By Alyssa Allison
Social media is intended to be an invention of connection and learning. Yet, hatred and misinformation can also be seen increasing drastically from nearly everyone in the world having access to each other. Online radicalization is the process by which extremist ideals are exposed to an individual through social media consumption.[1] Radical ideas are supposed to be the ones the least people subscribe to and promote, yet those are the ones getting the most attention on social media. It’s no shock that radical ideas get the most attention since they are the most jaw-dropping and attention-grabbing, but what is surprising is how easily people can create a community around these ideas.
Radicalization of individuals has always happened through means of propaganda or the general news; however, online radicalization is happening at a much faster rate and many more people are being reached. Identity politics play a huge role in how an individual is affected by online radicalization. The United States right-wing extremists (RWE) view the liberation of others as an attack on their identity and fear the tools they use to oppress people are being utilized against them. To maintain their power, the oppressor must convince others to join and defend their cause. In this essay, I will discuss the different ways that online radicalization occurs, how misogyny prevails through increased internet access, and ways we can attempt to minimize the damage being done through various feminist theories. This assessment will include standpoint theory, which can help to restructure our educational system to prevent the inheritance of misogynistic ideology.
The United States alt-right has its core values placed in misogyny and white supremacy, fueled by the patriarchal systems of oppression in place within our society. Misogyny is the explicit hatred of women and femininity. Misogynistic people do not see women as people and do not feel empathy for any pain they may cause for that reason. They do not trust women and do not see value in them outside of any attraction they may feel towards them. Online, we see this force within comment sections of people who dare to exist in the form that is most comfortable to them. Women who display self-confidence and self-advocacy, as well as challenge the men in their lives, are often met with the most backlash. These men often feel entitled to share how they disapprove of their appearance and intellect because they see these confident women as a threat to men’s power in society. Misogyny, according to Kate Manne, “should be understood primarily as the ‘law enforcement brand of the patriarchal order,’” which shows that women who stray the furthest from patriarchal gender roles will be faced with the most “policing” in return.”[2]
Not all women will experience the same amount of misogyny; women of color in general will experience this harassment online at a higher rate than white women. Since patriarchy and white supremacy benefit from each other, Black women face higher rates of hatred online. This is due to the concept, originally coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, intersectionality. Intersectionality can be used in a theoretical lens or methodological approach to explain why it is inaccurate to equate the discrimination of Black women to those of white women, or the discrimination of Black men to Black women.[3] Since Black women face oppression at the systemic level from racism and sexism, Black women’s experiences must be viewed from how those systems intersect to create a unique lens. Women, particularly white, middle-class women who feed into the misogyny, may not experience as much violence on a personal level due to selling out and hiding behind the privileges they do have.
As misogyny functions as policing, Manne sees sexism as the “justificatory” driving force in ensuring and rationalizing the patriarchy as the social norm. This involves overemphasizing the differences between the sexes and addressing gender norms as scientific facts. However, our idea of what “scientific” is depends on the social and cultural norms at the time and is shown to be representative of the dominant group’s views. It takes money and power to conduct the research needed for something to be deemed “scientific,” so having the authority to label norms as scientific is held by the oppressor. Normalizing sex-role stereotypes happens on an individual, organizational, institutional, and cultural level, all of which are centered around ways to ensure that women are left out of holding power in society.[4]
White Supremacy is an institution with a main goal throughout history to exploit and oppress people of color to maintain privileges held by white people. This is not personal prejudice or day-to-day discrimination but is instead a system of institutions that work together on a political, economic, social, cultural, legal, military, and educational degree to ensure that white people are the ones with all the power. White supremacy works with the patriarchy to ensure that white men are left with all the power and privilege within society. The patriarchy is a social organization in which men are the oppressors and control all forms of life, both in government and in the home. Women are oppressed and hold no power, as sexism and misogyny prolong patriarchal institutional structure. Men’s dominance over women was also prolonged through the normalization of hegemonic masculinity. Hegemonic masculinity is seen as the most socially desirable way for men to behave, and often emphasizes negative attributes, such as violence, and limits what emotions are appropriate for men to display.[5] When we allow for misogyny to exist with little repercussions and allow our institutions to uphold misogynistic values, we are teaching the next generation that this behavior is expected. The patriarchy and white supremacy intersect to help keep white men in positions of domination and power.
Online misogyny is expanding due to the ever-growing use and popularity of different social media platforms that are harder and harder to mediate. This “Wild West” atmosphere allows for bullying and harassment of groups based on their “in” or “out” status and can intentionally or unintentionally suggest videos that affirm people’s hateful behavior. Algorithms on social media platforms such as YouTube, X (formally Twitter), and TikTok are designed to show the user content based on their viewership and engagement. Social media algorithms take similar content as well as similar tags to show users related videos that various other users have liked. Through this, there is now an easy way for extreme misogynistic ideas to be exposed to young children when they are more vulnerable.
