The Mobilization of Misogyny Online 2009-2019

• In Event: Poster Session: Information Technology and Politics

Abstract

This paper analyzes how secular misogyny has mobilized online since 2009, and the consequences of this with relation to politics, culture, and violence. Over this time period, there has been a steady rise in the number and size of online male supremacist forums, and evidence of a shift toward increasingly extreme ideologies, such as male “incel” (“involuntarily celibate”) communities that view lack of sexual access to women as an injustice and glorify violence. This paper draws on a unique dataset of 38 million posts collected from 7 forums and 57 subreddits related to secular misogynist ideology by a team of data scientists with whom I am collaborating on an ongoing project. To this dataset is added an analysis of certain relevant foundational texts, from the 1993 book The Myth of Male Power by Warren Farrell to the 2014 Santa Barbara mass killer’s autobiography/manifesto laying out the incel justification for terrorist violence as “retribution” for women’s rejection.

The theoretical contributions of this paper include laying out the primary motivations for acts of mass violence from secular male supremacist communities (and describing why these attacks should be categorized as terrorism). Thus far, the research has highlighted two core misogynist beliefs as motivating mass violence: 1) the belief that men are entitled to sexual access to women, which misogynist incels have used to justify mass violence as retribution for being denied sexual intercourse; and 2) the belief that feminists are a malevolent force controlling society at the expense of men, a frame similar to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories regarding Jewish elites controlling the world. Thus far the latter, anti-feminist conspiracism, is typically combined with other far-right ideologies when manifested in terrorist attacks, as in the case of Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011. Aggrieved male sexual entitlement, in contrast, has appeared both in acts of mass violence that are also motivated by other far-right beliefs, and as a primary motivator in of itself. Since 2014, there have been seven acts of mass violence with documented connections to the incel ideology.

As part of the larger collaborative research project, analysis of these forums by data scientists applying Google’s Perspective API has already indicated a recent shift from more “moderate” misogynist forums (such as Men’s Rights Activists) to more extreme forums, such as incels and Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), combined with increasingly virulent and violent rhetoric on those more extreme forums. This corresponds with an increase in successful and attempted acts of mass violence connected to misogynist ideology. This current paper aims to derive greater insight into what this growing misogynist extremism looks like, how these forums motivate online radicalization and terrorist violence, and potential threats to be aware of moving forward. The paper uses both in-depth qualitative analysis of select sources and the creation of a unique lexicon exploring frames seen in misogynist forums such as dehumanization of women, anti-feminist conspiracism, male sexual entitlement, etc., as well as the presence of other types of far-right beliefs (anti-Semitism, white nationalism).

Author

• Alexandra Jane DiBranco, Yale University