This represents my collection of data about the #StandwithPP hashtag to explore recent interactions on twitter regarding planned parenthood.
With the current political atmosphere surrounding women and gender politics I feel as though it would be beneficial to follow a hashtag under the umbrella of Gender & Feminism. When choosing which hashtag would be best to engage with I had to deeply consider not only what was currently trending, but also had to decide what I believe will continue to generate a lot of online activity. In order to do so I decided to talk to my close friend who just recently attended the women’s march in Washington D.C. about what sayings/mottos she believed to have a strong presence. After discussing this with her I decided that I would like to follow the hashtag #StandwithPP. I believe that planned parenthood is a very controversial topic and is only gaining public opinion. I also believe this is something that will be tampered with due to our current political standing, thus it will generate a lot of online discussion.
Like previously stated, due to our current political standing I expected to see a lot of interaction regarding feminism within this hashtag. Especially with the women’s march having just occurred, I expected this hashtag to be used by many who have a strong prominence in politics as well as gender and feminism issues. When looking at the hashtag for the first time I was surprised to see that there were many simple tweets that did not read much beyond what was within the hashtag. For example, one of the tweets by a user named @lysserbabes noted that “One easy thing you can do to #StandWithPP : https://t.co/i1kmS71KQlAlthough.” This exact tweet was actually one that was circulating twitter on many different accounts. Although this can be explained by the fact that this particular hashtag can stand on its own, I originally thought that it would be included in longer and more politically charged tweets.
When searching this past weeks news circulating my hashtag I was unfortunately only able to find two articles that pertained to #StandwithPP. The first article that came up was titled “Wasn’t Trump once pro-choice? Here’s the president’s evolving platform on abortion.” This article was posted by the News Mic network on January 30th, discussing how President Donald Trump’s most recent tweet regarding how he fully supported the anti-abortion March for Life. In this post they state that although he now claims to be strongly anti-abortion, he was previously in favor of reproductive rights and his current stance has only surfaced in more recent years. In order to prove their standpoint, they break down his changing viewpoint in chronological order beginning with when he was said to have “co-sponsored an event at the Trump-owned Plaza Hotel honoring Robin Chandler Duke, the president emeritus of the National Abortion Rights Action League” and ending with his current claim to be staunchly anti-abortion in his most tweets as of last Friday. The second article that I found when searching this hashtag was posted by the blaze and titled “Report: Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg recently donated a huge sum to Planned Parenthood.” This article discussed how facebook’s Chief Operating officer recently donated 1 million dollars to planned parenthood, which was originally reported last Wednesday by Refinery 29. They discuss the importance of having this type of support due to our current political standing and end the article by stating “Planned Parenthood has claimed that it has seen a massive spike in donations following Trump’s election.” Just like I had expected when initially searching my hashtag, both these articles in the past week have ties to Trump as well as his stance on planned parenthood/abortion. After searching my hashtag I then looked at feminism and the talk it has generated within the past week. When searching the more broad topic of feminism I felt like I had to filter through many more articles. The first that I found to be particularly interesting was one posted by the National Post which was titled “How can feminism and its aim for equality move forward while still placing princesses on a pedestal?” In this they discuss not only the women’s march, but the face of Princess Leia that surfaced throughout the march. They note the evolution of the stereotypical princess and how it has developed over the years to be more outspoken, independent and diverse. The second article that I found interesting that appeared when searching feminism within the past week was posted by Forbes regarding the fact that “Women Under 30 Are Leading The Pack In Entrepreneurship And Innovation.” I chose this article due to the fact that it was extremely different from all other articles regarding feminism and planned parenthood during this time. It was nice to see an article that did not argue women’s fight for equality but highlighted woman’s successes as entrepreneurs. With everything occurring right now in recent news and in politics it is beneficial to see articles surfacing regarding women’s advancement and economic prosperity.
Bibliography:
Durkee, Alison. “Wasn’t Trump once pro-choice? Here’s the president’s evolving platform on abortion.” Mic. January 30, 2017. Accessed February 02, 2017. https://mic.com/articles/167090/wasn-t-trump-once-pro-choice-here-s-the-president-s-evolving-platform-on-abortion#.A0amiW5Hh.
Howard, Caroline. “Women Under 30 Are Leading The Pack In Entrepreneurship And Innovation.” Forbes. January 31, 2017. Accessed February 02, 2017. http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinehoward/2017/01/31/women-on-the-30-under-30-2017-where-entrepreneurship-and-feminism-collide/#63a3ba0f3022.
Sabrina Maddeaux, Special to National Post. “How can feminism and its aim for equality move forward while still placing princesses on a pedestal?” National Post. January 31, 2017. Accessed February 02, 2017. http://news.nationalpost.com/life/style/how-can-feminism-and-its-aim-for-equality-move-forward-while-still-placing-princesses-on-a-pedestal.
Scanlon, Kate. “Report: Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg recently donated a huge sum to Planned Parenthood.” TheBlaze. February 01, 2017. Accessed February 02, 2017. http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/02/01/report-facebooks-sheryl-sandberg-recently-donated-a-huge-sum-to-planned-parenthood/.
