Female empowerment and avoiding pseudo activism on social media
- Shreya Sekar
- Feb 28, 2022
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 29, 2022
Hi everyone, welcome to the UNICEF Blog! My name is Shreya Sekar and I will be one of the bloggers this semester. I am a junior majoring in psychology and I am excited to share my thoughts and provide more information to all of you through these posts. As a psychology student, I have really learned how to analyze a situation from a psychological point of view and I am thrilled to start off the blogs with providing you my insight on the female empowerment movement on social media.
It is no secret that all around the world, there is a major disparity between the way men and women are treated. Women are consistently treated as inferior in all aspects of their life including education, job opportunities, leadership roles, and just in general day-to-day tasks. This phenomenon is nothing new as we have seen in this many different communities starting from the earliest times in history. Seeing how destructive gender disparities can be there has been a rise of female empowerment movements in recent years. A great deal of these movements have taken place online using popular social media sites. Although these platforms provide convenience and a reach to a greater audience, there are ways in which the mission can be misinterpreted and turned into something destructive. It is important for us to be aware of these problems to prevent them from happening again.
Social Media is a tricky thing to analyze when it comes to what if offers its users. On the one hand, it is a great platform to connect with friends and family. Especially during the pandemic when it was not safe to meet up with people face to face. However, there are many determinants of using it including the pressures of meeting unachievable beauty standards, the tolls it takes on your self esteem and mental health, potential instances of cyberbullying, and the addiction of compulsively checking it, amongst several other things. Arguably one of the biggest issues is the urge people have to take part in trends and conform with what is popular. Sometimes the trends are harmless such as posting a photo with a funny filter or a video of you taking part in a dance trend. Other times it includes sharing posts about certain political or social issues.
An instance where this trend was especially prominent was during the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement. The movement gained traction after people used it to express their disappointment and outrage of George Floyd being murdered by a police officer in broad daylight. On Instagram, people began posting infographics, sharing other related new stories, and advocating for a REAL change. For the most part, these were productive and valuable ways to spread the message of the movement and create an impact in the community. However, a few days later a trend emerged known as “Blackout Tuesday” in which user with both large and small followings posted black squares on their feed with the caption #blackouttuesday or #BlackLivesMatter. The aim for this was to show solidarity to this community and endorsement of the mission. This ended up being super performative as millions posted their black squares and then did not do anything else after. The black squares also blocked other important posts from being seen, therefore preventing the spread of reliable information. While Blackout Tuesday was good in theory, what it ended up being was pseudo activism and causing a great deal of harm to the movement. One of the only valuable things to come out of that trend is the lesson it showed us which is what not to do if we want to create everlasting change.
Even though social media can be a good thing because it raises awareness to people who may be ignorant, it often causes the rapid spread of misinformation. Typically people share the post or graphic without reading or skimming over it first. Rather they are sharing the post just to seem informed and follow along with their friends. Without checking what you are posting or who you are reposting it from, the spread of misinformation is practically inevitable. One of the most unfortunate things about this is that this spread of lies on social media is that it usually happens for the major political and social issues that are complex and requires people to be knowledgeable before they can take a stance on them.
On an issue like female empowerment and calling out gender disparities it is crucial that the advocacy we do on it is not just to follow a trend as people’s lives depend on raising this awareness or creating changes. Despite not having a large social media following in comparison to other creators your platform is still a platform and it is important to keep that in mind when contemplating what to post. Here are a couple of tips I recommend about social media posting when it comes to female empowerment or other global issues:
1) If you are planning on creating your own post or infographic make sure you do your own extensive research on the subject instead of just copying and pasting someone else’s words. Make sure that all of your sources are credible and are properly cited.
2) If you are planning on resharing a post make sure you know who the original post is by. If it's an organization, look up their work to see if they are credible. If it's a celebrity, influencer, or public figure you can do the same as well. If it is a regular person whose post went viral you might want to look at their other posts/ online presence before resharing their post to see if you align with them.
3) If you want to share a petition or ask people to do something make sure you follow those steps yourself. This of course prevents hypocrisy but also starts real action rather than performative action that leads nowhere.
By following these tips before posting hopefully our social media actions turn into something valuable. Remember these are just a couple of suggestions of what to do properly and there are several other individual steps you might also need to take. But the bottom line is you need to be heavily informed and cautious on the information you are posting or reposting and that you must follow through with taking action outside of social media. By doing this we can work to resolve and create an positive change in the Female Empowerment Movement
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