The Feminist Digital Movement That Started With #SusmaBitsin
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i28.636Keywords:
Feminism; #MeToo; #SusmaBitsin; female body; public space.Abstract
In 2018, an incident of sexual harassment on the set of a TV series in Turkey became one of the events that played an important role in the development of digital activism in the media with the hashtag #SusmaBitsin (#SpeakSoItEnds). A female actress who stated that she had been sexually assaulted and insulted by a male actor on the set of the TV series Yaşamayanlar (Alphan Eşeli, 2018) filed a lawsuit against the male actor for “sexual assault” and “public insult”. The fact that a female actress courageously shared the incident of sexual harassment in the public sphere and said that she stands behind the case by filing a lawsuit caused quite a stir in the media in Turkey. There have been many reports on the issue in both traditional and social media. The struggle of the female actress by risking the difficulties she may experience in the public sphere has been effective in raising feminist consciousness not only for female actors but also for women working in the public sphere, in general. This study questions the male-dominated perspective on the female body in the public sphere of social media movements in the digital public sphere from a feminist perspective with the approaches of feminist theorists and with a focus on Turkey. The feminist movement that started with the hashtag #SusmaBitsin (#SpeakSoItEnds) about sexual harassment on the sets in Turkey and the discourses that these posts reveal are presented as a case study on the issues underlying the study.
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