Disclaimer: This text reflects my personal reflections on cyberfeminism, inspired by my readings and experiences. It does not aim to offer solutions but seeks to open avenues for further exploration.
Translated from French: Original version.

Feminism stands out from other social struggles by its ability to constantly reinvent its goals and forms, while advocating for universal emancipation for women. It adapts to the needs for equality and social justice. In particular, it questions the dynamics between the political and the intimate, revealing that liberation does not solely come through political structures but also through a transformation of personal and cultural norms.

Reflecting on this link between the political and the intimate, I asked myself: what happens to intimacy in cyberspace? This question, far from trivial, seems essential to understanding the tools of action available to cyberfeminism today. In a space where the boundaries between private and public blur, how can feminists reinvent tools of resistance, liberation, and solidarity?

This is the reflection I propose here, hoping it can contribute to the ongoing debate about the challenges and opportunities of cyberfeminism.

Feminism: A Political and Intimate Transformation

Feminism does not simply seek to overthrow an oppressor to replace them with a benefactor. It emphasizes the importance of intimate work, deconstructing internalized oppressions and dominant identity norms. Feminist consciousness infiltrates homes: alongside patriarchy, it challenges the legitimacy of the nuclear family model, its institutionalization, and the moral framework surrounding it. It also, in my view, dismantles the dream of romantic love.

This liberating process operates through both immense and minute acts. Because every feminist achievement is, evidently, reversible. Feminism redefines the notion of “doing politics” as both a collective and personal emancipation, shaking traditional balances of power, love, and desire.

For me, feminist modes of action, much like feminism itself, as well as feminist women and men, share a common texture. They are shaped by a paradoxical mechanism, both gentle and violent. All are traumatized and healed in heterogeneous ways—a patchwork of scars, fallow lands, or intoxicating harvests. They have sacrificed parts of themselves while simultaneously repairing so many others. A rebellion of the body, of thought, and of action… both violent and tender.

Feminism, or any event related to it, often becomes an opportunity for political organizations, for better or worse, to intrude into citizens’ intimacy. Feminism, and everything it stirs up, confronts spectators at home with moral, philosophical, spiritual, and even sentimental debates with a grave brutality.

Feminism in Cyberspace

On the internet, the intimate often becomes public, whether through social networks, forums, or blogs. What was once confined to the private domain (personal thoughts, relationships, sexual experiences) is now exposed and transformed, with the internet serving as both a stage and a tool for expression.

Online intimacy can become a space for liberation. Personal stories and shared struggles help create communities of support and sisterhood. The #MeToo movement, for example, succeeded in connecting the intimate to the political on a global scale, transforming individual experiences into a collective movement. But can this power endure? What conditions must be met for such movements to continue transforming our societies?

However, digital platforms also impose their content policies, allowing them to censor feminist struggles or politicize them to serve their economic interests. In this space, the political and the intimate maintain a toxic relationship.

Fortunately, the internet’s means of expression have challenged traditional norms by exploring non-binary or alternative forms of expression. Indeed, cyberspace offers opportunities: digital identities, through avatars, pseudonyms, and multiple profiles, allow for a certain plurality of “selves.” This multiplicity sometimes limits censorship (and self-censorship), but it also turns intimacy into a complex mosaic, partly controlled by the individual and largely influenced by platforms that appropriate our lives.

Feminism in the Post-#MeToo Era

Is pseudonymity enough? How can cyberfeminism help us face the growing risk of the commodification of intimacy on the internet? Personal data collection, surveillance practices, and algorithms exploiting our emotions and desires are all forms of digital domination. At the same time, the expression of intimacy remains essential to feminism, whether in activism, individual emancipation through access to knowledge, or the exercise of the right to association. Should cyberfeminism prioritize the fight against these forms of digital domination? And if so, which one first?

One possible approach for cyberfeminism could draw inspiration from literature, specifically the ‘tactic’ of telling “true lies.” This approach, in a lunarpunk mode, already seems widely used by feminist and cyberfeminist artists. It ensures a degree of confidentiality while continuing to defend freedoms of expression and association. But will we always have to hide? Will we have to distort reality, setting off fact-checkers’ alarms, to play the same propaganda game as political, military, and media leaders on the internet?

In reality, I fear that feminist actions carried out openly are reaching the end of their effectiveness. The Mazan trial, for me—and I don’t think I’m alone—represents a turning point in the history of feminist pedagogy. The world was shocked by the banality of the accused. Even if nothing is reversible (as I mentioned earlier), a large part of the Western population has come to understand, perhaps for the first or the thousandth time, that “Not every man, but any man” can commit atrocious acts against women.

As a result, I fear that public denunciations of sexual violence will mobilize fewer and fewer women. Feminists and their allies will continue to share serious incidents, but these testimonies may sink into banality—like a return to mere news items. Resignation could sadly become the easiest response to accept in societies already shaken by several existential revolutions: environmental preservation, AI, and perhaps others I have yet to foresee. Especially since the ostentatious nature of public testimony has too often tortured victims, saturated, and eventually crystallized public opinion.

Should we turn to local action? It won’t be enough, will it? We need new means of action.

I don’t have clear answers yet, but these questions deserve to be explored collectively. Perhaps, together, through experimentation, we will find new ideas.

To be continued…
@agathedavray.eth