Facebook + Feminism + Cartesianism: Resurrecting "the Ghost in the Machine"

Abstract

Facebook + Feminism + CartesianismResurrecting "the Ghost in the Machine" Tegan Zimmerman "The feminist 'we' is always and only a phantasmatic construction" but this "is not cause for despair or, at least, it is not only cause for despair. The radical instability of the category sets into question the foundational restrictions on feminist political theorizing and opens up other configurations, not only of genders and bodies, but of politics itself" —judith butler, gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity A specter is haunting online feminisms: the specters of René Descartes. Descartes' dualism theory, which purports a distinction between embodiment (body) and disembodiment (mind), rears its ghostly head when considering the context of digital culture, especially digital feminisms. The legacy of Cartesianism manifests in our digital interactions, which encourage accepting minds as superior and separate from bodies; in our neoliberal culture, particularly when it comes to highly individualized identity politics, this Cartesian move significantly impacts power structures and the way feminists think about (dis)embodiment. Prominent and wide-ranging feminist (e.g., Butler 1990/2006, 1997; Bordo 1992, 1999; Gatens 1996; Braidotti 2002) critiques of Cartesianism were especially influential in the late twentieth century, and today scholarship examining and troubling mind-body dualisms in digital media environments is readily found, e.g., Katie Warfield's "MirrorCameraRoom: The Gendered Multi-(in)stabilities of the Selfie" (2017) or Megan Boler's much-cited "Hypes, Hopes, and Actualities: New Digital Cartesianism and Bodies in Cyberspace" (2007). [End Page 81] Feminist criticism theorizing Cartesianism in relation to Facebook specifically, however, is understudied. The goal of this article, then, is to bring Descartes' cogito, which is infrequently referenced explicitly in social media literature, into conversation with feminist scholarship on Facebook and feminist political discourses on (dis)embodiment. As feminist media scholars (Turkle 2011; Colebrook 2014; Crossley 2015, 2017; Baer 2016; McLean, Maalsen, and Grech 2016; Megarry 2017; Pruchniewska 2017) contend, activity on social media like Facebook constitutes an important part of folx's everyday feminism, and the number of people turning to the virtual realm as a medium for political identity, subjectivity, and activity is increasing. Among the many platforms of social media used by feminists, Facebook is particularly advantageous because of its unique Groups category. In this article, I concentrate on a closed member, feminist Facebook group called Feminist X, and I attribute its problems—the intense monitoring of posts for a certain kind of individualized identity politics, an aggressive call-out culture, hostility toward and disparagement of opposing viewpoints, paradoxical assertions and disavowals of users as embodied or disembodied, and members frequently leaving the group for good—back to a neoliberal digital Cartesianism. Boler (2007) argues, "A neo-liberal version of the Cartesian binary of mind and body sells differences by simultaneously highlighting difference of race and nation while erasing them; differences or bodies are recognized, situated within the discourse as an obstacle of some sort and 'displaced' through a re-emphasis of mind or transcendence of difference or body" (143). I contend that Feminist X's attempts to resist sexism, homophobia, transphobia, racism, etc., all of which are embodied phenomena and invoke embodiment, are simultaneously compromised by the group practicing a neoliberal digital Cartesianism that seemingly justifies the surveillance of discursive politics articulated solely in textual form—members never meet to face-to-face. These tensions significantly weaken and undermine the feminist goals of the group. Boler clarifies that "Text-based, computer-mediated digital culture repackages the Cartesian desire to transcend the 'truth-polluting' body. As such, this apparent disembodiment created in cyberculture poses a genuine dilemma for critical, feminist and progressive educators who have invested decades in ensuring that 'the body' be recognized as essential to knowledge production (Grosz, 1993; [End Page 82] Probyn, 1993; Senft, 1996)" (142). Relying on computer-mediated communications and subscribing to a neoliberal digital version of the Cartesian cogito (Boler 143) compromises Feminist X's valuation and commitment to embodiment, activism, and collectivity. Feminist X, a private, closed group created in 2011, is the leading Facebook resource for feminist issues, activities, and events in its metropolis. With approximately 2,000 members, it is broadly aimed toward "[a]nyone who considers themselves 'pro-feminist.'" Leading feminist Facebook scholar...