Showing content based on a user’s engagement creates niche groups on the internet that connect through similar interests. It makes sense: you like a video about gardening, and now you see videos about cooking and composting. However, this can also lead to dangerous rabbit holes, where you enjoy content about a movie you like, and are now shown videos by conservative influencers like Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder. Pipelines between common interest and conservative content are not a night-and-day occurrence. Importantly, a child being fed a Ben Shapiro video will not pick up on the signaling in the language because their media literacy is not fully developed. Since hate speech is being slowly fed, it is easy for a young boy trying to fit in with his peers not to understand the misogynistic rhetoric as he slowly becomes radicalized. Similar in its creation of niche communities but different in how it is achieved, Reddit allows people to create communities or ‘subreddits’ within the site. These subreddits become echo chambers for people to bond over their similar ideas and prevent any pushback from appearing with the “downvoting” feature. These subreddits can be created by anyone, and with enough traction, they can even end up on the homepage of Reddit to encourage more people to join. One subreddit that cracked the front page in 2016 was titled “The Men’s Rights,” and included the message: “A place for those who wish to discuss men’s rights, and the ways said rights are infringed upon.”[6]
Allowing anyone to create these subreddits with little moderation has turned all of Reddit into a hotspot for radical conservative ideas, where even in separate subreddits, people who are part of marginalized communities are harassed into silence. Many women, especially women of color and queer women, are exposed to online harassment at a young age, and often enough that they consider it “a normal part of the online experience.”[7] Reddit also allows for anonymity, which promotes dehumanization and harassment within the site, as repercussions for this behavior rarely occur. This harassment is not only a way of policing women but is also a method to push further conservative ideas of what a woman should be. A person could not like any posts that would cause their algorithm to show them dog-whistling videos, but they can still come across these ideas through other people’s comment sections.
These online users feel as though anything that they regard as “political correctness” threatens their way of life and the power they hold. Before the emergence of social media like Reddit and X, there were platforms in the past specifically designed for alt-right content. This includes websites and forums such as Stormfront, a website that includes “‘Quote of the Week,’ ‘Texts Library’ of ‘White Nationalist’ documents,” etc.[8] There are also websites attempting to front as “news” to create a false sense of legitimacy; this includes National Vanguard News and Life Site News. In 2016, a new site with a goal of “free speech,” Gab, was started by Andrew Torba. This site’s main goal of spreading hate speech is covered by a claim of protecting free speech, despite the real-life violence that originated from it.
Gab is similar to X and Reddit in the sense that content receives up-voting to boost it and will take over the feed of others with enough support. Gab was pushed into the public eye in October 2018, when mass murderer and Gab user Robert Bowers killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Following this attack, it was uncovered that Bower’s hate was not unique thinking for a Gab user; a poll was released after the attack trying to gauge the reaction to this violence, with 25% of respondents thinking there wasn’t anything wrong with the hate crime committed by Robert Bower.[9] These views on “free speech” and “political correctness” drive harassment and racist, nationalist ideologies on Reddit today. Believing that the liberation of women means the oppression of men is not a new thought brought on by social media; it just gives a larger platform to spread these ideas.
During the 1970s second-wave feminism movement, the sex role of men was reemphasized with the spark of the “‘Men’s Liberation’ movement.” The “Men’s Liberation” movement was originally brought to the public eye in an effort to point out the ways that patriarchy emphasized attributes of masculinity that were harmful to men. It was meant to shine a light on ways that feminism can benefit everyone; however, for half, it turned into celebrating the traits of hegemonic masculinity, or the traits in men that were viewed as most socially desirable by the dominant group.[10] As for the other half, it meant rejecting it. Hegemonic masculinity includes the overemphasis on competition, inability to express non-anger-related emotions, fear of dependency, and devaluation of femininity, especially in men.[11]
Today, however, those who self-identify as anti-feminist do not necessarily align with ideas of hegemonic masculinity, but instead fall into a hybrid of masculinity. They are now “self-positioning as victims of feminism and political correctness…while simultaneously compounding existing hierarchies of power and inequality online,” and centering around the idea of the Red Pill.[12] Taking the “Red Pill” or “becoming enlightened to life’s ugly truths,” originates from the film The Matrix, but is now defined by the manosphere as being awakened to the “misandry” in the feminist movement. By acting as if men are the abjects, or the ones being cast away by society, they can justify their harassment as simply fighting back against the villainous feminists. Misandry is the “dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against men,” but has been incorrectly deemed synonymous with feminism, as well as being thought of as holding the same power as misogyny.[13]
Online connection and early intervention are crucial parts of keeping the ideas behind the “Red Pill,” such as being victimized by feminists, alive. Without the networking involved in online harassment, it would not be as effective. This networking tends to occur on aforementioned websites and social media platforms, the largest and easiest being Reddit. Through these platforms, they can build a community based on their collective rejection and hatred of feminism. These communities typically consist of pickup artists, incels (involuntary celibates), Men’s Rights Activists, anti-feminists, etc., all sharing a common goal of stopping what they determine to be “political correctness.” This community, the manosphere, is responsible for flipping issues in a way that makes men the victims. For example, they frame sexual violence as a weapon women use to get revenge on men that they do not like, or as an effort to “steal their fame,” completely ignoring the fact that no woman has become more popular or well-liked following coming forward about sexual violence she has received. Perpetuating these lies and expanding online connections is how these networks of men can maintain domination. This also discourages other women from speaking up against their abusers because of fears of harassment and isolation after speaking out.
