RUNNING HEAD: Women RedPilling women: Anti-feminism on YouTube
Bianca Ferrari 12367613
Graduate School of Communication Erasmus Mundus Master Journalism, Media and Globalisation
Women RedPilling Women: Relatability, Alternative Facts and Anti-Feminist Radicalization on YouTube
Master thesis
SUPERVISOR: Dr. Linda Bos MSc
Amsterdam, June 3, 2019
Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 2
Note to the second reader:
As per what agreed with the thesis supervisor, Dr. Linda Bos, the total word count of this
dissertation was extended to 8000, in order to allow for extra space for the text fragments
presented in the result section
Wordcount: 7855.
Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 3
AKNOWLEDGEMENT
Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. Linda Bos,
for the continuous support of my Master thesis project. Her patience, motivation and guidance
provided much needed focus and clarity to this study and greatly helped me both in the
research and writing phases.
Besides my supervisor, I would like to thank my fellow classmates Pia Yvonne Behme,
Tanja Kunesh, Julia Rignot and Daniel Avelar Guimarães for their encouragement, stimulating
discussions and emotional support. Without their help, their challenging questions and insightful
comments, this thesis and this year would have been a much less successful, gratifying and fun
experience.
Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 4
Abstract
Anti-feminist groups on the Web 2.0 have originated and propagated through online spaces new
digital native forms of opposition to the gender equality movement. Despite their many
differences, fringe subcultures are united in their support of the philosophy of the Red Pill, a
shared belief in the oppressed state of men in society at the hands of the matriarchy and its
feminist agents. Following a growing body of literature examining the phenomenon from the
perspective of male engagement with the ideology, this study explores the ways in which right-
wing women operating on the video broadcasting and social media site YouTube negotiate new
and old forms of anti-feminism in their commentary. As a hub for far-right pundits, YouTube has
created a platform for conservative women to rise to fame by articulating anti-feminist
viewpoints and promoting traditional gender roles. Grounded in the Alternative Influence
Network or AIN (Lewis, 2018) as a framework for sampling, the paper conducts a qualitative
thematic Content Analysis (CA) of thirty videos issued from seven YouTube channels led by
anti-feminist women. The findings show that female right-wing YouTubers draw from
conservative arguments and from Red Pill ideology to discredit traditional sources of
information, while lending legitimacy to the claim that masculinity is under threat by the feminist
movement. These results are then recontextualized within current debates on the role played by
YouTube in far-right radicalization.
Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 5
Introduction: YouTube as a privileged site to study anti-feminist women
Within the past few years, the United States has experienced a new wave of pushback
against civil rights considered fundamental for gender equality by the feminist movement. These
include restrictions to abortion (North, 2019) and access to contraception, later blocked by court
proceedings (Pear, 2019), as well as legal redefinitions of sexual and domestic violence
(Oppenheim, 2019). These recent developments raise questions about the resurgence of anti-
feminist movements. More specifically, a growing scholarship has begun to examine the
interactions between internet subcultures, native to a variety of online platforms, and opposition
to feminism (Easter, 2018; Ging, 2017; Jane, 2018; Marwick & Caplan, 2018; Massanari, 2017;
Moloney & Love, 2018). This “particularly toxic brand of anti-feminism” (Ging, 2017, p. 1) has its
roots in the Men’s Rights movements of the 1980s, which essentially see men as the oppressed
gender in society. Despite its constitution as an extremely loose network, plagued by
contradictions and internal dissent, this diverse mix of interest groups is united by their belief in
“Red Pill ideology”, or a revelation that is supposed to free men from the misandrist and
gynocentric nature of society (Ganesh, 2018; Ging, 2017). More specifically, studies have
addressed anti-feminism on the web 2.0 from the perspective of gendered cyberhate (Jane,
2018; Moloney & Love, 2018), mapping the relationship between platform politics and new anti-
feminist ideologies (Easter, 2018; Massanari, 2017), understanding the discursive connections
between different networks and movements (Ganesh, 2018; Ging, 2017; Marwick & Caplan,
2018) and how masculine identities are constructed within them (Ging, 2017; Massanari, 2017).
However, the participation of women in new forms of anti-feminist discourses has yet to be
addressed.
In particular, a few successful female content-creators have risen to fame within the so-
called “YouTube Right” by promoting anti-feminist viewpoints and espousing traditional gender
roles (Darby, 2017). The phenomenon of the rise of right-wing pundits on YouTube (Haynes, Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 6
2018; Herrman, 2017; Klein, 2018; Van Zuylen-Wood et al., 2017; Whyman, 2017;), and its
radicalizing potential (Weill, 2018; Tufekci, 2018; Feldman, 2019) has attracted media attention,
but has not yet been fully examined in academia. A small body of evidence points to
connections between online “toxic technoculture”, where Red Pill ideology originated
(Massanari, 2017), and YouTube (Ganesh, 2018; Hine et al., 2017). Moreover, Hall (2018) finds
that YouTube’s ability to propel “ordinary people” to fame (García-Rapp & Roca-Cuberes,
2017), combined with low barriers to entry and lax policies towards censorship, have made it
easier for amateur political commentators on the right to share extremist content with large
audiences (Hall, 2018).
Anchored in these considerations, this paper sets out to study the anti-feminist rhetoric
articulated by female right-wing political commentators on YouTube. Using the Alternative
Influence Network (AIN) (Lewis, 2018) as a framework for sampling channels within the
YouTube Right, this paper will attempt to answer the question: How do women1 in the
Alternative Influence Network construct anti-feminist discourses on YouTube? As the dominant
video broadcasting service online, YouTube has become one of the “primary keepers of the
cultural discussion as it moves to the internet” (Gillespie, 2010, p. 348). This is why the platform
can serve as a tool to explore far-right groups and their belief system from an “internalist”
perspective, something that has been difficult to achieve in the past due to access barriers on
the part of researchers (Blee, 2007, p. 121). Besides this contribution, the paper aims at
elucidating how the anti-feminist discourses of female YouTubers interact with new and old
forms of opposition to gender equality, with a particular focus on Red Pill ideology.
1 t is important to note here that the designations “woman” and “female” will be used throughout the paper for
simplification purposes to refer to all female-identifying individuals in the AIN. As such, these terms are not meant to
provide commentary on transgender and non-binary identities. Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 7
YouTube: algorithms, microcelebrity and the far-right
YouTube is a digital platform integrating media production, distribution and consumption
with characteristics typical of social media networks; this unique combination of features fosters
a participatory culture among its members, who often engage in commenting, reacting to video
content and subscribing to channels (Chau, 2010; Burgess & Green, 2008). Despite its status
as the most widely used social network on mobile in the United States (Perrin & Anderson,
2019), the website is academically understudied in comparison to other social media (Crick,
2012), generating large gaps in the literature of political communication.
In particular, studies concerned with YouTube and politics have focused on how
electoral candidates have used the platform as a low-cost way to distribute political messages
(Gueorguieva, 2007), on how young people evaluated different appeals used to frame political
issues in homemade videos (English, Sweetser & Ancu, 2011) and on how activist circles make
use of the website (Askanius & Uldam, 2011). However, the phenomenon of distribution of
radical right ideologies on the platforms is still poorly understood, with a few notable exceptions.
