Feminist awareness among future educators and the impact of multimodal discourses from media culture and social networks

Abstract

Introduction: The multimodal anti-feminist, misogynistic, sexist and violent discourses that circulate on social networks and in media culture make these digital spaces highly contradictory for feminism and complex for adequate training on the subject. The concept of feminist consciousness as a critical analytical category refers to the learning and internalization of discourses that have a broad impact on self-identification and personal commitment to collective action towards a more egalitarian world between men and women and free of sexist violence. Objective: This work aims to understand the feminist consciousness of future educators. Methodology: We follow a qualitative digital ethnographic study. 50 women participate who will serve as future educators. A reflective and critical thematic analysis of the discourse is carried out on the basis of 10 dialogic virtual circles around 120 digital contents that collect multimodal discourses (memes, videos, vignettes, songs, comments...) that are part of media culture and circulate through social networks. Results: The results show different negotiation mechanisms of new femininities that make consciousness fluctuate between feminist and postfeminist, a powerful discourse of false empowerment (retrosexism), negative emotions associated with misogynistic memes as an icon of the new hipster sexism in the media, discursive contradictions and lack of coping resources that weaken collective feminist action. In summary, four types of feminist consciousness are identified: pseudofeminist, “happy”, “celebrity”, and “engaged”. Discussion and conclusions: These results are reflected in light of other current studies with implications not only for future research but also for training in feminism, gender, and equality.