Feminism 2.0 Conference Brings Together Grassroots and Online Activists

February 20, 2009

By Liz Newbury, Internet Communications Coordinator

On Feb. 2, at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., several hundred women of all ages, ethnicities, backgrounds and orientations gathered at the Feminism 2.0 conference to strategize about ways action-oriented feminist organizations and the burgeoning online feminist community could work together to achieve equality for women. What more can grassroots activists and bloggers be doing to maximize their combined power? How best can we harness the Internet and the world of social networking to reach new people and effect change? These questions and more were asked that day, and the prognosis was promising.

How It All Got Started

The conference was developed with the goal of bringing together representatives from long-established women's rights groups, the feminist blogosphere, and anyone interested in the future of feminist activism. The objective of the day was to kick off a dynamic conversation about how traditional activism and social media (often called Web 2.0) already intersect, how much more could be accomplished through increased collaboration, and what that expanded partnership might look like.

Fem 2.0 was the brainchild of Turner Strategies, and NOW was one of the original conveners along with BlogHer, Culture Kitchen, Digital Sistas, Feminist Majority and Care2. NOW President Kim Gandy spoke at the opening plenary of the conference about NOW's early entry onto the Internet (NOW's first internet message board was in 1986, and first website was in Feb. 1995), its consistent use of new technology to advance a mission and message around women's rights, and the challenges and imperatives of connecting on-the-ground activism with online communities.

The timing of the Feminism 2.0 conference, just weeks after the inauguration of President Barack Obama, was also important. With the arrival of a new, forward-looking administration and a new era of hope for women, it is even more critical now that feminists work together for women's rights, utilizing all the tools at their disposal.

Enlightening Presentations

Ann Stone, from the National Women's History Museum, set the tone in many ways by kicking off the day with an overview of the feminist movement through time. Stone talked about how women fit into the scheme of technological advances, as not only users of computer technologies but also creators. Underlying her presentation was the suggestion that the early women's movement was very grassroots-oriented, leading to modern grassroots activism, and now social networking and open source technology are natural extensions of that grassroots activism.

The next presentation, from Apps for Democracy, explored more of the technological angle of the conference, by showing a range of examples of new media applications that contribute to the greater good. Apps for Democracy hosted a contest for the District of Columbia, supported by the local government, where software developers competed to create innovative, useful applications for the average resident to use. While limited to D.C., the contest demonstrated that encouraging this sort of collaboration between government bodies and grassroots developers can produce software that is broadly beneficial. This way of creating software not only saved money (instead of hiring full-time programmers, the D.C. government benefited from the imagination of enthusiastic contestants), but also opened up a wider realm of possibilities by soliciting ideas from a vast pool of programmers. Peter Corbett from Apps for Democracy suggested that the feminist movement could benefit from this sort of model, not only by making women's issues and services the subject of the applications, but also by including women programmers at all levels of the process.

The final presentation of the morning was made by Linkfluence, a Washington, D.C.-based research firm that is charting the waters of social media, literally, by creating maps of online communities. The maps themselves were like a connect the dot puzzle, with each dot representing a website. Each connection between dots demonstrated a link from one site to the other.

Especially for the conference, Linkfluence created a map of top feminist blogs and websites, which they called the feminist blogosphere. According to the sample, the feminist blogosphere (also called the femisphere at times during the conference) seemed to be a really close-knit community, based on how much the sites linked between each other. As with any community, online or offline, one of the characteristics of a cohesive online community is reciprocity. In this case, the feminist blogs were shown to link back and forth between each other and by linking back and forth between other feminist blogs, the community is brought closer together.

Technology Fosters Participation

Twitter was paramount among the forms of technological collaboration seen throughout the conference. Twitter is micro-blogging software that is in many ways the middle ground between sending an instant message to friends and having your own blog. All day at the conference, a Twitter chatroom was going on in the background -- again, literally. In the auditorium where plenary sessions and some workshops took place, a large projector screen was set up behind the panel that displayed the chat continuously, in real time. The chat involved both people present at the conference and those who were unable to attend but were watching the live feed online. As the panelists were talking, questions could be submitted via Twitter, comments could be made about the discussion, and notable lines from the speakers could be pulled out to share with the world.

During breakout sessions, those with portable devices could follow the chat in any of the workshops where people were "Tweeting." You can follow the conversation even today, by using the hashtag #fem2 at http://tweetchat.com/.

Being surrounded by social media activists, of course, the cyber conversation wasn't limited to Twitter. Webcams, blackberries, laptops and notepads were all used to capture the event. Bloggers made posts after the conference and some were also live blogging throughout the event. The best thing about using technologies such as Twitter, blogging, and live blogging is that it greatly expanded the reach of the conference and encouraged the participation of many feminists beyond the walls of the event.

Break Out Sessions Tackle Hot Topics

The workshops were in many ways the highlight of the conference, with a variety of themes, many of which had been drawn from discussions started online prior to the conference. Some of the topics included: "Media and Culture: Feminists & the Media -- Speaking Out;" "Tackling the 800 lb. Gorilla: Gender and Race in the 2008 Election and How To Honor Both in Our Movement;" "Breaking the 'Waves': Moms Coming Together for Equality;" "Bloggers and Activists: An Intimate and Frank Conversation;" and one with this tongue-in-cheek title "Health and Welfare: Roe's Safe - What Do We Do Now?" Overall, the diversity and exchange of different perspectives could really be felt in the break out sessions.

Moving Forward

The conference was a great opportunity to start a conversation, with many participants eager to continue the dialogue online via the Feminism 2.0 website, Twitter and other mediums. Listening and learning from one another allows feminists to assess how we are doing now and where we should be going next. Now that we have begun the conversation, we must follow it up with action that utilizes a variety of techniques and technologies that reflect our different experiences and will effect change locally and nationally. By continuing this collaboration, we can continue to move the feminist movement forward in new and different ways.