Ella Chivers' NOWSA review

Hilary Bowman-Smart and her co-presenter Rebekah* filled their presentation ‘Social Media and Feminism’ with more pictures of cats than written words. It was the second-to-last day of NOWSA, and I think everyone present at the workshop was emotionally drained enough to appreciate taking regular five-second breaks to see a tiny Russian Blue play with a ball of yarn. I had shown up wondering whether I would finally gain access to the underground workings of tumblr, but the cats seemed far more soothing to my weary mind. In fact, Hilary and Rebekah weren’t there to show us how to set up a new Twitter account, and the cats were actually relevant to their point – in a way.


You may have heard of Hilary’s brainchild, the Australian Cat Ladies. Back in April Hilary noticed that the Australian Christian Lobby had left the domain name australianchristianlobby.org unregistered, which meant that it was open for anyone to move in and claim the space as their own. Hilary seized the opportunity to hit back at the group, who are often extreme with their conservative social values. (Most recently they claimed that supporting marriage equality “sets up a new Stolen Generation” as it "ignored the consequence of robbing children of their biological identity through same-sex surrogacy and other assisted reproductive technology"). Sporting a fantastic rainbow logo and plenty of cartoon kittens, the Australian Cat Ladies took over the lobby group’s domain name and advocated for body autonomy, sex education, same sex marriage and ‘frequent tummy rubs’. The website went viral on social media after it’s launch, and clicked 260,000 views overnight.


The Australian Cat Ladies became an internet sensation because it managed to undermine the authority of one of Australia’s largest and most powerful lobby groups in a humorous and non-aggressive way. It gave people a punch-the-air moment as they discussed it over Facebook, or laughed about it at the pub with friends – and this is the heart of Hilary and Rebekah’s point. In contrast to academic theorizing (which can be quite exclusionary for those who do not have the time or inclination to sit down and read lengthy discussions over lofty concepts), this particular stream of feminist thought springs organically from the ideas and frustrations of women across the world with much less regard to their life situation or background. Like graffiti reclaims the streets, the internet can be a place for all women to take control over the tone of social commentary and hijack the public narrative with their own values or perspectives. Rebekah and Hilary argue that we should take these ideas and movements seriously – even as seriously as we often take academic writing – as they are anthropological markers of our own society and culture.


While I broadly agreed with the pair on most points, throughout the workshop I found there was an underlying assumption that the internet acts as some sort of over-riding ‘equalizer’ which is blind to race, gender or sexuality, and I thought that this was problematic. Anyone who has found themselves constantly referred to as a ‘he’ on reddit can attest to the fact that, outside of the safe spaces where autonomous groups have pooled, it is often simply assumed that every individual behind the computer screen is a white middle-class male. If you happen to ‘out’ yourself as a member of a minority group, it is not uncommon to be hounded or harassed, and you may find yourself treated differently because of the perceived change in persona.


One prominent example of this was the uproar caused when it was revealed that a woman named Elise Andrew was behind the popular I F*cking Love Science Facebook group. Andrew innocently posted a link to her twitter page, and received a poop-tsunami of responses to her ‘unexpected’ gender, including: "F.ck me! This is a babe ?!!", "holy hell, youre a HOTTIE!" and "you mean you're a girl, AND you're beautiful? wow, i just liked science a lil bit more today ^^". ** The presence of these inherent prejudices online means that it can still be difficult for many people to speak up about social issues for the fear that they may be shouted down by the hive mind, and this closes up discussion whilst maintaining systematic oppression.


Despite these issues, Hilary and Rebekah make some valid points around the shifting nature of feminist discourse, and I left their workshop with a thoughtful mind. Online actions like the Australian Cat Ladies website are becoming pivotal aspects to all social movement, and I think we should be reminding ourselves of their worth in getting our ideas out or staging an opposition to those values we dispute.


I also liked all the cats.

* Note: to the best of my knowledge, Rebekah didn’t give a last name.

** Quotes from The Guardian.

NOWSA WORKSHOP: Engaging in Online Activism to make changes in the area of Reproductive Rights

As presented by Casey Burchell. Casey Burchell has been volunteering with Reproductive Choice Australia (RCA) and in 2012 was involved in redeveloping RCA’s social media presence and planning the Let’s End the Stigma campaign. 

**TRIGGER WARNING** Discussion of abortion 

The internet has now provided us with one of the most effective mediums for activism yet. Today petitions can be passed around simply by sending out a link, sharing articles online spark debates within a matter of minutes and social media means that important ideas are easily shared through a short, snappy status in an instant. It has therefore never been more important than now for women to use this online world to fight for their issues. While there are a number of issues women need to campaign for online, this write up will focus on the fight for reproductive rights in Australia.
Prior to attending Casey Burchell’s workshop on online activism, key note speaker Leslie Cannold, founder of RCA, informed us of why we should be angry about the system which women currently have to navigate through in order to choose whether they have a child or not. In Australia there is a large silence around what the law actually says because generally practitioners will refer a woman to have an abortion if she wishes to have one. So, we may know friends, mothers or sisters who have had an abortion and therefore believe if we wanted to have one, we could. However, due to this silence we tend to forget, or not know at all, that in NSW and Queensland, and in Victoria up until quite recently, abortion is in the criminal code. Women in our very own state of NSW do not have the right to choose, the choice is in the hands of their doctors. These vague laws also make it difficult for doctors to be able to determine whether they are within the rights of the law to advise an abortion, meaning some may avoid doing so, to the detriment of the woman’s choice. So, you can see why it is important that we campaign for law reform and an end to the silence around the laws which govern the administration of surgical abortions.

