Frames in Secular Male Supremacist Movements

This paper analyzes how secular misogyny has mobilized online since 2009, and the consequences of this with relation to politics, culture, and violence. Over this time period, there has been a steady rise in the number and size of online male supremacist forums, and evidence of a shift toward increasingly extreme ideologies, such as male “incel” (“involuntarily celibate”) communities that view lack of sexual access to women as an injustice and glorify violence. This paper draws on a dataset of online posts and an analysis of certain foundational texts, from the 1993 book The Myth of Male Power by Warren Farrell to the 2014 Santa Barbara mass killer’s autobiographical manifesto laying out the incel justification for terrorist violence as “retribution” for women’s rejection. This current paper aims to derive greater insight into what this growing misogynist extremism looks like, how these forums motivate online radicalization and terrorist violence, and potential threats to be aware of moving forward. The paper explores frames seen in misogynist forums and literature such as dehumanization of women, anti-feminist conspiracism, male sexual entitlement, etc., as well as the presence of other types of far-right beliefs (anti-Semitism, white nationalism) and, conversely, that of leftist ideologies and men of color in male supremacist mobilizations.