Studying hate speech on two YouTube channels, one based in America and the other in Japan,
Hall (2018) found that the absence of accountability practices typical of mainstream media
platforms, combined with a free-speech-oriented approach towards political commentary and
censorship, have allowed far-right channels to reach vast viewership. By avoiding language that
would be considered as hate speech by YouTube guidelines and exploring alternative
monetization techniques like crowdfunding, these channels have managed to build loyal
audiences and thrive. Moreover, a small body of studies has found that the URLs posted in
online subcultures known for their virulent hate speech (Ludeman, 2017), and for originating and
propagating Red Pill ideology (Massanari, 2017), prevalently linked to YouTube. This was the
case for 4chan’s /pol/ or politically incorrect board (Hine et al., 2017) and Gab or the “alternative
Twitter” for far-right groups (Zannettou et al., 2018). Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 8
Particularly inscrutable is the role that the YouTube’s recommendations feature plays in
radicalization. The platform’s algorithm suggests content to users based on their watching
patterns, constituting one of the main sources of a video’s total views and largely determining its
popularity (Zhou, Khemmarat & Gao, 2010). This algorithm can be tweaked to promote specific
channels to specific audiences, as well as emphasize certain videos over others, mainly for
commercialization purposes (Bishop, 2018). However, YouTube’s actual algorithmic functioning
is completely obscure and under constant modification. What is clear is that the ambiguity
around YouTube’s technical parameters, combined with the website’s strategic positioning as a
platform that is open and neutral to everyone - ranging from newcomers to big-budget
advertisers - has helped the site avoid questions about its responsibilities (Gillespie, 2010).
On the other hand, a number of studies has examined YouTube as a platform for female
identity construction, negotiation and performance (Banet-Weiser, 2011; Rossie, 2015; Wotanis
& MacMillan, 2014), finding that women on YouTube operate in a “hostile environment”
(Wotanis & MacMillan, 2014, p. 912) created by particularly negative commenter feedback,
which often encourages them to “fit normative standards of femininity” (Banet-Weiser, 2011, p.
288). In order to be successful, content-creators of all genders need to monetize sustained
attention from their audiences (García-Rapp & Roca-Cuberes, 2017). As a result, video-makers
cultivate an “edited self” persona, blending relatability with aspirational qualities in order to
create a sense of connection with viewers, which in turn motivates them to like, comment and
follow the author’s work (García-Rapp & Roca-Cuberes, 2017)). In this culture, “professional
amateurs” must signal relatability, accessibility and authenticity “all of which presuppose and
rely on some form of intimacy” (Raun, 2018, p. 100). This explicit self-commodification is
embedded in YouTube’s culture, as signaled by the platform’s own tagline “Broadcast Yourself”
(YouTube, 2010).
Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 9
Feminism and anti-feminist women
The study of feminist discourses, and consequently also of anti-feminist rhetoric, poses a
fundamental problem: feminist scholarship is grounded in subjectivist critical theory (Moon &
Blackman, 2014) and is therefore by its nature up to a multiplicity of interpretations. Following
Jordan (2016), feminism is here defined based on two premises: that (1) significant gender
inequalities exist in contemporary society, generally disadvantaging women in comparison to
men and (2) that feminist theory and activism are necessary to establish the equality of genders
(p. 31). On the basis of these considerations, three normative assumptions follow: that (1)
gender equality is socially and morally desirable; (2) feminism is a necessary and positive force
for social change; and (3) gender is a sociopolitical structure rather than a biological difference,
therefore inequalities need to be addressed by collective politics (p. 31).
Anti-feminist women are often framed by gender scholars as merely the result of
reactionary brainwashing (Jordan, 2016), but this characterization would contradict the
fundamental principle of feminist studies: that women should define their own experiences
(Andrews, 2002). In fact, even though women are often less visible or even excluded from
conservative centers of power, those who actively engage with right-wing politics feel
empowered by their role (Blee, 1991; Dubslaff, 2017, Félix, 2017; Mulinari & Neergaard, 2017;
Ylä-Anttila & Luhtakallio, 2017 ). Borrowing from Bacchetta and Power (2002) and Köttingen,
Bitzan and Petö (2017), conservative women reject the feminist movement for two main
reasons. Firstly, because they oppose the idea of gender as a social construct, they believe that
feminism poses a challenge to traditional gender roles and norms, which they identify as their
own “natural” pathway to happiness. More specifically, they view gender relations in
“essentialist-differentialist-complementary” terms (Bacchetta & Power, 2002 p. 7), meaning that
men and women are essentially different, and that these natural differences should be the basis
for complementary gender roles. These tasks are defined around the institution of the
heteronormative family, seen as the staple of society. As a result, motherhood is glorified as a Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 10
woman’s “greatest honour” (Alvanou, 2017, p. 148) in its function as both biological and cultural
reproducer of the idealized nation (Félix, 2017). This is true even of female activists who have
adopted a different lifestyle in their personal life, which creates a double standard that many of
them live with. In parallel, most conservative women see their male counterparts as the primary
agents in their communities and support their access to a higher degree of power. Secondly,
because the feminist movement, especially in its intersectional variant, has extended alliances
to minority communities, which are mostly excluded from who women on the right understand
as part of their in-group. Right-wing ideologies produce self/Other distinctions to reify
hierarchical differences based on gender, class, ethnicity and other factors. For this reason,
despite their endorsement of traditional roles, conservative women often instrumentalize
discourses on gender equality to indicate the inferiority and incompatibility of Othered cultures,
such as black communities (Anderson, 2018) and immigrants (Kantola & Lombardo, 2019).
Overall, the existing literature conveys a good understanding of the ideological
perspectives that bring right-wing women to opposite feminism. However, what has not yet been
addressed by academic studies is their articulation of anti-feminist discourses in online
communities like YouTube, be it in conventional interpretations (Faludi, 1992; McRobbie, 2009)
or in digital native ones (Ganesh, 2018; Ging, 2017; Massanari, 2017).
Conceptualizing anti-feminism: Backlash, Postfeminism and digital anti-feminism
As it is the case for feminism, anti-feminist discourse is also composed of several
currents. For the purposes of conciseness, only three interpretations will be reviewed: Backlash
(Faludi, 1992), Postfeminism (Mcrobbie, 2009) and anti-feminism in online subcultures (Ganesh,
2018; Ging, 2017; Massanari, 2017;). Backlash was first conceptualized by Faludi (1992) in an
analysis of how messages generated by mainstream media in the 1980s blamed feminism for
problems encountered by modern women. Since the feminist fight was presented as already Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 11
won, yet happiness rates among females were at an all-time low, modern women were targeted
with suggestions for self-betterment rooted in the idea of submission of to men, contrary to the
basic premise of feminist therapy that sees both social and personal growth as important for a
woman’s mental health. The author concluded that the phenomenon of Backlash represented a
social and political reaction of hegemonic masculinity against perceived threats to its privileged
position posed by feminist gains in society. Faludi’s analysis, however, was critiqued by
postfeminist scholars, who contended that her perspectives on femininity were too narrow,
underestimated women’s agency and unfairly painted different understandings of feminism as
complicit to Backlash (Jordan, 2016).
Contrary to Backlash, Postfeminism is a force that is much more ambivalent towards
gender equality. Instead of explicit hostility, Postfeminism as conceptualized by McRobbie
(2009) presents feminist demands as already achieved and therefore anachronistic. Entrapped
in a “double entanglement”, modern young girls are encouraged to look at feminism as both
valid and therefore “taken into account” by society, but also disavow it as not necessary
anymore. In her analysis of pop culture, which she believes is the main tool used by women to
make sense of their gender identity and roles, McRobbie explained how the rise of neoliberalism
depoliticized gender, agency and empowerment, and shifted the discursive focus from collective
action to personal responsibility. Since the neoliberal subject has no gender and the neoliberal
society is based on meritocracy, women can access full employment and become successful,
as long as they accept merely “symbolic equality” without fundamentally changing the structures
of the patriarchy. In turn, mainstream culture generates a number of “Post-feminist gender
anxieties” that contemporary women should be concerned with - such as delayed marriage and
motherhood, and desires to have both a career and family - and that are effectively used to
control of female bodies and decisions.
