“It took me quite a long time to develop a voice”: Examining feminist digital activism in the Indian #MeToo movement

Abstract

As my analysis of the tweets and interviews with participants and activists of the resurgent #MeTooIndia movement in 2018 show, the work of elite activists and the risks they took were critical for the success of the campaign; however, there was an exclusion of suburban voices and experiences. The onerous and taxing nature of digital labors are an unrecognized feature of women’s activism online, especially in the Indian context, adding more work to women’s already rarely acknowledged and undervalued burdens of labor. Online action here may have been supplemented by offline action, but participants found little support otherwise. Compounding issues, as the interviews reveal, are social media platforms that by nature are sexist and this has negative consequences for online feminist advocacy.