspace enables the formation and growth of new pro-feminist communities and circles, some theorists look into the movement’s history and discuss a revitalization of feminist consciousness-raising tradition prevalent during the so-called second wave in the western Anglo-American context (Gills 2004). Either way, the eruption of feminist voices online is a testament to the contemporaneity and relevance of the movement (Kennedy 2007), which, through new media platforms and digital tools, evolves towards greater heterogeneity demonstrating strong inclusivity of different projects and initiatives. Lastly, I used a parallel between feminism and new media claiming that both are global phenomena with a potential to transform multiple layers of social reality on both the transitional and local level, including the way organizations function, people’s everyday

48 lives, individual preferences, and modes of communication. At the same time, I elaborated on and then further contested Manual Castell’s theory of network society. I put forward the notion that new media are not a homogenizing power gluing everyone together regardless of their local socio-cultural context. Despite the fact that new media and digital technologies are being used in the feminist context globally, the way they are being used is deeply rooted in – using Young’s (1999) term – its materiality, the concrete social and geographical attachments. Those type of discussions that are spanning mainstream media, academic circles, and public discourse reflect the fact that feminist theory, politics, and the very concrete ways in which the contemporary movement works towards gender equality have been transformed significantly under the influence of changing social, political, and technological circumstances. It is by no means an indication, however, that feminism would be dead, irrelevant, or obsolete. Rather, these changes call for the development of new theoretical and analytical approaches towards the contemporary feminist landscape that, in certain ways, no longer fits into traditional concepts and categories.

49 3. Methodology

The following section offers a detailed overview of the study’s overall methodological approach deriving from the grounded theory and based on a case study approach, i.e. the dissertation’s methodological anchoring. In chapters 3.1. – 3.5., I elaborate on the selected umbrella approach of grounded theory, followed by key questions related to (feminist) research ethics. Namely the question of the researcher’s positionality, the issue of participants’ anonymity, and implications deriving from the linguistic limitations of this study. I then focus on some of the specifics deriving from the fact that the research is partially based on online or virtual materials and data. Lastly, I outline the study’s research design including research questions and provide a detailed description of data collection and analysis.

3.1. Epistemological Framework

The aim of this dissertation is to present a case study of ASPEKT, one of the oldest and most notable feminist organizations in Slovakia, and its relation towards new media and digital technologies. That is to say, tools and platforms that are becoming indispensable for organizations as well as individual users and enable emergence of new mode of activism within the feminist movement – online feminism. While critically reflecting on the theoretical presumption outlined in the previous section that new media and digital technologies are detaching us from our historical and socio-political context and

50 subsequently lead to greater homogenization (Castells 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2009, 2012), I am focusing on the potential relation between the organization’s historical evolution, thematic scope, core values and the ways it makes sense of these new tools and platforms. In another words, I am asking: Is there a relation between the organization’s history, thematic scope, core values and the ways it makes sense of new media and digital technologies? If yes, what is the character of this relation? The case study of the organization is being accompanied by an analysis of four renowned online based feminist projects that were founded in recent years by young generation Slovak feminists. Their perspective was added to the research design in an attempt to provide external and “younger generation” viewpoint, i.e. frame of reference that shall help us better understand ASPEKT’s approach to new media and digital technologies as well as further explore the potential relationship between certain characteristics and the ways one make sense of these new tools and platforms. Since the research design combines diverse material, methods and epistemological perspectives as well as challenges coming hand in hand with conducting part of the research within online sphere, there is a need for overarching and strong grounding. Such that allows for critical qualitative inquiry with high level of self-reflexivity while remaining flexible and open to potential adjustments. These requirements seem to be met by grounded theory. The principal reason for selecting grounded theory as the overarching epistemological approach lies mainly in its focus on asking developing critical questions through the inquiry, bringing people as well as their perspective into the forefront of the research, and taking self-reflexive stance leading to scrutinizing one’s data and analysis (Charmaz 2017). The approach also encourages the researcher to carefully examine her position and roles that are tightly connected to our taken-for-granted privileges (Herising 2005) and focus on how they affect our approach. Both upon constructing the research design as well as through the research process itself. It is an emergent method, because “it is inductive, indeterminate, and open-ended” (Charmaz 2008: 155). The analysis itself evokes insights and questions that lead to changing or adding new steps, material or data collection methods (Thornberg and Charmaz 2014). The time frame from the initial research design, through the data collection, analysis and writing of the final study, took seven years in total. During that time, I explored the

51 studied material, its analysis, collection of more data and its analysis, and then re-analysed some of the original material. During that process, I experienced several shifts in my perspective, prompted either by the outcomes of the analysed material or from external feedback following the underlying logic of grounded theory that “the analysis of data evokes insights, hunches, ‘Aha!’ experiences, or questions that might lead researchers to change or add a new data collection method” (Thornberg and Charmaz 2014: 155). External feedback shifting, or enriching, my perspective, derived mainly from parts of the dissertation being presented at various forums. In particular, in 2016 at the Centre for Cultural Sociology, Yale University during my 2015/2016 research visit and then in 2017 at the mandatory public presentation of dissertation at the Department of Sociology, Masaryk University. Additionally, parts of the dissertation were published as articles (Černohorská 2016) or book chapters (Černohorská 2019, Maufras Černohorská 2019) and the lengthy reviewing process also led to several adjustments in my analysis and additional data collection. I also acknowledge the role of comments and remarks I received at several international conferences where I presented the research in its different stages. Another advantage of grounded theory is that its stress on the position of researcher allows for connection with some of the key components of feminist research ethics, namely Harding’s (1991) concept of strong reflexivity and Clarke’s (2005) emphasis on positionality. With regards to these, it is essential to examine not only one’s own position but also to ask how the research project looks from the standpoints of the research participants, and how it influences their participation. Practically speaking, my position is of a partial insider. I self- identify as a feminist, I have formal academic training in gender studies and I have been cooperating with and working for feminist organizations in the past years. Additionally, with the small size of feminist scenes in both Slovakia and the Czech Republic, I knew some of the research participants through my work in academia or the nongovernmental sector personally, and others through acquaintances. I have been repeatedly seeing them at conferences and other gatherings during the years I have been working on this dissertation. With my personal affiliation to the feminist movement, I share the basic views and values with the research participants when it comes to gender equality and the desirability of its promotion. The importance to reflect such stance openly is, I believe, in line with the

52 requirements of feminist research ethics and with grounded theory’s focus on the relation between critical analysis and “questions concerning social justice” (Charmaz 2017: 39).

3.2. (Feminist) Research Ethics

The theoretical literature on methodology usually reflects on a few basic ethical rules of qualitative research such as obtaining informed consent, minimizing the risk of harm, avoiding deceptive practices, protecting anonymity and confidentiality, and providing the right to withdraw (Flick 2014). I will focus on two of these in greater detail: informed consent and protecting confidentiality. As Hopf emphasizes, “[a] general rule for participation in sociological investigations is that it is voluntary and that it takes place on the basis of the fullest possible information about the goals and methods of the particular piece of research” (Hopf 2004: 334-339). All the research participants with whom I conducted interviews were contacted via email with an explanation regarding the purpose of the study, my position as a researcher and their role in the study. Additionally, prior to the interview, I responded to any potential questions they might have in person and requested verbal informed consent. The most pressing issue connected to informed consent – at least from the ethical perspective – is the question of confidentiality, i.e. protecting participants’ anonymity. In the sociological research, the thorough anonymization of collected data is usually one of the key steps within the analysis. However, as Flick points out, this “may become problematic when you do research with several members of a specific group” (Flick 2006: 50). Such practice is not unheard of, in relation to the Czech and Slovak feminist scene; there have been several studies where participants gave their full name and organization’s affiliation (for ex. Vráblíková 2006, Lundin 2008, Martin 2009). Since this research relies on a case study of an organization which is small with teams (including closest collaborators) no bigger than a few people at one point in time, it would not be possible to ensure sufficient anonymization. Even more so that, while referring to the collected data, the interviewees’ position within the organization (i.e. her role and work scope as well as whether she is part of the founding generation or one of the younger members) is relevant for the analysis. Given the significance of the organization’s position within the feminist scene and its history, anonymization of the overall organization was not a possibility either.

53 In the second part of the dissertation’s analytical section, I am elaborating on data from the second wave of interviews I conducted in 2016 and 2020 with Slovak representatives of various online-based feminist projects. Again, given the limited size of the (online) feminist scene in Slovakia and the fact that the nature and detailed description of these projects play crucial role in the research, confidentiality of the participants was not possible here either. All the research participants were informed about this issue in advance and agreed to take part in the study under their full names. Two of them requested to see the selected quotes from their interviews prior to the publication of the text. With that being said, it is important to acknowledge the potential influence of disclosure of full names and affiliation can have on the shared information and perspectives. It is possible that, especially since the feminist Slovak scene is fairly small and majority of its members know each other either personally or through the activities they do, the interviewees were inflicting upon themselves a certain degree of auto-censorship. However, such is the limitation deriving from the research-related decision that has been made based on what is the best for the study. Lastly, I would like to reflect on the potential linguistic limitations that are deriving from the fact this study is written in English, the researcher’s non-native language. As Bennett (2007, 2009) points out, the use of English in academia is being taken for granted without the necessary critical reflection on how it might influence one’s possibilities of reasoning and expression. Despite the fact that navigating the academic waters – reading, writing, speaking, engaging in discussions – in English has become second nature for majority of researchers from non-English speaking countries, including myself, I do acknowledge the potential influence it might have on how I convey the results of this research. Furthermore, as I have translated all the interviews from Slovak to English myself, I do admit the possibility of some of the more nuanced meanings or subtle expressions to get lost in that translation.

54 3.3. Researching New Media and Digital Technologies

With rapid adoption of new media and digital technologies in the past decades and growing interest of social researchers in this phenomenon comes hand in hand with the demand for new or adjusted methods of data collection and subsequent analysis. “New digital scenario challenges, in a very radical way, the standard research practices within the social sciences, bringing an unprecedented rate of innovation (…) and an exceptional data availability” (Bredl, Hü nniger, and Jensen 2014: 6). With the availability of data comes two important conditions: the necessity to acknowledge the ephemerality and ever changing nature of such data, and the importance to study behaviour and textual production on web in its own right (Marotzki, Holze, and Verständig 2014). Since the field of researching new media and digital technologies brings number of challenges and topics to consider, I will highlight only those most relevant for this study. Namely, the advantages of virtual ethnography (or ‘netnography’) approach and the challenges coming with the ephemerality of (and limited ability to archive) online based or virtual data. Firstly, virtual ethnography (Pink at al. 2016) or netnography (Kozinets 2010) is an approach adapting some of the basic principles of the ethnography approach into the online sphere. It is based on a presumption that the specific ways we approach and “makes sense” of new media are significant for the ways we relate to technology, community, and one another. “Ethnography can therefore be used to develop an enriched sense of the meanings of the technology and the cultures which enable it and are enabled by it” (Hine 2000: 8). The digital ethnography approach is stressing rather than conceptualizing new media and digital technologies as a somewhat mechanical tool; one should see it as a cultural artefact or product of culture in itself. The perspective of virtual ethnography is being reflected in the research design of this study mainly through its focus on how one (the research participants) approaches, conceptualizes and makes sense of new media and digital technologies rather than the technical parameters of their digital technologies usage. Practically speaking, through the interviews, I was more interested in participants’ perspective on new media and digital technologies – how do they use them and why, what does it mean to them personally and professionally, what are the things they themselves find the most relevant or

55 challenging, noteworthy or troublesome – rather than the number of followers on their social media pages, frequency of their blog posts or if all their webzines have been neatly archived and categorized. Secondly, an important aspect of online based material analysis is the question of the extent to which data can be archived. While analysing for example transcribed interviews, published texts or printed visual materials, one can easily access and re-access those data at any given time without the material undergoing any changes. However, with online based materials, the question of access is not always so straightforward. While many times – especially in cases of online web pages and online archives – data including textual and visual materials can be archived using external tools, “social networking sites are an enormous challenge in this regard because of the relative volatility of data. This volatility results from a high interactivity that creates massive streams of data” (Marotzki, Holze, and Verständig 2014: 453). In response to this challenge and with regard to the extensive period of data collection, analysis, and writing, I have decided to employ an approach that works with at- the-moment accessible materials and data while indicating when they were accessed. Due to the number of articles, blog posts, online archived materials, campaign visuals, social media conversations and the like that were accessed through the seven year long process, I did not use external tools to archive these data as it would bring too much of a technical burden, requiring extensive storage capacity. As a result, many of these materials including whole web pages, online based projects and the like have been edited, moved, suspended, closed down or deleted altogether from the online space without me having an archived copy or access to them anymore. I see this limitation as an inconvenient yet inseparable part of qualitative research that is either fully or partially based on online data. Given the volatility of the online environment, “the collection of data and their analysis are even more likely than they are with other methods to become blurred into a single ongoing process” (Kozinets, Dolbec, and Earley 2014: 269). As a matter of fact, this type of research brings a number of other challenges such as navigating ethical questions in space that is both public and private (or where the distinction between these two is often blurred) and the anonymity of data. Usually, researchers approach online content as published content assuming those materials are automatically

56 available for quotation and analysis. However, even this practice might involve some ethical issues such as that the secondary exposure and highlighting of this information might bring unintended harm to the author (Langer and Beckman 2005). Nevertheless, as most of the online based materials I have been approaching during the research period concerned data related to research participants, their projects and work, i.e. informants who gave me their consent to engage them in the study, I was not further problematizing these ethical aspects of online based data analysis.

3.4. Research Design and Research Questions

The research design of the dissertation is based on a case study of Slovak feminist organization ASPEKT. The aim of the study is to explore the relationship of the organization to new media and digital technologies while critically reflecting on some of the existing theoretical presumptions outlined in the first part of the dissertation. Namely, the theoretical premise that new media and digital technologies are leading its users and communities towards greater homogenization and detachment from the socio-political and historical context (Castells 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2009, 2012). Additionally, the study aims to move beyond the dichotomy that categorizes the use of new media and digital technologies by feminist organizations and activists within either emancipatory and celebratory or pessimistic and pitfall-oriented narratives. Further, I am focusing on the potential relationship between the organization’s historical evolution, thematic scope, core values and the ways it makes sense of these new tools and platforms. The research design, that is the case study, is expanded with additional incorporation of analysis of four online projects that were launched and managed by representatives of the youngest generation of Slovak feminists. Their perspective adds an external viewpoint of the case study and helps us better understand ASPEKT’s take on new media and digital technologies in a broader context. The main research question is the following: “How does ASPEKT use new media and digital technologies?”, with additional sub-questions as follows: “What are the ways the organization approach new opportunities as well as challenges that are coming hand in hand with the use of new media and digital technologies?” and “Is there a relationship between the organization’s history, thematic scope, core values and the ways it makes sense of these

57 new tools and platforms? If yes, what is the character of this relationship?”. The focus on these research questions, I argue, helps us better understand not only how one particular organization approaches new media and digital technologies but also what is the potential relation between how one “makes sense” of these new platforms and tools and the context one is surrounded with and derives from. I decided to build my research around the case study approach (Stake 1995, Yin 2012, Flyvbjerg 2016) as it allows me to address the studied phenomenon with emphasis on context. While focusing on rich description and insightful explanation of the case is typically based on the collection of data from multiple sources, I strive to capture both: the uniqueness of this case and the commonality of the themes outlined. As explained in previous chapters, I explored preliminary concepts and appropriate research literature which led me towards the selection of the particular case. I have decided to devote my research interest to this specific organization for several reasons. Firstly, the organization was founded in 1993; the fact that it has been an active advocate of gender equality for almost three decades provides a rich amount of material to study. During its existence, it has held a number of conferences and educational seminars, and has performed complex analysis and expert consultations. When it comes to its publication activities, ASPEKT has issued more than one hundred both fiction and non-fiction books presenting women authors, traditional but also newly introduced feminist theory, and educational books. Moreover, in the period 1993 – 2004 it produced twenty-one issues of a feminist journal in print while covering feminism-related topics and providing its readership with substantial analysis, reports, and comments from the field of women and gender studies. Secondly, since it started by promoting gender equality within the so called “offline world” and then expanded into the digital sphere as well, it provides the opportunity for longitudinal comparison. Additionally, ASPEKT explicitly adopts the idea of new media as a potentially subversive arena where one can deconstruct the hegemonic patterns presented in mainstream discourse. As it states on its website “Publishing of the webzine proves the idea that Internet is a vital medium for opinions that don't follow the mainstream. It publishes dramas, fiction, outraged commentaries, interesting news; it draws attention to good authors and artists and bad advertisements, too”. It also embraces the idea that digital technologies change the top-down flow of information, and emphasizes its organizational

58 advantages such as the ability to react promptly and flexibly on contemporary issues. Thirdly, there is the uniqueness of the chosen case. ASPEKT is the very first feminist organization founded in 1993 in Slovakia after the Velvet Revolution. With regard to its wide activities and long history, it has had significance for the feminist movement in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia during the so-called transition period. As the socio-political, economic and technological circumstances evolved, so did its formal and symbolic patterns. Lastly, with emerging literature covering the impact of new media and digital technologies on the character of contemporary society, there is a growing concern regarding “how to give voice to small-scale or marginalized groups that tend to be ignored in academic generalization centred on the metropolitan West” (Horst and Miller 2012, 20). Most of the scholars covering the issue of new media activism and digital technologies have been avoiding Central and Eastern Europe so my aspiration is to bring more academic attention into the region.

