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“Use #YouKnowMe and share your truth”: Rhetoric of Digital Abortion Storytelling Megan Kelley | Miami University, Ohio Feminist movements have utilized consciousness-raising by empowering women to share their personal experiences to support the efforts of the larger movement further. The #YouKnowMe movement brings consciousness-raising into the digital sphere. This paper looks at how the #YouKnowMe movement encouraged Twitter users to share their personal stories, experiences, and emotions associated with their abortion. I analyzed 39 of the most popular tweets that contain #YouKnowMe and were tweeted on May 15-16, 2019. These tweets were either personal stories or feminist critiques. The personal stories included the situations surrounding the decision to get an abortion as well as any emotions or thoughts that went into making the decision. The feminist critiques came from Twitter users using the hashtag to talk about the larger societal structures while simultaneously supporting the users that chose to share their personal stories. The #YouKnowMe movement is a perfect example of how the rhetoric of digital storytelling can help support the modern-day feminist movement as well as normalize talking about one’s abortion. YouKnowMe is a Twitter-based social move and share your truth” (@BusyPhilipps). The ment within the larger reproductive rights top tweets from #YouKnowMe indicate that social movement. The reproductive rights this movement was focused primarily on creat- #movement as a whole utilizes many facets of activ- ing a community of people who have gotten an ism to achieve its goals, such as storytelling, lob- abortion, had personal experiences with abor- bying, field work, or protests. The #YouKnowMe tion, or support reproductive justice. This arti- movement specifically focuses on digital storytell- cle will explore the ways that the #YouKnowMe ing to combat the stigma associated with talking movement creates a space for personal abortion about abortion. The movement was started by discussions by analyzing popular tweets to fur- Busy Philipps, an actress, on May 15, 2019, as a di- ther support the importance of personal sto- rect response to the passage of Alabama’s abortion rytelling in the reproductive rights movement. ban (Gore). Philipps tweeted out, “1 in 4 women The personal is political has been a saying used have had an abortion. Many people think they by the feminist movement to explain that the don’t know someone who has, but #YouKnowMe. personal experiences of women are often inter- So let’s do this: if you are also the 1 in 4, let’s share twined with larger political and societal struc- it and start to end the shame. Use #YouKnowMe tures. Philipps’s invitation for people to share 12 | Young Scholars in Writing their abortion stories on Twitter brings the etc. To adequately fight for reproductive rights, #YouKnowMe into the modern-day feminist there must be a recognition of the intersection- movement. ality of identity in people’s lives and how it can play a huge role in their access to abortion. Feminist Rhetoric, Digital With the emerging popularity of social Activism, and Consciousness- media, many pro-choice activists have turned Raising: A Literature Review to the digital sphere to share stories and raise awareness about different abortion experiences. A key aspect of feminism is consciousness Online feminism is the usage of “the internet raising by uplifting the lived experiences of to share stories and analyses, raise awareness, women with the intent to shed light on larg- organize collective actions, and discuss diffi- er societal issues (Mulinari and Sandell). Not cult issues” (Martin and Valenti 6). This form only can storytelling show large societal issues, of feminist activism is especially attractive to but it can also help create solidarity and un- younger feminists because social media is “low derstanding among people with vastly differ- cost, easy to use, flexible, accessible, and able ent experiences (Weatherall). According to bell to reach a wider audience” (Shiva and Kharaz- hooks, acknowledging diverse experiences in mi 134). The ability to use social media to con- conjunction with diverse privileges is the only nect with other feminists can create spaces for way to create a true community. bell hooks em- individual storytelling and relationship build- phasized that women do not all have the same ing. One way that younger feminists use social experiences, nor do they face the same bound- media is by using hashtags. Hashtag activism aries; therefore, the only way to create a col- is “the act of fighting for or supporting a cause lectiveness is for people to acknowledge their with the use of hashtags as the primary chan- privileges and prejudices. The theoretical idea nel to raise awareness of an issue and encour- talked about by hooks was later coined as the age debate via social media” (qtd. in Xiong et term intersectionality by Kimberlé Crenshaw. al. 10-11), which can take place on a multitude According to Crenshaw, intersectionality