Claiming the cause, negotiating the image: Young undergraduate women’s reception of digital feminist messages

This study asks how young undergraduate women make sense of digital feminist messages. The Instagram account of the We Will Stop Femicides Platform was used as an elicitation case: ten women followed the account for a week and were then interviewed, and the material was analysed through reflexive thematic analysis. Reception, the findings suggest, works through negotiation. Participants firmly endorse the struggle against femicide and the demand for equality, yet keep their distance from the public image, the language and the perceived political alignment of feminism. Digital content sustains anger and solidarity that participants already carry and keeps their awareness alive, but this intensity rarely moves beyond low-threshold participation. The study’s conceptual contribution lies at the political level: several participants accept that the issue is political while remaining uneasy about the movement appearing partisan, a tension named here the paradox of perceived partisanship. Named by a participant and working through four referents (party contacts, the repertoire of action, the visibility of alliances and institutional support ties), the concept describes a demand for a political stance that appears identical with no party identity, and points to the difficulty of holding such a position in a polarised public sphere.