Antifeminist Movements Research Articles

The Role of Misogyny in the 2022 Korean Presidential Election: Understanding the Backlash against Feminism in Industrialized Democracies

Abstract Despite increasing scholarly attention to backlash against feminism, little is known about anti-feminist movements in East Asia. This study examines the 2022 South Korean presidential election campaign, in which the political parties sought to capitalize on political resistance to the perceived advance of feminism. This embrace of male grievance as a political force was arguably led by former People Power Party (PPP) chairman Lee Jun-seok, leading commenters to argue that support for Lee is rooted in misogyny. We examine this claim empirically by drawing on a novel survey to estimate the association between misogynistic attitudes, measured through devaluation, perception of women as manipulative, and distrust, and support for Lee. We find that misogynistic attitudes are positively correlated with support for Lee, but not with presidential vote choice. We interpret this as suggesting that the association between misogyny and support for Lee is a manifestation of the desire for symbolic representation. We discuss the implications of how this association can further influence the gender divide, both in Korea and beyond, and conclude with recommendations for further research.

Unravelling anti-feminist social network in Turkey: An Analysis of Actors, relationships and political influence

ABSTRACT The surge of right-wing populism and illiberalism has fuelled the rise of anti-feminist movements in the past decade. This phenomenon has been particularly prominent in Turkey under President Erdoğan and his conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP). However, until the past few years, existing research has largely neglected the role of social actors in Turkey, especially due to the top-down perspective of anti-feminism. Contributing the burgeoning studies, our aim is to explain anti-feminist social mobilization in the context of a strong top-down anti-feminist stance. Our findings revealed the existence of an anti-feminist social network in Turkey, which effectively exercises political influence through creating social reactions and mobilizing a broader public. This mobilization also confers legitimacy to the anti-feminist policies. Additionally, political actors shape network dynamics and interrelationships by creating exocentric hubs within the social network. Importantly, our research shows the significance of social actors in complementing strong top-down stances, even in environments characterized by pervasive ideological undercurrents.

Losing sight of the abuse: how and why women’s and children’s rights are violated in child contact decisions after intimate partner violence in Europe

ABSTRACT International human rights law sets out the right to life and freedom from torture and ill-treatment. This includes the positive obligation of states to prevent, protect and punish acts of private individuals that threaten the life and limb of another person. Permeating through many areas of law, this duty of due diligence is particularly important for women and children who require protection from abuse perpetrated by intimate partners or family members. The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence details these obligations, including in family law. Based on the work of the convention’s independent monitoring body (GREVIO), this article offers a categorisation of factors and mechanisms that thwart women’s and children’s rights in family law proceedings, resulting in unsafe child contact regulation after intimate partner violence. It shows the shared nature of these factors across several European jurisdictions and places them in context with the interpretative work of international human rights bodies and the European Court of Human Rights. Situating the discussion in the context of growing anti-feminist movements seeking to expand patriarchal notions of family authority, it argues for an understanding of family law processes as a setting for human rights violations.

“Come for the Memes, Stay for Defending the Faith”: Far-Right and Anti-Feminist Red Pill Influences in the #DezNat Twitter Hashtag

Scholarship on the intersection of Mormonism and the internet has often focused on progressive online voices. However, in recent years, the DezNat movement has challenged the assumption that online Mormonism necessarily trends more liberal than the Latter-day Saint mainstream. In this study, we examine the influence of red pill communities—which include far-right and anti-feminist movements on the internet—on DezNat. We collected 1,378 screenshots of tweets containing the #DezNat hashtag (which often included additional data and context) and engaged in open coding of these tweets, guided by our understanding of red pill concepts and tropes. We found considerable evidence of far-right and anti-feminist influences on DezNat-tagged tweets, suggesting that it is disingenuous for DezNat defenders to describe the movement as merely about Latter-day Saint orthodoxy. However, interpreting our findings through an affinity space framework, we argue that it is impractical—and perhaps impossible—to definitively establish the motivations of all those who participate in the movement. Rather, we suggest that the clear red pill references by DezNat participants provide an opportunity to consider overlaps between Mormonism, the far right, and aggressive anti-feminism—as well as the tensions between intentional ambiguity and boundary maintenance in Latter-day Saint institutions.

