Abstract:

This study measures the role of social media in promoting feministic consciousness among females of Multan. Feminism and the awareness for the rights of women in Pakistan have been shaping themselves for a long. The link between the campaigns of women and the state of Pakistan has undertaken many shifts from mutual accommodation and necessary philosophical arguments out openly and dispute, which is followed by contribution and co-optation. It is a quantitative study in which the researcher will utilize survey methodology in order to gather information from the participants regarding the role of social media in promoting feministic consciousness. The study comprises 300 female participants who were inquired about usage pattern and consumption of social media and awareness of feminism. SPSS software was used for the analysis. The result of this study shows that the feminist understanding has the least relationship with social media, and the females who are aware regarding feministic consciousness have better uplift in their social status.

Key Words

Feminism, Social Media, Social Status

Introduction

Wollstonecraft (2016) urged to keep fighting for equality in property, ownership and suffrage. Women in the United Kingdom were able to get equal rights in voting in 1928. According to her, an incredible progress had already been made around the globe in a gradual and variable manner by first wave activists. Having knowledge of one’s own existence, feelings, insight, surroundings and being in a state of consciousness is called awareness. It also includes the perception about the internal knowledge and concern to knowledge that men and women are equal in all terms. There were formed many social and religious reforms which were manipulated arose to manifest themselves in order to contract against western education and culture in the early decades of the 19th century. A discussion from Karl Marx of the position of people in society helped in awareness and social class discussion. Feminism is a vindication of rights of the women.

Singh (2004) stated that as the 20th century came, women were granted independence because of the formation of organizations of women for fighting for their rights. Around the 30s and 40s, a new story was built around the rights of women in society. A law was made for the recognition of rights that were basic in such matters as adoption, and thus, these basic rights were granted. Since the movement of women started in India, such issues continued.

Similarly, Feministic awareness is taken as a terribly unfair treatment between two gender groups, whereas Karl Marx spoke that the middle class do not know its own history and part it played in the development of capitalism. An important difference is present between the two classes. The western movement was formed by women, but the motion carried in India was formed by men and later joined by women. At the end of the 19th century, this movement got flourished and joined by their wives, daughters and sisters and students who were affected directly and went for campaigns for women education. (Shikha, 2005) It is related to the progress of the women movement that linking it to be modernized with time and not associated with its originators as the kind of organization that was not regarded by the ones who introduced it. (Jagger, 1996)

Sauder et al. (2012), in there study, showed that social status is based on the kind of the person and his value inside society or an organization and what respect and honor a person gets entirely basing upon his worth, rank, position or virtue

Waves of Feminism

Feminism can be divided into 3 waves from the year the 1830s till 1900. (Caroline, 2018) A right women convention was held in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, as a result of the first wave of the feministic movement. The 19th amendment ensured the right of women to vote for the first time as per the 19th amendment. The second wave of feminism followed from 1966 to 1979, which lighted feminism to a greater extent and developed a greater viewpoint by the consciousness among the females regarding feminism. The third wave of feminism was continuing and initiated from the 1990s. The major components of third-wave feminism are gender, body, sexuality and hetero-normativity. The upcoming wave would be called as the fourth wave since the second and third wave was not able to get their objectives and goals were left unmet by Elle magazine. (Caroline, 2018)

Feminism in Pakistan

The link between the campaigns of women and the state of Pakistan has undertaken many shifts from mutual accommodation and necessary philosophical arguments out openly and dispute, which is followed by contribution and co-optation. Finally, it depends upon transformations in the innate of the country at essential movements in history. Civil society consists of non-state actors, which resulted from particulate expressions of various religions at different times exposed by the impulse following secular philosophy, as said by Dr Rubina (2016).

In regard to feminism, there is also started a march to raise awareness. This march is termed as ‘Aurat March’. Women come on the roads with their slogans and oppose toxic masculinity and patriarchy.

