Abstract
In the introduction to Gender Hate Online, Ging and Siapera argue that a “new anti-feminism” (p. 6)—facilitated by the arrival of Web 2.0, bolstered by the activities of the alt-right, and sustained by toxic masculinity—has emerged. The volume aims to theorize and examine this new anti-feminism, its interplay with misogyny online, and feminist responses to it. Gender Hate Online accomplishes these aims and provides essential and timely information for those studying feminism, anti-feminism, and misogyny. The book’s contribution lies in its development of theoretical and methodological frameworks that can be used to understand gender hate on the Internet, and its attention to the many, global manifestations of misogyny.
Gender Hate Online is organized into three parts. Each chapter in part one provides a theoretical lens for explaining the form of anti-feminism and misogyny in the present moment. Siapera’s chapter (Chapter 2, “Online Misogyny as Witch Hunt: Primitive Accumulation in the Age of Techno-capitalism”) stands out as exceptional. The author argues for understanding online misogyny and anti-feminism as tools for excluding women from “techno-capitalism” (p. 22), or the emerging formation of capitalism in the context of neoliberal governance and the increasing importance of technology and information-driven modes of production. In contrast to many scholars who use the frame of “culture wars,” Siapera claims that online misogyny and anti-feminism have real material roots and implications that should not be ignored. Siapera argues convincingly that online misogyny and anti-feminism—in today’s context of uncertainty, competition, and inequality—serve the same purpose that the witch hunt did during the transition from feudalism to capitalism: subjugating women. The comparison illustrates that online misogyny and anti-feminism are not, as is sometimes claimed by scholars and journalists, “a question of sexually or otherwise frustrated men venting out” (p. 39) or the outcome of men being unmoored by a cultural crisis of masculinity. Instead, they are tools for excluding women from the technological means of production and reasserting control over women’s social and biological reproductive labor. Unlike authors that choose to focus on culture or identity, Siapera provides a theoretical model that, importantly, recognizes anti-feminism as male supremacist in nature.
Parts two and three of Gender Hate Online are empirical investigations of online misogyny and women and feminists’ reactions to it, respectively. These chapters use novel approaches for studying feminism and anti-feminism on the Internet, and would be of particular interest to scholars considering using online data for similar research. These chapters examine a diverse array of online materials, including memes, tweets, comments on news articles, GIFs, Instagram posts, and posts on personal blogs.
The juxtaposition of parts two and three illuminates an important point. In coupling chapters that describe misogyny and responses to it, it is clear why the resistance strategies employed by women are necessary. Such strategies can no longer fairly be framed as driven by a “cancel culture” that has gone too far (examples in the media abound), but are more aptly described as a call for accountability for actions that sustain patriarchy and white supremacy. For example, in part two, MacKenzie Cockerill (Chapter 5, “Convergence on Common Ground: MRAS, Memes and Transcultural Contexts of Digital Misogyny”) uses memes from one American and two Indian men’s rights sites to investigate the global transportability of online misogyny. The author documents several similarities across American and Indian men’s rights memes, particularly the denunciation of women’s autonomy and lamentation of men’s loss of control over women and their bodies. The vivid description of online misogyny and violence in this and other chapters in part two contextualizes the resistance strategies deployed by women described in part three. These include feminist GIFs that mock white male tears (Chapter 9, “Animating Feminist Anger: Economies of Race and Gender in Reaction GIFs” by Rachel Kuo) and publicly naming perpetrators of harassment and assault in academia (Chapter 10, “Politics of #LoSha: Using Naming and Shaming as a Feminist Tool on Facebook” by Arpita Chakraborty).
The volume is not without its faults. In particular, several chapters lack a detailed description of methods, which, at times, makes evaluating the validity of their claims difficult. Overall, however, Gender Hate Online provides much-needed theoretical frameworks and empirical documentation of online anti-feminism, misogyny, and feminist resistance in the current moment.