Anti-feminist Movement, Hegemonic Patriarchy, and Gender Equality Challenges: The Case of the Sexual Violence Elimination Bill

Challenges to gender equality in Indonesia are not only related to men and male patriarchy. Using the case of the Sexual Violence Elimination Bill, women, specifically those supported by the party affiliated with political Islam, can also hamper the promotion of women’s rights and equality. Hegemonic patriarchy explains the phenomenon through relating the rejection against the Bill to the patriarchal tendencies planted through religious institutions and teaching. The teaching that places women as a secondary creature after men and as the object of men’s authority (Imamah), is taken for granted, believed to be transcendental, turned into an ideology, and concretized through a movement against feminism. All points that try to assert women’s fundamental rights in the Bill are coined as Western values and are rejected as seen as anti-Islam. Reflecting from the case, it becomes clear that challenges towards gender equality are currently getting harder, as they come not only from patriarchal men, but also women who are hegemonized by patriarchal values and take an anti-feminist stance as part of preserving Islam. Tracing through secondary and primary sources, applying desk reviews and interviews with male and female activists, both for and against the Bill, this paper identifies that the rise of anti-feminist sentiment is rooted alongside contemporary Islamization, which has mushroomed in the post-Reformasi era, and poses new challenges to promoting gender equality.

Globalising genderphobia and the case of Bulgaria

ABSTRACT Globalisation has made it easier for progressive ideas to cross borders. Yet the same can be said about regressive ideologies. Under the guise of protecting local traditions, family rights and national identity, genderphobic discourses have spread in seemingly unrelated parts of the world. Bulgaria is a case in point: a powerful religious-nationalist-conservative front has formed against women’s, LGBT+ and ethnic minority rights. This article explores the roots of the anti-feminist movements in the USA, Russia, and Europe. It looks critically at a range of discourse strategies and manipulation techniques used by these movements. And it presents three examples from Bulgaria: the assault on the term “gender,” a seemingly benign pro-birth media campaign, and raising moral panic about the threat to the traditional family. Apparently, behind the anti-globalist, genderphobic campaigns, there are well coordinated global forces at work. Distorting and toxifying the meanings of words, appropriating human rights terms, strategic lying and manipulation have become the tools of a hybrid war meant to undermine democratic societies. The role of language in this process is crucial. So is the role of linguists, who need to approach these phenomena from a critical perspective.

“No Seat at the Party”: Mobilizing White Masculinity in the Men’s Rights Movement

ABSTRACT I use the men’s rights movement, an anti-feminist backlash movement consisting largely of straight, white men, to examine how high-status group members develop a collective identity leveraged by right-wing movements. Drawing on 31 interviews with men’s rights activists, I find that masculinity, whiteness, and straightness play crucial roles in motivating identification with the movement. Interviewees believe others see them as privileged and thus immoral because of these identities. This clashes with the way they see themselves, threatens their moral sense of self, and evokes negative emotions. In response, they reconstruct themselves – as straight, white men – as victims, thus developing a sense of “we” and a basis for collective action. In an effort to recoup a sense of moral goodness and build community, they also construct a new collective identity as men’s rights activists, which invests them in organized backlash. This paper develops a theory to explain collective identity formation among high-status group members, and illustrates how the identity work straight, white men undertake in the face of culturally legitimate challenges to their privilege can invest them in organized backlash movements.

Feminist Digital Counterpublics: Challenging Femicide in Kenya and South Africa

What happens when misogyny leads to increasing murders of women, whose lives are considered not worthy because their respectability is under attack? What do feminists do in a global moment when antifeminist backlash emerges with fervor in politics, policy, and social spaces to reverse and challenge feminist progress? Rage happens. This article explores the role of rage in the development of African feminist digital counterpublics on Twitter. Through two Twitter hashtags, #MenAreTrash and #JusticeForSharon, I illuminate how anger emanating from increasing rates of femicide in Kenya and South Africa catalyzes the evolution of feminist communities of knowledge, solidarity, and resistance on Twitter. The rage illustrated in this article is considered in relation to longer histories of burnout and fatigue with nonresponse from the state and from male allies. Through these digital spaces, a process of building alliances and challenging antifeminist movements emerges. Feminist engagements around these hashtags are a site of concrete resistance against online misogyny as well as its material manifestations through femicide. In a context where antifeminist movements see digital spaces as sites to mobilize antifeminist sentiment, paying attention to digital feminist counterpublics is critical to understanding gender justice and freedom.

