Digital feminist spaces have changed the way in which feminists can engage and discuss important emerging issues. However, communicating in online spaces can be very difficult to navigate, and can result in ‘in-fighting’ and conflict. This seminar puts forward suggested principles for online feminist engagement, including how to facilitate inclusive discussion in digital feminist spaces to promote productive instances of feminist critique. It will also launch GEN VIC and Monash University’s, Facilitating inclusive discussion in digital feminist spaces factsheet.

Guest speakers include:

Dr Akane Kanai is a lecturer in the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University. Her research interests include gender, race, and the emotional and political elements of online sociality. She has recently been funded by the Australian Research Council to carry out a nationwide project on young women, feminism and online culture.
Elissa McKay is a parent and resident of the Dandenong Ranges. She managed communications for several non-profit organisations, both in Australia and overseas, before working as a media adviser for federal government departments, Australian Government Ministers and Senators. In 2020 she began writing daily media updates for Mums of the Hills, which kept the parenting network united and thriving under lockdowns. The updates were published in the highly popular memoir Moments of Hysteria.
Dr Julia Coffey is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Newcastle. Her work uses feminist theory to understand issues of gender, youth, sexuality, health and the body. Her latest book, Everyday Embodiment: Rethinking Youth Body Image will be published in 2021 with Palgrave MacMillan.
Karen Pickering is the co-author (with Jane Bennett) of About Bloody Time: The Menstrual Revolution We Have to Have, and the editor of Doing it: Women Tell the Truth About Great Sex. She was the cofounder and director of the first Girls On Film Festival, and the creator and host of long-running live show, Cherchez la Femme, which is returning as a podcast in 2021.