3.5. Data Collection and Analysis

The research design combines two main sources of data – interviews on the one hand and online-based materials concerning the selected organization and projects, their work, campaigns, and activities on the other. Namely web pages, webzines, the online archive including archived project materials, reports and events related information and invitations, and social platform profiles. Given the fact that ASPEKT has always been a small unit in terms of the number of its core members, my idea was not necessarily to talk to all its current staff but rather to get a diverse group with voices ranging from “founding members” to the “younger generation”; from long term stable members to external co-operators. I conducted four interviews in Prague and Bratislava in summer 2015; the respondents are presented below. Jana Cviková is a founding member and one of the most widely recognized feminist figures in both Slovakia and the Czech Republic, who (at the time of the interview) worked at the Institute of World Literature of the Slovak Academy of Science and was responsible for ASPEKT’s projects and publishing activities. Zuzana Maďarová was a PhD candidate (as of 2015) at the Institute of European Studies and International Relations in Bratislava, who

59 was in charge of ASPEKT’s web pages and has worked for the organization since 2005. Ľubica Kobová is a gender studies scholar who was – at the time of the interview – lecturing at the Charles University in Prague and has been working in ASPEKT since 1998 on international projects and webzine. She now cooperates with the organization externally. And lastly, Paula Jójart is a LGBTQ activist and co-founder of the Altera organization (an NGO focusing on the rights of lesbian and bisexual women in Slovakia) who was cooperating with the ASPEKT organization on an external basis. She has experiences with online-based activism from Macedonia and helped ASPEKT to set up its first web page at the beginning of 2000s. The interview with Jana Cviková and Zuzana Maďarová was conducted as a joint interview due to request and time constrains of both participants. Despite the fact the setting of the interview might potentially influence the way some of the responses unfolded, I respected the respondents’ request. Being prompted to critically reflect on the results of my analysis after the first round of interviews conducted in 2015 with aforementioned ASPEKT members and collaborators, I have decided to obtain additional data and perspectives. Since the organization itself could not provide more data that would significantly enrich the existing material, I came to the conclusion to include the most (at that time) notable representatives of the online feminist scene in Slovakia. I interviewed four more women – founders of online projects and young generation Slovak feminists. In 2016, I conducted an interview with Dana Vitálošová, a founder of an online media platform Feminist.fyi4. The platform publishes commentaries, articles, translations and other feminism-related content. In 2020, I interviewed Eva

Gatialová from feminist group Kundy Crew5 focusing on cross-stich artwork and social media communication. Then Michaela Kučová, a co-founder of feminist platform Kurník

[Henhouse]6 publishing a weekly online newsletter, and Diana Gregorová s co-founder of

Sexistický kix [Sexist Blunder]7, a project devoted to organizing the annual anti-award for the most sexist advertisement of the year of the same name.

4 Accessed July 6, 2020 (https://feminist.fyi). 5 Accessed July 6, 2020 (https://www.facebook.com/KundyCrew/). 6 Accessed July 6, 2020 (https://naskurnik.sk). 7 Accessed July 6 2020 (https://www.sexistickykix.sk).

60 As for the selection of the research participants in the second round of the interview process, I used the a snowballing technique. Within each interview (including those with ASPEKT members and collaborators), I asked for recommendations on significant or otherwise notable online-based projects and feminist activists in Slovakia. Those four initiatives were the main ones that came out in response to that question repeatedly. However, with that being said, I am not claiming this selection to be exhaustive. Even though the (online) feminist scene is quite limited in terms of size and number of activities, the decision to include additional interviews into the research design and to involve the perspective of people outside the originally studied organization, was driven by an effort to enrich the original research design and to offer a more complex understanding of the organization as well as its approach to new media and digital technologies. All the conducted interviews were semi-structured, with a set of guiding topics that directed their course. Within the interviews with ASPEKT members and collaborators in 2015, I started with opening question regarding their relation to ASPEKT and their (internal or external) role within the organization. Additionally, I continued with a set of questions covering the respondent’s engagement with new media and digital technologies – when and how it started and how the respondent as well as the organization used these new tools and platforms. Lastly, I inquired about some of the key topics related to online feminism, its advantages and pitfalls (mainly highlighted and further expanded by the respondent herself). In the 2016 and 2020 interviews with newly established online feminist projects’ representatives, I followed similar pattern. I firstly requested an introduction of the project – when it started, what the key activities and parameters are. I then followed up with questions regarding the respondent’s first encounters with new media and digital technologies, and her experience with online feminism. If it was not already covered by the interviewee herself, I asked about the initial inspiration or catalyst behind the decision to set up the online initiative. Lastly, I asked about advantages and disadvantages of the respondent’s online feminist project. What exactly these positives and negatives were was left entirely up to the respondent. The only topic I asked about explicitly (if it was not already mentioned, which was usually the case) was the issue of online harassment. In addition, I encouraged the respondent to elaborate on her own position and the position of her project

61 within the Slovak feminist scene. I did not ask explicitly about ASPEKT but the organization was mentioned by all the interviewees. All interviews were conducted in Czech (interviewer) and Slovak (interviewee), and lasted on average between one and three hours. The interviews were later transcribed and translated to English. As mentioned above, the study combines two main sources of data: eight interviews plus a review of online-based materials concerning ASPEKT and selected online feminist projects, concretely Feminist.fyi, Kundy Crew,, Kurník, and Sexistický kix. Together, these materials present a section of discursive landscape of Slovak online feminist scene. This discursive landscape (broadly conceptualized as a spatial and temporarily dependant network of texts, ideas, and actions) consists of online-based textual and visual materials, practices and activities including social media interactions and online campaigns, as well as (respondents’) ideas and feelings about online feminism in general, online feminist scene in Slovakia and their work in online sphere. So how were the materials analysed? In the first step of my research (2013 – 2014), I conducted an analysis of historical development of feminist organizing in Slovakia from 1989 onward (with slight excursion to the Czech Republic as these two scenes remain highly intertwined), its key topics and structural setting, including funding and the influence of socio-political development on the movement. This analysis then served as a backdrop to my further research. In the next stage (2014 – 2015), I focused on gathering and close reading of ASPEKT-related materials with an emphasis on online-based production, i.e. the organization’s webpage, online archive, webzine, social media profiles, and online campaign materials. Based on this close reading, I identified several key topics and themes relating to the use of new media and digital technologies or online feminism in general. I also visited a few (offline) events organized by ASPEKT in that period. In the third part of my research (2015 – 2017), I centred my attention on the transcripts of interviews with ASPEKT members and collaborators, highlighting central themes and categories while comparing them to the ones identified within previous analysis and “backdrop” research. Lastly (2019 – 2020; I took a leave of absence from my research in 2018), I gathered materials concerning additionally selected online feminist projects and analysed transcriptions of “second wave” interviews followed by close reading, analysis, and selection of key themes and topics. On top of that, I gathered and analysed new online-based materials concerning ASPEKT that

62 were produced or emerged in the meantime and re-read all the original interviews’ transcriptions. While identifying, analysing, and comparing key themes, topics, and categories from all stages of the research, I devoted specific attention to the value and level of importance the research participants ascribed to them, as well as in which setting they occurred or were located by the interviewees themselves. Overall, my aim was guided by an attempt to take a closer look not only at the chosen case, but also at the context it derives from. This context, I argue, is relevant in understanding the role new media are playing in ASPEKT’s day to day existence but also in the ways its members and collaborators approach these new platforms, tools, and opportunities: how they conceptualize their meaning and potential. The same goes for the online feminist projects representatives whose viewpoint provide us with invaluable external and “younger generation” perspective on the studied case. Notwithstanding, I do not dispute the global character of new media in terms of reach and relevance. But I do intend to put under closer critical inspection the widespread belief that the way we approach and make sense of new media is very much a universal endeavour independent of our historical, social, and cultural background; that through new media we all are becoming part of one homogenous global village. I argue the contrary: with new media and digital technologies having an interpretative flexibility, I conceptualize the ideas about their use as being developed in a context.

63 4. Analytical Part

4.1. ASPEKT – From Early Years to First Encounters with Online Activism

The following analytical part of the dissertation presents the study’s key research findings. Section 4.1. is the first out of three sections and elaborates on the primary focus of the case study – the historical evolution of ASPEKT and the context it emerges from. In chapters 4.1.1. – 4.1.3., I present a brief overview of the position of women and the state of feminist affairs during the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia. I then focus on the transitional post-1989 period and the organization’s early formative years. Subsequently, I analyse the significance of the Europeanization of the local feminist scene and the influence it had on ASPEKT’s evolution, as well as on its first encounters with the online scene.

4.1.1. The Trouble with Feminism Before and After 1989 – Understanding the Context

Scholars focusing on the position and representation of women in Marxist theory point out that the socialist (in terms of pre-1989) worldview, as applied in Central Eastern European countries, was a mixture of two components (Saurer et al. 2006). On the one hand, there was a populist-egalitarian strand, which underlined the equal involvement of women and men in paid work. On the other hand, the communist propaganda played on the nationalist strand that constantly referred to women’s sense of loyalty to the nation. As Tatiana Kotzeva puts it: “The image of a socialist woman was elaborated to reinforce the unique mission of women to sacrifice herself in order to assist in the establishment and further development of the

64 system towards a ‘shining future’” (Kotzeva 1999: 85). Therefore, one might recognize the schizophrenic relationship that the communist party maintained with its female comrades. While calling for equality, the communist regime attempted to erase gender in the same way it rejected ethnicity as relevant category influencing one’s position within the society. Thus, the term “equality” became a hackneyed phrase on handbills, banners, and in official speeches that didn’t reflect the actual conditions of everyday women’s and men’s lives. But despite the “equality” rhetoric, women also presented a specific object of state policy that cared (through authorized offices) about women’s concerns; especially about fulfilling their “natural” role of mothers and caretakers. The official state propaganda of the socialist regime incorporated equality between men and women into its political program and proclaimed this goal to be fully accomplished. Projects focusing on women’s emancipation were implemented in a directive manner and left no room for bottom-up initiatives that would reflect women’s actual demands (Wagnerová 1995). To get a sense of what it was like to live the pre-transition experience as a woman (and feminist), one can quote Mare Tralla, an Estonian-born artist, and her exhibition “Gender Check: Femininity and Masculinity in Eastern European Art”.8 In an accompanying commentary to her exhibition, she says: “We were equal but not in equal terms” (Tralla 2009). This quasi-equality means that gender, as a factor that powerfully shapes individuals’ everyday lives, was strongly present in pre-1989 society but it was – at first glance – invisible. The original Marxist theory has seen the subordination of women (as well as men) within the institution of private property. Once the working class, as a whole, had been freed, so too would – the communist regime claimed – women (Einhorn 1993). Hence, the very concept of gender and feminist consciousness was rather absent in the public discussion during the communist period. Whenever feminism did appear within the public discourse, it was ostracized and conceptualised as a Western (i.e. an inherently ethically problematic) imperialist invention. “[F]eminism in general terms (always in the singular and contrary to its actual left-oriented modern history) was presented by official propaganda as ‘bourgeois ideology’, which had nothing to say to ‘socialist’ women” (Šmejkalová 2004: 169, italics in the original). Similarly, explicitly feminist actions were largely absent from civil

8 MUMOK gallery Wien (13. 11. 2009 – 14. 02. 2010).

65 opposition. Despite the fact that women were part of dissent activities alongside their male counterparts (even though in smaller numbers), universal human rights issues played primary role and there was no room for explicitly feminist or women-oriented activism (Hašková 2005). In recent years, scholars are starting to recognize the role of women opposing the regime in their private spaces (Long 2005), but those forms of protests did not have a form of public and widely visible initiatives. To conclude, while the first wave of feminism was inherent part of the public civil life in Czechoslovakia in the pre-communist period, the second wave of the movement was absent in the country as the communist regime prevented the development of independent feminist ideas and activism (Hašková 2004). After 1989, the transition had begun and the trends toward democracy and pluralism affected every single aspect of society and the day-to-day lives of its citizens, though the change was quite different for men and women. The new market-driven system, where the totalitarian party lost its control over the state economy and legacy, required major reforms and the development of new institutions. The former communist countries approached new globalized spheres such as international trade and inter-cultural arenas and started to cooperate with new political agents like the EU. Many academics analysing the transition talk about an overall atmosphere of optimism and high expectations that marked the period (see for ex. Štulhofer and Sandford 2005). In a similar manner as other civil society actors, the participants and supporters of feminism were – after many years – allowed to openly discuss and express their ideas about the issues of gender equality. However, their newly founded feminist consciousness was not welcomed with support and understanding (True 2003; Sauer, Lanzinger, and Frysak 2006). There were several reasons for such anti-feminist tendencies in the post-1989 period. Firstly, feminism was perceived as a threat to the mythical narrative of a shared history of men and women who were jointly suffering under and fighting against external oppressor – the Soviet Union and the establishment of communist (Vodrážka 2006). Additionally, similarly to other post-socialist countries, feminism in the Czech Republic and Slovakia was largely perceived as “bogey”: a dangerous viewpoint and product of aggressive, Western feminists aiming to destroy both men and women (Saxonberg 2001). In spite of these anti-feminist tendencies, the beginning of the

66 transformation period (1989 to circa 1993) is marked as a birthing era to many new feminist organizations including ASPEKT. During the transition period, the public was sometimes compared to the “Sleeping Beauty” character that was just slowly waking up after many years in limbo. In this process of awakening, a few moments were particularly significant for the future development of the feminist landscape. One of them being the role of mainstream media, namely Czechoslovak TV, and its round tables that brought together prominent thinkers, experts, and people that were – till this date – part of the underground opposition. Thanks to the reach of this type of media, the broader public could get a sense of new topics and challenges of the post- communist society as well as who is discussing and eventually dealing with these new struggles. Because of the significant importance of those TV series, the transformation period is sometimes called “the television revolution” (Cviková and Juráňová 2009: 16). However, women did not play leading roles in this spectacle. Notably, not only were most of the round table participants men, but also this apparent gender imbalance did not spark any negative attention. While conducting research on the international assistance and the development of independent mass media in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in late 90s, Ballentine emphasized the importance of the media sphere within the transformation process. As she points out, “independent and pluralistic media are an essential bulwark of a mature and effective democracy, serving both as a watchdog of potential abuses of power by elected officials and as an inclusive arena of informed debate and discussion of issues affecting the body politics” (Ballentine 2002: 91). The unquestioned absence of women in such a crucial space had quite possibly far-reaching consequences for establishing the gender equality agenda in the public sphere. The so called awakened revolutionary spirit of November 1989 quickly faded away and civil society in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia (the countries separated 1 January 1993) was dealing with rising intense nationalism, mainly between the years 1993 and 1998. As Ballentine points out, “Slovakia was experiencing difficulty in achieving democratic consolidation, with the government of Vladimír Mečiar increasingly hostile to political and media pluralism” (Ballentine 2002: 93). During the transition period (and onward), women remained largely underrepresented in the political structures and decision-making positions (Bitušíková 2005). Simultaneously, many of those who were actively opposing the

67 nationalist and undemocratic tendencies in the civic sphere were – at the same time – making negative comments towards newly emerging feminist activism, claiming that they were fragmenting the opposition powers. Meanwhile in the Czech Republic, the government of Václav Klaus shifted the perception of ongoing democratization into a purely economic framework, while non-economic issues (including the work of feminist and other nongovernmental organizations) were pushed aside of the political agenda (Frič 2001).

4.1.2. ASPEKT’s Early Years – Building up Slovak Feminism during the Transition Period

ASPEKT is a feminist organization officially established in 1993 (informally meeting since 1992) in Slovakia and, borrowing words of its founders, it “was and still is one of the constitutive points of the feminist and gender-oriented thinking in Slovakia but also of civil activism and networking of nongovernmental organizations in all the relevant topics regarding the feminist and gender-oriented discourse” (Cviková and Juráňová 2009: 24-25). The historical, social, and political circumstances of its origin are more than significant for the character and future development of the organization and its supporters. Being located in the Central-Eastern European region, Slovak (and Czech) society was at the beginning of the “transition period”. As briefly outlined in the previous chapter, after the Velvet Revolution in 1989, the region was going through a transition from a communist to a democratic political, social, and economic establishment. The most important changes included the opening of borders, the implementation of a free market, changes within the political sphere, and the awakening of civil society (Berglund et al. 2013). The foundation of ASPEKT was enabled and formed by this “changing environment” but it also reacted to the gender relations and inequalities within pre-1989 society. Its early years were largely influenced by the mixture of the overall atmosphere of optimism and persistent negative sentiment towards feminism followed be increasing hostility towards media and civil society during the government of Vladimír Mečiar. In the early 1990s, many nongovernmental organizations and civic groups were being established both in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, with women’s interests as the main agenda addressing a variety of issues ranging from violence against women to child-care services, from environmental concerns to the agenda of women belonging to other societal minorities, and many other

68 topics. These organizations focused on raising awareness among the general public, legislative changes and, predominantly, on providing support and services to specific groups of women (Hašková 2005). While varying in their political approaches, many Central and Eastern European women’s organizations decided to avoid the label “feminist” altogether. Either due to their ideological reluctance towards the movement, because of fear of being associated with the pre-1989 socialist ideology and labelled as “Marxists is skirts” (Kepplová 2013) or due to concerns that they will be perceived as man hating and overly radical (Sloat 2005). In light of these tendencies, ASPEKT founders opted for different approach and decided to loudly state their affiliation to feminism as one of the core principles of their newly founded organization. As they state in the opening letter originally published in the very first issue of the organization’s journal (Aspekt 1/1993):

Dear friends, we are reaching out to you with an appeal to join us as we prepare a journal that would focus on specifically women’s issues. Aspekt should be a periodical (ca. 4 numbers a year) which would open those themes that were not discussed (or discussed very little) in the Slovakian and Czech cultural and social context such as the question of women’s literature, feminist literary science, art theory, sociology (..); i.e. many issues concerning predominantly – but not exclusively – women that have remained taboo (…). (Cviková and Juráňová 2009: 111)9

With this letter, they addressed women who they hoped would understand the important role of feminism in the development of the newly founded democratic society and would not hesitate to express this understanding both actively and publicly. The ultimate goal was to form a group of people “bounded together with a common interest: searching for new forms of expression towards the world in and around us” (Cviková and Juráňová 2009: 113) but also to subsequently influence public perception when it comes to relevant feminist issues and challenges. The organization, reflecting on the “heritage” of the communist era as well as the new post-socialist realities unfolding in the region, decided to become “interest association of women, who agreed it was time to take the discourse on equality and

9 Originally published in the very first issue of the Aspekt journal 1/1993, pp. 3.

69 democracy seriously and apply it to the lived realities of the people of feminine gender in

Slovakia”.10 And even though feminists around ASPEKT felt like they were part of an anti- nationalist movement evolving in the second part of the 1990s, they did not want to settle for a concept of democracy that excluded those striving for gender equality and felt the necessity to be openly and loudly feminist (Cviková and Juráňová 2009). In the first years of its existence, the organization not only focused on the publication of the journal, but also devoted significant energy into organizing events such as literary evenings, public discussions, and seminars. Be it a conference about feminism and nationalism (25 Feb 1994), a public lecture about witches (20 March 1994), an evening spent with a Czech-German writer Alena Wagnerová (20 Feb 1995), or a workshop about the images of women in media and advertisement (10 June 1995), ASPEKT shed light on topics and raised questions that had not been represented in the Slovak (and Czech) public sphere before.11 The diverse mix of events and meetings was – to a large extent – enabled by the specific type of funding that ASPEKT received in its early years (for more on influence of different types of funding on the work of feminist organizations in the region, see for ex. Ghodsee 2004). As Ľubica Kobová, who worked for ASPEKT in early 2000s, points out in an interview I have conducted with her in 2015:

I think it is very important to follow the sources of finances and availability of various funds and grants which went through a significant change from the 90s until today (…) The things that were produced and the projects that were done were to a large extent conditioned by the type of funding and the amount of funding. (Interview, Ľubica Kobová 2015)

Offering long-term-oriented, large but also multidimensional grants whose main goal was to improve networking and cooperation among women’s organizations, the Frauenanstiftung organization (associated with the Heinrich Böll Foundation of the German Green Party) was supporting feminist-related endeavours in many post-socialist countries.12 As Richter, who has been researching the involvement of Western actors and their assistance to Russian

10 Accessed February 10, 2016 (http://aspekt.sk/en/aspekt_english). 11 Accessed February 10, 2016 (http://archiv.aspekt.sk/desat.php). 12 Accessed February 10, 2016 (https://www.boell.de/en/foundation/organisation-16464.html], [http://www.gwi-boell.de/en/2012/01/10/feminism-heinrich-böll-foundation).

