FEMINISM AND GENDER SPEECH IN SOCIAL NETWORKS: FEMALE EMPOWERMENT?

Abstract

In this study we analyzed part of the discussion on social networking sites about gender issues around the release of the film Wonder Woman, in four publications on the official Facebook page of the movie. We investigated, in the comments on the film's launching, the presence of debates on feminist issues, in order to identify the topics discussed and their perspective. The hypothesis of the original work, Maria Cecilia Baini's master's dissertation, was that the film would mobilize discourses on female empowerment. Starting from the discussions on gender issues from the 1930s, we present gender studies as understood today and discuss the presence of feminism on the Internet. Questions about power and discourse are based in the precepts of Bourdieu (1996) and Foucault (2013) in order to think the production of discourse as a result of power relations in society. Language is understood, by resorting to the concept of habitus (BOURDIEU 1989), as being capable of naturalizing power and as an instrument that may serve the perpetuation of gender inequality. We have recourse to Recuero (2012, 2014) to describe computer mediated communication in its aspects relevant to our analysis, understanding it as a social product capable of simulating elements of oral conversation. To Herring, (2001, 2004), textual communication is part of discourses that construct behaviors. Using the theoretical and methodological contributions of the Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis - developed by Hering - we identified recurrent patterns of discourse, with an emphasis on those linked to the discussion on female empowerment.