When looking at articles regarding feminism during the time span of 1/1/2006 to 4/1/2006 I found completely different articles than those that were generated in a most recent search. The first article that came up that I found interesting was one titled “Rise of raunch culture draws caricatures of desire.” This article posted by the Sydney Morning Herald discussed the rise of sexuality among women and increasing public display in popular culture. She states that it was only 30 years ago that this type of exposure was looked down upon, where woman’s sexual vulnerability was not something that was publicized by the media and those following. She then explains how this shift is then believed to be one that supports feminism. This new outlook of feminism then is stated to be valued as woman’s ability to express her own sexuality without worrying about objectification or misogyny. In the article she argues this shift as not being an improvement in woman’s rights, stating that “Many women today seem to have forgotten that sexual power is only one, very specific, kind of power. And what’s more, looking like a stripper or a Playboy bunny is only one, very specific, kind of sexual expression.” She argues that “liberated” and “raunchy” are not synonyms and we must decide what we as women internally want from sex as opposed to simply following popular culture and its viewpoint on what is viewed as sexy. The second article that I found from the span of 1/1/2006 to 4/1/2006 when searching topics related to feminism was an article from the New York Times regarding the recent death of Betty Friedan. During my search within this time period I found that there were numerous articles that appeared about Betty Friedan’s death, so I decided this was an important article to look into. The New York times article writes on her death at the age of 85 as well as reflects on her life and her involvements in the progression of feminism and women’s rights. The article states that she was a “feminist crusader and author whose searing first book, “The Feminine Mystique,” ignited the contemporary women’s movement in 1963 and as a result permanently transformed the social fabric of the United States and countries around the world.” Reading about this allowed me insight into the evolution of feminism and early contributions to this movement. According to the article, her book with gave an analysis of the issues that affected women’s lives post World War II which was said to include “enforced domesticity, limited career prospects and, as chronicled in later editions, the campaign for legalized abortion.” The fact that the legalization of abortion was an issue post World War 2 and is still an ongoing topic for discussion is very unique and striking when evaluating my hashtag #StandwithPP and the current understanding of woman’s rights.
Bibliography:
Fox, Margalit. “Betty Friedan, Who Ignited Cause in ‘feminine mystique,’ Dies at 85.” U.S. (The New York Times), February 5, 2006. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/us/betty-friedan-who-ignited-cause-in-feminine-mystique-dies-at-85.html.
Levy, Ariel. “Www.smh.com.au.” Rise of raunch culture draws caricatures of desire – Opinion. February 28, 2006. Accessed February 02, 2017. http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/rise-of-raunch-culture-draws-caricatures-of-desire-and-feminism/2006/02/27/1141020021809.html?page=2.
Reading the article “SCRAPING THE SOCIAL? Issues in live social research” by Noortje Marres and Esther Weltered, helped me gain a better understanding of the importance of data scraping as well as its ability to be used as an analytical tool in social research. After reading their prospective about how data scraping can be productive for social research, I would argue that I am both collecting live data and connecting to the actual liveliness of an issue. When searching through a hashtag the data produced clearly aids me with live and constant updates pertaining to this issue. I am constantly able to see how people are interacting with this issue and their current thoughts on it. Although it could sometime be biased in that those who are writing on these issues most likely have more radical stances on it, it is an accurate representation of what is currently happening related to this issue. That being said, not only are we given a constant live update through this data, we are granted with individuals personal thoughts and feelings on said topic. We are able to see not only what is occurring but also how it impacts the general public.
Marres, Noortje, and Esther Weltevrede. 2013. “Scraping the Social?” Journal of Cultural Economy 6 (3): 313–35
I found your post to be very insightful and interesting, mostly with how current and relevant Planned parenthood is in today’s media. With Donald Trump’s administration threatening PP, it must be very inspiring and uplifting to read through the tweets of people supporting PP. I thought it was very exciting to see the feminist community come together as a group, and found the women’s march to be very inspiring. I thought that looking at the news about your hashtag from 2006 was very telling of the progress feminist have made within 10 years. It is sad that women are still having to fight for their rights, and I hope that Trump does not roll back the clock on these matters.
For further analysis, I think it would be interesting to somehow see if there are ties between the people tweeting about planned parenthood and their sexualities. Are these people primarily straight? lesbian? bisexual? Have they revealed information about their stories of rape, abortion, mammograms and how PP can help with those things? Another thing that would be interesting is to see if all the tweets that incorporate your hashtag are pro PP or anti PP.
Your article made me reflect on my own hashtag and twitter data. A large bulk of my tweets incorporate #whyImarch and other feministic hashtags. Both of our news is about oppression and how the new White House administration is threatening the progress being made. Feminist and the LGBT community are both standing up for their rights, and often times doing it together.
Unlike Olivia’s findings with #lgbtrights, the connections to Trump with your hashtag more closely related to the connections with mine. I found it interesting, however, that when it came to the actual tweets, there was often nothing more to it than a link and the hashtag #standwithPP, and it was in actual articles that included the hashtag where Trump was mentioned. I could only assume that #standwithPP is more of a link connector rather than a phrase to be incorporated into an argument.
Looking through the tweets that you scraped, I’m interested in the repeating tweet saying “Texas defunded PP. Now they have the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world.” Rather than individuals saying their own thoughts on the issue, it seems that #standwithPP truly is just a tag to add to a post that @RVAwonk is trying to go viral. Since this is an issue that is near the top of the news on a daily basis, it is understandable that you are getting so much data on this hashtag. As we keep moving forward – whether progressively or reverting back to making abortions illegal – I’m interested in seeing how the use of the hashtag fluctuates. I predict that it’ll develop into more tweets that I’ve been collecting with #makeamericagayagain – tweets that directly criticize the government and share links to petitions. You should consider looking at the location at which the posts were made, since although most are made in the US, there are a few from other countries, and it would be interesting to see how the focus of the tweets change in other countries.