With the rise of internet technologies, a new wave of scholarship analyzing the interplay
between anti-feminism and the web 2.0 has emerged, establishing significant discontinuities Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 12
with previous strands of the movement (Ging, 2017). Congregating on a variety of internet
platforms, such as 4chan, 8chan, Reddit (Jane, 2018; Massanari, 2017) and most recently
Discord (Morgan, 2018), subcultural communities have been articulating a “particularly toxic
brand of antifeminism” (Ging, 2017 p. 1), enabled by the affordances of internet technologies.
Blais and Depuis-Déry (2012) trace this ideology back to the Men’s Rights Movements of 1980s,
and define it as the belief that men are suffering an “identity crisis”, generated by women’s
efforts to replace patriarchal structures with a matriarchy. This is accompanied by a concerted
effort to curb feminist influence on society and reinstate traditional understandings of
masculinity.
Massanari’s (2017) analysis of Reddit’s platform politics, intended as the combination of
“design, policies, and norms that encourage certain kinds of cultures and behaviors to coalesce
on platforms while implicitly discouraging others” (p. 336), determined that the website is
organized around the idea of white male centrality, particularly in its “geek masculinity” iteration.
This new masculine identity both embraces certain aspect of hypermasculinity, such as the
elevation of intellect above emotions, while rejecting others, such as physical and sexual
prowess (Ging, 2017). Because of their identity as individuals marginalized from society, men
active in “toxic technocultures” (Massanari, 2017) are less likely to acknowledge their privileged
status in society. Using pro-free-speech and anti-political-correctness arguments, they construct
extremely inflammatory language that is misogynistic, racist and homophobic (Ludeman, 2017).
Similar communities and discursive practices were also identified by Ging (2017), Jane (2018),
Moloney & Love (2018) and Marwick & Caplan (2018).
According to Jane (2018), what unites them is precisely this shared language of hate,
together with strong attachments to an “underdog outsider” identity (p. 666). However, these
increasingly prevalent tropes of White male victimhood (Kimmel, 2013) merely serve to
“reinstate the normalcy of white male privilege through the articulation of its loss” (Ging, 2017, p.
11). Therefore, Ging (2017) concludes that geek masculinity’s expressions of cyberhate, both in Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 13
terms of discursive practices and networked harassment, are evidence of their attempt to
establish male hegemony in online spaces. In fact, “toxic technocultures” not only discourage
women and minorities from participating, but have a high propensity to propagate through the
internet thanks to the loose connections that exist between different platforms and to a
presumably largely shared user-base (Ging, 2017; Massanari, 2017).
Digital Hate Culture and Red Pill ideology
Contrary to Jane (2018), Ganesh (2018), contends that toxic online communities belong
to a wider movement, which she names “Digital Hate Culture”, centered on a shared belief in
“Red Pill ideology”. Red Pill philosophy takes its name from the 1999 Blockbuster “The Matrix”,
where Neo, a hero evoking various tropes of hegemonic White maleness, including the “Chosen
One” paradigm (Allen, 2002), makes the daring decision to awake to the harsh reality of the
world and see the patterns beyond the social structures that common people are not allowed to
notice, based on knowledge obtained from internet characters (Wachowski et al., 1999). First
introduced in Men’s Rights circles, Red Pill ideology was initially used to refer to the revelation
that society is actually dominated by women, not men, and that feminist indoctrination prevents
people from seeing its true gynocentric character (Ging, 2017; Marwick & Caplan, 2018). Red
Pill ideology relies heavily on pseudoscientific notions of evolutionary psychology to explain
female and male sexual and romantic behavior, often measured in terms of their Sexual Market
Value (Dayter & Rüdiger, 2018; Ging, 2017). Women are described as hypergamous, always
aiming for sexual relations with a domineering Alpha man of high status and looks, but settling
for a Beta male for the purpose of financial exploitation (Ging, 2017). Moreover, women who
had sexual relations before marriage are frequently blamed for conjugal failures and divorce,
based on the idea that their fantasies about previous alpha lovers makes it impossible for their
Beta husbands to sexually satisfy them (Ging, 2017). Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 14
As argued by Ganesh (2018), Red Pill ideology is used today not only to qualify
feminism in conspiratorial terms, but to discredit all leftist political ideologies as efforts to
mislead the general public. She maintains that contemporary Red Pilling refers to the idea that
Western civilization and its people face an existential threat posed by non-whites, based on the
belief that the ultimate truth that needs to be accepted by those who wish to see it, is that
human races are not actually equal. Consequently, leftist political ideologies - including
feminism, Marxism, globalism and others - are actually degrading Western society by pushing
for racial equality, in a process of “White Genocide”. As such, RedPilling is merely a rebranded
version of White male supremacy, being distributed in new ways through “alternative media”
channels to convert internet users to its totalizing world view. As one of the most distinctive
features uniting different online anti-feminist communities, Red Pill ideology will be the
conceptual focus of this analysis for understanding the influence of digital anti-feminism on the
narratives presented by female YouTube Right pundits.
Methodology
In the first study mapping right-wing presence on YouTube, Lewis (2018) found that an
assortment of influencers, with views ranging from mainstream conservatism to White
supremacy, are interlinked into a discursive system that appears coherent despite “the seeming
variety and independence of its members” (p. 8). This “Alternative Influence Network” (AIN),
comprising 65 YouTubers across 81 channels, was named after its contributor’s claims of
providing alternative media sources for news and political commentary to audiences on the
right. Through algorithmic connections and guest appearances between these channels, the
paper claims, viewers can quickly transition from watching moderately conservative videos to
extreme content, following patterns of right-wing radicalization congruous with what has been
observed in other online communities ( Alfano, Carter & Cheong, 2018; Johnson 2018; Lyons,
2017; Marwick & Lewis, 2017). Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 15
Drawing from the AIN, this study will analyze anti-feminist videos published by some of
the most popular female-identifying YouTubers mapped in the network. Before detailing the
methodology, however, several issues concerning Lewis’s framework need to be addressed.
Firstly, the network was not specifically developed to map anti-feminism on YouTube, therefore
some of the most popular anti-feminist influencers on the platform could not be considered.
Secondly, as stated by Lewis herself, the AIN has “loose and constantly changing” boundaries
(p. 6); for instance, some of its channels had already been deleted during the duration of her
study. Lastly and most importantly, the study has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
As a result, its main hypothesis and conclusions can only serve as background information for
the study, and will not be tested in this research. Despite its many imperfections, the Alternative
Influence Network remains a first-of-its-kind analysis of the YouTube Right and will therefore be
adopted for sampling purposes.
More specifically, seven channels were selected from the AIN following three criteria: a.
they primarily featured female-identifying YouTubers; b. they had more than 100.000
subscribers as of March 31, 2019; c. they were active within three months prior to this date.
Using the platform’s filtering system, the videos published by each of the content-makers were
sorted by popularity. The most viewed three to seven videos mentioning gender identities (e.g.,
female, women, feminism) or gender relations (e.g., dating, marriage, sexual assault) in the title,
video thumbnail or in the description box were selected for each channel. The videos were then
watched once and some were excluded from the selection based on the following criteria: a.
