2 days Ago By Adebola Esther Osegboun, Lecturer in Political Science, Federal University, Oye Ekiti
It has been a little over a decade since 270 female students were kidnapped from a school in Chibok, Nigeria by the extremist armed group Boko Haram. While, many of the girls escaped, were rescued or were released in exchanges, many others remain missing or feared dead. Around 90 of the girls have not been brought back and more than 30 parents have died while hoping for their children’s return.
Since the Chibok abduction, more than 1,680 schoolchildren have been kidnapped in Nigeria.The mass kidnapping shocked many around the world, and spurred efforts to raise awareness with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls coming to symbolize public outrage. Women’s activism in recent decades has relied on and taken up digital technology in varied and complex ways.
With an ability to reach millions across the world in a short time span, social media has arguably provided an unprecedented means for solidarity and activism. However, the hashtag exemplifies the less often-recognized risks and detriments of relying on social media to promote and attain gender equity and social justice. The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day, #AccelerateAction, provides an opportunity to look back on #BringBackOurGirls and question the efficacy of using social media to achieve gender parity.
Mobilizing #BringBackOurGirlsWomen have often found ways of mobilizing even when political space is restricted. In Africa, for example, the history of colonialism has shaped the postcolonial political landscape and incontrovertibly influenced how social justice movements are organized.Despite obstacles and challenges, particularly from governments, women in Africa have organized in significant ways to fight for their rights, including playing crucial roles in the struggles for economic and political independence across the continent.
While some movements are formally organized, others, like #BringBackOurGirls, have been issue-based. As sociology professor Temitope Oriola writes, they “reflect the role contemporary, women-led social movements in Africa play in reshaping institutional and non-institutional actions, beliefs and practices.” The 2014 #BringBackOurGirls campaign in Nigeria brought together people from diverse backgrounds to demand action against Boko Haram.
Nigerian lawyer Ibrahim Abdullahi was the first to use #BringBackOurGirls on April 23, 2014 after hearing a speech by former Nigerian Education Minister Obiageli Ezekwesili. The hashtag caught the eye of Def Jam Recordings co-founder, Russell Simmons.Simmons tweeted “234 Nigerian girls have gone missing, and no one is talking about it .
.. Please RT! #BringBackOurGirls.
” As a result, efforts in response to the kidnapping quickly went global, garnering support from the likes of Barack and Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey and former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan. This transnational movement was anchored in a notion of freedom from injustice, particularly amid gender-based violence, human rights violations and systemic government failure. The movement was also informed by shared lived experiences and the use of digital media, which inspired international solidarityHowever, the #BringBackOurGirls movement raised several issues around identity, particularly in terms of western saviourism.
As literary theorist and feminist critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak writes in her oft-quoted phrase: “White men are saving brown women from brown men.”Race and gender were especially important identity markers for some in the West lending their support to the cause. In addition, the role of Islamophobia as another factor cannot be discounted.
The limits of hashtag feminismThere is of course immense value when activists across the world join forces to combat injustice, but we cannot ignore the tendency of some in the Global North to portray women in the Global South as permanent victims. As migration researcher Heaven Crawley puts it: “Women from the Global South are typically understood and represented through a neo-imperial frame as disempowered, helpless ‘victims’ or as ‘Exotic Others’ who need to be rescued from their ‘backward’ cultures.”Examining the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls (emphasis ours) brings the complexity and contradictions of online social justice activism to the forefront.
On the one hand, it unequivocally brought a sense of urgency in returning the girls to their families. It also brought worldwide attention to a terrorist organization that operates across borders (in Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria) and threatens the stability and sovereignty of several nations, not to mention the African continent. On the other hand, there is an unacknowledged history of colonial ownership over women’s bodies, which supports a logic of complicity with the image of women in the Global South needing saving.
Similarly, the stereotype that Black and Muslim men commit violence against women is reinforced. Accelerating change for womenThe #BringBackOurGirls movement was successful in calling on the Nigerian government to take action, and in garnering attention globally. However, the momentum faded overtime.
Legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon’s book chapter on #MeToo offers a more optimistic view of the efficacy of hashtag feminism. However, we argue that social media, which functions on algorithms and user engagement (likes, views, purchases, for example), cannot do what legal and policy change can do — bring about real, meaningful socioeconomic and political improvements for women. Even when supporting a wide range of people and communities, social justice campaigns cannot overcome the exploitative and capitalist (not to mention white male ownership) underpinnings of social media.
Movements like #BringBackOurGirls are vulnerable to losing audience interest, and while at their peak, can be co-opted by corporations to boost revenues. The simplicity and superficiality of hashtags neither readily lend themselves to feminist causes nor were they designed to be feminist tools. According to the International Women’s Day official website, “it will take until 2158.
..to reach full gender parity.
” Such parity will not come about through hashtags, whether its #BringBackOurGirls, #MeToo or even #AccelerateAction.Social change is possible, however, by building solidarity through active grassroots organizing, community outreach, protesting against unfair policies and systems, and sharing knowledge that crosses borders and cultures.The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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