ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a case study of the Bolshy Divas to explore the possibilities of disability media activism online. It focuses on academic approaches to disability activism and social media. The chapter introduces theories of participatory culture and reflects on the ways disability activists increasingly use online media, situating the Bolshy Divas within both Henry Jenkins’s seven-point framework of a participatory culture and Filippo Trevisan’s three types of online disability activists. The chapter draws on a wider social media activist tendency described as a call-out culture and reflects on the ways the Bolshy Divas and women with disabilities have been excluded from participation in another online feminist movement, Destroy the Joint. It aims to introduce an alternative mechanism to rally disability rights activism online via a case study of the various approaches taken by the Bolshy Divas at key political moments related to disability social justice issues in Australia.