is “a of social media sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, lens...for seeing the way in which various forms Instagram, YouTube, etc. In addition to using of inequality often operate together and exac- hashtags to raise awareness of issues, hashtags erbate each other.” Intersectionality is especial- can be used for digital storytelling. Sonja Vivi- ly salient in the reproductive rights movement enne explains that digital storytelling is “a me- because getting an abortion is a highly-individ- dium in which ordinary people, with varying ualized experience. Along with the experience degrees of technical expertise and creative in- of physically getting an abortion, the various novation, can represent themselves” (46). This boundaries or struggles people experience are allows individual users to share personal ex- different based on a number of factors, such as periences within a created community by the location, socioeconomic status, transportation, hashtag. In addition, the hashtag allows people Kelley | 13 to freely express their ideas without showing Feminist movements have been using who they are. This allows for ideas to be shared hashtags to bring awareness to topics such as without the interference of biases or precon- sexual assault and harassment, police brutality, ceived notions about who is sharing their story and racism. The act of using hashtags on social (Shiva and Kharazmi). media to bring awareness to injustice is con- These online communities created are in- sidered hashtag feminism because it “creates a dicative of the concept of social circulation. virtual space where victims of inequality can Social circulation is “a metaphor to indicate coexist together in a space that acknowledg- the social networks in which women connect es their pain, narrative, and isolation” (Dixon and interact with others and use language with 34). Using hashtags as a way to have conversa- intention...these social circles connect women tions about sexual violence has been extensive- not just across sociopolitical and cultural con- ly studied. For example, #BeenRapedNever- texts, settings, and communities—locally and Reported is a Twitter-based hashtag movement globally—but also across generations, across with the purpose of giving people the space to time, and across space” (Royster and Kirsch share their own reasons for not reporting their 101). Hashtags create a community where peo- assault (Mendes et al.). Although this hashtag ple can connect with each other and share sim- was specifically focused on sexual assault, ilar stories. For the reproductive rights move- there are several trends within it that are sim- ment, this can help connect pro-choice activ- ilar to pro-choice hashtags. Kaitlynn Mendes ists with other like-minded individuals, other et al. explain that #BeenRapedNeverReported resources, or other forms of activism. works as a narrative device by “allowing users Amy Koerber et al. discuss the rhetoric of to remain within the character limit while abortion and pro-choice in “The Concept of linking their tweets to others addressing the Choice as Phallusy: A Few Reasons Why We same topic,...providing a way for victims to Could Not Agree More.” They argue that speak about their experiences without having pro-life politicians often explain that they are to directly say they were raped or assaulted,... pro-life because they want to support the life and the repetition of the hashtag creates new of unborn children; however, this claim disre- forms of dialogue, connectivity, and aware- gards the life of the pregnant person. Koerber ness” (1302-1302). The role that the hashtag et al. claim that there needs to be spaces that played in this movement is indicative of the acknowledge the diverse emotions and experi- role that hashtags can play in the larger digital ences that women experience rather than fo- feminist sphere. In the case of #BeenRaped- cusing only on the opinions of pro-life politi- NeverReported, several users used the hashtag cians. Spaces like #YouKnowMe allow people itself as a placeholder for revealing that they to “narrate their abortion experiences” (Ko- were assaulted (Mendes et al.). When hashtags erber et al. 4), which helps create a discourse are used as a placeholder, “readers are led to based on diverse emotions and perspectives. read into the meaning of these experiences 14 | Young Scholars in Writing based on the use of the hashtag itself” (Mendes narratives around abortion and empowering et al. 1302). people to tell their stories. In addition to #BeenRapedNeverReported, the #NotOkay and #MeToo movements are The Kairotic Moment other feminist hashtags that have been stud- ied. Shari Stenberg’s “‘Tweet Me Your First There has been a recent trend of restrictive Assaults’: Writing Shame and the Rhetori- abortion laws at the state level. Some recent restrictive laws include 20-week bans, ul- cal Work of #NotOkay” sets up a framework trasound laws, criminalization of abortions, for analyzing digital stories within a hashtag.

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