The Misogynistic Machosphere: A Transdisciplinary Study of Antifeminist and Masculinist Discourses Online

Abstract

The rise of anti-feminist discourse on the Internet, particularly in the machosphere, is an alarming fact. This sphere, enriched by the anonymity and accessibility of the Internet, has become a hotbed of violent masculinist discourse, legitimizing hatred and attacks against women. Sub-communities such as MRAs, MGTOWs, Incels and Pick-Up Artists promote an anti-feminist and traditionalist ideology of gender roles, often caricaturing and demonizing feminism. These discourses are widely disseminated on social media, where they gain visibility and enable the self-radicalization of their members. Researchers, activists and authorities fear that this online hatred could degenerate into physical violence. Our transdisciplinary study focuses on a corpus of masculinist and incel discourses in French and English from extreme right-wing sites. We adopt a dual approach: on the one hand, a semantic and sociological analysis to detect the rhetorical mechanisms and lexical codes that fuel this propaganda; on the other, a feminist methodology from a decolonial perspective to deconstruct these discourses, revealing the strategies of domination and power relations they convey. This study also explores the ideological convergences between different masculinist groups and how they use communication to legitimize extreme violence. We analyze the links between the current rise of online antifeminism and historical antifeminist discourses, highlighting the intersection between the emotional turn and the digital turn in these narratives.