The tone of the video was mostly satirical or parodical; b. The discussion verged exclusively on
non-binary gender identities and/or on transgender issues. In order to maximise a diversification
of themes and achieve saturation, each time a video was excluded, a new one was considered
and either included or left out of the sample based on the same criteria, for a total of thirty items.
The videos were then transcribed verbatim and their content analyzed using qualitative
methods. The data collected on each video also included: a. a description of the video Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 16
Thumbnail, b. a description of the images, video clips and other graphics edited into the video,
c. a transcription of the text in the information box underneath the video.
As discussed by Creswell (1998), qualitative research lends itself to exploring topics that
have yet to be addressed by more systematic investigations, and it is useful in analyzing how
members of a community give meaning to a human or social issue. Grounded in an ontological
position that views reality and interpersonal interactions as socially constructed, researchers
using qualitative methods interpret language and behavior to understand how the subjects of
their enquiry create meaning while situated in their specific context (Bryman, 2012). At the same
time, this study supplements a general interpretive approach with a commitment to critical
inquiry. Following the tradition of feminist scholarship, the paper situates the discourses
produced, sustained, negotiated and challenged by the YouTubers analyzed within the broader
context of social, economic and historical hegemonic gender relations (Lazar, 2007).
The data analysis process was centered on a thematic Content Analysis (CA) organized
in three principal coding stages. In the first part, open codes were formulated combining
inductive and deductive approaches. More specifically, segments of text associated to relevant
theoretical conceptualizations were assigned deductive codes; however, the bulk of this first
phase was coded in vivo to allow for a closer relation to the text and for the subjects of the
analysis to be heard in their own formulations (Given, 2008). As argued by Andrews (2002),
scholars analyzing anti-feminist viewpoints through the lens of feminism must maintain a
commitment to representing the lived experience of the subjects as they see it; therefore, the in-
vivo approach was deemed most suitable. In the second part of the process, the data was re-
grouped into about 200 axial codes combining similar ideas conveyed at different points in the
sample. Finally, in the last coding stage nine groups of codes were formed based on dominant
themes emerging from the text (appendix B). Initial codes that could be associated to more than
one axial group were assigned to both. These “shared” or “co-occurring” codes (appendix C.)
were then used to map discursive links among the larger groups for the last stage of coding, Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 17
aided by theoretical notions drawn from the literature. For instance, the code “white women:
pure, angelic” was assigned both to “conservative gender norms and roles” because it reflected
ideas of traditional femininity, and to “white supremacy” because of the historical implications of
associating Whiteness with purity. This in turn demonstrated discursive connections between
the two ideologies through the evocation of Western beauty standards. The theoretical insights
resulting from the analysis are presented in the following section, aided by a combination of
textual and visual data issued from the videos.
Following Lincoln and Guba in Bryman (2012), concepts of validity and reliability cannot
be applied to qualitative methods because of the underlying premise adopted in constructivist
scholarship that reality cannot be understood in absolutist terms. Therefore, qualitative research
should be assessed through the criteria of credibility and authenticity. Since the widely accepted
techniques of triangulation and respondent validation were not compatible with this project, the
study implemented other methods to minimize researcher’s bias, including initial in vivo-coding
and integrating a “thick description” (Geertz in Bryman, 2012, p. 392) in the video transcription,
including voice tone, gestures, video setting and other elements.
Results
The women in the AIN are placed on different points of the political spectrum, but they all
explicitly identify as anti-feminist (Chen, 2016; Hargraves, 2016; Lokteff, 2018b; Owens, 2017b;
Pettibone, 2018a; Southern, 2017a; White, 2015). They conform to Bacchetta and Power’s
(2002) “essentialist-differentialist-complementary” conceptualization of gender norms and roles,
referring to gender as being mainly determined by nature rather than socialization, so that men
and women possess innate qualities that are the basis for their gender roles. In particular,
motherhood is presented both as a pathway to personal happiness and as something that
women should be celebrated for in society. The institutions of the heteronormative marriage and
family are also described as morally, socially and personally desirable. These traditional Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 18
understandings are often framed as best for women’s happiness (Chen, 2016, 2017b;
Hargraves 2017a, 2017b, 2018a; Pettibone, 2018b; Southern 2017a, 2017d) and naturalized
through notions of evolutionary psychology (Hargraves 2018b, 2018c; Pettibone 2018a, 2018c;
Southern, 2017a; 2017b; White 2016b). Women are characterized as inherently more nurturing
and caring, but also as emotional beings who cannot handle power (Lokteff, 2018a) and should
embrace their innate femininity instead of “usurping” the male role (Hargraves, 2016; Pettibone
2018a). For example, Hargraves (2018b) explains:
One of the greatest problems with egalitarianism is that it presupposes that traits in men
and women have evolved identically. But it wasn’t until the last 60 years or so that
female roles have changed drastically. It is statistically impossible that men and women
have arrived at identical places along their evolutionary lines.
Similar evolutionary psychology claims are cited to dispense relationship advice. For instance,
in a video collaboration between Southern and Pettibone (Southern, 2017b), the two discourage
young women from “trading up” to men of higher status or looks and instead quickly settle with a
partner.
If you… uh… trade up all throughout your 20s, and you hit 30 and you're still trying to
trade up, and then 35 and you're still trying to trade up, you're going to find that… these
guys aren't wanting 35 year old women who have been around the carousel.
Besides making a direct reference to female hypergamy, this statement serves to legitimize the
idea that men are naturally attracted to younger women because of their fertility and chastity,
hence girls need to get married at an early age and not engage in sexual intercourse before the
nuptials. These ideas, known as Sexual Market Value (Dayter & Rüdiger, 2018; Ging, 2017),
are reiterated and expanded in Southern’s (2017a) “What every girl needs to hear” video, where
she explains how:
A man’s wealth is measured in accomplishments, strength and resources and men are
born ignorant, weak and destitute. A woman’s wealth is measured in youth, fertility and Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 19
chastity and women are born young, fertile and chaste. A man can accumulate wealth
and power overtime, but a woman cannot become younger or more chaste.
To support these claims, she mentions a series of statistics that upon closer inspection relate to
misguided interpretations relayed by partisan blogs. This selective skepticism towards scientific
notions is present throughout the videos: on the one hand, high levels of scrutiny are applied to
legitimate scientific reports and news outlets (Hargraves 2018b; Southern, 2017c). On the other,
while the information presented to support conservative claims often invokes scientific
language, it is more of a composite of opinions, anecdotal evidence and common sense
statements presented as facts (Owens, 2017b; Pettibone 2018a, 2018b; White 2016a, 2016b),
statistics without a clear reference (Lokteff, 2018a), and legitimate scientific findings that either
contradict or do not prove the point made by the YouTuber (Hargraves 2018b, 2018c; Lokteff,
2018a).
