The privilege of ‘aggrieved entitlement’: exploring the social bases of antifeminist political players mobilising online

Abstract

Antifeminist groups have made extensive use of online platforms to mobilise and spread their political ideas. Existing studies of online antifeminism tend to focus their analyses primarily on how masculinities are constructed through antifeminist discourses. This article takes a different approach by exploring how the social position of antifeminist political players is related to their effective use of online platforms. Through an empirical study of an influential antifeminist blogosphere that emerged in Sweden in the mid-2000s, it is shown how the mostly anonymous antifeminist bloggers are, in fact, well-resourced activists who, due to their educational resources and communicative skills, could effectively use political blogs to promote their cause. Consequently, despite their claims of being marginalised and victimised, these predominantly male antifeminist activists actually occupy a privileged position in relation to historically marginalised groups, a position that affords them new possibilities to attack feminist achievements and actors through online platforms.