From #MeToo to Hatred: Online Antifeminist Discourses in Spanish-speaking Countries as a Response to Feminist Movements
“#8m Women Protest at México City 2022” by María Fuentes. March 16, 2022. Image from Unsplash.
Social media have created pathways to digital activism like #MeToo by offering spaces of solidarity and support networks (Suk et al. #MeToo, Networked Acknowledgment 14). Such platforms enable the exchange of activism discourses across borders, ultimately facilitating the creation of global movements. For example, Suk and colleagues in Think Global show how #MeToo has spread globally while exhibiting distinct developments across geo-linguistic contexts. Specifically, in Spanish-speaking countries, feminist activists adapted the hashtag to their specific context to reinforce local demands and create interregional networks.
Feminist movements in Latin America have a long history of interaction between countries, where similar sociopolitical contexts and shared language have aided the transnationalism of their demands (González & Brochner). For decades, these movements have interacted with their counterparts in other countries to establish relations of solidarity (Álvarez 39). For example, in 2015, the murder of a 14-year-old pregnant teenager at the hands of her boyfriend in Argentina led to the creation of the hashtag #NiUnaMenos, which later evolved into a movement demanding an end to gender-based violence and femicides. Given the high rate of femicides in Latin America (CEPAL), #NiUnaMenos spread to other countries in the region, and on March 8, 2017, the first transnational march for International Women's Day was organized in the region (Varela 143).
While social media have empowered global support networks, such digital activism efforts are often met with challenges and counter-discourses (Suk et al. When the Personal Becomes Political), especially in the form of hate speech against women and feminist movements (see Hasunuma & Shin; Manikonda et al.). Given the significance of understanding the dynamics of these narratives, which can limit women's participation on digital platforms, and the limited comparative research on this phenomenon, this work studies the spread and behavior of online anti-feminist discourses in Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America and Spain. While online hate speech has been studied, with a particular emphasis on the Global North, little attention has been paid to what happens in Spanish-speaking communities.
To provide information on the patterns of these narratives and how they are reinforced across various platforms, this study analyzes online hate speech against the #MeToo movement on multiple platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and forums), both in Spain and Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America during the first year of #MeToo (October 2017 to September 2018; N=11,747). Using LDA topic modeling, a probabilistic generative topic model, we found distinct patterns in how hate manifests across contexts. To determine the most common themes in the development of these discourses, we collected keywords that were repeated in the messages. Subsequently, we reviewed the complete statements in which these terms were embedded, allowing us to understand the messages published by these groups comprehensively.
The results show the existence of five distinct themes within these discourses in each region. In Spain, the discourses focused on: criticizing feminism for being a left-wing ideological movement, attacking it for being exclusionary and serving the "selfish" interests of women, portraying women as 'feminazis,' highlighting their radicalism, describing feminism as an anti-Christian movement, and reinforcing rape culture, understood as those narratives that describe women seeking men's attention (Herman) and promoting a scenario of sexual abuse normalization and facilitation (Herb). As shown in Figure 1, the two most frequently occurring themes are those that reinforce rape culture and those that characterize feminist groups as movements linked to left-wing politics. The first narratives react to ‘La Manada’ verdict, a gang case rape of a 16-year-old girl during the San Fermín festival in 2016. In this case, the narratives suggest that the members of La Manada are innocent, while the girl is criticized because "she provoked them." For example, a post on Twitter said: “Do you really think there was sexual assault? The girl knows it was consensual, and she only went to the police because her cell phone was robbed. One day she will have to tell the truth.” On the other hand, the messages that describe feminism as a left-wing movement attack public figures, politicians, and political parties that support the movement. These narratives portray feminism as an enemy to Spanish society, using words such as "radicals," "left," and "strike."
In Latin America, on the other hand, the discourses revolved around: directly attacking feminist leaders with insults or threats, criticizing feminism for imposing a "gender ideology," understood as a new social order that threatens heteronormativity (Corredor), associating feminism with pro-abortion stances, attacking feminism for representing a threat to children and the family, and accusing it of seeking to dominate men. Figure 2 shows that the most recurring discourse in Latin America focused on preserving traditional family values, where feminism is criticized as an "evil entity" seeking to destroy heterosexual marriages, families, children, and society. For example, a YouTube comment said, “This totalitarian feminism is extreme, the brainwashing is BRUTAL, they are already getting into education, and together with the LGTB agenda, the intention is obvious: the destruction of the traditional family and fertile heterosexual relationships.” These discourses were accompanied by the popularization of conservative movements such as “Do not mess with my children,” which originated in Perú and spread to other countries in Latin America (Rivera). Like #MeToo and #NiUnaMenos, our findings demonstrate that antifeminist narratives were also able to disseminate across Latin American countries, connecting through social media platforms. The themes "travel" throughout Latin America through social media without distinguishing between countries, sharing phrases and words that express a common collective orientation against feminist movements and their causes.