In videos that do not explicitly draw on evolutionary psychology, a systematic validation
of men’s needs and experiences over women’s is evident, together with discourses presenting
men as the real victims in society, especially in terms of sexual assault (Pettibone 2018c; White
2017), domestic violence (White, 2015), and divorce proceedings (Hargraves, 2018a, 2018b;
Pettibone, 2017; Southern, 2017a). In parallel, women are portrayed as having advantages in
education (Hargraves, 2018a, 2018b), child custody and divorce (Pettibone, 2017). More
specifically, in a striking subversion of the feminist anti-rape agenda, Pettibone describes
women as “being believed at face value” (Pettibone, 2018c) when retelling their stories of sexual
assault, while men suffer the judgement of public opinion without being convicted in a court of
law. Furthermore, White (2017) decides to talk about this issue in a very intimate manner by
sharing her own personal story of sexual abuse in a video. After addressing other life lessons
she learned from the experience, she describes how she “actively fought against developing
any sort of prejudice against men, despite being violated in such an animalistic way by a man”,
thereby framing sexual violence as a personal rather than a systemic problem. She continues: Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 20
Probably the most important thing I learned is that victimhood is a choice (...). Telling
yourself that you're not going to let a traumatic event, or something that's bad that's
happened to you hold you back in life and that you're not gonna carry around that
baggage like a concrete brick on your back forever, is really powerful.
A strong rhetoric of personal responsibility and self-improvement is also a common thread
present throughout the sample (Chen 2017a, 2019; Owens, 2017b; Pettibone, 2017a, 2017b;
Southern, 2017a, 2017b, 2017d; White, 2016, 2017). However, these narratives are by and
large directed towards increasing desirability for future partners rather than to empower women
in a general sense.
Surprisingly, the most discussed topic across the network is beauty, which is mentioned
in 20 out of the 30 videos analyzed. More specifically, body weight and the body positivity
movement are extensively discussed. All of the women in the AIN present in very feminine
ways, as evidenced by their narratives, their appearance and their graphic identities (figure 1),
but Lauren Chen addresses ideals of beauty more than any other YouTuber, namely in all four
of the videos sampled. Despite claiming that beauty should not be valued over character and
presenting her opposition to the body positive movement on the grounds of health concerns,
similarly to White (2016a), Chen recurrently evokes images of women that conform to ideals of
Western beauty in a positive way, while depicting other bodies negatively. In her video
“Feminism Hates Femininity”, Chen (2017b) discusses how feminism is trying to dismantle
gender by turning women into men and attacking masculinity (also in Hargraves, 2016, 2018a,
2018b; Pettibone, 2018a). However, as evidence of this attack, she does not address
personality qualities, but rather shows a series of images depicting black and plus-sized women
in bikinis, as well as gender non-conforming individuals. Similarly, Lana Lokteff repeatedly
juxtaposes images of young, fair-skinned girls depicted in angelic ways, to dark-skinned bodies
characterized as over-sexual and aggressive. This aversion to women not conforming to
traditional Western beauty standards is also evident from depictions of feminists are as angry, Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 21
aggressive, overweight and overall undesirable. This image is evoked in very similar ways by
different YouTubers (figure 2), who often describe women supporting feminism as having blue
or shaved hair, piercings and tattoos (Chen 2016, 2019; Hargraves, 2017a, 2018a; White,
2016b).
Figure 1 Screenshots from the introduction sequences playing before selected videos
Figure 2 Images of Feminist women presented in the sample2
When it comes to formats, all videos besides a few exceptions (Chen, 2019; Lokteff
2018a, 2018b, 2018c) adopted a very informal tone, employing humor (Southern, 2017c, 2017d;
2 Images screenshotted from the videos. Their original source is unclear. Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 22
Owens, 2017a, 2017b, 2017c), as well as a homemade, amateurish filming style. As is the case
for other YouTubers, all women in the AIN depend on sustained audience engagement for their
livelihoods, so their social media accounts and ways to financially support their work are always
mentioned in their content. However, this monetization relationship is articulated differently from
other video-makers on the platform, as exemplified by Owens (2017a):
If you guys like these videos please consider donating to my Patreon.com account. As
you know YouTube is cracking down on conservative voices and we are unable to
monetize these videos. You guys can follow me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter at
Red Pill Black. Thank you guys so much for watching!
In this example, Owens is referring to YouTube’s decision to demonetize some political content
(Hess, 2017; Maza, 2017), which lead many commentators both on the right and on the left to
opt for alternative funding sources, including the crowdfunding platform Patreon and direct
donations on Paypal and through Bitcoin. However, in this case audience engagement is not
simply invoked to secure funding, but also to convey the idea that conservatives are being
persecuted for their thoughts. This characterization is repeated in various videos in the network,
presenting the AIN pundits in the study as individuals daring to tell the truth, and their
audiences, as brave enough to receive it (Hargraves, 2017a, 2017b, 2018a; Owens, 2017b;
Southern, 2017a, 2017b, 2017e; White, 2015, 2017).
Besides by two of the YouTubers, Red Pill ideology is not directly addressed by the
videos in the sample. The two notable exceptions refer to Owens, formerly known with the
screen name Red Pill Black, and Hargraves, who details her stance towards Red Pill ideology in
two videos. Firstly, in “My Red Pill Journey” (2017b), Hargraves explains how experiences in her
educational and professional career discouraged her from embracing feminism and the concept
of racial equality. Sharing intimate details from her past, Hargraves describes how corporate
and city life made her feel unfulfilled and miserable, bringing her to the realization that she was
being “indoctrinated” by society and that it was her responsibility to learn wifely duties in order to Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 23
have a family before it was too late (Hargraves, 2017b, 2018a). The other video, titled “How To
Redpill Women” (2017a), is a guide meant to be used by men to introduce women to the
ideology. Interestingly, she suggests that:
YouTube has been the most instrumental way for me, with minimal effort, to illuminate
truths to others that may be resistant. It takes the burden off of you to make the case and
provide something of an intermediary in case there's friction.
She then proceeds to recommend five channels that are “responsible for a lot of my [sic]
RedPilling”, four of which are also featured in the AIN. Even though most YouTubers do not
overtly mention Red Pill ideology, their discourses on evolutionary psychology, Sexual Market
Value and “trading up” make references to aspects of it. Southern, Lokteff and Hargraves all
openly refer to Western patriarchal society as a structure that gives women freedom, rights and
protection (Hargraves, 2018a, 2018c; Lokteff, 2018a, 2018b; Southern, 2017d), but the radical
views of the latter two particularly stand out. Hargraves takes the idea of female hypergamy to
the extreme in her “Do Women Secretly Want the Patriarchy?” video (2018c), where she argues
that feminism has allied with Islam because women, repulsed by their feminized Western male
companions, are unconsciously sexually attracted to strong men from patriarchal societies.
Connections between feminism and Islam are also made by Southern (2017e), White (2017)
and Lokteff (2018a) to distinguish Western society from “true” rape cultures in the Middle East
and elsewhere in the world. Finally, Lokteff directly talks about the idea of “White Genocide” in
two videos. In the first one, called “Why interracial relations are pushed on Western women”
(2018c), she argues that the media, leftist governments and feminists are encouraging a
process of erasure of “unique European traits”, considered most desirable by the rest of the
world.
Well between the promotion of interracial relationships, mixed-race babies, open
borders, promoting non-white as most beautiful and exotic and white pride as wicked Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 24
(...), the sinister agenda is obvious. Destroy European people and replace them with the
new Europeans!
In the other (2018b), she describes how open border policies in Europe have generated a rape
epidemic that is being covered up by European governments willing to “sacrificing them [white
women] to the altar of multiculturalism”.
Overall, even though most channels do not contain white supremacist rhetoric, the idea
of a mediatic, educational, political and social effort to indoctrinate people and push feminist,
“Marxist”, and “globalist” agendas, is widespread across all channels (Chen, 2017a; Hargraves
2017b, 2018a; Lokteff 2018a, 2018c; Owens, 2017a, 2017b, 2017c; Southern, 2017a, 2017c;
White 2015).
