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When the #MeToo movement exploded onto social media in October 2017, it dramatically ruptured public consciousness in revealing the widespread nature of sexual harassment and violence around the world. Yet, despite the global attention afforded to #MeToo, it was preceded by numerous initiatives, which we argue created digital footprints instrumental in rendering #MeToo intelligible. As such, the aim of this article is two-fold. Firstly, it offers the first attempt to map a diverse range of initiatives which have mobilized to fight sexual violence, and in doing so, makes visible the global genealogy of digital feminist activism responding to sexualised violence. Secondly, building on these digital footprints and looking towards the future of digital feminist activism, the article demonstrates the power and potential of initiatives that expose the structural conditions enabling sexual violence to occur through the collective sharing of experiences across cybernetworks via processes of "ethical witnessing." We conclude by advocating for greater recognition of those voices and experiences that feminist scholars and activists alike continue to fail to witness, and call for greater efforts to archive the genealogy of digital feminist mobilisation in order to capture the complexity and diversity of its past, present and future.

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From vigilante street politics, to consciousness raising, speak outs, and now online spaces, the mediums through which representations of rape are transmitted by anti-rape activists have transformed over time. Although activists have made concerted efforts to broaden the representation of rape, narratives about women's sexual suffering and vulnerability continue to dominate popular assumptions about rape. The internet purportedly offers a more complex and networked platform for activists to engage with and challenge these representations propagated by a culture which condones sexual violence, due to a proliferation of fluid public and counter-public spaces. By examining the ways in which rape is depicted on three online anti-rape campaigns: Stop Rape Now, This is Not an Invitation to Rape Me, and Project Unbreakable, I demonstrate that online spaces do provide a viable forum for feminist anti-rape activists to contest normative depictions of rape and sexual victimisation. However, these norms are not always effectively challenged. Because of this, I argue that it is necessary to persist in questioning the modes of representation in these online anti-rape campaigns, as well as find ways to make victim-survivors theorists of their own experiences to move beyond the spectacle of sexual suffering. Otherwise, social justice struggles will continue to be beset by misrepresentation and misframing.

The development of social media, and Web 2.0 more broadly, has revolutionized all aspects of our social, cultural, and political lives. Notably, social media and online platforms have opened up space for resisting gender-based violence (GBV) in a way that, in some respects, was not possible “offline.” Some authors, drawing on Nancy Fraser, have conceptualized online spaces as a form of “counter-public”—a site in which collective and individual resistance to, and contestation of, dominant norms is enabled. Given the well-documented trajectories of victim-blaming and the perpetuation of various myths and misperceptions in relation to gender violence, social media spaces can function as a counter-public or countercultural forum in which victim-survivors can give voice to their experiences in their own words, and in doing so challenge persistent norms and stereotypes. Such practices have been documented across the Global North and South, with the potential of social media as a space of resistance and contestation most recently evidenced by the #MeToo global phenomenon, which was preceded by a string of digital activist efforts such as SlutWalk, Hollaback, #WhyIStayed, and #EndRapeCulture. Yet the use of digital platforms to resist gender violence brings with it a range of concerns and limitations. While some activists and victim-survivors are able to harness social media to share experiences and be heard, the ability to do so continues to be shaped by factors such as age, (dis)ability, sexuality, socioeconomic status, race, and geographical location. Online resistance has likewise faced critique for actively reproducing certain myths and stereotypes about gender violence, or for providing a limited or partial picture of what this violence “is.” This suggests that only certain victim-survivors and experiences are recognized and validated as such online. In addition, online disclosure and the “naming and shaming” of perpetrators raises serious concerns regarding due process and “vigilantism.” Moreover, social media spaces can themselves be sites of gender violence, with the routine harassment and abuse of (particularly) women online increasingly well documented. Together, such perspectives illustrate the complex, nuanced, and deeply political role of social media as a site of resistance to gender violence.

As I outlined in the introduction of this book, social movements that arose in the 1970s shifted away from claims for economic redistribution to calls for cultural and social recognition (Fraser, 1995; Melucci, 1985). Unlike movements that call