The first thing to think about when starting an online campaign, is what direction do we want the campaign to go in? What do we want to address? When dealing with the issue of reproductive choice there are a number of different angles one could take it. One of the most recent campaigns by RCA has been the End the Stigma campaign. This campaign was a focus on ending the cultural shame that is so often surrounded by abortion. This is quite an effective direction because if can we break down these cultural stigmas, normalising abortion would mean that legislators would be less inclined to put up these barriers which claim to be designed for something that is a ‘sensitive issue’. While of course, the procedure can be quite upsetting for some women who have had to make such a choice, it is important to keep in mind that a surgical abortion is actually one of the safest and most common medical procedures. However, due to this cultural stigma, abortion is treated like no other medical procedure. This sort of direction for a campaign is incredibly powerful as it can gain a mass of support in the community in order to reform laws, rather than just having a few passionate activists lobbying for legislative change. It speaks to the wider audience rather than just to legislators.
Once a direction has been thought of, it is important to think of whom to aim the campaign at. For a campaign that seeks to end the cultural shaming of abortion, initially it would perhaps be important
to aim it at women who have had abortions to be able to speak out about their experience. Due to the very real stigma though, RCA has found this to be a challenge in the past. Therefore, it is important to aim campaigns at people who have the potential to make women feel less ashamed of getting an abortion. One option would perhaps be partners, to encourage them to be more supportive of a woman’s choice to get an abortion, and inform them of how they can be supportive in ways that does not put some kind of pressure on their partner choosing this option. Another group of people are medical practitioners. Too often medical practitioners are left out of the abortion debate, and yet they are the people who essentially decide if one is to get an abortion. It is important to include them in this conversation, so that they will also begin to treat this like another medical procedure that sometimes has to be performed. Lastly, it is of course important to aim online campaigns at legislators, as they will be the ones who can eventually reform these laws. This is easily done through tagging them in Twitter posts, to let them know how the general population are feeling, what needs changing and put pressure on them to support law reform in this area.

Lastly it is important to decide ways in which to carry out an online campaign. Often straight to the point is the best for online campaigns, particularly if accompanied by a clever, informative picture. Videos are also a useful tool, as they can be simple to make (with the right tech-savvy friends), get across a point easily and can go completely viral if they are particularly good. A great idea which came up when brain storming in our workshop, was using two pictures of two different people. One picture might say, “Had my appendix out” or some other common medical procedure with very little risk associated with it and an image next to it would have a person saying, “Had an abortion”, to show that abortions are actually just like any other medical procedure, it is the stigma that makes it so difficult for some people to accept. We felt that whatever method we used, it would have to challenge thoughts and be informative. Too much of the time live protests that we see are often violent and do not achieve much in the long run because the message gets lost in this violence, no one receives any information and no one wants to take these protests seriously. Online activism therefore offers an avenue for information to be spread and to actually be absorbed.

I learned from this NOWSA workshop that there is a certain way to engage in online activism in a way that gets a point across. Online activism is particularly important in order to dismantle cultural norms which see abortion as some sort of taboo procedure, because it is easy to reach out to the general population and show them how in actual fact, abortion is a safe and common procedure. Without this kind of activism, there will be no law reform, and without law reform women who find themselves with an unexpected, unwanted pregnancy will continue to be left with limited options. With the expansion of social media technologies, now has never been a better time to use them to get our points across and win the battle against those who seek to control the lives and bodies of women in Australia.

If you are keen to learn more about online campaigns by RCA and how you can get involved visit their website http://www.reproductivechoiceaustralia.org.au/ or contact them on Twitter

Lessons from NOWSA: 10 tips for engaging with the media

As presented by Jade Tyrrell: National President of the National Union of Students. Read more about Jade here- http://www.2dayfm.com.au/newsfeed/2013/4/woman-in-the-spotlight-jade-tyrell/

1. Build a media list: Make sure you have an accessible list of people to contact in a range of publications and genres who will publish your story.

2. Make sure you observe deadlines:

    Print-before 4pm the day before

    Online- before midday

    Radio- Before 9am- never on the hour

    TV- before 3pm

3. Radio is easiest to access when trying to get publicity for your story. There are a number of programs dedicated exclusively to youth issues and they are always looking for a story. Local newspapers are also always keen for a story.

4. Think about your story- it is going need to be a different angle depending on whether you are speaking to public or commercial outlets

5. Don’t practice too much for interviews- especially live ones- people can tell!

6. If you are in a niche field (ie women’s activism) you may need to provide a journalist with a background on your issue

7. When you send out a media release, you need to chase it up.Call through relevant people on your contact list and ask them if they received it

8. Media releases should be no more than one page in total

9. In a media release, the first paragraph should be the issue in a nutshell, the second should be facts on the issue and the third should be a quote. Each paragraph should only be a sentence

10. Check back on the article/broadcast. Critically analyse your performance and work on your weaknesses for next time.

Hannah Smith