Discussion and conclusion
The perspectives articulated by the women in the AIN are varied, but the the common
thread that ties them together is their presentation of feminism as a hateful ideology that attacks
both feminine women and masculine men in an effort to abolish gender. In particular, male
identity is presented as under threat, deserving compassion, respect and restoration to a lost
social position. This rehabilitation of hegemonic masculinity is articulated in three core
discourses.
Firstly, all channels emphasized physical appearance in their narratives, elevating
women conforming to standards of Western beauty and associating negative commentary to
non-white, non gender-conforming and plus size bodies. Moreover, a fairly coherent depiction of
feminist women as aggressive, mannish and unattractive was identified. Ingrained in Western
culture by sheer repetition, the trope of the angry feminist (Tomlinson, 2010) frames women
making demands against the status quo as aggressive, intolerant and undesirable in order to
invalidate their voices even before they are heard. In the meantime, the power structures behind
the origins of the trope are never acknowledged. Similarly, the concept of misandry, or hate of Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 25
men, (Marwick & Caplan, 2018) is used by men’s rights circles online and offline to discredit
feminism as a inherently intolerant project. Specifically, by equating feminism to misandry and
misandry to misogyny, these groups are able to reverse progressive discourses of oppression
and claim victimized status. As a result, women who “do not hate” men are pitted against
feminists and encouraged to disavow the movement altogether. Of course, this is a false
equivalence, since the feminist project does not advocate for violence against men, as opposed
to the vitriol present in many of the groups where these discourses are articulated (Jane, 2018;
Massanari, 2017). However, the AIN women repeat this idea both in visual and discursive
terms, pointing to its effectiveness in supporting the core objectives of the anti-feminist
movement: sustaining hierarchical and binary gender systems while discrediting gender equality
politics.
In parallel, both Postfeminist and Backlash narratives were reflected in the videos. More
specifically, AIN women keep on referring to an idealized period situated between the First and
Third wave of feminism, where some of women’s rights were realized in society but motherhood
and the figure of the domestic woman were still glorified. However, instead of criticizing the
structures of neoliberal capitalism that prevent women from having both a public and private life,
these issues are internalized and interpreted as personal struggles following postfeminist logics
(McRobbie, 2009). As a result, the women in the AIN rely heavily on narratives of self-
betterment and personal responsibility to respond to the challenges of modern life, such as
finding long term companionship and having a family. Much like what was suggested by the
self-help guides theorized in Backlash (Faludi, 1992), they believe that the only way women
have to overcome these adversities is to make “traditionalist” choices, ranging from dating as
few men as possible and improving oneself for future partners (Pettibone, 2018b; Southern,
2017b) to becoming submissive and providing value to men (Hargraves, 2018a). Drawing on
Mulinari and Niegaard’s (2017) research on extremist groups in Sweden, a key question
emerges in this context: why do women participate in movements that at best oppose their Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 26
freedoms and choices on some level, and at worst are organized around a simmering core of
misogyny? Their analysis describes how extremist women in Sweden find it difficult to create
their ideal life within the context of the country’s neoliberal transformations, because they
believe that modern society undermines their future as mothers and overvalues professional
careers they do not desire. This same narrative is echoed in many of the videos studied, and
attributed to feminist gains rather than socioeconomic transformations (Chen, 2016; 2017b;
Hargraves, 2017a, 2017b, 2018a; Pettibone, 2018a; Southern, 2017a, 2017b, 2017d). As
argued by the researchers, participating in the nationalistic discourse thus “creates new
opportunities for agency” (Mulinari & Niegaard, 2017, p. 17), decreasing feelings of
disempowerment and embedding Swedish conservative women within the social structures of
the far right. Analyzed through this lens, women’s participation in anti-feminist discourses can
help them not only cope with “postfeminist anxieties” (McRobbie, 2009), but also allow them to
cultivate a sense of alternative empowerment, also found in other studies on gender and the far
right (Blee, 1991; Dubslaff, 2017; Félix, 2017; Ylä-Anttila & Luhtakallio, 2017). This is especially
evident in videos where the YouTubers share life and relationship advice claimed to be in the
interest of the happiness and fulfillment of female audience members (Hargraves, 2017a,
2018a; Pettibone, 2018b; Southern, 2017a, 2017b, 2017d), but that in reality limits them to
domestic life and functions to reproduce patriarchal structures (Faludi, 1992).
Thirdly, despite finding few overt references to Red Pill ideology and White Genocide
(Ganesh, 2018), the paper identified discursive links between the channels of the AIN that
provide insights into how anti-feminist narratives are coupled with other agendas. Particularly
important is the conspiratorial depiction of the media, science, universities and other institutions
as sources of information pushing to indoctrinate women and society into feminist (Chen, 2016;
Hargraves, 2017a, 2018a, 2018c; Lokteff, 2018b; Pettibone, 2018a, 2018c; Southern, 2017a,
2017d; White, 2015), globalist (Hargraves 2017a, 2017b; Lokteff 2018a; Owens 2017c) and
Marxist (Southern, 2017a, 2017d; Hargraves, 2018b) ideologies. Even more troubling, these Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 27
allegedly manipulative influences are often lumped together to mean the same thing, a
discourse which Ganesh (2018) identifies as key to delegitimize the entire “leftist” egalitarianism
project and as a steppingstone into the belief of other “natural” inequalities, most notably among
races. In parallel, this paper finds that the YouTubers in the sample actively engage in what
Lewis (2018) calls “alternative credibility” (p. 16) mechanisms. Firstly, adopting the logic of
“commodification of intimacy” (Raun, 2018), the women in the AIN establish bonds of trust with
their audiences by presenting personal anecdotes, talking about their struggles and most
importantly sharing very intimate stories about their lives that rationalize some of their most
extremist political views (e.g., Hargraves, 2018a; White, 2017). In parallel, a selective
skepticism towards scientific evidence and established news sources is cultivated and applied
throughout the videos, whereby mainstream information is systemically critiqued and
undermined, whereas “alternative” information is cited without confirming its truthfulness.
Following Kelly’s (2017) argumentation on the role of alt-lite platforms orbiting the alt-
right, this paper suggests that whether or not the female YouTubers in the AIN fully embrace
Red Pill ideology, their discourses achieve two goals; firstly, they lend legitimacy to the idea that
male identity is under threat, either by internal enemies like feminists, or by Othered cultures
such as Muslim and immigrants - or by their combination. Secondly, by developing an
alternative sense of credibility within their followership, they generate a discursive space where
hard-won truths about the equality of the genders, and in some cases of the races, are once
again up for debate (Daniels, 2009). As such, the success of the most extreme versions of the
anti-feminist rhetoric articulated by the YouTubers in the study does not depend on traditional
concepts of recruitment, but on destabilizing their audience’s sense of truth in order to introduce
reactionary ideas into mainstream public spheres like YouTube (Kelly, 2018; Lyons, 2017;
Marwick & Lewis, 2017). As evidence of that, one can consider how radical speech such as
measuring women’s worth in terms of their Sexual Market Value (Southern, 2017b) is
repackaged as dating advice distributed by relatable and familiar female faces. Besides these Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 28
more indirect forms of persuasion, as exemplified by Hargraves (2017a) in “How to Redpill
Women”, this paper finds evidence that YouTube in general, and other channels of the AIN in
particular, are being used as tools of right-wing radicalization against feminism.