Mizoandria. Wokół eseju Pauline Harmange Moi les hommes, je les déteste

Misandry. Around Pauline Harmange’s Essay I Hate Men The object of reflection is Pauline Harmange’s famous essay, I Hate Men (2020). I start from the perturbations it caused on the political scene, then try to situate it on the French map of feminist and anti-feminist movements since the 1970s, asking about the place from which the young essayist speaks. I consider the central issue to be the misandric discourse she has activated, and around it I (re)construct a spectrum of issues that, in her view, illuminate it. I trace the “archaeology” of the word misandry, which is not anchored in the everyday reality, including the academic one. I ask about its function by juxtaposing two contradictory perspectives: Harmange’s feminist one and the anti-feminist one whose activists proclaim misogynist and sexist slogans. The symmetrical or asymmetrical approaches to misandry and misogyny are also arranged at these poles. Harmange, while cultivating misandric attitudes among women, consistently enumerates the benefits they should derive from misandry.

To Kill a Mockingbird: Why would it be a sin to shoot down its Graphic Novel adaptation?

In 2018, Harper Lee’s (1926-2016) Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) was adapted to a graphic novel by the English artist Fred Fordham. Heir to the Franco-Belgian bande-dessinée tradition, the artist shows panels filled with delicate and pastel-colored illustrations that move at a proper pace, focusing on the younger characters’ perspective. The artist keeps important dialogues from Lee’s novel, while also offering his view.
 Any revision of a classic represents a challenge, especially because of the possible comparisons to the original. At the same time, an adaptation can bring new light and freshness to stories that deserve to be revisited. Far from intending to compare the graphic novel with the original, this analysis aims to comment on some essential matters concerning the new version. What are the unique formal –visual and written– aspects that the graphic novel provides? What are the new experiences it offers to the reader? What is the artist’s innovative approach and input? Why it is important to bring this story back during these times of reemergence of nationalist governments, xenophobic and antifeminist movements and policies? In a few words, what is the merit of this adaptation in this millennium?

Music and misogyny: a content analysis of misogynistic, antifeminist forums

AbstractResearch exploring the relationship between misogyny and music has been divided between those who argue that certain music causes, confirms or is a manifestation of misogyny. Yet this often takes for granted the link between certain genres (predominantly hip hop, rap and metal) and misogynistic 'messages'. Instead of asking what types of music might be misogynistic, this article instead asks how music is discussed amongst those who actively espouse misogynistic views. Through content analysis of 1173 posts, from 6 ‘misogynistic antifeminist movement’ (MAM) forums, it shows that whilst hip hop, rap and metal genres and artists are the most commonly mentioned, there is significant variation in terms of musical preferences and justifications. Whilst masculinist lyrics were the main reasons for music preferences, this study shows how MAM communities’ musical judgments are a confluence of sonic and extra-musical discourses which are shaped and amplified within these online communities.

Typology of Women’s Collective Agency In Relation to Women’s Equality Outcomes: Case Studies from Egypt and Beyond

There is a rich body of scholarship recognizing the important role of women’s collective agency and mobilization for gender equality, inclusive development, and politics. In this paper, we interrogate the relationship between women’s collective agency on the one hand, and its contribution towards women’s equality outcomes on the other, drawing on empirical work undertaken during over 20 years’ fieldwork on women’s collective action in Egypt and complemented with a literature review of women’s collective action globally. A typology is proposed for analyzing women’s collective agency in terms of women’s movements, women in movements, feminist, anti-feminist movements, and gender justice movements, which inform an interpretive framework that explores collective agency and women’s equality outcomes. First, while recognizing the need to avoid reductionist understandings of women’s collective agency exclusively in terms of their agenda on gender equality, this paper argues that collective agency and equality outcomes cannot be entirely disentangled. Second, it suggests that women’s membership and leadership in collective action can have highly varied implications on women’s equality outcomes, both positive and detrimental. The paper concludes with reflections on the implications of the analysis of the relationships between women’s and men’s collective agency for praxis.

The politics of the erotic: pious women’s emotional experiences in Hizbollah cultural institutes and the surprises of the anti-feminist movement in post-2009 Iran

ABSTRACT In the aftermath of the 2009 presidential election conflict, factions within the Islamic Republic of Iran encouraged pious women to join the fight against feminism through cultural activism centered on the Islamization of women’s rights in Hizbollah cultural institutes. This article explores how Hizbollahi women’s swift integration into these cultural institutes in post-2009 Iran was affected by their emotional experiences within these informal spaces for cultural work. This empirical study is grounded in fieldwork conducted between 2012 and 2014 in Tehran. It reveals that while some pious women may enter conservative politics intending to support an anti-feminist agenda, their emotional encounters can disrupt the entire enterprise and move their activism in unexpected directions through a conceptual remaking of femininities and masculinities grounded in specific historical contingencies born out of their role as activists. Scholars have argued that political action is stirred with emotions and the body, but this article makes an original contribution by illustrating that women’s emotional experiences in movements can have unintended consequences that bring about a rethinking and reworking of gender.