70 women’s organizations during the transition period, claims that “[u]nlike most other donors, (…) the Frauenanstiftung sponsors conferences and exchanges designed to keep its beneficiaries in touch with each other” and ensures that “its grant recipients feel like partners in a common enterprise” (Richter 2002: 66). Similarly, Czech and Slovak women’s and feminist civic groups and nongovernmental organizations were receiving financial support from private foundations, international organizations and bilateral development assistance from Western countries like the United States and Canada. Such funding was usually flexible and could be used for long-term projects and activities, as well as for organizational development (Hašková 2005). While reflecting on the organization’s early years, Jana Cviková, one of ASPEKT’s founding figures, mentions the importance of cross-border cooperation with other organizations in the region as well as the openness of its main partner and donor. As she mentions in our interview:

International cooperation was important to us from the very beginning because the anti-feminism in Slovakia was very strong and, well I do not know, since there were only two or three feminists in the 90s, you needed someone from abroad (…). They [Frauenanstiftung] were looking for some partners here, someone they could communicate with, learn something about the post-socialist world. Those were mainly left-oriented women connected – concretely in Germany – with the Green party (…). And well, the real socialism was a type of model for them, even though not for all of them and not in a same way. They were perceiving it in a critical way but they wanted to know - like for real – what was it about. (Interview, Jana Cviková 2015)

Given the fact that the Communist Party supressed any gender equality-related activities that were not orchestrated by the regime and that post-1989 civil society was rather hostile toward newly introduced feminist ideas, ASPEKT members were seeking not only practical experiences and funding but also genuine support, encouragement, and equal partnership. Thanks to the type of assistance they received early on, they were able to carry out projects and events that they personally found meaningful and necessary for the successful development of a fair and just democratic society. Within the interviews with ASPEKT members, the notion of balanced partnership based on intense discussion and cooperation

71 came out as one of the most important conditions that influenced to a large extent the overall character of the organization in the 90s.

I think I would call it “actively anti-colonial approach”. Simply said, it was not like: “look, we have this agenda, your country is about to go through the democratization, your country is about to go through the transition.” I mean that is how I interpreted it for myself, maybe I am just idealizing it but that is how I understood it. [It was like:] “So you will say what is it you want to do. OK, you want to do journal, then do journal.” (Interview, Ľubica Kobová 2015)

While Richter mentions in his research the importance of Western assistance for overcoming organizational weaknesses, inexperience, and isolation among women’s organizations in Russia (Richter 2002: 54-90), ASPEKT members highlight the power of trust, independence, and mutually beneficial dialog.

We had really intense cooperation, mainly with German speaking countries because I was a Germanist (…). [T]hey did not have this patronizing approach to us like certain types of visitors who came over from the US. Now I don’t say that every single visit was like this but… sure, there were some exceptions, women who cooperated with us, exceptional professionals and that was great… but there were those who came over to enlighten us and we weren’t really interested in that. And we made that very clear. (Interview, Jana Cviková 2015)

The notion of a “patronizing approach” and “let-us-enlighten-you” tendencies can be better understood in reference to Kampichler’s essay (2012) which critically analyses the construction of feminist East/West conversations (both literary and figurative) that were taking place in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the 1900s, especially during its first half. While referring to the classic anthology Gender Politics and Post-Communism (Funk and Mueller 1993), she points out that much of the academic and intellectual discussions that emerged in the transition period are based on reproduction of global power relations through a mainstream feminist analytical approach. In another words, there is the pervasive division between Western feminists as those who tend to be active and inspirational versus post-socialist feminists who are – on the other hand – passive and receiving. Kamplicher refers to Mohanty’s term “discursive colonization” (2003, first ed. 1986), in order to highlight

72 the relevance of Foucauldian knowledge/power axis in this debates and theoretical exchanges. Instead of focusing on local mechanisms leading to discrimination of real women in real contexts, the mainstream feminist discourse approaches the analytical category “woman” as being already pre-defined as oppressed and without power. When applied to the situation in the transition countries, “Western feminism” (again, defined as one homogenous monolith) then becomes “Western standard” for feminist analysis and feminist activism in post-socialist context (Kampichler 2012).

The hierarchical relationships and the fact that feminists from Western countries often brought topics and suggestions that were simply not relevant for the experience and context of Czech and Slovak women resonated very strongly in ASPEKT’s early years. Many feminists from the region including ASPEKT founders chose a different approach, actively distancing themselves from the subordinate and apprentice-like roles in relation to their Western counterparts. As Cviková mentions in our interview, they were not interested in being lectured but rather listened to, referring to their positive experience with German feminists, and allowed to form voices of their own based on their pre- and post-1989 experience.13 A stance that they chose to express – in a rather playful manner – through motto one can glance one’s eye over while entering ASPEKT’s office: “Thank you for leaving all your good advice at the door”.

To sum up, feminist thinking and activism in the 1990s in Slovakia (and the Czech Republic) – encouraged by flexible funding and international cooperation (both with its positive and negative features) – created type of umbrella that allowed involved women to distance themselves from the previous regime as well as from negative tendencies accompanying the transformation process such as rising nationalism and untamed capitalism launching their first projects and international cooperation.14

13 At the same time, Kamplicher offers further critique of those “voices form the East” strategy, an effort that is guided by emancipatory tendencies striving to develop more nuanced and locally based perspective – Eastern feminists speaking on behalf Eastern women reflecting on specifically Eastern experiences. As she points out, such approach is in danger of further reinforcing aforementioned hierarchies with East being conceptualized as exotic and different per se (Kampichler 2012: 12-14). 14 ASPEKT founders, member, and collaborators reflect on this period and their experiences during the transition in Feminisms for Beginners (Cviková and Juráňová 2009), a collection of round-table discussions between ASPEKT founding members and other important figures related to the feminist movement in Slovakia which is a part of a project that commemorates the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution. This

73 4.1.3. Europeanization, Transnational Connections and First Steps into the Online Space

The Czech and Slovak feminist scene, while having much in common, have undergone slightly different evolutions, and further developed different trends and tendencies since their early years. Both national scenes, as argued by Kodíčková (2002) and Kampichler (2012), were largely influenced by ideologies of transformation and East/West debates, especially in the first decade. Later on, they both expanded into diverse (in terms of theory as well as practice) fields with specific inclinations. The Czech landscape – at least in comparison with Slovakia and with a certain degree of simplification – turned out to be more social science and academia oriented with Charles University in Prague offering master’s degree in gender studies and Masaryk University in Brno offering gender studies specialization (former bachelor degree) under the sociology program (for further diversification of the scene past early 2000s see Nyklová 2013). The Slovak field – as argued by Kepplová (2014) and Wohrer (2005) – is based on the interlink between feminist activism and writing deriving from literature tradition and philosophy, focusing on production of philosophical and theoretical texts, literature and visual art. Naturally, there were other initiatives directing their attention to the social issues agenda (most notably domestic violence oriented organizations and a network of “mother centres”), as well as feminist sociologists and historians. However, as both authors point out, the literary-philosophical tradition is considered to be the leading voice of Slovak feminism, at least in the 1990s and early 2000s (Kepplová 2014, Wohrer 2005). Alongside ASPEKT (which holds the central position in the tradition), there is a Klub feministických filozofiek (Club of Feminist Philosophers), an informal initiative organizing lectures on feminist theory was established at the Comenius University in Bratislava in as early as 1990/1991. Later on, the club transformed into an official organization establishing

textual collage, which contains transcribed discussions but also the most significant texts published by the ASPEKT organization in the last two decades, aims to capture the history of the beginnings of feminist and gender discourse in Slovakia. However, it does not only summarize themes that were present in the then public discussion, it also reveals personal stories and insights that give us a more detailed and rich picture about the transition period in relation to gender and feminist issues. The term “beginner” is being used here in a deliberate yet playful way as an allusion to the fact that both – women who founded the ASPEKT organization and other prominent feminist figures – were and to same extent still are (as they claim in the round table discussions) only getting familiar with the importance and ways how to enforce gender equality in society.

74 Centrum rodových štúdií (Center for Gender Studies) at the university in 2001.15 Lastly, referring to the strong literature, philosophy, and visual arts tradition, it is important to mention Glosolália, a feminist journal founded and led by literature theoretician Derek Rebro since 2012.16 One of the most significant events following the transition period, which greatly influenced the feminist scene in Slovakia (and the Czech Republic), is the accession of both countries in 2004 into the European Union (EU) and subsequent Europeanisation of feminist activism, organizations’ functioning, cooperation and partnerships, as well as the overall infrastructure (Linková 2003). At that time, most foreign foundations and flexible funds left the Central and Eastern European region, while the EU became the dominant source of funding for those promoting feminist and women-oriented agendas. This had strong impact on the practical management and day to day functioning of organizations as applicants requesting EU funding had to (and still have to) fulfil rigorous requirements in terms of administrative, financial and other conditions, which put additional demands on organizations’ capacities. Furthermore, the EU funding scheme influenced not only the formal and technical side of the feminist scene (pushing organizations to become more formalised and “professional”) but also the thematic scope of the feminist agenda. Political discourse in the EU promoted specific topics, mainly gender equality in the labour market, focusing on the gender pay gap and work-life balance, as well as domestic violence and, to a lesser extent, gender sensitive education (Vráblíková 2007). This discourse conceptualised all the supported activities into the gender mainstreaming framework (Pollack and Hafner- Burton 2000). These topics have become part of the national agendas and were newly framed not as “feminist” but rather “social” issues (Hašková and Křížková 2006). For some organizations, EU accession meant financial assistance, institutional support of their existing agenda and further growth, but for organizations such as ASPEKT whose thematic scope did not fully fit into the newly promoted scheme and whose smaller size and limited organizational capacities made it difficult to compete for and carry out the

15 Accessed July 1, 2020 (https://fphil.uniba.sk/katedry-a-odborne-pracoviska/odborne-centra/centrum- rodovych-studii/o-centre-rodovych-studii/historia-centra/). 16 Accessed July 1, 2020 (https://www.glosolalia.sk).

75 EU projects, the development was not necessarily perceived as positive, or as an opportunity for expansion. As Ľubica Kobová mentions in our interview:

I think there was a certain scepticism and distance towards these tendencies [inside ASPEKT], towards “Europeanization” (…) and also some fear regarding what would really happen. The funding would change and the thinking about feminist issues would be de facto determined by European political goals (…). You have state-feminism approach – I say EU gender policy is basically state feminism – and then you have intellectual feminism that is embedded in ASPEKT. And those are two completely different approaches that were competing within the organization. (Interview, Ľubica Kobová 2015)

Within the early 2000s and in light of the emerging Europeanisation, ASPEKT led or took part in several projects focusing mainly on education, research, and awareness raising, i.e. topics related – at least to some extent – to their original thematic course while also being in line with EU priorities.17 To name a few, between 2005 and 2008, the organization led an educational project ”Pink and Blue World” focusing on gender sensitive education and gender-based sectoral segregation of the Slovak labour market. The project, which was implemented within the European EQUAL Community Initiative and funded by the European Social Fund, was part of a broader international partnership connecting projects from Spain, Slovenia, Italy, and Austria. It consisted mainly of educational activities such as workshops and seminars, followed by research and publication work with majority of the materials being published in print as well as online.18 Similarly, a subsequent project called “Equality Training for Trainers” (carried out within the EQ-Train initiative between 2008 and 2010 and funded through the Leonardo da Vinci EU programme)” was based on transnational cooperation among feminist and women-oriented organizations from several European countries. Focusing on gender sensitive vocational orientation and gender pay gap issues, its outcomes involved seminars for trainers and counsellors, periodical digital newsletter and other online accessible materials and resources.19

17 Accessed February 10, 2016 ([http://archiv.aspekt.sk/zprojektov.php). 18 Accessed February 10, 2016 [http://www.pinkandblueworld.sk/en]. 19 Accessed February 10, 2016 [http://archiv.aspekt.sk/download/Njuvinky_4_2010.pdf].

76 Referring to available information, published materials and projects’ reports (see hyperlinks in the footnote section), these are common EU funded projects promoting transnational cooperation and connectivity over a shared thematic agenda (gender sensitive education and related issues pertaining gender equality advancement at the labour market). However, as implied in earlier section of this chapter, the hands on experience of ASPEKT with the EU funding system and actual implementation of large project came with many downsides and pitfalls. Jana Cviková describes the period of early Europeanization, as well as their experience with their first large scale project as follows:

When EU projects came, it was one big disaster. I think that everything positive these projects brought cannot balance all the negative they caused. Although we joined few of these projects – I am not sure I can say that out loud – but such a destruction of our creativity. We carried out this EQUAL project, the first big project opened to NGOs. It was about gender sensitive education and we joined it with all the ideas but when the project was over… we were dead and I do not know, the project managed to kill the communication within the civil society, at least in its feminist part (…). The people were so destroyed and exhausted and crushed by the paperwork and debts in which the state left us drowning. We dealt with it for five years and that was crazy. (Interview, Jana Cviková 2015)

In reaction to the changing playing field, many feminist and women-oriented organizations chose to adapt to the newly emerged conditions of the EU funding system, shifting their thematic scope so it better fits the supported priorities, hiring fundraising and management- skilled staff and becoming more “professional” and “project-oriented” (Hašková and Křížková 2006). For others, the Europeanization of the feminist scene came with a sense of frustration and betrayal of traditional feminist ideals and led to marginalization at least in terms of access to the dominant forms of funding in the region (naturally, many organizations found themselves somewhere in between these two paths). The emphasis on tighter cooperation and connectivity is a feature that is being often recognized as one of the core elements of the EU funding scheme. As Europeanization theorists point out, while the EU funding scheme promotes cooperation of organizations and their so called strategic partnerships on national level (additionally connecting civil society actors with other relevant stakeholders from the state administration and business world), it also advanced transnational cooperation on the European level (Císař and Vráblíková

77 2007). Still, as perceived by some organizations, the system often encouraged a type of cooperation that was empty and formalistic rather than genuine and productive.