Before drawing this study’s conclusions, some of its limitations must be discussed.
Firstly, as previously addressed, Lewis’ framework (2018) presents many flaws, including its
temporal nature and the fact that it was not created to map anti-feminism. However, because
research on the YouTube Right is so scarce, it was still considered the best way to approach
sampling. A few tools for academic research on YouTube have been developed (Rieder, 2015),
but this paper advocates for a more robust and political communication oriented methodology to
be established in order to better understand how ideologies circulate on the platform. In
particular, future studies should focus on YouTube’s recommendation algorithm and its impacts
on suggesting extremist content. Secondly, due to resource constraints, the choice was made
early in the research design to focus solely on anti-feminist discourses produced by women in
the AIN. In the future, research should examine Red Pill ideology on YouTube on a macro-level
using quantitative methods, as well as address similarities and differences between the genders
in reproducing these discourses, and possible strands of the movement outside the Anglophone
world. Despite its limitations, the study successfully demonstrated how women on YouTube
participate in digitally native forms of anti-feminism, while still negotiating narratives
conceptualized in the past. Moreover, some of its findings help elucidate the mechanisms that
enable the circulation of extremist content on the platform.
After examining 30 videos published by seven anti-feminist channels, this paper
concludes that YouTube’s potential for radicalization cannot be underestimated. Some of the
videos included in the study contain extremely toxic and hateful rhetoric, and have accumulated
hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of views, reaching levels of circulations for far-right
messages that would have been unthinkable before the advent of home broadcasting.
Moreover, both Lauren Southern and Brittany Pettibone have been barred from entry into the Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 29
UK due to their Islamophobic rhetoric (Hosenball, 2018) and Candace Owens was recently
mentioned by the Christchurch attacker as one of his principal sources of radicalization
(Feldman, 2019). Despite this, YouTube does not believe their speech infringes its guidelines
and still allows them to post videos on the platform under the only penalty of demonetization. In
light of recent examples of right-wing terrorism powered by hateful propaganda partially
distributed through the website, such as Christchurch (Feldman, 2019), Pizzagate (Robb, 2017;
Hernandez, 2019), and smaller incidents (Mettler, 2019), this paper closes with the suggestion
that the dissemination of extreme right materials on YouTube deserves urgent scholarly
attention.
Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 30
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Appendix A. List of all videos analyzed3 Legend:
View count above 2 Million View count above 1 Million View count above 500.000
1. Chen, Lauren (formerly Roaming Millennial)
N. Title Date Duration View count Likes Dislikes Comments Name in ref. 1a Why I'm Not A Feminist | Women 2016-12-13 6M12S 367.680 21.692 2.401 5.887 Chen, 2016 Against Feminism 1b Body Positivity: Please Tell Me I'm 2017-03-16 7M28S 961.815 44.938 3.137 7.960 Chen, 2017a Pretty! 1c Feminism Hates Femininity | Makeup, 2017-07-04 7M35S 341.866 18.820 668 3.222 Chen, 2017b Motherhood & More 1d Dating "UGLY" | Men vs. Women 2019-02-07 14M11S 745.086 25.310 5.230 13.533 Chen, 2019
2. Hargraves, Rebecca (Blonde in the Belly of the Beast)
N. Title Date Duration View count Likes Dislikes Comments Name in ref. 2a Feminism is for Idiots and Uglies 2016-03-12 7M14S 228.355 12.145 654 2.692 Hargraves, 2016
3 Compiled using the YouTube Data Tools – Video Info and Comments instrument (Rieder, 2015). Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 45
2b How To Redpill Women 2017-05-10 7M48S 140.922 6.641 491 1.367 Hargraves, 2017a 2c My Red Pill Journey 2017-08-12 10M29S 310.437 12.217 694 2.515 Hargraves, 2017b 2d How Women Can Provide Value Again 2018-01-14 15M21S 170.781 10.569 1.045 3.649 Hargraves, 2018a 2e Butch Broads and Soy Boys: What 2018-05-15 15M52S 261.619 13.262 771 4.517 Hargraves, Happened to Millennials? 2018b 2f Do Women Secretly Love the 2018-06-09 11M5S 138.327 9.725 349 3.171 Hargraves, Patriarchy? 2018c 2g Female Entitlement Pt. 2: Alexandria 2019-03-01 18M36S 230.956 1.3871 404 3.714 Hargraves, Ocasio-Cortez 2019
3. Lokteff, Lana (Red Ice TV)
N. Title Date Duration View count Likes Dislikes Comments Name in ref. 3a Oprah #MeToo #TimesUp Movement 2018-01-14 19M48S 346.124 17.691 682 6.752 Lokteff, 2018a Ignores "Migrant" Gang Rapists Who Walk Free 3b Intersectional Feminism Wages War On 2018-02-03 16M16S 455.833 21.374 1.194 9.454 Lokteff, 2018b White Women Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 46
1 3c Why Interracial Relationships Are 2018-06-10 11M26S 567.000 n.d. n.d. n.d. Lokteff, 2018c Pushed On White Women4
4. Owens, Candace (formerly Red Pill Black)5
N. Title Date Duration View count Likes Dislikes Comments Name in ref. 4a Dear Celebrities: Nobody Cares What 2017-09-08 3M59S 931.902 93.350 1.947 0 Owens, 2017a You Think!!! 4b Nobody Likes Feminism: that's what 2017-09-20 4M18S 417.835 36.273 712 0 Owens, 2017b happened, Hillary 4c Harvey Weinstein, Eminem, and why the 2017-10-14 5M37S 484.996 44.544 1.896 0 Owens, 2017c left can't stop losing
5. Pettibone, Brittany
N. Title Date Duration View count Likes Dislikes Comments Name in ref. 5a Why People Aren't Getting Married 2017-06-26 6M57S 214.659 7.729 503 4.991 Pettibone, Anymore 2017 5b Women Are Losing Their Femininity 2018-08-03 10M4S 237.654 13.263 1.427 6.231 Pettibone, 2018a 5c Why Is Dating Becoming So Difficult? 2018-08-10 12M57S 372.549 12.262 1.281 10.340 Pettibone, 2018b
4 Certain features of this video are restricted for its offensive content. As a result, the exact view count and the comments are not available. Once the link is opened, the screen shows: “The following content has been identified by the YouTube community as inappropriate or offensive to some audiences. I UNDERSTAND AND WISH TO PROCEED”. Measure introduced in September 2017 (Hamill, 2017).
5 All comments were disabled by the YouTube channel. Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 47
5d Why Many Men Are Hesitant To 2019-08-24 9M5S 289.548 13.947 615 8.376 Pettibone, Approach Women 2018c
6. Southern, Lauren
N. Title Date Duration View count Likes Dislikes Comments Name in ref. 6a What Every Girl Needs to Hear 2017-05-05 12M20S 1.232.046 54.357 9.962 21.335 Southern, 2017a 6b The Consequences of "Trading Up" 2017-07-13 16M31S 1.278.734 34.710 3.238 184.75 Southern, 2017b 6c According to "Science" 2017-09-13 7M41S 2.936.482 97.571 12.110 16.897 Southern, 2017c 6d Why I'm Not Married 2017-11-23 5M56S 1.589.413 46.549 5.649 23.029 Southern, 2017d 6e Asking Feminists: Women's Rights or 2017-11-29 5M49S 1.392.950 53.055 6.697 26.530 Southern, Islam? 2017e
7. White, Blaire
N. Title Date Duration View count Likes Dislikes Comments Name in ref. 7a Male Victims Are Funny? 2015-12-11 8M23S 1.014.678 36.007 1.691 12.580 White, 2015
7b Fat Acceptance Is Stupid 2016-09-16 5M50S 1.245.467 53.286 8.367 11.982 White, 2016a
7c There Are Only 2 Genders 2016-10-31 7M13S 1.582.402 87.955 18.371 26.321 White, 2016b
7d I Was Raped: What I Learned 2017-10-01 6M51S 656.767 31.580 1.249 5.102 White, 2017 Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 48
B. Simplified diagram of the principal codes and their relations based on number of co-mentioned codes (under “other groups” in appendix C).
