The Creation of the Monstrous Feminist in Men's Rights Discourses as an Ideological Defense Mechanism


Taisto Witt, McGill University

A primary way in which the masculinities and ideologies of the men’s rights movement (MRM) are conceptualized by its’ members is through a strong reliance on biological essentialism as a mechanism for explaining and justifying gendered behaviour, hierarchies, and patriarchal privilege and domination. As a result, the core logics underpinning key arguments, positions, and ideologies of the MRM are both fundamentally flawed, and highly vulnerable to evidence-based critique. This vulnerability is compounded by the assertions of logic as essentially masculine by the MRM movement, which would suggest that the many extant evidence-based counterarguments would/should be readily considered by the MRM, even if they were to challenge or undermine the dominany beliefs and ideologies of the group. Furthermore, this represents an greater ideological weakness within MRM ideological logics, the foundational system of belief for the community, and MRM understandings of gender, masculinity and identity; if such expressions, traits, and social systems are ‘natural’ and ‘essential’, then how can the existence of the ‘feminist’, who can be interpreted as running counter to such forces, be explained or justified? Drawing from observations of the r/mensrights subreddit, currently the largest online community for the MRM, and the affective work of scholars such as Sara Ahmed and Zizi Papacharissi, this presentation explores the ways in which the ideological systems and narratives of the men’s rights movement discursively construct the oppositional ‘other’ (in this case the feminist woman) into an instrumental and highly affective semiotic object that can be utilized by the MRM as a method of ideological defense and securement. In particular, the ongoing construction of the feminist woman as ugly, unnatural, and irrational can be observed within ongoing community discourses. This discursive construction allows for the the dismissal of the personhood, positions, and logics of the ‘feminist woman’ and her allies/collaborators prior to any earnest or direct engagement with the thoughts, arguments, and existence of ‘real-life feminists’, which run counter to MRM narratives and beliefs. In this way, the utilization of highly essentialist logics is used to create embedded, highly affective ideological defense mechanisms that allow for the maintenance of deeply flawed belief systems within the MRM.

This paper will be presented at the following session: