The use of memes as an anti-feminist weapon penetrates the younger society

The manosphere is gaining more and more relevance in Spain, to the point that we can already speak of a Spanish manosphere. When we talk about the manosphere, we are referring to the conglomerate of heterogeneous virtual spaces that accommodate a multitude of movements based on the propagation of misogynistic and anti-feminist discourses.

All kinds of content are created from it – videos, memes, posts, gifs, tweets, etc.– that serve to articulate the postulates of the anti-feminist discourse. In this article we focus on the study of memes created, used and spread from the manosphere to spread anti-feminist ideas. These memes seek to delegitimize and depoliticize the efforts of feminist movements and institutions that promote gender equality and have a special impact on the ideological position of Spanish youth, which is increasingly identified with anti-feminist discourses.

In the research that we have carried out for the Reina Sofía Center on Adolescence and Youth of FAD, we have analyzed the role of memes in anti-feminist discourses that arise from misogynist communities in the Spanish manosphere and that are decisive in shaping the social perception of public policies aimed at eradicating gender violence or recognizing the rights of people belonging to the LGTBIQ+ collective.

Why do you use memes?

But why do the postulants of anti-feminist misogyny resort to memetics? Memes, images that are created, modified and disseminated through the internet, are the paradigm of contemporary digital culture and, despite their apparent banality, they incorporate social positions on issues that are being subjected to public debate.

Contrary to written texts –tweets, posts, messages, threads, news–, memes specify, condense and decant the postulates of the manosphere through the use of humor and thanks to their concise use of language. On the other hand, the appropriation of feminist and institutional language provokes laughter when it is decontextualized and leads to the caricature of the historical claims of the fight for equality.

In the context of the reactionary turn of the internet and the rise of anti-feminism, memes have become essential political tools to debate how the world should be and suggest proposals for its transformation.

The effectiveness of memes as agents of political thought is due, on the one hand, to the fact that the use of political memes does not constitute a typical political discussion, but occurs in the context of memetic wars, the term that has been used to refer to the political conversation in networks characterized by a reciprocal memetic dialectical battle. And, on the other hand, to their close connection with the aesthetics of digital culture, characterized by polysemy and ambivalence, which places them in a position halfway between extremism and satire.

Given the relevance of memes in the political sphere, we have sought to understand the political work of antifeminist memetics in order to understand why antifeminism resorts to these seemingly banal digital artifacts. As a result of our work, we see that memes constitute a privileged form of contemporary communication not only to promote public discussion of certain issues, but also to contribute to the constitution of an anti-feminist political agenda.

creating a common enemy

In our analysis of the misogynistic digital spaces that make up the Spanish manosphere, we have noticed that anti-feminist discourses permeate society as a whole to a large extent thanks to memetic antagonism, a strategy consisting of uniting a group through the creation of a common enemy, in this case, feminism and feminists.

Despite the fact that it may seem that memes are used in a banal way, their creation and strategic circulation prove to have a very high potential for antagonization, as demonstrated by the existence of countless anti-feminist meme accounts with a high number of followers whose sole purpose is to is to spread anti-feminist ideas through the efficient pills of misogyny that are memes.

We are experiencing a memetic war and memes have gone from being tools for feminist political activism to being vehicles of anti-feminism that trivialize feminist vindication discourses and strip them of their original ideological content. Anti-feminist memes have co-opted mechanisms such as humor and irony to challenge the arguments of feminism, taking advantage of the impunity that these strategies confer on their authors to reframe feminist claims as absurd, ridiculous and illogical.

In this sense, we find it especially relevant to listen to Tina Askanius when she says that “we need to take a closer look at the fusion of the non-serious (comedy) with the serious (political) and the increasingly complicated relationship between extremism and satire” . Because, let’s not forget, the memetic war is not a war of memes, but a war between ideas.

Elisa García Mingo, Professor of Sociology, Complutense University of Madrid and Anita Fuentes, PhD candidate in Sociology and Anthropology, Complutense University of Madrid

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original.