Brazilian Digital Feminism at Two Critical Turning Points: New Elements and Challenges on the Scene (2010–2025)

In the 2010s, a new feminist consciousness gained strength in Brazil (Facchini et al., 2020). Driven by the internet, a new feminist “way of being” and “way of doing” emerged, characterized by digital activism led by young women and marked by intergenerational conflicts (Sarmento, 2021). These tensions challenge the centrality of digital tools in relation to in-person and collective feminist practices. In this sense, there is a critique that feminism is not merely about posting long texts or viral videos on social media. However, withdrawing from online spaces is no longer an option, once conservative forces that have being reacted to feminist and LGBTQ+ advances (Biroli, Vaggione & Machado, 2020), also use social media to spread their agendas. In light of this scenario, we ask: how have digital feminist strategies been shaped in response to recent political changes? The discussions presented here stem from an ongoing exploratory study based on data collected from online interviews conducted with 40 feminist activists with diverse profiles between 2023 and 2025. The selection of participants followed a non-probabilistic sampling method (Merriam, 2009), mainly using the snowball technique to capture different forms of engagement in feminist activism and the meanings attributed to online participation in the current context. The interviews followed a semi-structured guide, lasted on average one hour, and were fully transcribed. Our hypothesis proposes two main turning points: the first, from 2010 to 2018, corresponds to the “feminist spring” and the early exploration of social media; the second, beginning with Bolsonaro’s election, marks a phase of feminist retreat, characterized by the strengthening of antifeminism and by new algorithmic logics that demand strategic repositioning. Through their narratives, the interviewees also allow us to reflect on the process of affective polarization online, which exposes feminists to yet another face of gender-based violence (Setenta, 2024).