Abstract
Contemporary gender relations occur in a polarised environment characterised
by popular feminism and networked misogyny. This context structures feminist
researchers’ public engagement and exposes them to online hostility. Addressing a paucity of work on the affective dimensions of digital hostility, this article analyses 2400 comments made in The Daily Mail Online in response to feminist research on TubeCrush, a website featuring unsolicited images of men on the London underground. Our analysis shows feminists constructed as powerful but hypocritical; as discredited post-truth experts and, along with gay men and women in general, as being less knowledgeable or valid than white men. These discourses were united by an affective texture of an outrage that positions itself as righteous, undoing feminist knowledge and recuperating (white) male power. Identifying this as ‘righteous outrage’ offers important insights into the workings of contemporary anti-feminist sentiment where visibility is permitted so long as credibility is undone.
by popular feminism and networked misogyny. This context structures feminist
researchers’ public engagement and exposes them to online hostility. Addressing a paucity of work on the affective dimensions of digital hostility, this article analyses 2400 comments made in The Daily Mail Online in response to feminist research on TubeCrush, a website featuring unsolicited images of men on the London underground. Our analysis shows feminists constructed as powerful but hypocritical; as discredited post-truth experts and, along with gay men and women in general, as being less knowledgeable or valid than white men. These discourses were united by an affective texture of an outrage that positions itself as righteous, undoing feminist knowledge and recuperating (white) male power. Identifying this as ‘righteous outrage’ offers important insights into the workings of contemporary anti-feminist sentiment where visibility is permitted so long as credibility is undone.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 25-42 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | European Journal of Cultural Studies |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 9 Sep 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Feb 2022 |
Bibliographical note
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).Keywords
- Networked misogyny
- popular feminism
- post-truth anti-feminism
- righteous outrage
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Cultural Studies
- Education
- Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