The second thing is that when we joined the international projects we did not really know who we are dealing with. Whether we deal with someone who does – how to say that – agency-based gender projects or with someone who is really interested in the topic. And we are really old-fashioned (…) because feminism is important for us and it is important that our approach remains critical in a feminist sense. We do not really care about this dull neoliberalism that just count some things (…). I know it sounds horrible right now but I do not think it is the problem of those projects but really of the system. (Interview, Jana Cviková 2015)

Lastly, the stress on more intense transnational cooperation goes hand in hand with the EU funding scheme promoting the use of online communication and digital technologies that were becoming accessible and commonly used by most civil society organizations at that time. As Richter points out, “[o]ne of the most common goals of unidimensional infrastructural grants in recent years [as in early 2000s] has been to connect women’s organizations to the Internet (Richter 2002: 68). Mainly due to the shared presumption that new media and digital technologies enable cooperation and communication which is faster, more flexible, effective and comes with significantly lower costs. Additionally, the digitalisation of published materials and sharing organizations’ activities online in general enables organizations to reach a wider audience, disseminate their ideas further and – in return – helps to strengthen transnational ties with other like-minded partners and initiatives abroad (Van De Donk et al. 2004). In ASPEKT’s case, the organization’s first steps in the online territory must be taken into account for analysis with regard to the above outlined context and the organization’s own history, thematic orientation and related core values. The initial incorporation of online tools into the organization’s work took place during the first years of the Europeanization of the feminist scene in Slovakia, and was partially a result of top-down formal conditions connected to EU funded large scale grants requiring fast transnational communication, cost effective cooperation, and easily accessible projects-related materials and reports (the project requirements often included setting up separated webpage or sub-section at the

78 organization’s website with all the information regarding project activities, funding, results, published materials and final report). Surely, the overall technological environment was changing at that time and new media and digital technologies would find their way to ASPEKT’s day to day functioning as well as into the personal lives of its members even without the EU directives. However, as the incorporation of online tools took place (at least to some extent) as a project-related necessity rather than an organic and non-directive response to new technological opportunities, it nevertheless influences how ASPEKT perceives and reconstructs its first encounter with the online sphere. Even though some scholars conducting research on the impact of online tools over the character of feminist organizations conclude that there were significant changes in the structure of their work or that they reached a new level of coordination and communication (Edwards 2004: 161-180), those are conclusions that cannot be made so easily in case of ASPEKT. ASPEKT’s online presence and available materials related to aforementioned projects ”Pink and Blue World” and “Equality Training for Trainers” (only a fraction of the materials are accessible online as of 2020 as some of the webpages and hyperlinks are no longer functioning) point towards characteristics mentioned in the theoretical literature, outlined in the first section of this dissertation, such as the broader accessibility of the organization’s work and ideas or the easier connection with other partners abroad. However, those were not the topics that resonated in interviews with ASPEKT members. When reflecting on this period of early 2000s and their first engagement with new media and digital technologies, these contemplations were framed within the organization’s broader critique of the overall system. Voiced especially by Jana Cviková, the founding member of the organization, the introduction of online tools alongside the large scale transnational EU funded projects was happening in a system that was based on neoliberal logic whose side-effects included the production of formalistic (or “strategic” in a more toned down lingo) alliances, utilitarian-oriented cooperation and rise of project-oriented feminist organizations well adapted to the competition-driven market. The critique of the system is largely formulated in contrast with the previous era, ASPEKT’s early years demarcated by widespread anti-feminism and lack of top-down support for gender-oriented agenda. Hostile times that were – nevertheless – rich with genuine camaraderie between organizations and groups with a diverse thematic scope and an authentic drive for a more just and gender equal

79 world. This period was filled with trust and long-term open-ended projects, enabled by flexible funding from foreign feminist foundations. Such a grand narrative of “the early authentic years” is also accompanied by the notion of ASPEKT’s thematic specialisation in feminist literature, philosophy and publishing. Since their scope of interest and expertise does not align completely with the EU-promoted topics in the field of gender equality, the organization felt like it was being pushed away from its original course. Additionally, the formalism and measurable-indicators oriented system resulted in – using Jana Cviková words – “destruction of creativity” and in general was not cut for the “old fashion feminism” that ASPEKT associate with authenticity and feels like representing. As a result, topics of easier connectivity, greater efficiency and faster communication as a consequence of new media and digital technologies’ incorporation into ASPEKT’s work did not resonate in the interviews with the organization’s members. For them, online tools brought different advantages and their value lay in something other than increased efficiency and productivity. I shall elaborate on the most resonating digital technologies-related themes that emerged within the interviews in the following chapters.

4.2. Feminism 2.0, the ASPEKT’s Edition

This section is centred around the main topics that resulted from interviews with selected ASPEKT members and collaborators and the analysis of relevant online-based materials concerning the organization’s work. In chapters 4.2.1. – 4.2.3., I uncover the importance of memory and ASPEKT’s efforts to create a virtual lieu de mémoire as a way of ensuring the preservation of the organization’s legacy. I then elaborate on the mobilization potential of new media while referring to the Istanbul Convention Campaign, a long-lasting and partially online-based struggle for the ratification of this international treaty within which ASPEKT plays an important role. Lastly, I reflect on the ways the organization uses new media and digital technologies to attract new collaborators and supporters, especially from the younger generation.

80 4.2.1. To Be Remembered – Preserving One’s Legacy Through a Virtual Lieu de Mémoire

Reflecting on the topics that emerged from interviews with ASPEKT members and collaborators, there was one particular subject that kept reoccurring. In the theoretical literature, the issue of digital technologies is usually perceived as something future-oriented, dynamic and novel (for ex. Dobson 2015; Blair, Gajjala, and Tulley 2009); a phenomenon that brings new opportunities, modes of communication and organizing, marker of the brave new network age (Castells 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2009, 2012). In contrast to this conceptualisation, however, the interviewees would repeatedly talk about the relation of the online sphere to the past. Namely, how digital technologies can ensure the preservation of the organization’s legacy and past achievements. Firstly, Jana Cviková outlines the organization’s initial encounter with the online sphere, ASPEKT’s first website:

I think in 1998, we had our first website. Back then, we did not really understand [the possibilities]. We had restricted access to the Internet so we only used it for emails. Paula Jójart, a colleague from the younger generation, created [the first website] for us (…). We did not know what to expect so we tried a few things. It was gradually evolving and we were looking for some adequate possibilities. (Interview, Jana Cviková 2015)

Further, she elaborates on how the preservation of the organization’s history through online digitalization became an important endeavour for the ASPEKT team. When celebrating the first decade since its foundation, they started with the archiving process that would conserve and make accessible all the hundreds of published articles, materials, events information and alike the organization produced during the 1990s and early 2000s.

[I had a feeling] that it is important to preserve our history through this digital media. Because as it turned out, it really is not possible “the paper way” (…). So when there was the 10 years’ anniversary of ASPEKT, we did [the digitalization of ASPEKT’s archive] (…) but it ended up in a way, that there is just a torso of the history on the web (…). There was always so much work to do and we have never had the chance to come back to it. (Interview, Jana Cviková 2015)

81 In the feminist tradition, the notion of preserving one’s history has always played important role in both theoretical reflection and everyday practice of the movement (Chaudhuri, Katz, and Perry 2010). Building upon the presumption that what we know about the past and what we remember depends on what has been preserved, feminist historians have been working to reconstruct lives and achievements of women in the past, often “reading against the grain” (Kuhn [1985] 2013) in order to offer a critical reinterpretation of mainstream historical narratives and expose absence, blank spots and shed a new light on the past through the voices of women. Women and feminist activists have been less remembered than their male counterparts both in collective memory and in the historical records (Crozier-De Rosa and Mackie 2019). For example reflecting on the reconstruction of the role of women in the anti- communist Czech and Slovak dissent, only recently scholars started to look into the role of women contesting the pre-1989 regime in their private spaces (Long 2005), form of opposition that was largely left out of historians’ research as it did not fit the category of traditional protest. Frequently women, feminists or other marginalized groups activists have to take it upon themselves to record their own history. “Within patriarchal societies where their contributions and challenges were undervalued, feminists were often compelled to document their own movements in the attempt to preserve their own histories, with varying degree of success” (Crozier-De Rosa and Mackie 2019: 4). Ľubica Kobová, who was originally in charge of the archiving process, reflects in our interview on the gendered nature of historical records, and the active role women and feminist activists have to often take upon themselves if they wish their work to be preserved and remembered:

I think what is important is the realization that if an organization, or women activism in general, will not write its own history, no one else will and it is most likely that the others will simply forget about them. If the activities will not be documented (…) then everything that has been done will not become part of – in quotation marks – mainstream narratives. I think this is something I have internalized very much (…). Firstly, I did not understand it very well and I thought that it might be too much. But right now it appears to me as something really important and I feel sorry I didn’t finish it all back then like I should. I think it would be good to finalize it. (Interview, Ľubica Kobová 2015)

82 She also mentions feelings of regret that she was not able to finish the archiving assignment as there were too many materials to digitalize and to categorize and the process was too time-consuming (the online archiving project was not finalized at the time of the interview in 2015 and is not yet finished as of 2020, additionally with the website experiencing some technical difficulties).20 Similarly, Jana Cviková (Interview, 2015) speaks about how “There was always so much work to do and we have never had the chance to come back to it.” With this collaborative enterprise, they were trying to create le lieu de mémoire,21 a virtual (rather than physical) site of memory of ASPEKT’s work and past achievements. This effort is accompanied here with what Nora (1989) calls duty-memory which is a sense of obligation and almost moral-like responsibility to ensure that their efforts and ultimately the organization’s identity will not end up in oblivion.

In a collection of round table discussions commemorating the 20th anniversary of the 1989 revolution, Feminisms for Beginners (Cviková, Juráňová 2009), ASPEKT founding figures are talking about this notion of duty-memory and they accompany it with additional, sort of a culprit sentiment. “[W]e are constantly confronted with the fact that we don’t have time to record our own history, so we take part in its disappearance” (Cviková, Juráňová 2009: 63). Caught in the day to day work, fundraising, administrative tasks, planned and ad hoc events, the long term effort of securing one’s place in the history books is being neglected which makes the ASPEKT members themselves complicit – as they point out – in their own vanishing. The goal of the revitalization of the organization’s identity through the preservation of its history is consistently present in its narrative22 and as such, it finds its way into the organization’s approach to new media. Similarly, ASPEKT’s focus on feminist and women’s literature, philosophy and theory together with its long tradition in editing,

20 Accessed July 1, 2020 (http://archiv.aspekt.sk/desat.php?desat=38). 21 Although the concept of les lieux de mémoire is mostly used in reference to physical sites of memory such as monuments, museums or archives residing in buildings, I treat the term here in reference to virtual site of memory. I argue that with new media and digital technologies, the process of passage from memory to history is no longer reserved to physical or so called “offline” world but can take place in online and digital setting as well. The principle of its creation and its logic remain the same. “Lieux de mémoire originate with the sense that there is no spontaneous memory, that we must deliberately create archives, maintain anniversaries, organize celebrations, pronounce eulogies, and notarize bills because such activities no longer occur naturally” (Nora 1989: 12). 22 “Within our project, history is not just the summary of important events and figures (…), it is also our experience and source of legitimization of the things we do, the things we did” (Cviková and Juráňová 2009: 11).

83 publishing and commemoration of significant female writers, poets, thinkers and alike plays an important role in the way they use digital technologies. In recent years, the topic of new media has found its way into the work of scholars focusing on cultural memory (Meusburger, Heffernan, and Wunder: 2011) as they recognize the role digital technologies can play in creating memories and counter-memories. Comparing the emergence of new media and digital technologies to Gutenberg’s printing machine, Meusburger claims the internet has “demonstrably loosened the control that hegemonic elites exercise over the spread of information and have opened up new possibilities to resist hegemonic narratives and interpretations” (Meusburger 2011: 62). With online tools in hands, ASPEKT (and feminism or women’s activism in general) is making an attempt to conserve its work and in doing so to keep its legacy alive. Having first-hand experience with being ostracized by anti-feminist critics (in the 1990s) and marginalized by the EU funding system (in the early 2000s), the importance of preserving its own memory and hence making sure their efforts will be remembered as part of the mainstream narrative. Although the importance of the online archive project resonated among all interviewed ASPEKT members and collaborators, there seems to be varying understanding as to why such an endeavour is important. For the founding members, the preservation of organization’s history and legacy seems to be the paramount goal. On the other hand, Zuzana Maďarová, who is part of ASPEKT’s younger generation, emphasizes easier accessibility to the materials and greater openness of the organization to both the general public as well as students interested in gender-related topics and activism.

We are trying to conserve the old web pages like an archive (…) and that’s really useful for people who would like to come back to it. For example, when students are working on their final papers on various topics, they can find lots of things on ASPEKT’s web page (…). It is good for basic orientation, the content and other theoretical stuff (…). Moreover, one can see – through all the invitations and information about certain events – what happened during all those years, which topics were being discussed not only by ASPEKT but also by other organizations. (Interview, Zuzana Maďarová 2015)

With an increasing level of incorporation of digital technologies to people’s everyday lives, including how one searches for information, consumes news or conducts her studies and

84 research (Bredl, Hünniger, and Jensen 2013), the accessibility of newsletters, articles, events’ invitations and the like, the online space becomes crucial for nongovernmental organizations and groups of activists. Ľubica Kobová adds on this note the following:

[L]ess and less people go to the library and look into printed documents. Most people, while working on papers or whatever they do, search for information through Google. And in this regard, archiving of ASPEKT’s history on the web - rather than publishing some sort of chronicles – makes more sense. (Interview, Ľubica Kobová 2015)

ASPEKT’s presence online is being perceived as important by the organization’s members not only for conservation of its past but also for remaining open and accessible to current audience, potential supporters, collaborators, and last but not least, new generation of feminists.

4.2.2. On Mobilization Potential of New Media – Example of the Istanbul Convention Campaign

Digital technologies have been instrumental in the development of many aspects of civil society, with greater openness and accessibility being one of the most crucial ones. For social movements, organizations, and activists, new media and digital technologies are becoming an indispensable arena for the promotion of their projects and activities (Gerbaudo 2012). As some scholars suggest, with an increased accessibility of their work and ideas comes an improvement of their mobilization potential and rise in participation (for ex. Fuchs 2014a, 2014b; Mossberger 2008; Flyverbom 2011). Zuzana Maďarová elaborates on some of these prospects and potential advantages as follows:

There are different possibilities created by [new media] (…). In certain situations, it allows people to connect in light of concrete situations, mobilize human rights organizations or actors through call for actions. (…). Also, during some types of campaigns or events, there might emerge sense of virtual and non-virtual community and this could be empowering at times. So voices that wouldn’t make it out are actually heard. (Interview, Zuzana Maďarová 2015)

85 The increased connectivity creates an environment where messages, up-to-date information and invitations to events are being shared quickly, easily, and widely. Organizations and activists can share calls for action either as part of pre-prepared campaigns or in reaction to ad hoc incidents, political proceedings and other relevant affairs. Over the years, ASPEKT took part in various campaigns and events with many of them taking place at least partially online. In our interview, Paula Jójart, one of the younger generation of feminists collaborating with ASPEKT, mentions the Istanbul Convention campaign as an example of a well-managed initiative that started and was then largely carried out online.

There is this great campaign called “Istanbul Convention” (…). It was limited by resources so they decided for small campaign on social media. At the end, it somehow got off their hands in a positive way. They got together very skilful team of young creative people and involved lots of male celebrities from sport, culture, arts and so on (…). The original idea – to invite people to sign petition for ratification of an agreement – was really the most challenging task (…). It is a type of policy strategy or strategic document and it is really difficult to communicate it to people why it is important to sign the petition. In this context, it is a great campaign. (Interview, Paula Jójart 2015)

The Istanbul Convention campaign involves various interlinked initiatives carried out by organizations and activists in the Czech Republic and Slovakia and illustrates the heterogenous ways feminists approach new media and digital technologies while combating an intensive negative campaign pushed forward by the “gender ideology” rhetoric (Kuhar and Paternotte 2017, 2018; Verloo and Paternotte 2018). The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence is a document which aims to synchronize legal norms and agendas in order to secure the same level of protection of women and girls and other groups endangered by violence (Council of Europe 2011). Compared to other international treaties, it sparked unprecedented amount of attention and negative backlash, coming especially from the Catholic Church, far right and anti-EU positions, as well as a diverse spectrum of politicians. Slovakia signed the Istanbul Convention in May 2011, becoming one of the first EU countries to add its signature to the document (Ibid.). The signature of the Convention was accompanied by a promise that the country will ratify and implement its provisions by 2013.

86 In the first years following the signature of the Convention, there was an ongoing and polarized debate regarding the Convention and the topic of domestic violence and gender equality. While feminist or pro-equality organizations stressed the prevalence of violence against women and the necessity to open public discussion and introduce better prevention schemes (ASPEKT 2015a), arguments criticizing the Convection – coming from the Catholic

Church,23 right-wing positions, and some politicians – interpreted the document as an attempt to destabilize the traditional family unit, endanger children, and upset the very nature of relationships between men and women. When 2013 passed without Slovakia ratifying the document, voices coming from the Slovak feminist scene began to demand the original pledge to be fulfilled. In 2015, women’s rights organization Možnosť voľby [Freedom of Choice]24 launched a social media campaign „Odzvoňme násiliu na ženách – Podporme Istanbulský dohovor” [Times up for Violence Against Women – Let’s Support the Istanbul Convention] (ASPEKT 2015b). Its primary goal was to raise awareness about the importance of the document (as well as the topic of domestic and sexual violence it covers) and to gather supporters who would sign a petition25 demanding the Slovak government to finally move towards the ratification. The campaign consisted of series of videos and visuals casting male public figures, actors, singers, sportsmen and alike to speak up against domestic and sexual violence and to urge people to sign the petition, followed by intensive, long term communication related to the topic on social media via the project’s Facebook page.26 Gradually, the campaign was joined by

23 For example, the notion of “gender ideology” and the threats it supposedly present to the society and the institution of family became a topic of one of the pastoral letters published by the Conference of Slovak Bishops that was read in hundreds of churches across the country in December 2013: “The supporters of the culture of death are coming with new ‘gender ideology’. In its name, they want to enforce the so called gender equality. Someone, who hears this term for the first time, might think that it is about recognition of equal rights and equal dignity for man and woman. However, these groups are striving – through the so called “gender equality” – for something else. They want to convince us that no one is, in his/her nature, man or woman, they want to take away man’s right to identify as a man and woman’s right to identify as a woman and family’s right to identify as a family (…). That is how a sort of perverse caricature against God’s will and preparing God’s punishment is being born.” Accessed July 1, 2020 (https://www.kbs.sk/obsah/sekcia/h/dokumenty-a- vyhlasenia/p/pastierske-listy-konferencie-biskupov-slovenska/c/pastiersky-list-na-prvu-adventnu-nedelu- 2013). 24 Accessed October 10, 2019 (http://moznostvolby.sk). 25 Online petition „Odzvoňme násiliu na ženách – Podporme Istanbulský dohovor” [Times up for Violence Against Women – Let’s Support the Istanbul Convention]. Accessed October 10, 2019 (http://www.changenet.sk/?section=kampane&x=807417). 26 Accessed June 30, 2020 (https://www.facebook.com/istanbulsky.dohovor).

