Navigating gender hate in manospheres: women’s affective dissonance and refusal on LIHKG in the 2019 Hong Kong anti-extradition bill movement

Abstract

Abstract This article examines women’s dissonance and refusal of gender hate on LIHKG, a platform converged with local and Global North manospheres that gained prominence for political communication during Hong Kong’s Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill movement. Despite criticism for its misogyny, LIHKG witnessed women’s participation during the movement. However, women’s agencies are underexplored by its critics and studies on the manosphere. This study argues that acknowledging dissonance within manospheres redirects focus on the targets of gender hate, specifically women, accentuating the possibilities of feminist intervention within gender hate networks. Employing a digital ethnographic approach, this study contributes by: (1) providing a relational and contextualized understanding of the convergence between manospheres beyond the notion of homogenization; (2) redressing the injustice in hate which obliterates the hated bodies; and (3) breaking the unintended repetition of such injustice in the literature on the manosphere, which has paid little attention on the repugnant women’s agencies.