Problem Statement

The main concern is equal rights which are not given in remote areas of Pakistan and also in many developed areas of Pakistan. Wages are discriminatory. The women also took feminism to get their unnecessary needs. It is important to throw light on these subjects. In a country like Pakistan, it is necessary to aware people for various modern ongoing radical believes, which can create violent behaviors among the people creating a disturbance. Both feminism and its awareness move side by side as they play a role together to create harmony and establish its true meaning.

Significance of the Study

Digital media has played an unparalleled role in making society familiar to its audience through its outreach which is its main feature, around the globe to all societies. This study helps to determine the importance of digital media towards its role for feministic awareness and culture. The activism related to feminism and its awareness and altering status of ladies is a social viewpoint that is curious for those females who need solid equal value in their ongoing lives. 

Objectives of the Study

• To inquire about the understanding of females regarding feminism after absorbing it from social media.

• To access how often females are exposed to feminism through social media coverage.

• To evaluate the feministic help consciousness has provided females to understand their legal rights.

• To find the challenges females of Multan have faced in uplifting their status through feministic consciousness.

Literature Review

Hemphill et al. (2014) investigated that CSCW has initiated to publish feminist studies. They also started such programs where host panel specifically talk about issues of feminism associated with gender in peer production. Workshops for the feminist approaches for research on social media here built social computing based on the renewed interests in gender. The workshop aimed to determine ways to enhance research regarding social media and to improve such research by increasing feminist approaches and give an opportunity for the scholars to see their practices for their learning and seeking from one another.

Ranjan (2019) explained feminism, and he gave his idea that feminism is going away from the basic idea of men and women. But, today, it has been totally changing and has come down scornfully from personal remarks to deny everything said or done face to face. This concept of feminism will simply delay the known growth and slow in wished justice for half of the human beings.

Paik (2018) said in his article that since the political chaos of 1990, the learnt have mainly focused on the demoted history of Dalit societies in India. Furthermore, we find that these surveys also focused mainly on the male Dalit groups. Now at present, we have come to know that they are also focusing on female Dalit as a course of their study. When we look at Dalit’s, we come to know that they are ruling and being ruled at the same time. The writer says that his article determines Dalit’s women’s life under double patriarchy in foreign and post-colonial India to underline the efforts of wise people in knowing how the different Dalit females are making their life. Their contributions include challenging, negotiating, politicizing, and changing conditions of their distinguished Dalit status. Their position is as sexed women and class Dalit.  

Peter (2018) viewed the truth of females degrading is nowadays taken for granted. We can now observe that hard work is increased towards the freedom from the boundaries that held feminists in a nutshell. They are working hard for their freedom from the spoiled environ they consider themselves in. as we know that this effort is admirable, it is vital that a hard base is made for the ideology of feminism. This research disputes, although it was unavoidable for females to go to second class position in the basic society, it is also needless in the today’s refined society. 

Zembent (2017) viewed feminism as masculine order, in which she explained that women have been going through a lot since the establishment of this world. Basically, feminism is an opposition of women against patriarchy. Feminism arose from the misery of females; this is the main reason that created the idea of feminism as a gender-based political and public struggle. Feminism defines the struggle of females in the eyes of the writer. . It is making deep roots in our society. In the meantime, the progress of female history, feminist philosophy has not remained an essential, traditional concept. It has its own way of concepts which is totally different from others. 

Bisong (2014) explained that feminism in simple words by saying that feminist on an everyday basis was changing the approach women viewed this world and women by this world. In the present day, we should be very grateful for the struggle of feminists; they totally changed the concept of females. A woman was no longer imagined as good for the kitchen and the bed. The women have been able to break the limits. This paper shows that if all the demands are accepted without giving a detailed study, these demands might have bad effects on both females and society out. This means that we need to study this matter in detail and give it some grave effort.

Kevin (2018) wrote in his work that feminism is one of the world’s latest ideas of life to come into existence, while it can be seen that the history of feminism was known to us far back. We then link feminism with other ideologies and conclude with a critique and assessment of feminism in the modern world. Feminism is entirely changed from other ideologies. It greatly overlooks or takes for granted much from other philosophies is connected with. The difference of feminism can be understood by this that it is even more different from private and public ranges. It denies the boundaries of private and public ends.

