“Not Everything Has To Stay Between 4 walls”: Cyberfeminism and Domestic Violence in Pandemic Times

Abstract

Cyberfeminism guarantees a new political cycle of innovative opportunities driven by the building of bonds between women through the appropriation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). This feminist activism comes to inquire the gender inequalities still implicit in women. In the context of covid-19, where confinement prevents living in society, the United Nations (UN) warned of the likely increase in domestic violence rates by reinforcing governments to toughen up coping measures. In this sense, domestic violence, which is the most frequent form of violence against women, especially in the context of intimacy (APAV, 2010), becomes one of the main concerns. Since ICTs are the only contact with the outside world, this study sought to discuss the emergence of cyberfeminism in articulating specific communities of assistance and support to women, focusing on domestic violence during the pandemic from Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis (ACD) of the campaign “Not everything has to be within 4 walls”, developed by Portuguese feminist associations on Facebook and Instagram platforms. Thus, cyberfeminism acts as an influencer of social mobilizations in the context of a feminist social network that seeks an emblematic political change.