GRSJ224/shoutyourabortion
#ShoutYourAbortion: An End to Abortion Stigma
Overview
Twitter users Lindy West (@thelindywest) and Amelia Bonow (@ameliabonow) created the hashtag #ShoutYourAbortion in September of 2015 in order to encourage women to publicly share their abortion stories in an effort to de-stigmatize the subject. The hashtag eventually went viral, and through this unique form of digital storytelling, women were empowered to share their experiences with abortions in an effort to end the potentially lethal stigma surrounding this medical procedure.
Abortion Stigma
Every minute, 81 women around the world undergo an abortion [1]. Despite the frequency of this procedure, those who opt to terminate their pregnancies are faced with a plethora of social, interpersonal, and legal challenges. These challenges may include "denial of accurate medical information, excessive fees for services, verbal or physical abuse, expulsion from school or employment, public shaming, endangerment of marital prospects, community ostracism, [and] poor quality of services or the use of untrained providers in unsafe conditions."[1] These women are forever marked as inferior ideals of womanhood, and as a result, may decide to remain silent about their experiences—both positive and negative—because of the shame and guilt following their abortions. Additionally, some may resort to unsafe abortion conditions because it may be too costly, illegal, or prohibited in their culture. In fact, every year close to 20 million women undergo unsafe abortions, of which approximately 66,000 will die[1]. It is the desire to rid of this stigma that drove West and Bonow to create #ShoutYourABortion.
Digital Storytelling and Hashtag Activism
Digital storytelling allows participants to decide what they want to share and how it is presented to the general public[2]. Research has shown that this form of participatory activism elicited by story-sharing encourages people to take action in relation to the stigma surrounding the subject of focus[2]. Additionally, because of the virality of this form of activism, it allows the messages to reach exponentially more people than it would have if it had simply been conventional storytelling, thus furthering the impact it may have.
By becoming their own advocates, women take control over how and when their stories are told, thus shifting the power to direct the conversation from judgemental bystanders to those who have experienced abortions first-hand. Moreover, by engaging in online activism, women open up safe online spaces for marginalized folk. This creates a personalized communication network that allows for easy contributions and interactions with the content and its creator. As the theory of symbolic interactionism explains[2], people construct the meaning of their social world through interactions with others. Thus, by reading the stories shared under the hashtag, people take part in collective action [3] by engaging in these important conversations, which may, in the future, lead to offline activism[4]. By becoming more familiar with the subject itself, as well as by being able to put a face to these stories, people may change the kind of languages they use to refer to the marginalized groups in question[2], which helps reduce the stigma surrounding abortions and could eventually lead to more acceptance and empathy for these women.
Other Examples of Hashtag Activism
#WhyIStayed
In February of 2015, Ray Rice and his fiancée Janay Palmer were arrested and charged with mutual assault following an incident in an Atlantic City casino.[3] Following the revelation of new evidence, Palmer's charges were dropped and Rice's charges were increased to aggravated assault. The day after the state of New Jersey chose to move forward with prosecution, Palmer and Rice quietly wed.[3] News coverage of the incident was riddled with broadcasters claiming Palmer was a poor example to women by choosing to 'still marry Rice'[3]. The hashtag #WhyIStayed was then created in order to correct the victim-blaming narrative that was forming surrounding Palmer's decision to wed Rice. Survivors of domestic violence shared their story via twitter with the hashtag as a direct response to the question they often were presented with—"why did you stay with your abuser?"
#WhyIStayed went viral, and within days more than 100,000 survivors had shared their stories on their own terms. By taking part in this digital storytelling, they (1) challenged the victim-blaming narrative that typically follows a story about domestic violence, and (2) humanized this terrible experience in order for others to see that they were not simply statistics, but rather real human beings who were survivors of trauma. The media traction the hashtag received forced the NFL to overhaul their domestic violence policies, to re-investigate Rice's case, and to partner up with No More, a domestic violence awareness campaign, to create a series of public service announcements aired weekly during NFL games.[3]
#BlackLivesMatter
Following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in 2013 in the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, #BlackLivesMatter began trending on twitter[5]. This online social movement was eventually taken to the streets in the form of peaceful protests, and years later is still relevant and powerful both online and offline. The participatory nature of hashtag activism was evident when looking at the posts tagged #BlackLivesMatter, in which creators were able to share their stories, send their condolences, express their anger, and share other forms of media related to the cause all in one place for everyone to see.
Tragically, black men and women continue to die at the hands of police, but some change has been seen following both the online and offline protests and movements. Following the death of George Floyd, for example, Derek Chauvin's chargers were increased to second degree murder, his co-conspirators Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng were also arrested and charged, and lawmakers in several states have vowed to move funding from the police department's budget back to communities that need it[6]. This is an example of how hashtag activism can translate into real-life changes in policies and societal norms.
Resolution
The more that people talk about a topic, the more likely they are to help lessen the stigma surrounding it. Hashtag activism is a great way to initiate conversations surrounding controversial topics, and, as seen with other examples of this sort of activism, they can lead to long-lasting change. By engaging with the twitter hashtag #ShoutYourAbortions women used their voices and their power to start and lead these conversations. Though the end goal is access to safe, affordable, and legal abortions for all worldwide, a decrease in the stigma surrounding these procedures is a step in the right direction.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Kumar, Anuradha; Hessini, Leila; Mitchell, Ellen M.H. (August 2009). "Conceptualizing Abortion Stigma". Culture, Health & Sexuality. 11: 625–639 – via JSTOR.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Mnisi, Thoko (December 2015). "Digital storytelling : creating participatory space, addressing stigma, and enabling agency". Perspectives in Education. 33: 92–106 – via SABINET.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Clark, Rosemary (February 2016). ""Hope in a hashtag": the discursive activism of #WhyIStayed". Feminist Media Studies. 16: 788–804 – via Tandfonline.
- ↑ Bellucci, Mabel (November 1997). "Women's struggle to decide about their own bodies: Abortion and sexual rights in Argentina". Reproductive Health Matters: An international journal on sexual and reproductive health and rights. 5: 99–106 – via tandfonline.
- ↑ Yang, Guobin (August 2016). "Narrative Agency in Hashtag Activism: The Case of #BlackLivesMatter". Media and Communication. 4: 13–17 – via COGITATIO.
- ↑ Ankel, Sophia (June 24, 2020). "30 days that shook America: Since the death of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement has already changed the country". Business Insider. Retrieved July 22, 2020.