Social media is an alternative communication space embedded with opportunities for free and equal participation. However, it perpetuates the dominant discourses on society. This study researches on a Twitter case explaining the production of patriarchal discourse on women with the help of tweets under the hashtag; "a woman has to be". This study supports the idea that social media needs the dynamism of alternative digital publics and alternative discourses to challenge the dominant power relations as well as improving democracy. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.