Narrative warfare

Abstract This article studies the use of literature and narrative strategies of online antifeminist movements. These movements classified under the umbrella term the manosphere, wage ideological narrative warfare to endorse a misogynistic worldview. The case at hand concentrates on the radical faction of neomasculinity and its attempts to reinterpret the Western canon of literature. I propose that neomasculine readings of novels such as Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita are careless interpretations that ground themselves on specific traits of the texts while ignoring others. These readings attempt to evoke a sense of recognition in the community that believes in an alleged feminist conspiracy against men. Careless interpretations borrow from post-truth rhetoric and the feminist literary theory tradition of reading against the grain. When confronted over their controversial views, neomasculine figures renarrativize readings to benefit the promotion of neomasculine perspectives. This strategic use of literature is part of the narrative warfare discussed in detail.

Online Culture Wars

Online Culture Wars Sarah Whitcomb Laiola (bio) Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars from 4Chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right Angela Nagle Zero Books www.zero-books.net/books/kill-all-normies 136 Pages; Print, $16.95 Since Barack Obama’s 2008 election, the influence that both the mainstream social web and digital networked media hold over political elections has become undeniable. In 2008, we saw the rise of a “millennial president,” as Obama demonstrated his social media savvy, using Facebook, Twitter, and similar sites to connect with his voters. Obama’s own use of these, young, “hip” technologies was bolstered by the vitality of his iconic “HOPE” poster that, originally designed by street artist Shepard Fairey, was soon distributed all over the web as an internet meme. As with any meme, the poster was parodied with a wide range of subjects: from figures like the Pope and Hillary Clinton promoting HOPE, to Star Wars’s R2D2 promoting NEW HOPE, Batman’s The Joker (as portrayed by Heath Ledger) promoting JOKE, and the web’s own Trollface promoting TROLL. In 2016, we saw much of this play out again, as a presidential candidate rose to prominence through the shared power of his own social media savvy, and a viral media army of internet memes. This time, however, the drama played out in distortion. Where Obama impressed with his engaging, humanizing use of Facebook, Donald Trump shocked with his crass, inflammatory use of Twitter. Where the 2008–9’s social web was earnestly peppered with the HOPE poster, the 2016 web was awash with Pepe the Frog memes that featured the character transformed from his original role as an “everyman” into a white nationalist decked out with Nazi insignia and unapologetically promoting inflammatory, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, and misogynist ideas. So what happened? “How did we get from those earnest hopeful days broadcast across the media mainstream to where we are now?” Having spent eight years closely watching rightist forums on the web, and in 2015 earning a PhD from Dublin City College following the successful completion of her thesis, “An Investigation into Contemporary Online Anti-Feminist Movements,” Angela Nagle is acutely well-positioned to answer this question. In Kill All Normies, she aims to do just this by “map[ping] the online cultural wars that formed the political sensibilities of a generation,” while providing “understand[ing] and [keeping] an account of the online battles that may otherwise be forgotten but have nevertheless shaped culture and ideas in a profound way.” Finally, in what may be its most ambitious goal, the text “place[s] contemporary culture wars in some historical context and attempts to untangle the real from the performance, the material from the abstract and the ironic from the faux-ironic.” This account ultimately offers a short, critical history of the ways the overt misogyny, unchecked harassment, and anti-feminism of the rightist social web—illustrated in the text through the anonymous forum, 4chan—became normalized and entered mainstream culture as the alt-right. As Nagle chronicles, the alt-right will rise in direct opposition to the sensitivity and identity politics of the leftist, mainstream social web—illustrated in the text through the microblogging network, Tumblr. As it provides a critical history of the online culture wars from 2008 to 2016, Kill All Normies makes an important contribution to two growing bodies of work: that which attempts to understand the 2016 election, and that which focuses on the rising toxicity, harassment, and anti-feminism of online and other media spheres. To the first area, Nagle’s text provides a necessary divergence from a preoccupation with the role that back-end algorithms and data-manipulation played in the election, as it focuses instead on the role played by user-generated content and user communities at the web’s front-end. Through this focus, her text offers an important alternative to the idea that the entire 2016 election was the result of web-based media running rampant, uncontrolled, and beyond its people. To the second area, Nagle’s history of the anti-feminism and misogyny of the alt-right...

