In “Feminist Interventions in Electronic Environments,” Mary E. Hocks asks a question or two I think we have some answers to at this point, seventeen years later: “Can a hostile environment–a legal definition of sexual harassment–actually develop on public electronic forums? What exactly is at stake if harassment occurs in a nonwork environment?” (112).

Yes. Yes, the web can be a hostile environment. And plenty of things are at stake, not only for individuals but for everyone.

As so many of the examples Pamela Takayoshi gives in “No Boys Allowed: The World Wide Web as a Clubhouse for Girls,” the female is usually the marked category. The separate, cordoned off section. That marked-ness involves so many risks and so much discrimination, though I think things are getting better.

Today it seems like feminist interventions are not only about women, but gender equality across all kinds of spectrums.

I wonder, can the kind of art project expressionism stuff Sullivan spends so much time on count as a form of feminist intervention, to use Hocks’ term? Is the above image an example, in some sense?

The uniqueness of what Sullivan describes (though it does seem much less unique now, given how deep we’ve sunk into web technologies and online communication since the 90s) does give it a lot of conversation-changing power, I think.

So how do we use that?

Examples that come to mind:

all the hashtag movements, like #yesallwomen, where everyone can share stories
these comic/articles like this one, that seem so personal
what else can you think of?

postsecret also came to mind for some reason. it’s more a collection, and made up of analog stuff, but still it seems to fit with Sullivan’s vision.

an activity for us:
Create either an autobiographical or activist hypertext piece about something, maybe related to your research interests, maybe related to your teaching themes, or other topics from our class. It can be really short and small–an image, a tweet, a post, or some quick combination using Storify or other similar tools. As Sullivan describes it, these should be “hypertexts that produce both a personal and social transformation” (30). To also fit this into Hocks ideas, it might be cool to fit your piece into an existing conversation outside of our class. What existing issues/debates/etc. could you respond to?