I feel as if this spread of misogyny could be limited by expanding our media literacy to start at a younger age, as well as by changing our views on education as a whole. Parents should be actively aware of what their children are looking at online. Many of the beliefs held by men in these communities originate from a lack of education that includes epistemic advantage and feminist standpoint epistemology to inform knowledge about gender, race, sexuality, class, etc. We could limit those with these views by expanding our education system and unlearning systems of oppression. The current education system is extremely exclusionary because it searches for validation through scientific fact. By treating education as the only way for people to obtain information, it dismisses epistemic advantage.[14] Epistemic advantage is the expanded knowledge of sociological facts and moral knowledge due to the social positioning of marginalized groups. By expanding what is considered fact to include lived experiences by marginalized people, we can “uncover the interconnected, intersectional workings of systems of power and oppression and advance feminist theory and anti-racist politics.”[15] Allowing children to have unfiltered and unlimited access to the internet without media literacy to understand hateful messaging is what lets misogyny prevail.
[1] Alice Marwick, Benjamin Clancy, and Katherine Furl, “Far-right online radicalization: A review of the literature” (The Bulletin of Technology & Public Life, 2022).
[2] Kate Manne, Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny (Oxford University Press, 2017), 78.
[3] Florence Villesèche, Sara Louise Muhr, Martyna Śliwa, “From Radical Black Feminism to Postfeminist Hashtags: Re-claiming Intersectionality,” Ephemera Journal, 18, 1473–2866 (2018), 1-16.
[4] See note 2 above.
[5] R.W. Connell, James W. Messerschmidt, “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept,” in Gender and Society, 19, 6 (2005).
[6] Karen Lumsden, ‘“I Want to Kill You in Front of Your Children” Is Not A Threat. It’s An Expression of a Desire’: Discourses of Online Abuse, Trolling, and Violence on r/MensRights,” in Online Othering: Exploring Digital Violence and Discrimination on the Web (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 5.
[7] Alice Marwick, Robyn Caplan, “Drinking Male Tears: Language, Manosphere, and Networked Harassment,” Feminist Media Studies, 18, 4 (2018), 1.
[8] Maura Conway, Ryan Scrivens, Logan Macnair, “Right-Wing Extremists’ Persistent Online Presence: History and Contemporary Trends” (International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, 2019), 4.
[9] Maura Conway, Ryan Scrivens, Logan Macnair, “Right-Wing Extremists’ Persistent Online Presence: History and Contemporary Trends” (International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, 2019).
[10] Alice Marwick, Robyn Caplan, “Drinking Male Tears: Language, Manosphere, and Networked Harassment,” Feminist Media Studies, 18, 4 (2018).
[11] See note 5 above.
[12] Lumsden, “I Want to Kill You in Front of Your Children” Is Not A Threat. It’s An Expression of a Desire’: Discourses of Online Abuse, Trolling, and Violence on r/MensRights,” in Online Othering: Exploring Digital Violence and Discrimination on the Web (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 10.
[13] Lumsden, 2019.
[14] Ann-Kathrin Rothermel, “‘The Other Side’: Assessing the Polarization of Gender Knowledge Through a Feminist Analysis of the Affective-Discursive in Anti-Feminist Online Communities,” Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, Volume 27, 4 (2020), 718–741.
[15] Rothermel, 722.
About the Author
Alyssa Allison is a recent graduate of West Chester University with a Bachelor of Science. They majored in psychology and found passion in their minor in women’s and gender studies. They currently work as a Peer Support Specialist and will continue their education in psychology. While working and studying they will use their education of women and gender studies to inform their lens in psychology.
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