87 ASPEKT and many other feminist and women’s rights organizations from the Slovak civil sphere – they all took active role in promoting the petition (in online and offline form), sharing the campaign’s videos and other materials, publishing articles, engaging in discussions on social media and organizing their own offline and online events.27 The mobilization effect of the campaign was, however, accompanied by rising animosity in society. As Jana Cviková (Interview 2015) points out: There is the mobilization which is important and the fact that more people can learn about more issues. On the other hand, the polarization which is caused by such big case is really dangerous. Additionally, in the same year (2015) and alongside the pro-Convention campaign, the pro-life conservative organization Aliancia za rodinu [Alliance for Family]28 initiated a referendum on “family protection” as part of a broader anti-gender equality tendencies in the country. Its primary goal was to ensure that the Slovak legal system will not allow same- sex marriage and adoption for same sex couples in the future (marriage in Slovakia has been already defined as a union between a man and a woman by 2014 constitutional amendment). The referendum, whose results were supportive of the anti-LGBTQ demands but were not valid due to very low turnout, were preceded with vigorous and highly polarizing campaign (both online and offline) with feminist, women and LGBTQ organizations on one side and the Slovak Catholic Church, conservative political representatives, and pro-life and anti-LGBTQ organizations on the other (Kozubík 2015). Meanwhile in the Czech Republic, a country whose signature was not added to the document at that time (in 2015), several women’s rights and feminist organizations working mainly in the sub-field of domestic and sexual violence against women formed a provisional coalition. Its goal was to raise awareness about the issue, advocate for the necessity of the

27 Alongside ASPEKT, the most vocal one being Aliancia žien Slovenska (https://alianciazien.wordpress.com), MyMamy (https://www.mymamy.sk), Fenestra (http://www.fenestra.sk), (Kotva (http://kotvano.sk), Žena v tiesni (https://zenavtiesni.sk), Hana (https://www.ozhana.sk/sk/), Progresfem (https://www.progresfem.sk), EsFem (http://esfem.sk), Amnesty International Slovakia (https://www.amnesty.sk), Liga za ľudské práva (https://www.hrl.sk/sk), Podesia (former Altera, www.altera.sk), Poradňa pre občianske a ľudské a práva (https://www.poradna-prava.sk), Občan, demokracia a zodpovednosť (http://odz.sk), Ženská sieť HEPY (https://www.lesba.sk) and Ženské kruhy (https://zenskekruhy.sk). Eight of these organizations {ASPEKT, Možnosť voľby, Pro Familia, Fenestra, Aliancia žien Slovenska. Esfem and Podesia are part of a coalition „Iniciatíva piata žena“ The Every Fifht Woman Initative] founded in 2001 focusing on the issue of domestic and sexual violence against women (https://piatazena.wordpress.com/about/). All links accessed 30 June 2020. 28 Accessed October 10, 2019 (https://www.alianciazarodinu.sk/).

88 Convention, and pressure the political representation into signing the document. Drawing inspiration from, and referring to, the previous pro-Convention new media initiatives in Slovakia, they launched several online based campaigns, namely “#ZaIstanbul”

[#ForIstanbul]29 and “Stop násilí na ženách” [Stop the Violence against Women]30, as well as other anti-violence awareness activities. As an attempt to have a better understanding of the public’s attitude towards the issue, Amnesty International conducted a public opinion poll (Focus 2015). It looked into assumptions, potential prejudices, and overall general knowledge about the character and presence of sexual and domestic violence in the Czech Republic. The survey found that the public generally underestimated the character and prevalence of the phenomenon while referring to some of the most stereotypical presumptions about the perpetrator of the violence as a stranger, rather than the more likely perpetrator profile as a partner, colleague or acquaintance. The public were also found to have a propensity to blame the victims (Focus 2015). Therefore, the coalition’s activities directed their attention mainly towards debunking the most prevalent stereotypes and communicating the seriousness of the phenomenon. The Czech Republic signed the Istanbul Convention in May 2016 adding a promise that it will ratify and implement its provisions by 2018. In 2018, both countries witnessed yet another wave of anti-feminist discussions and anti-Convention campaigns labelling the document as part of “gender ideology” initiative whose aim is to destabilize Czech and Slovak families, traditional heterosexual marriages, and to corrupt children’s upbringing. One of the strongest voices in the 2018 debate came once more from the religious circles, who put forward anti-Convention arguments during masses and other religious gatherings. In the Czech Republic, the Czech Women’s Lobby (CWL), an umbrella organization uniting 37 feminist and gender equality organizations, which was also part of the aforementioned coalition promoting the Convention’s signature and ratification, filed a lawsuit against a high representative of the Catholic Church as he mislead the mass-goers by convincing them that the document will lead to deportation to correctional camps for those who will not adhere to the new “gender ideology” (CWL 2018).

29 Accessed October 10, 2019 (http://www.feminismus.cz/cz/clanky/zaistanbul). 30 Accessed October 10, 2019 (https://czlobby.cz/cs/projekty/stopcz-0).

89 The fake news story about correctional camps was then spread mainly online through social media posts, mail chains, and disinformation blogs. As public opinion polls showed, many people were strongly against the Convention’s ratification despite the fact they were unfamiliar with the actual content of the document (CVVM 2018). In Slovakia, the highest representatives of the major Christian religious groups issued an official statement urging the Slovak government to withdraw the signature of the Convention and discontinued all the steps leading towards ratification of the document.31 Being declared as the biggest “fake news” of 2018 (Office of the Government of the Czech Republic 2019) the Istanbul Convention has largely been subject to misinterpretation regarding its content as well as its implications for the society and national states legislative system. Therefore, feminist organizations in both countries are continuing in their myth- corrections efforts including online campaigns and awareness activities, as well as a series of “offline” events, panel discussions, round tables, and happenings.32 In 2019, several Czech feminist organizations formed a new coalition „Hlas proti násilí” [Voice against Violence], launching a new website and online campaign, continuing to raise awareness regarding the importance of the Convention’s ratification.33 Despite these efforts, the National Council of the Slovak Republic passed two resolutions urging the government to reject the ratification of the Istanbul Convention (first in March and then in November 201934). As of mid-2020, neither of the two countries is any closer to ratifying the document or implementing its provisions. As the example of the Istanbul Convention campaign demonstrates, the online sphere has become an important territory, or battlefield, where feminist organizations are able to

31 Accessed October 10, 2019 (https://www.abuba.sk/download/Vyhlasenie_k_Istanbulskemu_dohovoru- SK.pdf). 32 Cooperating with Amnesty International, the Czech pro-Convention coalition launched an online petition collecting around 10 000 signatures by the end of 2018 that they then used to urge the Czech Parliament to follow its original promise to ratify and implement the Convention (Amnesty International and CWL 2018). To support the ongoing campaign, they referred to a newly conducted public opinion poll which showed that the general public sees domestic and sexual violence as serious issues and would like the Czech state to introduce a more comprehensive prevention scheme to protect the victims (Focus 2018). Consequently, one can see a clear connection between the pervasive backlash against the Convention’s ratification and widely spread misconceptions about the document. Despite the fact that the public opinion gravitates toward supporting a more systemic approach towards violence against women, it is not in favor of a treaty whose primarily goal is to deliver just that. 33 Accessed October 10, 2019 (https://www.hlasprotinasili.cz). 34 Accessed July 1, 2020 (https://www.nrsr.sk/web/Dynamic/DocumentPreview.aspx?DocID=465107).

90 challenge (in a joint and transnational manner) the “gender ideology” and anti-feminist discourse. With the flexibility and openness of new media and digital technologies, various feminist and organizations supporting women as well as individual activists joined in the efforts over the years depending on their current capacities and agenda. While some took on more active role and produced videos, visuals, and published myth-debunking articles and awareness-raising blog posts (like Možnosť voľby, ASPEKT and many others in Slovakia or CWL, Amnesty International and others in the Czech Republic), countless of activists and like-minded individuals shared or endorsed aforementioned materials or short messages of support on their personal social media pages. These efforts – drawing back to 2013 and still continuing as of 2020 in both countries – are all impossible to capture and this chapter offered just a brief summary and a few examples. Alongside online advocacy efforts mainly carried out by established feminist organizations, there have been other voices that through also using new media platforms and digital technologies tools, has contributed to a turbulent discussion regarding the Istanbul Convention and violence against women and girls. These have mainly been feminist online media and smaller initiatives using digital technologies as their predominant habitat. Feminist online media introduced alternative narratives, often presenting personal stories and fresh perspectives that contributed to the general discussion. It also provided complementary voices to the informative campaigns and advocative efforts carried out by established feminist organizations.35 In opposition to traditional media that often reinforces

35 Within the Czech and Slovak online feminist scene, there are several news platforms that focus either solely, or at least to some extent, on feminist and gender equality topics. To name a few, the newly established Czech online magazine Heroine published a piece on the topic of “gaslighting,” a form of psychological abuse and manipulation forcing the victim into doubting their sanity and accepting a false depiction of reality (Urbanová 2019). Through this article, the magazine widened general understanding of different forms of domestic violence, moving outside of the traditional definition which is usually limited to physical and sexual assaults. The Slovak feminist platform Feminist.fyi published an opinion piece on the role of sexist jokes and their influence on society’s tolerance for different forms of sexual and psychological violence against women and girls (Flood 2019). Another Slovak online platform Kurník which introduces its readers to feminist topics in weekly articles, published a piece called “This is not a Text About Cold Water Swimming” (Danová 2019). In this article, the author uses cold water swimming—a practice she incorporated into her daily routine—to talk about her experience of sexual abuse. The text attracted enormous attention and the story was further developed by mainstream investigative journalists (Cuprik and Hanzelová 2019). The police launched an investigation to identify and prosecute the perpetrator, a summer camp leader who abused the author when she was a child. Attempting to reconcile the religious and feminist perspective, left-oriented Czech online platform Alarm brought an evangelic theologist who presented a pro-Istanbul Convention argument through the perspective of her own failed marriage (Šipka 2018). In sum, feminist online outlets and platforms bring diverse experiences that are often absent in the mainstream discussion. Additionally, they help to strengthen

91 the marginalization of alternative voices, feminist online media has enabled pluralization and further heterogenization of public discourse (Couldry and Curran 2003; Downey and Fenton 2003). In this case, the anti-Convention and “gender ideology” side of the debate became more organized over the years and received significant financial resources. They were then able to produce professional videos and other campaign materials and pay for their distribution in mainstream media including major television channels (this was especially evident in 2015 during the so called “family protection” referendum, see Kozubík 2015). For the feminist opposition, who are not always well financed or connected to mainstream media, the online sphere provides an available and affordable space where they are able to share their perspectives, information and calls for mobilization.

4.2.3. Inclusivity – Reaching Outside the “Feminist Bubble” and Engaging Younger Generation

I referred to the example of the Istanbul Convention campaign (which is more of a diverse, borderless and far reaching initiative involving countless of different actors operating both online and offline in different countries over the course of seven years and counting rather than single, limited event) as an illustration of the mobilization potential of new media and digital technologies. A potential that is characterized not only by the ability to bring into action like-minded feminists and allying organizations over shared specific goal – in this case, ratification of a strategic document tacking the issue of domestic and sexual violence – but also to further open the movement as well as the organization to new groups of supporters. First, l offer some critical remarks regarding to the extent to which new media and digital technologies – referring to the aforementioned campaign – allow for greater dissemination of information and calls for action outside of existing circles of supporters, i.e. the so called “feminist bubble”. As Paula Jójart 2015 stresses:

These things [the use of new media and digital technologies] sometimes substitute the fact that they [feminist organizations] don’t have the money to go

the general understanding of the phenomenon that manifests itself in different forms and is present in the everyday lives of many people.

92 to the mainstream media (…). But it has its limits because even though the user’s environment of Facebook is shifting – globally and here as well – it is still not really intergenerational. For example, we do not have such an impact in regions. Lots of organizations are trying to do regional activities but this rises and falls with money. No one really has network of branches and the network of cooperating organizations is limited. (Interview, Paula Jójart 2015)

The inability of online campaigns and information shared over new media to reach specific groups (such as targeted age brackets) or penetrate certain social circles is especially relevant in cases where the campaign or cause opponents have bigger resources and better infrastructure that allows for wider dissemination of information. Barriers to accessing the online sphere range from the socio-economic (Dijk 2005), to age (and associated level of comfort and familiarity with online platforms) and education (Cammaerts 2003; Warschauer 2004). As such, one can hardly talk about the “limitless” or “revolutionary” reach of digital technologies.

You cannot really compare that [the use of new media and digital technologies] with when they publish pastoral letter that is then distributed and read in all the churches in Slovakia which is really an issue. We don’t have that logistics and human resources. So then we are trying to save the day with the social media even though the impact is limited. (Interview, Paula Jójart 2015)

Additionally, there are significant challenges inherent in the infrastructure of online platforms and user behaviour that restrict exposure to differing views. The fact that what we see in terms of what is being showed to us by social media platforms and the internet search browser is to a large extent influenced by our previously exhibited preferences and the way we spend time online (Hindman 2008; Vaidhyanathan 2011). “I think that, really, people don’t realize they are limited by the type of friends they have (…). Then I do not see section of reality but I see a section of specific reality that is being influenced by my worldview” emphasizes Paula Jójart (Interview, 2015). As new media scholars suggest (Barber 2003; Bailey et al. 2007), these specific parameters of the online sphere can further cement already existing tight-knit communities, rather than increase their openness and inclusivity. Since these barriers are subtle, they are not always well reflected by organizations and activists.

93 Secondly, I elaborate on the presumption of new media and digital technologies allowing for easier engagement and involvement of younger generation in feminist movement. Being the leading organization in the field of feminist literature and philosophy in Slovakia (and the Czech Republic) since the 1990s onward, ASPEKT’s core work has always predominantly focused on publishing, translating, and writing of feminist books, essays, articles, and commentaries. Alongside countless books, collections of essays and alike that the organization published in print, ASPEKT also has a variety of electronically issued and online-accessible texts and documents. In terms of transition from print to online (at least when it comes to shorter texts, essays, and commentaries), the biggest shift in this regard came in 2004 when they moved its printed journal of the same name (ASPEKT) online. Between 1993 and 2004, 21 issues of ASPEKT journal were published (ranging from having 92 to 334 pages per issue),36 and after that date the journal turned into webzine and was renamed to ASPEKTin.37 Driven by limited financial resources, the move from printed journal to webzine was to a large extent the result of external circumstances rather than a strategic decision to fully explore the possibilities of online sphere. Yet, this move not only allowed the organization to become more open and accessible to potential readers but also to be more inclusive to new writers and contributors; ASPEKT used the opportunity to encourage the younger generation to join in with comments and essays through open calls for submission. As some theorists suggest, while the mainstream print industry has been declining over the past decades, this does not have to be bad news for feminist media. “Mainstream print outlets (…) have contributed a lot to the media landscape, but they have also been, historically, spaces showcasing a limited range of opinion and voices” (Zeister 2013: 178). Online platforms, where many feminists reside nowadays, play an important role in providing space for articulation and strengthening of alternative voice. Zuzana Maďarová reflects on the time of the transition from printed journal to online webzine and explains how the organization works with incoming submissions and what is the benefit of that collaboration between ASPEKT and external writers.

36 Accessed July 1, 2020 (http://www.aspekt.sk/content/casopis-aspekt). 37 Accessed July 1, 2020 (http://www.aspekt.sk/aspektin/title).

94 It felt only natural to go online with ASPEKTin. Sometimes the interest is bigger, sometimes smaller. Sometimes our capacities are bigger, sometimes smaller. This work requires a lots of time (…), the texts we receive go through detailed evaluation (…) and the person who sent the text receives feedback and time for revision. The editorial work is really important. It’s mainly for people who want to work with text and move forward. We don’t publish any text, not even on the web, that does not meet certain criteria. (Interview, Zuzana Maďarová 2015)

The stress on the quality of the texts as well as editorial work is understandable given the thematic focus of the organization and its long history with feminist literature and publishing. The feedback and subsequent improvement of writing quality is being perceived as a benefit that comes hand in hand with the opportunity to collaborate with ASPEKT, something the organization can offer to the younger generation of feminists. Additionally, such perspective is part of an effort to ensure that – even though ASPEKT is adapting to external circumstance and new technological opportunities, it still manages to retain its core values and historical “heritage”. The interactive character of new media and digital technologies (McMillian 2006) is tightly connected to the fact that these new platforms (such as blogging, social media and the like) allow for fast communication and publishing thoughts, responses or commentaries. This feature is especially used among the younger generation of internet users (Livingstone 2009). Such rapidity of interactions and the process of posting texts online does not comply with the way ASPEKT chose to set up their publishing efforts on the new media platforms. Jana Cviková describes her perspective on this discrepancy and offers some critical thoughts.

That is the dark side of the so called democratization of the Internet that you can publish there whatever in whichever stage (…). People have this idea – the way I see it on Facebook or blogs – that it’s just about some grammar. “Just some grammar” means that even if I am criticizing society’s rules… grammar is a set of rules that we agreed on as a society and they tell you something about how the society functions (…). If I don’t understand that there is some abstract order, I can’t even rebel against it. (Interview, Jana Cviková 2015)

While referring to her professional background in feminist literature and philosophy, the founding member of the organization makes an allusion to long history of feminist theory of

95 language. From Robin Lakoff and her Language and Woman’s Place ([1975] 2004) through Dale Spender’s radical critique of Man Made Language (1980) to Judith Butler’s concept of performativity (1997), the issue of language as an important symbolic structure always played significant role in the feminist theory. With more and more people being able to voice their opinion online in an instant and uncensored manner, she shows her concern that they somehow forgot that language, its structure, and the way we (mis)use it in our everyday communication are important elements that have strong implications for gender equality. That it is, indeed, important what one does with words. Additionally, it is yet another testament of the preservation narrative that has been reoccurring through the interviews – of the organization’s history, legacy, standards, and principles. A different and slightly contesting perspective on the issue of online publishing, ASPEKT’s webzine and the organization’s attempt to attract new collaborators from the younger generation is being offered by Ľubica Kobová. As she mentions in our interview, while working for ASPEKT, she organized a student competition in the form of active call for papers. It eventually generated a number of contributions with some of the authors ending up writing for the webzine regularly. “I had a really good feeling about this (…) since I wanted girls of my age to start to contribute, so the discourse itself would also gradually change” (Interview, Ľubica Kobová 2015). As she points out, the attempt to attract more contributors came hand in hand with an expectation that the transition will lead to a greater diversification of voices and change of the organization’s current online written production and communication style. “I thought that online feminism is something that can really work and I reflected on that a lot back then, even in relation to ASPEKT. I was contemplating whether I want to further continue with the webzine” (Ibid.). For her, it was not so much about maintaining the high editorial standards or to pass on knowledge about how to improve one’s writing skills, but rather about truly involving like-minded people from the younger generation and subsequently changing the discourse of the webzine.