Kalpana (2016), in his writing, laid focus on females’ freedom and fairness. On the other hand, in the second trend, stress was laid on women’s repressions and their fight for freedom. The third trend focused on separate powers. Worldwide feminism focused on the limits so that they can be achieved by females. This helped greatly in the authorization of women. And they were also seen as reordering the limits.

David et al (2015) explained feminisms works in various phases of life, which include correcting the shared gender inequity and working for women’s continuous own identification, of course, as a feminist. This research was done to fill the void by using qualitative methods to explain the reasons that why modern females were using their own identity as feminists. These results have changed our thinking behavior. The effects of these results, as well as the proposals for the efforts of feminist grouping, are explained.

Krijnen (2017), in his work, has shown us that how the feminist media study is voiced with specific feminist epistemologies, which has cost about the queries requested, the ways used, the results produced and the political feminist rank of feminist media study. Today this is known to all of us. But, at the same time, especially educational and political tendencies at the same time tend to change and move in opposite direction to thus success.  

Lorde (2009) explained the affordances and undercurrents of public radio, and internet skills which is more largely allowed for both feminists to join and formulate groups meanwhile at the same time bringing them to both inner and outer censure. Many years after women’s studies was absent from was mainly vague from the younger generation and well-known nation, the strong recovery in deep roots of feminism activities such as politics, art, and especially among younger females is truly quite promising to this middle-aged feminist. We can fairly assume the solutions to these orders practical problems feminist social media sharing requires care and groups from feminists of all days, populations and political directions.

Crossley (2015) viewed in his paper that social networks and interpersonal tie are very crucial to the social movement. It aids in recruiting members, sustaining organizations, spreading information and nourishing movement identities of participants. Incentives have given a direction to the learning part of social media and other knowledge and communication technologies in offline and online mobilization. The paper shows the argument that social media and feminist blogs growing in size and provides nourishment to feministic networks, creating online communities of feminists, spreading hiring bases for both kinds of mobilizations, online and offline.

Eslen-Ziya (2013) explained that a new kind of activism was put forward by recent democratic movements and which has been accelerated by social media in the Middle East, particularly in Tunisia, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen and Syria. The opportunities for the social movement, which are regarded as “Arab Spring” are provided by social media in these countries. The researcher looked majorly at the role of social media in the activism of the women of Turkey and women of their neighboring countries.

Hypothesis

Table 1. Understand Feminism * Absorbed Feminism from Social Media Crosstabulation

Count
		Absorbed feminism from social media					Total
		Strongly Agree	Agree	Undecided	Disagree	Strongly Disagree
Understand feminism	Yes	53	51	28	80	23	235
	No	10	22	9	19	5	65
Total		63	73	37	99	28	300

 




The cross tabulation of the two variables being test can provide a glance of how each category of variable changes with the change in the other variable.

Table 2. Chi-Square Tests

	Value	df	Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square	5.083a	4	.279
Likelihood Ratio	4.955	4	.292
N of Valid Cases	300

 

Result




The calculations from the chi-squared test give a test statistic of 5.083 and a p-value of 0.279. This means that the feminist understanding has no relationship with social media. In other words, there is no influence of social media in the feminist approach. Hence, from the lack of evidence to support the hypothesis, it is appropriate to reject the hypothesis.

H2: It is more Likely that Females Exposed to Feminism after Absorbing it from Social Media in Pakistan

When the relation between two variables is tested, it is usually done by the use of a chi-squared test that tests the independence of two variables.

Table 3. Exposed to feministic content on social media * Understand feminism from social media Crosstabulation

Count
		Understand feminism from social media					Total
		Strongly Agree	Agree	Undecided	Disagree	Strongly Disagree
Exposed to feministic content on social media	Frequently	15	16	5	22	7	65
	Usually	24	19	15	30	5	93
	Rarely	14	24	13	27	9	87
	Never	10	14	4	20	7	55
Total		63	73	37	99	28	300

 




The cross-tabulation of the two variables being test can provide a glance of how each category of variable changes with the change in the other variable.




