Part 2: agnès films as a Technofeminist Space

Having provided a sense of the history of agnès films and of our aspirations for the publication, we now want to show how it links to the ideas that technofeminists Ann Brady Aschauer (1999), Kristine Blair (1998, 1999), Lisa Gerard (2002), Hocks and Balsamo (2003), and Pamela Takayoshi (2000) expressed almost two decades ago. Two decades might feel like an eternity when it comes to digital spaces, but it is a blink of an eye when it comes to feminism. The battle against sexism has been raging for millennia, after all, and will no doubt go on for millennia more.

Not only will feminists continue to battle sexism, they will also continually try to make sense of what feminism means to them and to others as they seek to place themselves within the movement. One of the useful yet controversial ways to understand how feminism operates is the metaphor of feminist waves. As we discuss in the video you are about to see, we consider our work to fit within the fourth wave of feminism. Like technofeminism and like the agnès films project, we understand that waves-as-metaphor is imperfect, but as we argue here, we feel that they bring a welcome push and call to action toward feminist activism.

As Linda Nicholson (2010) argued, the wave metaphor comes with the “implication… that underlying certain historical differences, there is one phenomenon, feminism, that unites gender activism in the history of the United States, and that like a wave, [it] peaks at certain times and recedes at others.” Nicholson pointed out that the idea of a wave not only places a problematic unifying narrative on what are a disparate set of beliefs and goals, but it also creates the notion that feminist work comes and goes. Moreover, as Elizabeth Evans and Prudence Chamberlain (2015) explained, the wave metaphor has been repeatedly criticized for a number of deficiencies, including dividing feminists from different generations, leaving out feminists of color, and giving too much importance to Western feminism.

In the introduction to their foundational text This Bridge Called My Back, Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa (2015) explained that “working as the only two Chicanas in a national feminist writers organization,” and seeing how the group “repeatedly refused to address itself to its elitist and racist practices” inspired them write their collection, through which they “want to express to all women—especially to white middle-class women—the experiences which divide us as feminists; we want to examine incidents of intolerance, prejudice and denial of differences within the feminist movement” (p. xliii). The book remains relevant almost four decades after its original publication because the racism, classism, and homophobia it indicts still reflects the way that many marginalized women feel when they engage with feminist groups and movements today.

Although exclusion may take the form of open hostility, it is often masked behind inclusive postures. As bell hooks (1982) expounded, white women leading “the contemporary movement toward feminism” did not address the rift between black and white women, but, rather, “their rhetoric of sisterhood and solidarity suggested that women in America were able to bond across both class and race boundaries—but no such coming together had actually occurred” (p. 136). Healing centuries of separation and mistrust between women of different races, social classes, and sexualities is something that, like trying to foster gender equality, will be a constant struggle for activists. However, the exclusion hooks, Anzaldúa, Moraga, and countless others feel from feminist movements goes much deeper than the metaphors we develop to understand our activism.

Although the arguments against the wave metaphor are valid, we argue that alternative metaphors for the movement would run into similar problems because those issues are deeply embedded in our society and it would be hard for a metaphor to solve them. Moreover, we feel that the wave metaphor brings a number of benefits that help compensate for its drawbacks, particularly if we shift the way in which we understand waves. When people imagine a wave, they usually see the movement forward of a small fraction of the ocean, which eventually comes to an end on the sand. However, waves are never really separate from the rest of the ocean. The wave is, in fact, inseparable from the water that surrounds it. Moreover, once it crashes on the sand, the wave returns to the whole and joins other waves. Waves are not disparate entities; they are at once ephemeral and eternal, part of a vast, unstoppable force.

If we look at feminist waves as being deeply and constantly linked to the entire historical ocean of gender activism (and we at agnès films look at them that way), they are a lot more useful as metaphors. Evans and Chamberlain (2015) argued for “a more reflexive and fluid use of the term wave, that privileges continuity, inclusivity and multiplicity” (p. 397). A new wave is not a new beginning but a conversation with fellow waves and a continuation of the work others have done. Moreover, as Evan and Chamberlain asserted, “the wave narrative does not conform to a neat progressive notion of history; indeed, it is possible to speak of the second, third and fourth waves of feminism as being coterminous” (p. 398).

Some of the critiques of feminist waves, such as concerns about dividing feminist generations and critiques of fitting into one label what are in fact a multiplicity of goals, can be addressed by having a more fluid sense of the waves and appreciating the fact that the waves can, and at times do, unfold simultaneously. The most convincing argument for us at agnès films to align ourselves with the Fourth Wave is this movement’s ability to galvanize young feminists. As Evans and Chamberlain (2015) stated, “embracing feminism can be tied closely to the emergence of a new wave; this might be particularly true for younger feminists”(p. 404). We hope that the notion of the Fourth Wave’s emergence will continue to create enough excitement to inspire new generations of feminists to join the activist ocean we inhabit.

As Ealasaid Munro (2013) explained, “the internet itself has enabled a shift from ‘third-wave’ to ‘fourth-wave’ feminism… The internet has created a ‘call-out’ culture, in which sexism or misogyny can be ‘called out’ and challenged.” Having published articles about and followed the influence of the #MeToo movement, we appreciate the Fourth Wave’s use of the Internet to challenge others. We are also interested in using the Internet’s reach to celebrate and support women’s behind-the-camera accomplishments. Through a collective interest in using digital spaces to perform activism, we also argue that the Fourth Wave shares some similarities with technofeminism in terms of goal and medium, which creates a sense of unity for our publication between the two approaches to feminism.

Not only are there connections between technofeminism and the Fourth Wave, but many of the themes and struggles technofeminists were discussing are still present today. They have, however, migrated to different forms and spaces. From video streaming to the advent of social media to the prominence of blogs, we show how the territory technofeminists now navigate has changed, even if the battles haven’t. Our hope with this section is not only to explain why and how agnès films is a technofeminist space but to also show possibilities for what technofeminist spaces can look and behave like in our current online environments. In other words, agnès films is one of thousands of technofeminist spaces out there today that carry on the work technofeminists were analyzing and doing in the early days of the Internet.


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Password: TechnofeministPart2

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