I don't think that a sustained discussion of what defines a woman and what the character of feminism is today would have happened had both Boobquake and Brainquake not happened. The question is, how do we sustain this discussion once it's been generated in social media in the cracks and crevices created by two duelling quakes?
As Lina Srivasta writes, "social media in its present forms is limited in its ability to create a sustained, long-term effective movement." Social media is great for bringing together like minds across the globe, great for testing ideas, great for ephemeral debates, but if we want to sustain a focused educational discussion or an educational campaign on a global scale, what do we do? Where do we go next? That's where my thinking stalls today.
Perhaps as my colleagues Ed Webb and Lisa M Lane write, we'll be just fine without permanence, "let the data flow past, focus on the now, the experience, rather than seeking to hold on to anything."
Or maybe as my brilliant friend Liss Nup put it in her postmortem on Boobquake and Brainquake: "We came for the boobs, stayed for the smarts." And we'll keep the smarts coming!
Meanwhile the Brainquake team is still uploading photos and biographies of amazingly talented, creative, intelligent and dazzlingly capable women on the Brainquake Fan Page and on the Brainquake Tumblr site. Check it out and keep sending up your stories and uploading important news; keep sharing your comments and ideas and keep putting up your photos of women who made a difference in whatever way, large or small.