Explaining the Dynamics between the Women's Movement and the Conservative Movement in the United States

We examine the causes of movement and countermovement mobilization, focusing specifically on the effect that the national movements have on each other by responding directly to mobilization and indirectly through their policy successes. We discuss the mechanisms by which national movements respond to each other, and we examine the influence of political parties and social, political, and economic changes for women. We analyze these relationships using a Poisson Autoregressive (PAR(ρ)) estimator, which is uniquely designed to model both the time dependence and the count distributions, on quarterly time series of feminist, anti-feminist, pro-choice, and anti-abortion events. Results show that movements and countermovements respond to each other and that anti-feminist movements mobilize in response to national policy change and societal change. The results suggest that many quantitative analyses of women’s movements may be misspecified and that feminist mobilization does not always abate during conservative backlash.

Black Feminism on Capitol Hill

Abstract Shirley Chisholm (1924–2005) conducted a long political career in the service of black feminist ideas. Her 1972 run for President is the most famous of her efforts, but she also served fourteen years in Congress (1969–1983), serving Brooklyn, New York. As a holder of national elected office at the same time that black feminists were institutionalizing their activism into organizations, Chisholm bridged grassroots and local activism with the national state. She also bridged the ongoing black freedom struggle and women's movements, though not without complication and controversy. This essay uses Chisholm's writings and speeches, as well as government documents, newspaper archives, and interviews to demonstrate Chisholm's dual engagement with the antiracist and antifeminist movements of her time within the context of legislative politics.

Rebellion and Return: Probing into the Marriage and Family Values of Generation X

 Abstract—Family is a basic form of social life while marriage is a prerequisite for family formation. Marriage takes various forms in different periods in the same country; and family values vary in different historical periods and under different historical conditions. Influenced by the counterculture movement in the 1960s, Generation X, the offspring of the baby boomers, have inherited the rebellious and challenging spirit against the traditional American mainstream marriage and family values; meanwhile, affected by the rise of neo-conservatism and anti-feminist movement, Generation X have approved of and thus returned to the traditional American marriage and family values. By interpreting the novel of Generation X from literary and historical perspectives, the marriage and family values of Generation X have been analyzed and elaborated.

Pessimism Towards Gender Deconstruction in X: A Fabulous Child’s Story by Louis Gould

Research focuses on Lois Gould’s complex position in feminism movements as displayed by the pessimistic tone in one of her works. The primary data for this research were taken from the short story X: A Fabulous Child’s Story, published in 1972. The research used qualitative method that lies on library research, and to help analyze the topic, books, websites, and scientific journals were used. Kate Millet’s concept of an androgyny was also applied in order to study further about the character of X. The result of the discussion shows that even though considered progressive for its era for its effort to deconstruct rigid gender divisions, this short story also comes with an irony with its ending. The ending demonstrates that human beings cannot be free from sex and gender barriers. This result supports the idea that Gould is trapped between the feminist and the antifeminist movement.

Explaining Movement and Countermovement Events in the Contemporary U.S. Women’s Movement

While feminist movements have been the subject of careful scholarly research, there has been less attention to the study of countermovements – those movements that arise in opposition to feminist movements (but see Schreiber 2008; Staggenborg and Meyer; Staggenborg 1989, 1991). Such movements are not just important in their own right but because they engage in interactive struggles with feminist movements, affecting women’s movements’ mobilization and ability to affect policy (Staggenborg and Meyer; Staggenborg 1989, 1991). In this paper we examine the causes of movement and countermovement mobilization (in the form of highly visible events), focusing specifically on the relationship between feminist and anti-feminist movements in the United States. We examine the effect that movement and countermovement have on each other and examine how political opportunities, gender opportunities and policy success affect each. In addition to analyzing overall movement and countermovement mobilization, we also examine two specific campaigns associated with these movements: abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment. Using quarterly time series of the number of events sponsored by feminist and anti-feminist movements as our dependent variable, we find that countermovement mobilization is less influenced by movement events than vice versa. We also find significant differences between the abortion and ERA campaigns suggesting that campaign level characteristics also affect movement mobilization.