Feminists are warriors: Framing effects of war metaphors

Abstract

Metaphors influence general attitudes towards political and social ideas (Otieno et al. 2016). In particular, war metaphors are very common in political discourse. Their framing effects, however, depend on the context in which war metaphors are used, rendering positive or negative outcomes (Flusberg et al. 2018; Thibodeau 2018). Reali (2021) explored metaphorical framing of feminism and women in feminism-related news in online media in Spanish, finding that war metaphors depicting women as warriors fighting for their rights were the most prevalent ones. Here, we use an experimental paradigm to explore whether the use of war metaphors affects the perception of issues defended by the feminist movements. Spanish-speaking participants were exposed to a vignette describing a hypothetical case of elective abortion. Two variables were manipulated in a 2X2 between-subjects design: 1.the use of warfare framing (war metaphors/neutral frames), and 2.the use of inclusive language in Spanish (gender inclusive/gender neutral language). Additionally, participants’ sociodemographic data were collected. A series of regression analyses showed an effect of metaphorical framing on the perception of the right to decide, perception of the partner’s right to opine, and the perception of the main character’s coldness when controlling for sociodemographic variables. The use of inclusive language had little effect on perception. Consistent with previous findings, sociodemographic factors strongly affected perception: men, and conservative and religious participants rated the right to decide lower, and character’s coldness as higher.