Digital Feminism: The Gender of Hashtag

Feminist studies have been effected by the digital innovations as well. Since feminism has been an
arguable topic in digital World, individuals have started sharing their views and arguments women
rights, women problems, The foundation of this research was revealed by the observation of digital
feminism content that were posted at social media platforms. The perception of feminism in Turkey
hasn’t still been placed correctly. Unfortunately, social media users in Turkey have still failure in
understanding feminism and have superficial information about it. This research aims to explore the
dominant discourse in feminism posts which also means a pure reflection of the perceived feminism in
Turkey. In this study, a digital platform “ekşisözlük” which is one of the most popular social media
platform, was selected. “Feminism” and “feminist” hashtags were selected. The posts under each
hashtags, content analysis were conducted. After the identification of discourse categories, discourse
analysis was implemented. Results show that posts under these hashtags have revealed that comments
& definitions are more close to sexuality and violence to women rather feminism. From the perspective
of societal gender and roles, feminism is perceived in a negative way in social media in Turkey and
related posts keep devaluing and insulting the terms “feminism”, and “feminist”