The webzine was supposed to be ASPEKT’s showcase which means you were largely determined by the fact that you collect reviews of ASPEKT’s publications or publish articles written by ASPEKT members (…). My conclusion was that the webzine resembled, with regards to the editorial work, to the printed magazine.

96 And I wanted to do faster way of publishing, my role model was Feministing.com.38 (Ibid.)

Being inspired by other successful online-based feminist projects abroad, she was intrigued by the potential of new media and digital technologies. What it could mean for the organization and the way it shares information or communicates with its supporters and opponents. As Ľubica Kobová concludes, ASPEKT’s approach did not really align with how she envisioned a modern online based publishing platform. While wanting to create space where she could, together with other like-minded feminists, share her thoughts, reflections and commentaries, she decided to launch her own personal project, an online site

Feministky.sk [Feminists.sk].39 In an introductory email to her friends and fellow feminists who could potentially work with her on the collective blogging platform, she explains her intentions emphasizing the key qualities of the site.

Feministky.sk could be blogging space for critical young feminists where they could comment, gloss, analyse what they find important in public sphere (…). The themes of the articles should be topical – they should react on what is happening: who said something stupid in politics, what policy is being discussed whether it will have negative or positive effect on women (…). Feministky.sk could be relatively “quick” medium which should be also reflected in the editorial work. (personal email correspondence, Ľubica Kobová 2009, bold in original) ⁠

The project, running from 2009 to 2013, offered a collective platform where contributors were given an opportunity to share their short essays, commentaries, immediate reflections and opinion pieces. Additionally, it has become a space for self-identification with feminist

38 Feministing.com was – at the time of the interview – one of the most influential English-written blogs on the online feminist scene with 1,2 million unique monthly visitors. The blogging site covered “broad range of intersectional feminist issues—from campus sexual violence to transgender rights to reproductive justice to the fight against global colonialism” serving “as a gateway to the feminist movement for many young people”. The site closed down in 2020 due to “inability to build a long-term funding model in today’s media environment”. Accessed July 6, 2020 (http://feministing.com/2019/12/08/blogging-off-feministing- forever/). 39 As of 1 July 2020, the site is empty with a following statement: “Between the year 2009 – 2013, Feministky.sk were blogging here. In the mid 2020, we will publish here a collection of all the published texts.” Accessed July 1, 2020 (http://feministky.sk).

97 ideas. As the project founder emphasizes, the very name of the blogging platform carries a significant meaning. “I consider the name Feministky.sk itself to be a form of identification, opening the label feminist to broader group of identities” (Ibid.). Although available data about self-identification as a feminist refer mainly to Western Europe or to the US (McCabe 2005), the way feminism is being defined in the mainstream public discourse influences individual attitudes.40 “How feminism is defined is crucial. When people say they are not feminists, it’s often because they are using a narrow definition rather than a broad one” (Redfern and Aune 2010: 6). The small proportion of women who label themselves as feminists is caused by this constrained definition. Indeed, somewhat “schizophrenic” attitudes towards feminism are becoming typical. “This stigmatizing of the term ‘feminism’ had its effects. It has led to the development of the phenomenon of the person who states ‘I’m not a feminist but...’, where the ‘but’ is followed by endorsement of goals that are usually thought of as feminist, such as equal pay for equal work” (Walby 2011: 3). In other words, young women may generally share feminist ideas but without labelling them as such (Stacey 1987; Olson et al. 2008). This leads to the fact that the term is often being reserved or associated with academia and the nongovernmental sector. When compared to ASPEKT’s publishing efforts online, the project serves as an illustration of different – more flexible, personal, and swift approach to using digital technologies. Qualities that are becoming increasingly important for many young feminists starting up their own projects online. As Ľubica Kobová’s concludes:

That is something I associate with online feminism or third wave if you like – topical reactions and online issues. It is not important to have editorial staff, stable office and apply for grants. For me, the most important thing was that we each have an opinion that will be published on collective platform which is not in any way formalized except for its name. And this was not really achievable within ASPEKT’s webzine. (Interview, Ľubica Kobová 2015)

In the following section of the dissertation, I will look into this type of online-based feminist activism in greater detail. Drawing on interviews with several Slovak young generation

40 The topic of “I am not a feminist but” covers in local (although Czech, not Slovak) context to some extent Vodrážka (2006).

98 feminists who started their own online-based projects or platforms in recent years, I will explore the presumption that these new initiatives are broadening the variety of what is labelled as feminism and what forms and manifestations feminist activism takes (for ex. Dobson 2015). As I argue, through these platforms and tools, new media users have an opportunity to be active agents of the online feminist community while maintaining their individual take on activism and gender equality promotion.

4.3. New Voices – A Brief Excursion into the Online Feminist Scene in Slovakia

The following section summarizes the main results of the second part of my research focusing on selected online-based feminist projects. In chapters 4.3.1. – 4.3.3., I look into the phenomenon of a more personalized approach to feminism that is driven by the desire for a virtual “space of one’s own”. Secondly, I focus on the relation between these new online- based initiatives and the traditional established organizations looking into the potential influence of digital technologies or strengthening or hindering the relations within the feminist movement in Slovakia. In driving things to a close, I point my attention towards some of the negative elements of digital technology use – namely online harassment and the perception of online feminism as a “third shift” that poses a threat to the projects’ sustainability and to the activists’ well-being. The rise of new media and digital technologies has brought set of new opportunities and challenges to the feminist movement (Wolmark 2003). “‘Tweet or perish!’ seems to be an inevitable axiom for feminist dialogue and organizing, a sobering reality that begs deeper explorations” (Gurumurthy 2011). The expanding pool of research literature covering this topic is diverse and constantly growing with works celebrating an emancipatory potential of digital technologies and its positive influence on establishment of online feminist communities (Traiser 2007) as well as more critical perspectives highlighting the negative consequences of this engagement (Gajjala and Oh 2012, Hasinoff 2014). Additionally, research on the nature and character of the relationship between established feminist organizations and online sphere (for ex. Edwards 2004) is accompanied by a growing

99 interest in more individualized and creative forms of feminist activism (Schuster 2013, Baer 2016). Drawing on the tradition of this arising theoretical production, I will now turn my attention onto several examples of feminist projects and initiatives that have emerged in the Slovak online space in recent years. In addition to interviews conducted with ASPEKT members and collaborators in 2015, I interviewed four more women – founders and leading figures of Slovak online projects who describe themselves as (young generation) feminists. In 2016, I conducted an interview with Dana Vitálošová who started an online media platform Feminist.fyi publishing commentaries, articles, translations and other feminism- related content. In 2020, I interviewed Eva Gatialová, one of the leading members of Kundy Crew, a feminist group whose work is revolving around cross-stich artwork and social media communication. Michaela Kučová, a co-founder of feminist platform Kurník [Henhouse] publishing weekly online newsletter. And lastly, Diana Gregorová who co-runs a project devoted to critical reflection of marketing industry in Slovakia as well as organizing annual anti-award for the most sexist advertisement of the year called Sexistický kix [Sexist Blunder]. The interviewees were selected through referral methods. During each interview (including those with ASPEKT members and collaborators), I asked for recommendations on noteworthy online-based initiatives and feminist activists in Slovakia and those were the main projects that repeatedly came out in response to that question. Despite the fact that the online feminist scene in Slovakia is neither large in terms of the number of activities, nor of production, this overview is not exhaustive. The incorporation of additional interviews into the research design – interviews outside the scope of ASPEKT organizations and its closets collaborator – is guided by an effort to enrich the primary perspective and to offer more nuanced understanding of ASPEKT’s take on digital technologies as well as Slovak online feminist scene in general. All the interviewees either knew ASPEKT and its activities well or they themselves directly cooperated with the organizations – through their online based projects or as individual feminist activists.

100 4.3.1. Everyday, Accessible or for Introverts – New Ways of Doing Feminism Online

The use of new media and digital technologies for feminist activism has been researched by numerous scholars (for ex. Morahan-Martin 2000; Sutton and Pollock 2000) with apparent rise in those studies focusing on younger generation feminists (Garrison 2000; Harris 2008; 2010; Keller 2011, 2012, 2015). One of the reoccurring topics in these works is how online feminism – social media pages, blogs, online media platforms and alike – serves for many young women (and men) as a source of inspiration, or gateway, to feminist ideas and community. The interviewed representatives of online feminist projects all mention some type of foreign (usually English) initiative or group that inspired them to launch their own enterprise.

I used to spend lots of time online in various feminist circles and I really liked what was happening there – I am talking about English speaking world now – and I felt an urge to start something similar. Specifically, [something like], Lenny Letter,41 a newsletter published by Lenna Dunham. (Interview, Michaela Kučová/Kurník 2020)

Comparably, the Kundy Crew project was born out of online inspiration as well. “My friend Iva [the project co-founder] came with an idea that she saw this Australian group called Radical

Cross Stich42 and that we could do something alike here” (Interview, Eva Gatialová/Kundy Crew 2020). With an unprecedented accessibility of information that comes hand in hand with the expansion of new media, activists as well as everyday users of digital technologies can easily follow various sites and interact with like-minded groups. For many, these encounters then broaden their perspective in terms of how diverse the feminist movement can be and serve as a catalyst for launching something similar on their native, Slovak, online scene. For others, digital technologies can facilitate their very first encounter with feminist ideas and serve as a consciousness-raising experience.

41 Accessed July 10, 2020, (https://www.lennyletter.com). 42 Accessed July 10, 2020 (http://radicalcrossstitch.com).

101 I didn’t really care about feminism for long time and had a feeling that there is, in fact, gender equality in Slovakia. And then I went through this test which I found on Facebook. It was a test of implicit gender stereotypes (…) and the results showed that I have actually quite a few biases. And well, I thought I am little bit more progressive (…). So I came to a conclusion that I want some change. So I thought if I’ll do something about that [my gender biases], I might influence other people as well. (Interview, Dana Vitálošová/Feminist.fyi 2016)

Younger generation activists are becoming increasingly likely to be exposed to feminism online (Schuster 2013). The use of new media becomes a way how to discover feminism in the first place and also how to become part of the movement in their own way and on their own terms. Through these platforms and tools, new media users have an opportunity to be active agents of the online feminist community while maintaining their individual take on activism and gender equality promotion. Secondly, the notion of a more personalised, engaging take on feminism also resonated through the interviews. The project representatives often mentioned that they launched their initiatives hoping to provide a “different” kind of feminism than the one they can usually come across while engaging with traditional organizations both online and offline (however not necessarily accompanied by criticism towards these established organizations).

From the very begging, I wanted to do it more accessible. I knew about ASPEKT and that they do it in a very academic way but I wanted to come up with more popularizing articles; not tabloid-like though. Simply so one gets entertained but also learns something at the same time. (Interview, Dana Vitálošová/Feminist.fyi 2016)

Many younger generation feminists are joining the movement without formal university training or experience with feminist civil society organizations (Schuster 2013), a prerequisite that was common in the 1990s and early 2000s in the Czech and Slovak feminist scene where the prevalence of feminist activists came from the academia or the nongovernmental sector (Hašková, Křížková, and Linková 2006). Such ways of doing feminism, i.e. less theoretical and more accessible, are then resonating not only with the project creators but also with their audience. By establishing a space “of their own”, a form

102 of feminism that resonates with their everyday experience, worldview and aesthetics, they are potentially reaching out to those who might have felt disinterested or not represented by the current type of activism available on the feminist market.

The initial motivation was very selfish but then I was happy that we created space not only for ourselves but also for others (…). I wanted Kurník to be a sort of gateway drug, an open door, a bait that catches you and then you might start to think differently about things. I wanted it to be feminist in accessible way (…). For me, it is important to highlight that feminism is not deterrent but it is, indeed, connected to who does the dishes at home. Even that is a feminist question. (Interview, Michaela Kučová/Kurník 2020)

The plurality and heterogeneity of feminist projects online defies the idea (often promoted by the movement’s critics rather than feminists themselves) that there is a one-size-fits-all approach towards the enhancement of gender equality and feminist ideas. Additionally, as Harris (2010) pointed out, new media and digital technologies provide young people with new alternative opportunities allowing them to engage with feminism in a less intimidating way. The Kundy Crew project is based on making cross-stitch artwork embroidering feminist messages and slogans. The four-member team organizes workshops for potential co-operators or those who would simply like to try this form of creative activism. Once the final products – often reacting to up-to-date issues or the current political situation and with a hint of subversion and humour – are finalised, the group shares them and disseminates them via their social media platforms, mainly their Facebook page, engaging with their followers and online community. As Eva Gatialová, the group co-founder, points out in our interview (2020): “We are trying to frame it in a way that it is a form of activism for those who do not feel comfortable to stand somewhere and yell, it is a more quiet and patient form of activism in some way.” While diversifying the face of contemporary feminism, these various projects potentially widen the portfolio of the movement’s supporters and speak to a larger and more heterogenous audience than traditional organisations. Lastly, some of these online based projects, mastering the interactive and engagement-based feature of new media and digital technologies, manage to activate their audience and turn them into participating members who are themselves promoting feminist

103 ideas. Sexistický kix, being inspired by a similar initiative Sexistické prasátečko [Sexist

Piggy]43 run by a Czech nongovernmental organization NESEHNUTÍ between 2009 – 2018, is based on such participatory approach. The project consists of organizing the annual anti- award for the most sexist advertisement of the year (nominated and voted for by the general public). However, as the co-founder mentions in our interview, most of the work revolves around communication about sexist advertisements on the social media platforms, mainly the project’s Facebook page44.

What is great is that it is really interactive (…). Practically speaking, people send us print screens via Messenger, they tag us under certain posts they find problematic. They put the ‘at symbol’ [@] and Sexistický kix and we immediately receive a notification (…). Which is great because they often want to communicate with us whether it [the advertisement] is indeed problematic. So the interaction is quick and there is lots of it. (Interview, Diana Gregorová/Sexistický kix 2020)

Additionally, the social media platform-based interaction makes it easier to communicate directly with the companies or advertisement agencies as well. Since the majority of them maintain active social media presence for marketing purposes, the project coordinators as well as their followers can tag (i.e. mark their profile so it creates link to their social media page and sends a notification that they have been mentioned in a post or conversation) and directly communicate with them. The followers themselves then often take over an active role and engage in conversation, criticize or demand the advertisement to be changed or taken down. Such form of online activism – as Diana Gregorová pointed out – resulted in some cases in direct change with the company issuing public apology on their social media profile or the advertisement agency altering the problematic visual or textual part of the commercial. Thanks to their active online presence, the project also cooperates with what they call “non-feminist actors” such as The Club of Advertising Agencies Slovakia (KRAS)45. Influenced by the mainstreaming of gender sensitive approach to commercials at the

43 Accessed July 10, 2020 (https://www.prasatecko.cz). 44 Accessed July 10, 2020 (https://www.facebook.com/Sexistický-kix-1533222317006141/). 45 Accessed July 1, 2020 (http://kras.sk).

104 international advertisement market, this project works with Sexistický kix, relying on their critical feedback and expertise. In closing, this project and other newly emerging forms of feminist activism serve to illustrate the potential for digital technologies and new media platforms to broadly distribute feminist ideas, connect different actors and constituencies, and provide the tools and the space for creative forms of protests and participation.

4.3.2. Traditional and New – a Tale of Two Worlds?

The research focusing on newly emerging forms of online based activism is often accompanied by a reflection on the extent to which these new modes of feminism can affect the relationship between generations of feminists. Some authors claim that new media and digital technologies encourage greater connectivity and self-reflexivity within the movement (Thelandersson 2014) allowing for “new kinds of intersectional conversations” (Baer 2016: 18). In general, the interviewed representatives of online feminist projects all perceive themselves as feminists seeing the active self-labelling as an important part of their affiliation to the movement. Despite the fact they are aiming to create different, more “accessible” or “everyday” feminism through their various projects, they all know about the work of traditional feminist organizations in Slovakia and often cooperate with them.

I feel like I am part of the Slovak feminist scene. I guess also because I have been working with ASPEKT for about six years., so I cannot really separate that. But we are trying to cooperate a lot [with other feminist organizations] – with ASPEKT, we also provided some prices for NESEHNUTÍ‘s Sexistické prasátečko competition or we share calls for action and posts by other Slovak and Czech feminist organizations on our social media site. (Interview, Eva Gatialová/Kundy Crew 2020)

However, such a high level of connectivity and cooperation might also be attributed to the size of the movement, rather than the interactive character and community-enhancing potential of new media and digital technologies. Since the feminist scene in Slovakia is fairly small, the individual activists, organizations’ members, and project coordinators tend to know each other and the work they do. As one of the project representatives points out: “Sadly, there are not many initiatives in Slovakia. So the few things that are here… we know

105 about and support one another, I believe” (Interview, Diana Gregorová/Sexistický kix 2020). Therefore, even despite their differences in terms of thematic scope of interest or chosen methods of feminist activism and gender equality promotion, they tend to mutually support their work, even if only through referring to one another’s events, campaigns or newly published books and articles. Cooperation between an established organization and an online-based feminist initiative can also be supportive, and provide the opportunity for mentorship and learning. Such was the experience of Sexistický kix. Prior to launching their project, the co-founding team reached out to “– let’s call them more seasoned feminists and organizations – like ASPEKT, [namely] Jana Cviková, and Paula Jójart who had experience with advertisements (…). As the project’s representative emphasizes, “[t]his was really useful because they showed us what did and did not work (…) and gave us expert know how” (Ibid.). This initial cooperation helped them to follow up on what had already been achieved in the area by established feminist organizations as well as individual activists, and to hone their approach by continuing with their own project promoting their take on the issue of sexist advertisement. Additionally, being able to learn from past success and failures of their predecessors made the project itself prone to be more successful.

I think it hurts the cause when people think they discovered America or they are coming with something that has never been done here because it is not always true. I saw it for myself that even though I thought nothing like Sexistický kix or Sexistické prasátečko was done here, I later learned there were many attempts made and articles written about the topic. (Ibid.)

