The month of March is dedicated to #WomensHistoryMonth, a time of the year where social media posts are devoted to celebrating women’s achievements throughout history. From scientific research to political movements, women are recognized and thanked for their amazing contributions to society.
But, what about art? When honoring women’s accomplishments, art is normally not a topic that would first come to mind. Yet, the hashtag #womensart had a significant impact on the social media posts surrounding #WomensHistoryMonth from March 1 to March 31, 2017.
It is all thanks to Twitter user @womensart1, who uses the hashtag on their posts about women artists and the art they created. The user created a lot of buzz over the month of March, with both the username and their hashtag appearing rather significantly among the most popular posts of #WomensHistoryMonth.
Using Keyhole, a social media analytics tool, the buzz revolving around #WomensHistoryMonth was researched, and a significant correlation between feminism and #womensart was discovered.
Pictured above is a graph of @womensart1’s engagement from March 2017. Engagement is measured by the number of posts a day/average engagement, which include likes, retweets and posts. As seen above, there are several significant spikes on certain dates, particularly March 3, 8 and 16. These spikes are due to the massive response from other users engaging with specific tweets by retweeting, favoriting and responding.
First Spike – March 3: UK billboards that objectified women are vandalized by women to promote feminism. The photograph was also taken by a woman, Jill Posener, in the 1980s.
Jill Posener, British photographer who documented UK feminist graffiti in the 1980s #womensart pic.twitter.com/ZWx3nFfLQh
— #WOMENSART (@womensart1) March 4, 2017
Second Spike – March 8: This tweet was posted on March 7, late at night. Therefore, the majority of the public did not see the post until March 8, which is International Women’s Day. It is understandable as to why this post created such a large engagement spike, due to the holiday celebrating women across the world. Since this post is propaganda centered around ending the objectification of women, it is only natural that the public heavily engaged with it on International Women’s Day, wanting to spread the message while supporting the women of the world.
Poster by Guerrilla Girls (1985- ), US women artists/activists devoted to fighting sexism and racism within the art world #womensart pic.twitter.com/vKW6nIUZFf
— #WOMENSART (@womensart1) March 8, 2017
Third and BIGGEST Spike – March 16: This post generated the most engagement and went “viral,” in its niche. This is another UK billboard objectifying women, where yet another woman vandalized it to promote feminism. This photo was taken the by same female photographer, Jill
Posener, in 1979. The sassy, quick-witted comment spray painted on by the feminist vandalizer is the main attraction to this image.
Iconic UK feminist graffiti documented by photographer Jill Posener (1979) #WomensHistoryMonth #womensart pic.twitter.com/ya1xr49lIX
— #WOMENSART (@womensart1) March 16, 2017
It is evident that the audience of #WomensHistoryMonth are strong advocates of propaganda images that point out the flaws of an anti-feminist society, but also want said images to somehow provide positivity and promotion of feminism. In other words, the audience engages with women rising to take charge against society. The images @womensart1 posts generated a lot of buzz by feminists using #WomensHistoryMonth to highlight the importance of gender equality, and how far women in society have come in fighting their oppression.