Figure 1. Most repeated antifeminist discourses in Spain
Note: The graph shows the probability of occurrence of each topic
Figure 2. Most repeated antifeminist discourses in Latin America
Note: The graph shows the probability of occurrence of each topic
The antifeminist narratives, both in Spain and Latin America, reveal the presence of power dynamics and subordination in virtual interactions. According to Lumsden and Morgan (927), these discourses are silencing strategies to exclude women from the online world and public spaces. Thus, hate speech puts women in a powerless position and limits their freedom of expression. At the core of these discourses are narratives that defend male hegemony and gender roles, which have been adapted and replicated by far-right political parties worldwide (see Bonet-Martí). While historically, this sector has been associated with anti-gender dynamics (Blee 417), after #MeToo, these narratives of resentment intensified, placing the far-right at the center of conversations (Fangen and Skjelsbæk 411).
This study describes the main themes used by anti-feminist groups in their discursive responses to the progress of feminist movements in Spain and Latin America during the first year of #MeToo. The work is led by the Mass Communication Research Center (MCRC) at UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. In addition to the graduate student and faculty researchers in the MCRC, this project also involves doctoral students from Northwestern University and professors from Diego Portales University in Chile and the University of Connecticut. To delve deeper into the nature of these themes, the next step of the project is to study the relationship between anti-feminist discourses and the rise of the far right. To do this, we will conduct a three-layer analysis where (i) we will study significant events that could foster anti-feminist reactions, (ii) we will analyze the discourses of public figures that cross borders, and (iii) we will compare local political discourses. Initially, we will focus on the first year of #MeToo in Spanish-speaking countries and later expand it to other regions and languages for comparative purposes. Since hashtags and discourses on social media are not static, analyzing the evolution of these online hate discourses will allow us to understand how they operate (e.g., what triggers them), to what extent they are organized, who engages in them, and if they are transnational.
About the Authors
Catalina Farías is a Ph.D. student in the Media, Technology, and Society program at Northwestern University. Her research focuses on digital inclusion in vulnerable populations, access and use of new technologies, networked social movements, and gender dynamics. She has worked on projects on feminist digital activism, and digital inclusion and the use of technology in isolated and marginalized populations in Chile. She is a graduate affiliate of the Center for Latinx Digital Media at Northwestern University and Millennium Nucleus NUDOS.
Elohim Monard is a Ph.D. student in Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, focusing on (mis/dis)information, technology, and democracy.
Elena McCosh is a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying strategic communications in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications, with certificates in design strategy, French, and digital media studies. Originally from Mexico City, Elena has an appreciation for languages and understanding multicultural identities. She is a speaker at this year’s UW-Madison Diversity Forum, as an apprentice of Empower, a social justice committee in the SLP (Student Leadership Program).
Fernanda Carvajal holds a Master's degree in Communication with a specialization in Public Opinion from the Universidad Diego Portales, and a double Bachelor of Arts in Social Communication and Literature and Linguistics from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Her research interests include social media, gender studies, and online fan communities. She works as a journalist in the digital department of the National Chilean Television.
Jiyoun Suk (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Connecticut, a core faculty member at the Program of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and a faculty affiliate at the Center for mHealth and Social Media. In her research, she looks at how the communication processes in the contemporary media environment shape civic trust, digital activism, and political polarization, primarily employing computational methods. She is particularly interested in how contemporary communication processes are related to the understandings of different social groups, marginalized communities, and political and social outgroups.
Teresa Correa (Ph.D. in communications at The University of Texas at Austin) is a full professor at the Faculty of Communication and Literature at Universidad Diego Portales, Chile. She is the director of the research center CICLOS and the alternate director of the Millennium Nucleus NUDOS. Her research, published in over 50 articles and book chapters, focuses on digital inequality, media sociology, gender and minority representation, communication, and health.
Dhavan V. Shah (Ph.D. University of Minnesota) is the McLeod Professor of Communication Research and Maier-Bascom Chair in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is Director of the Mass Communication Research Center and Research Director of the Center for Communication and Civic Renewal. His focus on the intersecting power of framing and social capital has shaped his research on: (1) the influence of message construction and processing, (2) the communication dynamics shaping civic and political participation, and (3) the role of online interactions in chronic disease management.
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