In an interview for feminist literary magazine Glosália, the second part of the project co- founding duo – Jitka Dvořáková – mentions that when they were deciding about the project’s name, they originally wanted to honour previous Slovak initiatives in the field of critical feminist reflection of sexist advertisement.

Originally, we chose the name Krivý klinec [Crooked Spike]. With that, we were continuing in Paula Jojárt’s activities who focused on sexist advertisement at her blog called Hrdzavé klince [Rusty Spikes]. The word ‘crooked’ referred to

106 inequality that is being reproduced and conserved by sexist and discriminatory advertisements. (Dvořáková 2017)

At the end, the name was change to its current version after series of discussion with The Club of Advertising Agencies Slovakia (KRAS) as it resembles the title of their annual award for the most creative Slovak advertisement Zlatý klinec [Golden Spike]. However, the attempt for highlighting the continuity of the feminist critical endeavour is apparent here. In our interview, Paula Jojárt (2016) mentions her blog as an online side project she launched driven by her interest in the topic: “I was just annoyed by sexist advertisements so I started to collect them and I thought I would put them up on the blog together with short comments. (…).” accompanied by the lack of similar endeavor on the Slovak feminist scene: “I kind of missed the fact we do not have The Sexist Piggy (…). Most of the time, those are just short ironic text, so no big writing.” Even though she eventually suspended her blog, she was later on – as indicated above – able to pass on her knowledge of the topic as well as the online environment onto next generation of Slovak feminists. Despite the fact further research would be necessary to confirm such presumption, it seems that the Slovak feminist scene being somewhat small in size and number, remains relatively cooperative despite the ongoing diversification of forms of activism, especially in the online sphere. The size of the scene also prevents young online feminists ending up “hidden” from their older generation counterparts, a phenomenon described by certain scholars.

Since online activism is only visible to those who use it, this form of participation hides many young women’s activities from the wider public and from politically active women of older generations. (Schuster 2013: 8)

Such “invisibility” might be true in terms of the audience these online projects run by young feminists speak to as it can be presumed that they do not penetrate certain social or age groups (however, this would require further research and is only a hypothesis at this point). But it does not seem to apply to the older generation feminists, especially because the online projects and younger generation feminists do engage, at least to some degree, with traditional organizations. The interconnection is naturally even stronger and supported

107 those cases where younger generation feminists work in multiple roles – working or externally cooperating with established organizations and running their own online-based feminist project at the same time. To conclude, while I would not claim that older generation feminists and younger online-based activists are disconnected from each other, I do agree with that “in their conversations about [or approaches to] online activism they sometimes seem to be at cross- purposes” (Schuster 2013: 21). As one of the online project coordinator points out when reflecting on the work of traditional feminist organizations in Slovakia: “Surely, I see a lot of room for improvement but at the same time, I understand that (..) it is a generational clash regarding what is the priority and how do we want to function” (Interview, Michaela Kučová/Kurník 2020). Referring to the interviews with both, ASPEKT members and close collaborators conducted in 2015 as well as with online feminist project representatives in 2016 and 2020, I identify distinct difference in perspectives on the character of contemporary feminism as well as how it shall be enhanced via new media and digital technologies. At the same time, I conclude that these differences do not lead to complete disregard or lack of cooperation between the “two worlds”.

4.3.3. The Perks of Doing Feminism Online – Online Harassment and the Question of Sustainability

In the last chapter of this section, I will look into two issues tightly connected to the use of new media and digital technologies that are resonating in the theoretical literature as well as within the conducted interviews – the online harassment phenomenon and the question of sustainability in light of online activism being often part of the unpaid digital media economy. The online sphere, once conceptualized as a new public space encouraging greater democratic involvement, exhibits similar inequalities and pitfalls one can find in the offline world. Some of those issues are even further amplified in the online environment, including anti-feminist backlash. The theoretical literature distinguish, with a certain degree of simplification, two forms of anti-feminist backlash that are especially harmful to the individual lives of activists as well as to the movement as a whole – political surveillance of feminist activism and the harassment of women online (Megarry 2014; Citron 2014;

108 Dubrofsky and Magnet 2015). Firstly, when it comes to the issue of surveillance of online activities, “using search, locative, and analytics technologies can be more intensive, extensive, and of lower cost and visibility than offline monitoring” (Megarry 2008: 1070). With greater accessibility of online-based projects comes hand in hand higher visibility of feminist activists who then, as a result, become more traceable and open to communicative confrontation. Hence, it is important to comprehend which groups benefit and which are – on the other hand – endangered by this new culture of hyper visibility (Baym and Boyd 2012), as well as to what extent these “techniques of watching” (Andrejevic 2015) are shaping the form and type of activism taking place online. Within the conducted interviews, the online projects representatives were mainly talking about the second form of anti-feminist backlash mentioned above, the online harassment. They all experienced personal attacks online, sexist and detrimental comments or some other type of online abuse – however the degree of severity and frequency was different for each of them.

We experienced several attacks bordering with cyberbullying or connected to hate speech. This stuff can be very powerful (…) and it can have a very negative effect on person. Basically, we criticized a company which had a group of well- organized followers who started to write to us, search information about us online – who we are, how do we look – and they started to attack us in a very unpleasant way. (Interview, Diana Gregorová/Sexistický kix 2020)

Online harassment does not target the organization’s and activist’s work only, it also takes the form of personal attacks, digital harassment, and online abuse. Feminists, but also high- profile women in general that are vocal and active in the public scene, are often subjected to a variety of threats, slurs, and other harmful practices including cyberbullying and shaming, trolling, cyberstalking or digital identity theft. In the online sphere, they are becoming even more visible and, in a way, accessible and vulnerable.

We are quite traditional society. So, the more courage one needs if one wants to do this work. I was a little bit afraid of this side at the beginning. Back in a day, I started to share feminist posts on Kyberia,46 a popular Slovak social network,

46 Accessed September 22, 2017 (https://kyberia.sk).

109 and I was met with terrible backlash receiving slurs telling me I am a slut. So, on one hand, it charged me up that something needs to be done about this (…). However, it was not a pleasant experience. (Interview, Dana Vitálošová/Feminist.fyi 2016)

This can be especially detrimental for those activists who are sharing their personal stories and struggles in order to advocate for a bigger cause. As a result, targeted individuals having to deal with emotional harm and psychological trauma might react either with self-silencing and retreating away from the public eye, or may “shrug it off” and in so doing normalize this form of abuse as “part of the job” (Lewis, Rowe, and Wiper 2016). In some areas such as for example the gaming industry, the level of online harassment towards women is so high, some theorists are talking about “legacy of fear” as a “system through which men frighten, and are thus able to control, women as a social group” (Megarry 2018: 1078). Naturally, women also abuse women (see Societal Stockholm Syndrome, Graham 1994) and remains the case in online sphere as well. On the other hand, potentially due to the specific character or form of their online projects, some interviewed activists state that they receive very little online abuse.

It [online hate] is successfully avoiding us which I find surprising (…). I do not think the stuff we do is somewhat lukewarm, especially in the Slovak environment where completely harmless things are being labeled as radical feminism (…). [W]e are primary appear as a collective, so I think that people do not send us that much hate speech because it is difficult to detect us as a concrete individual. (Interview, Eva Gatialová/Kundy Crew 2020)

Similarly, the feminist media platform Kurník and its contributors do not receive frequent or severe hate messages and other forms of online based harassment. The project, founded in 2016, is based on a newsletter which is being sent on a weekly basis to its followers. The newsletter consists of editorial, the main article being written by one of Kurník’s contributors and some bonus materials such as links to interesting articles and events. Subsequently, the main contribution is later in the week published on the project’s website and social media profiles where there is a room for interactive engagement and discussion.

110 We are primarily communicating with cultivated audience and even if we have different opinion on certain topics, we simply have a conversation about that in the comments section (…). This is also one of the reasons contributors reach out to us with very personal topics knowing that this is sort of private space where if they publish something, there will not be any sort of victim blaming or even plain hate speech. (Interview, Michaela Kučová/Kurník 2020)

Additionally, the platform’s contribution team consists of women only since it was important – as the project co-founder points out – to build a space where “women’s experience is truly amplified and where women’s work is being presented” adding that “it seems to me we do not really need to hear yet another man sharing his thoughts on uterus” (Ibid.). Some scholars are noting the lack of value associated with women-only activism in digital feminism (Long 2015) – however, in many cases such strategy enhances the creations of the so called safe spaces where women can express their ideas freely and without fear of being harassed. Such qualities are important especially in cases where feminists activists (or women more broadly) use new media platforms and digital technologies to share their experience with sensitive issues such as sexual violence (Li et al. 2019; Keller, Mendes, and Ringrose 2018). Lastly, another pitfall to digital activism is the question of capacities and resources as it becomes, for many, a “third shift” they perform on top of their regular jobs and personal lives. Gradually, scholars are starting to analyse the role of feminist activists in the unpaid media economy (Jarrett 2016) as the cases of online-based having to close down due to lack or sustainability. Especially smaller volunteer-led initiatives or individual activists who, due to the lack of funding, operate more flexibly and freely might have to deal with the issues of exhaustion and burn out. “Online feminism has transformed the way advocacy and action function within the feminist movement. And yet, this amazing innovation in movement organizing is unsustainable. Bloggers and online organizers largely suffer from a psychology of deprivation” (Martin and Valenti 2012: 3). In closing, it is important to acknowledge and reflect on these practical components of online activism and contemporary feminist (in most cases unpaid) labour. Despite the fact new media and digital technologies provide extensive opportunities for launching one’s own projects and taking part in the feminist movement without the necessity for extensive funding, it comes with potential negative implications for the long term sustainability of online feminism as well as activists’ well-being.

111 4.4. Discussion

This research aimed to explore the relation between new media and digital technologies and contemporary feminism with a focus on how ASPEKT – the selected feminist organization and its members – use and approach online tools and platforms and how this way of doing “online feminism” influenced is by its specific context—namely the organization’s historical evolution, values, thematic scope, generational affiliation, and the socio-historical context it operates in. The case study was positioned within a broader investigation of the Slovak online feminist scene, providing a detailed overview of ASPEKT’s transition towards the network age as well as an analysis of “new voices” – the most notable online-based projects founded by a younger generation of Slovak feminists in recent years, including the webpage Feminist.fyi, the feminist group Kundy Crew, the newsletter-based platform Kurník [Henhouse], and the online project Sexistický kix [Sexist Blunder]. Based on the qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with selected ASPEKT members and collaborators, as well as with representatives of new online feminist projects, coupled with the analysis of relevant online-based materials, it can be concluded that the way ASPEKT approaches new media and digital technologies is to a large extent influenced by the specific context it derives from and operates in. Specifically, the organization’s approach is rooted in its historical evolution and the emphasis on the grand narrative of the “early authentic years,” a post-EU accession sense of frustration and betrayal of “honest feminism,” the group’s thematic specialization in feminist literature and philosophy, and the experience of women activists as being left out from (male) mainstream histories. In the following section, I will further examine the meaning, importance, and relevance of the dissertation research results. Firstly, I will summarize and interpret the key themes and findings of the thesis. Subsequently, I will highlight their relation to key research questions and look into the implications of these results for the research focus, for the conceptualization of new media and digital technologies, and for a critical consideration of existing theoretical production and research. In the final part of the discussion section, I will elaborate on the limitations related to these key finding, while offering recommendations for further research.

112 4.4.1. Interpretations – Key Findings

The relation between digital technologies and the feminist movement presents an umbrella thematic scope of this research. While reflecting on the theoretical literature covering the influence of digital technologies on many aspects of contemporary society, from political participation (Mossberger et al. 2008) through media production (Carroll and Hackett 2006) to civil society (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010) as well as the state of contemporary feminism (for ex. Traiser 2007, Youngs 2007, Gajjala and Oh 2012, Hasinoff 2014), I strove to better understand what the potential relation is between how one “makes sense” of these new platforms and tools and the context one is surrounded with and derives from. Are ASPEKT’s historical or thematic specifics relevant in their way of “doing online feminism”? What are the key themes and topics emerging from ASPEKT’s approach to digital technologies and how does it relate to its core values and generational experiences? The following findings aim to explore such potential connection while looking into how ASPEKT uses new media and digital technologies. In my analysis of the historical and socio-political context related to ASPEKT’s background, I identified a few decisive components of the organization’s evolution. Firstly, there is the influence of the transition period that seems to play an important role in ASPEKT’s identity to this day. Through formative experiences with flexible funding opportunities and international cooperation in the early years after the 1989 revolution, the founding members of the organization were allowed to distance themselves from the previous regime as well as from negative tendencies (such as the rise of nationalism) accompanying the transformation process. It also fuelled the development of their own way of doing feminism which became a rock-solid foundation for their future work with an emphasis on literature and feminist theory, publishing activities, and educational projects. I call this period and the associated sentiment, which often re-emerged in conducted interviews, as “the early authentic years” narrative. The second important shift came with the Europeanization of the local feminist scene (Císař and Vráblíková 2007), followed by the country’s EU accession in 2004. While for some organizations, it meant top-down support for their existing agenda and financial assistance, for others with a particular thematic scope, such as ASPEKT, which did not fit in the supported agenda and whose limited organizational

113 capacities made it difficult to apply for and implement EU projects, the changes came with feelings of frustration and a sense of betrayal of traditional feminist values and authenticity. During this period, the EU system started to promote the use of online communication in order to enhance closer transnational cooperation between different feminist organizations. Even though the theoretical literature emphasizes the positive effect of digital technologies on such cooperation including cost-effective communication, ASPEKT (especially its founding member Jana Cviková) highlights the problematic aspects of the system, which is based on utilitarian alliances, the rise of project-oriented feminism, and a neo-liberal market- driven logic. This overview of the historical evolution and the striking differences between the perception of these two eras – the transition and the post-EU accession period – are crucial for a nuanced analysis of key themes related to the organization’s approach to and conceptualization of new media and digital technologies. Existing theoretical literature usually sees the issue of digital technologies as a future-oriented phenomenon, reflecting on the new opportunities and possibilities it brings (for ex. Dobson 2015; Blair, Gajjala, and Tulley 2009). In contrast to this theoretical assumption, research participants often emphasized the relation of the online sphere to the past, namely to the preservation of the organization’s memory and history. I see this as a surprising and rather counterintuitive use of digital technologies, deriving from two major factors—namely, the organization’s historical evolution with its critical reflection of the post-EU accession period accompanied with a longing for “the early authentic years” (outlined above), as well as the specific experience of women and feminist voices being often left out from mainstream narratives. The notion of preserving one’s history and legacy has always played an important role in the feminist movement (Chaudhuri, Katz, and Perry 2010) and as one of the respondents highlights, “ (…) if an organization, or women activism in general, will not write its own history, no one else will and it is most likely that the others will simply forget about them” (Interview, Ľubica Kobová 2015). Women and feminist activists have been often left out of historical records as well as collective memory (Crozier-De Rosa and Mackie 2019) and that is why ASPEKT feels a strong urge to primarily focus on the creation of an online archive that would preserve its legacy and past achievements. The efforts to create a virtual le lieu de mémoire (Nora 1989) is accompanied here with the sense of duty-memory (Ibid.), a personal

114 responsibility to take the preservation of one’s history into her own hands. As the founding members of ASPEKT point out, “we are constantly confronted with the fact that we don’t have time to record our own history, so we take part in its disappearance” (Cviková and Juráňová 2009: 63). A key theme emerging from the research is that of a mobilization potential and further reach of the organization’s ideas. As scholars suggest, when organizations use new media and digital technologies, it increases the accessibility of their work, improves their mobilization potential, and results in a rise in participation (for ex. Fuchs 2014a, 2014b; Mossberger 2008; Flyverbom 2011). The high level of connectivity fosters an environment where information as well as calls for action—to sign an online petition or to take part in a protest march) are being shared quickly. Over the years, ASPEKT either led or took part in a number of campaigns that were, at least partially, online-based. I elaborated on the example of the Istanbul Convention campaign, which illustrates the ability of digital technologies to mobilize like-minded gender-equality supporters into action and to activate the general public that does not necessarily identify with the feminist movement. In such cases, the online sphere provides a space for feminist organizations, which are not always well-connected to mainstream media, to share their perspective and calls for action enabling a greater pluralization and further heterogenization of public discourse (Couldry and Curran 2003; Downey and Fenton 2003). At the same time, there are certain barriers to accessing the online sphere based on socio-economic affiliation (Dijk 2005), education or age (Cammaerts 2003; Warschauer 2004). Together with the fact that our online experience is influenced by our previous searches and behaviour (Hindman 2008; Vaidhyanathan 2011), organizations including ASPEKT can hardly count on digital technologies as a tool of self- salvation that penetrates all possible spheres of society and allows them to speak to (let alone convince) previously unreachable social groups. Lastly, by transitioning their flagship journal ASPEKTin from print to an online webzine, the organization was hoping to use new media and digital technologies to attract and include new collaborators, especially from the younger generation. The interactive character of new media (McMillian 2006) allows for a fast publishing of ideas, commentaries or texts, a feature that is utilized especially by young digital technology users (Livingstone 2009). Such rapidity and immediacy, however, is in conflict with ASPEKT’s core values based

115 on a long history of publishing and the enhancement of feminist literature and philosophy. As the respondents highlighted, the quality of published texts (even online) takes precedence over up-to-dateness and instant reaction. The questions of greater inclusivity of the younger generation and quick reactivity to emerging issues present important topics that illustrate the division or rather contesting approaches among ASPEKT members and collaborators along generational lines. As voiced especially by Ľubica Kobová, ASPEKT’s approach did not really align with how she envisioned a modern online-based publishing platform. Hence, she decided to launch her own project Feministky.sk, an initiative that serves as an illustration of a flexible, personal, and swift approach to using digital technologies. This endeavour serves as a symbolic bridge with the facet of my research elaborating on selected online projects, as a backdrop providing a more nuanced understanding of ASPEKT’s take on digital technologies as well as the Slovak online feminist scene in general. The desire to create a more personalized or accessible feminism presents one of the driving forces behind the establishment of new online projects I have focused on within the second part of my research. While inspired by diverse feminist initiatives based mainly in the English-speaking online sphere, the younger generation of feminists felt like creating a space of their own, providing a different kind of feminism than the one represented by traditional organizations. Since many young activists are being exposed to feminist ideas for the first time in the digital sphere (Schuster 2013), online-based feminist projects can present an important gateway to the movement. Despite the fact that the online projects’ representatives are aiming to create an online feminism “of their own” that diverges from the approaches of their older counterparts, they do not exhibit detachment from or animosity towards more traditional organizations or the feminist movement in general. Quite to the contrary, one can detect a high level of connectivity and cooperation across the movements. While some authors claim that the prevalence of new media use among the young generation of feminists leads to a disconnection from the older feminist generation that might not be that well-versed in digital technologies (Schuster 2013), I did not witness such a trend within the Slovak feminist scene. That is mainly due, I would argue, to its limited size. Since the feminist community in Slovakia is fairly small, individual activists and members of organizations tend to know each other.

