Analysis of discursive strategies used in the construction of the anti-feminist discourse in social networks

ABSTRACT

Anti-feminism has become a discourse increasingly present on social networks, however there is still little research that addresses its development in the Ibero-American region. This article aims to give an account of the discursive practices used by anti-feminism to associate the feminist mobilizations of the 8th of March with the expansion of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain. The article is based on a critical discourse analysis of the publications on Twitter during the months of March and April 2020, in order to visualize and identify the strategies used to establish such association. From the analysis carried out, the similarities and differences between the traditional religiously based anti-feminist discourse and the new forms of anti-feminism linked to the options of the populist right are evident, and it is inferred that this new anti-feminism is articulated as a countermovement that makes a strategic use of the intransigence rhetoric and the mechanisms of propagation of rumor in order to support de-democratizing practices. © 2020 Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso. All rights reserved.