By Diana Sierra, ENC3416 Summer 2021
About this project
This multimedia project was part of my ENC3416’s Final Portfolio; a project which allowed me to connect my passion for gender studies (especially studying the portrayal of feminism) and the knowledge gathered from a course focused on new media studies. I was inspired by the current social media trends in which social campaigns such as the #MeToo movement are promoted and messages of all sorts are shared within a broad, diverse audience. As a feminist myself, I always wondered if these trends were indeed promoting feminist ideals of equality, women empowerment, and other essential ideals or rather having a negative effect on the female user sector. This project allowed me to conduct research and use my own experience as an active social media user to understand the effects and relationship of new media and feminism.
Author’s note
Frida once said, “Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away,” and I believe we can all agree that she was indeed correct. More than a century ago, a group of women fought at the Seneca Falls Convention for gender equality and basic rights of women. Ever since, the rights of women have been changing, slower in some parts of the world, faster in others. But the important thing is that change is happening and every year, a larger number of young girls are given the opportunity to study, follow their dreams, and strip away from traditional gender stereotypes. Technology is also rapidly changing; it is slowly becoming part of everyone’s lives. It is influencing children, teens, and adults with both positive and negative messages.
My goal is this work was to merge these two ideas, new media effects and feminism in an attempt to identify the portrayal of feminist ideas and its role within audiences. I would like to thank Mr. Malesh for nominating my work and most importantly, for believing in me. Feminism is important and it affects us all.