116 Finally, the online sphere, despite its many possibilities for greater democratic involvement, suffers from similar pitfalls one can find in the offline world. In a comparable manner as their counterparts from traditional organizations, online feminists have been dealing with significant backlash and hate. The difference is, however, that those issues are even further amplified in the online environment which makes it easier for the perpetrators to survey and harass feminist activists online (Megarry 2014; Citron 2014; Dubrofsky and Magnet 2015). The online project representatives all have experiences – even though of a different kind and degree – with online hate. Their strategies for dealing with this harmful phenomenon vary, from accepting it as “part of the job” (Lewis, Rowe, Wiper 2016) to taking an intentional break from the toxic online environment or focusing on making their online project “safe” by usually creating a women-only space.

4.4.2. Implications – Theoretical Conclusions

In the previous chapter, I was aiming to summarize and interpret the key findings of the research in connection to the dissertation’s main research questions. As the results indicate, there is a relation between the context ASPEKT derives from and operates in (mainly its historical evolution, thematic scope, and “feminist experience”) and the way it approaches new media and digital technologies. With an emphasis on the preservation of its history, legacy, and past achievements, as well as core values related to its specialization in feminist literature and philosophy, the organization’s approaches to the online sphere contradicts some of the assumptions put forward in existing theoretical literature—namely the conceptualization of digital technologies as dynamic and future-oriented (Dobson 2015; Blair, Gajjala, and Tulley 2009) and most importantly as a force leading its users and communities towards greater homogenization and detachment from the socio-political and historical context (Castells 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2012). While Castells talks about the “global village” held together by “shared value of [online] communication itself” (Castells 2009: 38), the presented case indicates that digital technologies are rather a diversifying than a unifying force, while being deeply rooted in the materiality and specifity of social existence and concrete social and geographical attachments.

117 In a similar manner, the potential of digital technologies to enhance greater mobilization and involvement of younger-generation feminists with traditional organizations is to a large extent influenced by the specific context of the feminist scene itself rather solely depending on the character of new media. The local feminist scene in Slovakia is relatively cooperative and tight-knight due to its small size and as a result of mobilization through larger cross-sectoral campaigns— including those against external forces that endanger women’s reproductive rights or disregard the issue of domestic and sexual violence. One therefore cannot claim that new media would facilitate or hinder the connection between traditional organizations and younger-generation feminists. The approaches to digital technologies advanced by traditional organizations and by young online feminists appear to be different and sometimes even conflicting, but this fact does not seem to support antipathy or frictions within the movement. As new media provide a space where one can fairly easily search for inspiration outside the local feminist scene and then establish projects reflecting the type and form of feminism one finds the most appropriate, there is enough space for multiple and diverse forms of “doing feminism”. Following the conclusions deriving from the analysis of the “new voices” segment of the dissertation, one may say that this research can offer new perspectives on the conceptualization of the history and evolution of the local feminist scene. More specifically, the stimulation of feminist plurality and heterogeneity that goes hand in hand with new media and digital technologies might indeed present a shift in the long-lasting discussion over whether Central and Eastern European feminism has managed to overcome its presumed subordinate position within the East/West feminist debate (Kampichler 2012). As there once was compelling demand for “our Mohanty”, meaning a strong voice that would be able to formulate the experience of (Czech and) Slovak women without the complex of inferiority in a similar manner to Mohanty with respect to “third world” women (Kepplová 2014), one might suggest that there seems to be an abundance of recently emerging feminist voices for whom digital technologies provide a way to develop and articulate their own locally rooted yet unapologetic take on feminism. Overlooking the analysis of ASPEKT’s historical evolution and its transformation within the digital age, one might also comment on the changes of the local feminist scene and its agenda and offer a condense, three-stage classification. First, while the transition period

118 was marked by an emergence of various feminist organizations addressing a number of issues, from domestic violence to child-care services providing support and services to specific groups of women (Hašková 2005), the then available flexible and open-ended funding from foreign donors enabled organizations such as ASPEKT to focus on their specific agenda. This included theoretical reflections and intellectual production. Secondly, with the country’s accession to EU in 2004 and the departure of most foreign donors supporting the feminist scene during 1990s (Hašková and Křížková 2006), the main agenda became to a large extent determined by the EU funding scheme. This scheme focused on an enhancement of issues connected mainly to gender equality in the labour market, focusing mainly on the gender pay gap and work-life balance, as well as sexual violence (Vráblíková 2007). Thirdly, with digital technologies becoming an increasingly important component of our everyday lives and having a rising prominence for online feminism, there are a growing number of newly emerging online based feminist projects and initiatives in the region. Hence, one can witness further diversification and heterogeneity of the feminist scene and agenda both in terms of form and content. Yet, the main conclusion of this research reaches beyond the scope of online feminism. Ultimately, the presented study puts forward the theoretical notion that digital technologies are changing not only the ways of “doing feminism” but also transform the notion of what kind of feminism we do. Naturally, as highlighted above, this relation is context-dependent and driven by concrete historical or social attachments. It is essential to emphasize, however, that digital technologies ultimately influence how we do things (from feminism through interpersonal communication to media consumption) as well as what we do, how we relate to one another, and the outside world. This fundamental premise, I argue, reaches beyond the celebratory versus dystopian narratives pushed forward in existing theoretical production. While digital technologies often stimulate the expectation for salvation or the fear of apocalyptic destruction, it is important to keep in mind that they are an element in cultural systems, both “meaningful and motivated” (Alexander 1990: 169). As such, they penetrate, influence, and transform our everyday experience and, in a way, the character of our existence. Can we comprehensively capture or quantify this transformative potential of digital technologies? Hardly. That does not mean, however, that researching this phenomenon through theoretical lenses that highlight cultural and meaning-transformative

119 perspective is less valuable than approaches oriented toward impact and rationality. While the prevalent research practice remains generally focused on the effect and impact of digital technologies conceptualizing them mainly as an instrumental tool, I advocate for more culturally-oriented, context-dependent, and nuanced approach, which emphasizes how we make sense of digital technologies and what meaning and value we attribute to them.

4.4.3. Limitations and Recommendations

The limitations of this study and its findings derive mainly from the methodological choices related to research design – namely the specifics of case-study-based research and the obstacles related to analysing online-based materials and virtual interactions. The case study approach comes with many advantages such as the ability to focus on rich description and detailed explanation of one particular case while reflecting on the context it derives from (Stake 1995, Yin 2012, Flyvbjerg 2016). Thanks to that, it allows the researcher to reflect on the uniqueness and distinctive features of the chosen subject of study while identifying the shared features and attributes deriving from that case. At the same time, it does not provide for explanations that would be easily transposed to the entire scene as well as to different contexts. While I was able to identify key topics related to ASPEKT and suggest relevant conclusions regarding its relation to new media and digital technologies, further research is needed to offer a more thorough understanding of the Slovak feminist scene and its relation to and use of digital technologies. At the same time, it would be research-worthy to look into the relation between traditional organizations and online-based projects in greater detail, possibly through a much broader analysis involving an extensive amount of interviews with representatives of all well-established organizations and newly emerged online projects in Slovakia, and perhaps in the Czech Republic as well, as these two scenes largely overlap and cooperate. Moreover, the exploration of the potential divide along generational lines could bring insightful conclusions about the character of the contemporary Slovak feminist scene. The next set of limitations is related to researching materials and working with data that are based in and deriving from the online scene. While digital-based research comes with “exceptional data availability” (Bredl, Hünniger, and Jensen 2014: 6) that allows for easier accessibility and collection of studied material, the researcher often needs to deal with

120 the ephemerality and volatility of such data (Marotzki, Holze, and Verständig 2014). Practically speaking, since my research lasted for almost seven years, many of the materials I have approached, selected, and analysed are no longer accessible. Some of them have been moved, edited, altered or deleted altogether. One of the possible solution is to archive all such materials with external tools. Yet with high online interactivity that creates massive streams of data (Ibid.) such archiving would be too time-consuming and effort-demanding. Hence, I decided to perceive this limitation as an inseparable part of qualitative research either fully or partially based on online data. Lastly, the fastness and immediacy of new media and digital technologies is not being imprinted only in the data and online-based materials that are prone to change and disappearance. It is also the researched projects, campaigns, and initiatives that are often changing, evolving, and disappearing in front of the researcher’s eyes. On several occasions, I would develop an argument about a certain online campaign only to realize a few months or years later that the conclusion is no longer valid because it has further changed, evolved or taken a completely different turn. Such experience is well-reflected in a quote by Kathy Charmaz in her article “The Power of Constructivist Grounded Theory for Critical Inquiry,” in which the author elaborates on conducting research within the grounded theory framework: “We move back and forth between stories and analysis and thus create a delicate balance between the evanescence of experience and the permanence of the published word” (Charmaz 2017). While the ever-changing and open-ended character of social reality is nothing new in sociological research, digital technologies accelerate this phenomenon even further. At the same time, the lengthy and long lasting character of the dissertation writing (as well as sociological thinking in general) on the backdrop of the fast changing online world enables us to better differentiate between issues that are marginal, inessential, and short- lived, and those that are important and significant. In a similar manner, ASPEKT too present – with its somewhat “slow,” history-oriented approach and emphasis on unrushed, dutiful writing and theoretical production – a steady and continual constant in contrast to fast, immediate, and everchanging online feminism.

121 5. Conclusion

It is often impossible to be sure, simply from the feel of the water, if a new wave is beginning or an old wave is ending. (..) Only after the wave has passed, that is, after it has crested and fallen, could a swimmer say with assurance that it was a new wave. (Bailey 1997: 18)

The presented dissertation intended to elaborate on the relationship between new media, digital technologies, and the contemporary feminist movement. Based on the case study of ASPEKT, an established and notable voice of the Slovak feminist scene for almost three decades, this research was concerned with how this organization and its members use and “make sense” of online tools and platforms, and how their engagement in “doing online feminism” was influenced by the specific context they derived from and continue to work in; this includes the socio-political and historical circumstances, their thematic scope and core values, as well as their generational affiliation. Additionally, the reflection of the context included further excursion into the contemporary online feminist scene in Slovakia in the form of analysis of the most noteworthy online-based projects founded by a young generation feminists. The dissertation was divided into two main parts. In order to focus on developing the approach to the analysis, the first section provided a comprehensive theoretical introduction and overview of key concepts and theories concerning the issue of new media and online feminism. The following, analytical, part of the dissertation presented key research findings. Based on a qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with selected ASPEKT members and

122 collaborators and with representatives of newly founded online feminist projects, paired with the analysis of relevant online-based materials, this dissertation has shown that ASPEKT’s relationships towards new media and digital technologies and their way of “doing online feminism” is to a large extent contextual. The way the organization approaches these new tools and platforms is mainly influenced by two decisive points in the organization’s history: firstly, the (carefully preserved) narrative of “early authentic years” marked with flexible and open-ended funding, and secondly the camaraderie established during the Europeanization of the local feminist scene. The latter resulted in an enhancement of a specific labour-market oriented agenda and project-based feminism promoting neoliberal values. The detailed analysis of the organization’s historical evolution, I argue, eventually enabled a more nuanced and elaborate understanding of ASPEKT’s relation to online sphere. The study brings several interesting results and conclusions. While the existing theoretical literature often conceptualizes digital technologies as something novel, dynamic, and future oriented (Dobson 2015; Blair, Gajjala and Tulley 2009), one of the most resonating themes that emerged from the interviews conducted with ASPEKT’s members was the importance of online platforms and tools for preserving one’s history and memory. Such a compelling take on digital technologies, as the analysis suggests, derives from the organization’s nostalgia for the long lost authenticity of the early post-1989 years coupled with the experience of feminist organizations and activists (or women) being often left out from mainstream chronicles (Chaudhuri, Katz, and Perry 2010; Crozier-De Rosa and Mackie 2019). Subsequently, the dissertation critically reflects on the overly-positive narrative of the “limitless reach of new media” in the literature (Dijk 2005; Cammaerts 2003; Warschauer 2004), Hindman 2008; Vaidhyanathan 2011). The research confirmed that even though new media platforms and digital tools enhance greater connectivity between organizations and their supporters and improve organizations’ overall mobilization potential, this does not mean that they would be able to penetrate all possible spheres of society, reaching to groups previously untouched by the organizations’ work. Following the analysis of “new voices”, i.e. selected online projects founded by a young generation of Slovak feminists, I put forward the conclusion that the rising prevalence of digital technologies within civil society results in a greater variety and diversity of the local feminist scene. Despite the contesting and often

123 contradictory perspectives between the traditional organizations and online-based feminist projects (as confirmed in other researches, for ex Schuster 2013), it does not lead to hostility or frictions within the movement, which remains cooperative and tight-knit. The reason for the high level of cooperativity within the Slovak feminist scene, I would argue, seems to be unrelated to the issues of digital technologies, and is instead connected to the limited size of the movement and the fact both traditional organizations and online-based projects get often unite during high profile campaigns (for ex. the 2015 campaign against the “family protection” referendum, 2013-2020 Istanbul Convention campaign or the newest 2020 campaign “We Will Not Be Silent!” against legislative changes endangering women’s reproductive rights). Fundamentally, the presented study formulates the theoretical presumption that new media and digital technologies are changing not only the face of contemporary feminism, i.e. the form, but also the character of the movement and the scope of its agenda. Such a notion can be further expanded outside the topic of contemporary feminism; in the end, digital technologies are becoming inseparable components of multiple aspects of our everyday existence. They influence not only how we do things but also what we do, how we relate to ourselves and to one another, as well as how we make sense of outside world. For further research recommendations, I wish there would be more attention devoted to the online feminist scene in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, as it presents an interesting, ever-growing, and under-research field, especially in relation to traditional feminist organizations that received significant scholarly attention in the past (for ex. Kodíčková 2002; Linková 2003; Wohrer 2005; Hašková and Křížová 2006; Vráblíková 2007; Kampichler 2012; Nyklová 2013, Kepplová 2014 and many others). It would be noteworthy to explore comparisons between the traditional and online scene as well as to try and conduct a transnational comparison, which would further scrutinize the theoretical “global village” narrative (Castells 2009). But most importantly, I call for less research that singularly focuses on the effect and impact of conceptualizing digital technologies as a somewhat mechanical tool, and I plead instead for more culturally-nuanced endeavours with emphasis on a context-dependent approach.

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ASPEKT. 2015b. “Známi muži podporujú Istanbulský dohovor.” ASPEKTin – feministický webzin. Retrieved October 10, 2019 (http://aspekt.sk/content/aspektin/znami-muzi- podporuju-istanbulsky-dohovor).

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Websites

Aliancia za rodinu (https://www.alianciazarodinu.sk/) Aliancia žien Slovenska (https://alianciazien.wordpress.com) Amnesty International Slovakia (https://www.amnesty.sk) Centrum rodových štúdií (https://fphil.uniba.sk/katedry-a-odborne-pracoviska/odborne- centra/centrum-rodovych-studii/o-centre-rodovych-studii/historia-centra/) Equality Training for Trainers (http://www.frauenberatung.eu/eq-train/en/default.asp) EsFem (http://esfem.sk) Feminist.fyi (https://feminist.fyi) Feministing.com (http://feministing.com) Feministky.sk {http://feministky.sk) Fenestra (http://www.fenestra.sk) Glosolália (https://www.glosolalia.sk) Hana (https://www.ozhana.sk/sk/) Hlas proti násilí (https://www.hlasprotinasili.cz) Iniciatíva piata žena (https://piatazena.wordpress.com/about) Kotva (http://kotvano.sk) KRAS (http://kras.sk) KundyCrew (https://www.facebook.com/KundyCrew/)

151 Kurník (https://naskurnik.sk) Kyberia (https://kyberia.sk) Lenny Letter (https://www.lennyletter.com). Liga za ľudské práva (https://www.hrl.sk/sk) MyMamy (https://www.mymamy.sk) Občan, demokracia a zodpovednosť (http://odz.sk) Pink and Blue World (http://www.pinkandblueworld.sk/en) Podesia (former Altera, www.altera.sk) Poradňa pre občianske a ľudské a práva (https://www.poradna-prava.sk) Progresfem (https://www.progresfem.sk), Radical Cross Stitch (http://radicalcrossstitch.com) Sexistické prasátečko (https://www.prasatecko.cz) Sexistický kix (https://www.sexistickykix.sk) Stop násilí na ženách (https://czlobby.cz/cs/projekty/stopcz-0) Žena v tiesni (https://zenavtiesni.sk) Ženská sieť HEPY (https://www.lesba.sk) Ženské kruhy (https://zenskekruhy.sk) #ForIstanbul (http://www.feminismus.cz/cz/clanky/zaistanbul)

Interviews

Cviková, Jana, ASPEKT (2015) Jójart, Paula, ASPEKT’s collaborator (2015) Kobová, Ľubica, ASPEKT’s collaborator (2015) Maďarová, Zuzana, ASPEKT (2015)

Gatialová, Eva Kundy Crew (2020) Gregorová, Dian, Sexistický kix (2020 Kučová, Michaela, Kurník (2020 Vitálošová, Dana, Feminist.fyi (2016)

152