Absence and exclusion notes on a girls’ public sphere – a response to Kate Eichhorn’s ‘girls in the public sphere: dissent, consent, and media making’

In this short response to Kate Eichhorn’s article, ‘Girls in the Public Sphere: Dissent, Consent, and Media Making’, I extend her analysis by offering three points of provocation which challenge the idea of the digital sphere as a public sphere. As Eichhorn points out, the digital sphere offers more access and visibility to girls, so that this contemporary version of the public is not characterised by an absence of girls—even if this participation is mined for data for corporations. This is a crucial point, but even within that framework, specific girls continue to be excluded. This is an important difference—between absence and exclusion—that is worth parsing out.