On June 21, we're hosting the #fem2 Twittercast, with a topic of "how the two communities can support each other more effectively. We'll kick things off with a blog post on the fem2pt0 blog, probably Thursday, to start some discussion. Please feel free to edit or add comments in the discussion forum at the bottom!

#fem2 and #p2: how can we support each other more effectively?

It's not that Twitter is a utopia by any means. However, the power structure is still in flux. So a collaborative effort among progressives, youth, feminists, women of color, LGBTQ activists -- across the US and internationally -- has a chance to make a big difference.

One simple way to start is to set up a new shared hashtag for the different groups to collaborate. In Seth Godin's terminology, the users of each hashtag can be viewed as a tribe; we need a place for the tribes to get together to discuss how to work together effectively.

We propose #p2 (for "Progressives 2.0") as a shared hashtag. The name is a hat-tip to the #fem2 hashtag as well as Web 2.0 social computing technologies.

-- The #p2 hashtag and strategies for progressives on Twitter, Tracy Viselli and Jon Pincus on The Exception, February 13

The linkfluence presentation at the Fem2.0 conference in February 2009 highlighted the asymmetrical relationship between the larger "progressive blogosphere" and feminist and womanist blogs.* It's the latest in a long line of work, including Shelley Powers' Guys don’t link, Susan C. Herring et. al.'s Women and children last, discussing diversity issues in the blogospheres. After seeing the rapid spread of information about Twitter Vote Report via the "women in technology and politics," the success of #motrinmoms, and the #fem2 work, Tracy and I started to believe that Twitter provides an opportunity to engage with communities marginalized by the "progressive blogosphere."

In the four months since then, #p2 has steadily grown to be the largest progressive hashtag on Twitter. According to wthashtag, over 1300 people have tweeted in the last week. The steady stream of LGBTQ activism on #p2 and our experiences working together with #fem2 on #fairpay and #diversityfail/#diversitywin are both strong indications that we were on-target. There was a particularly vivid example of this with the Paycheck Fairness Act activism on April 28: while the "big blogs" conspicuously ignored it, #p2 members helped out on Twitter and in the blogosphere.

How can we build on these early successes?

How can we improve things that haven't gone as well -- for example, the representation biases and ongoing sexist comments on the #p2 hashtag?

Thanks to fem2pt0 for inviting us to host the June 21 Father's Day Twittercast on this subject -- Sunday, 7 p.m. Pacific/10 p.m. Eastern! No need to wait until then to start the discussion, though. Please use this thread for ideas, discussions, criticisms, questions, and suggestions.

Here's a few ideas to kick things off:

• coordinate on flash activism efforts like #fairplay, with joint work on retweeting tactics, tweeting points, highlighting blog posts, and Digging. By combining the strengths (media and activism expertise, networks, well-respected blogs) of the people involved in #p2 and #fem2, we can be an incredibly powerful force.
  
• work to bring feminist, womanist, and other diverse perspectives to multipartisan issues like privacy as well as "progressive issues" like EFCA.
  
• continue to put effort into creating a progressive discussion space where women and women of color are fairly represented. #p2 chats are typically about 40-45% women; in the "raw" discussions on the hashtag, though, 80% or more of the tweets are from men. (There are detailed statistics and discussion here and here.)
  

Thoughts about these? Other ideas, discussions, criticisms, questions, and suggestions?

Please discuss!

jon, aka @jdp23