Table 3. Exposed to feministic content on social media * Understand feminism from social media Crosstabulation

Count
		Understand feminism from social media					Total
		Strongly Agree	Agree	Undecided	Disagree	Strongly Disagree
Exposed to feministic content on social media	Frequently	15	16	5	22	7	65
	Usually	24	19	15	30	5	93
	Rarely	14	24	13	27	9	87
	Never	10	14	4	20	7	55
Total		63	73	37	99	28	300

 




The cross-tabulation of the two variables being test can provide a glance of how each category of variable changes with the change in the other variable.




Table 4. Chi-Square Tests

	Value	df	Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square	9.996a	12	.616
Likelihood Ratio	10.486	12	.573
N of Valid Cases	300

 

Results




The calculations from the chi-squared test give a test statistic of 9.996 and a p-value of 0.616. This means that the feminist understanding has no relationship with watching feministic content on social media. Hence, from the lack of evidence to support the hypothesis, it is

appropriate to reject the hypothesis.

H3: It is more likely that Feministic Consciousness has Helped Females to know about their Social Rights:

When the relation between two variables is tested, it is usually done by the use of a chi-squared test that tests the independence of two variables.

Table 5. Feminism Consciousness * Feminism helps to know Social Rights Crosstabulation

Count
		Feminism helps to know social rights					Total
		Strongly Agree	Agree	Undecided	Disagree	Strongly Disagree
Feminism consciousness	Yes	68	84	0	61	22	235
	No	26	21	2	8	8	65
Total		94	105	2	69	30	300

 




The cross-tabulation of the two variables being test can provide a glance of how each category of variable changes with the change in the other variable.

Table 6. Chi-Square Tests

	Value	Df	Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square	13.958a	4	.007
Likelihood Ratio	13.340	4	.010
N of Valid Cases	300

 

Result




The calculations from the chi-squared test give a test statistic of 13.958 and a p-value of 0.007. This means that the feministic consciousness has helped females to know about their social rights. In other words, there is an influence of the feministic approach in the knowledge of women to know about her rights. Hence, there is evidence to support the hypothesis, so we do not reject the hypothesis.

H4: It is more likely that females aware regarding feministic consciousness have better uplift in their social status:

Table 7. Feministic Consciousness Uplift the Social Status

		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Strongly Agree	69	23	23	23
	Agree	164	54.67	54.67	77.67
	Undecided	35	11.67	11.67	89.34
	Disagree	19	6.33	6.33	95.67
	Strongly Disagree	13	4.33	4.33	100
	Total	300	100.0	100.0

 

Interpretatio




According to the above table and the hypothesis, the researcher seeks to find that either the females aware regarding feministic consciousness have better uplift in their social status in which the above table according to the findings show that 23 percent participants strongly believe that content on social media is based on the information and uplift their social status, 54 percent agree, 11.67 percent participants have no opinion while remaining participants disagree with this. Therefore according to the results of the table gathered from the participants, it is evident that hypothesis3, “It is more likely that females aware regarding feministic consciousness have better uplift in their social status”, is Accepted.

Conclusion

Feminism and the awareness for the rights of women in Pakistan have been shaping themselves with the help of its history in response to national and global maintenance of power, which includes nationalism, colonialism, dictatorship, Global War on Terror, and democracy. Finally, it depends upon transformations in the innate of the country at essential movements in history. The attempts took which is carried by the movement of women show considerable changes from their main aim of education, welfare to legal reforms and finally to political and economic rights of women.

The study also has not been a curtain-raiser to the role of electronic media and how has this platform brought beneficial and drastic changes and revolutions. This study has contributed for the future to provide importance to such factors so that individual could uplift themselves and evaluate the problems to the core. It also differentiated feminism partially from its ill-meaning.

Media is a strong element of knowledge and awareness. It provides information about anything anywhere in the world, from concepts to ideologies and information of happenings around. The study played its part in evaluating the role of media in creating awareness among females regarding feminism. Social media is not controlled in many countries in the sub-continent, for which it was commonly noted from the perception of the females that the majority of the content on social media is not credible, according to many respondent 

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