Anti-feminism Conservative Regressive Gender roles Gender roles and norms and norms
Epistemic conflict
RQ RQ
Red Pill White Redefining supremacy victimhood
Audience Relationship
Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 49
C. List of all axial codes nested by principal code6
Antifeminism Code Count Other Groups #MeToo/ feminism went too far 19 Anti-feminist identity 8 Egalitarianism is a myth Female Gender roles and norms – regressive 5 Red Pill Equality achieved in West 9 Feminism attacks who opposes it/ is hateful 10 Re-defining victimhood Feminism not about equality but superiority 5 Feminism not about women but about destruction of white male White supremacy society 2 Red Pill Feminism wants equality of outcome instead of opportunity 1 Feminist/leftist policies/ideas incompatible with reality 8 Feminists are irrational, hysterical, aggressive, crazy 15 Re-defining victimhood Feminists are slow/stupid 10 Feminists are ugly, undesirable, will die alone 13 Regressive gender roles and norms Feminists assume they speak on behalf of everyone 3 Feminists are man-haters 7 Red Pill Feminists/ left/ millennials are entitled 7 Feminists/left are whiny, PC, overly-sensitive 18 Gauging reaction/ provocation 8 Left/ feminism hypocritical 30 Left/feminism has fake moral high ground 8 Left/feminism illogical 9 Modern feminism undermines/disrespects past feminism 7 The left/ feminism hates beauty 4 University/ education have leftist bias 6 Unruly women should/will be punished 4 Regressing gender roles and norms Victimhood is a choice 3 Re-defining victimhood
6 List exported from ATLAS.ti to excel and then simplified in word for presentation purposes. Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 50
Conservative gender roles and norms Code Count Other Groups Aversion to non-conformity 17 body positive movement encourages unhealthy lifestyle 9 Definition of femininity: innate/natural qualities for w 10 Empathy for (young) men + fathers 29 Re-defining victimhood Regressive gender roles and norms Empathy for women 1 Fat acceptance wants to redefine beauty standards 4 Feminism forces women against own nature 6 Feminism ruins gender relations/ families/ marriage/ traditional 17 dating Feminism turns women into men 11 Feminism: every man is a sexual predator 5 Feminists are ugly, undesirable, will die alone 13 Anti-feminism Few women are exception 7 Gatekeeping: desirable and undesirable bodies 16 Gatekeeping: true vs false sexual assault 8 Gender not social but biological - traditional roles are natural 17 Heterosexual marriage/ family = pillar of society 8 Men are emotionally and physically strong 1 Men trying to please women 1 Men's value: status, money, power. Goal: increase, climb social 5 hierarchy Motherhood is more important that work 5 Motherhood not celebrated anymore 12 Narrow definition of beauty according to male desire 14 Power + competition belong to men 3 Pride in traditional roles because hard work 8 Single mothers bad for children 5 The left hates beauty 4 Anti-feminism Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 51
Validating men's experiences/ needs/ achievements over women's 23
Western society undervalues emotions, femininity, overvalues 14 strength White women: pure, angelic 13 White supremacy Women = cultural value transmitters 3 Women care about beauty 7 Women don't have to be feminine 1 Women happier when conforming to traditional gender roles + 20 norms Women: responsibility, self-betterment, hard work 31 worthiness and beauty not linked 1
Epistemic conflict Code Count Other Groups Anecdotal evidence as proof 11 Conservative source 6 Conspiracy/cover up 34 Disputed study 1 Fact, science, statistics that are incorrect/ false 7 Correct facts, science, statistics 15 Facts, science, statistics that do not prove/ contradict point made 16
Facts/ science/ statistics with unclear source or that cannot be 13 verified Generalities/ common sense to understand each other 10 Invoking scientific language for non-scientific statements 14 Leftist/feminists facts break apart upon investigation 9 Logical Fallacies 13 Media has leftist bias/ pushes leftist agenda 13 Opinion as fact 24 science pushes leftist agenda 13 Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 52
selective skepticism of facts/science 4 Using members of community to justify discourse 8
Regressive gender roles and norms Code Count Other Groups Demonization of single mothers 4 egalitarinism is a myth 5 Anti-feminism Empathy for (young) men + fathers 29 Re-defining victimhood Conservative gender roles and norms Family, relations incompatible with non-subordination 5 freedom/options/choice detrimental to happiness 6 Men/fathers need to enforce traditional gender roles 10 Millennials have allowed feminism to strip them of masculinity 6 Modern girls squander wealth = fertility + virginity 4 Mothers should make daughters marriageable 2 Projecting own self-loathing onto women 1 Promiscuity, age, weight makes women undesirable - sexual market 24 Red Pill value Self-imporvement = what men want/need 10 Single mothers enforce egalitarianism or female superiority 3 RedPill University is bad for women 4 Unruly women should/will be punished 3 Anti-feminism Woman's intrisic value: beauty, behaviour, womb 6 Women = temptation 1 Women are emotionally and physically weak 15 Women are liabilities 7 Women cannot handle power/ work 9 Women lack self-awareness to understand own will 12 Women lie (about rape) 12 Red Pill Women must adopt natural gender roles 6 women owning/ displaying their sexuality don't deserve love/respect 1
Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 53
Women sleep with men for power/status/jobs 1 Women taught erroneusly told they can do anything 4 Women want to be protected 2 Women/wives = possessions 3 Red Pill Women's role is submission to men, providing value to men 12 Women's work not as good as men 3 Egalitarianism is a myth Antifeminism 5 Red Pill
Red Pill Code Count Other Groups #Metoo actually about black and Jewish men 6 White supremacy Alliance between feminism and Muslims 11 Divorce/ system/ society unfair to men 14 Red Pilll Female hypergamy 17 Feminists/ women biting hand of those who fed them (white 7 White supremacy ancestors) Free thinker, truth seeker (brave) 22 liberalism and feminism have indoctrinated society/women 16 Men's sexual market value increases 2 Promiscuity, age, weight makes women undesirable - sexual market 24 Regressive gender roles and norms value Protecting male ego 5 Re-defining victimhood Rape culture not in West but in MENA 8 White supremacy Reactionary rebellion/ pushback 7 Red Pill 24 The future is the past 2 Truth hurts/ is ugly 15 Truth is on our side 10 Truth teller 17 Western civilization/men (=white) have given women everything, not 14 White supremacy feminism Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 54
white men don't rape (black women) 7 White supremacy white people: real victims of discrimination vs. blm: fake victims 33 Re-defining victimhood White supremacy Women as sexual, racial gatekeepers + cultural transmitters 4 White supremacy Women use beta men, have sex with alpha men 39
Egalitarianism is a myth Female Gender roles and norms – regressive 5 Antifeminism Feminists are man-haters 7 Antifeminism
Re-defining victimhood Code Count Other Groups Alternative social media vs. persecution/ censorship 4 Relationship with audience Conservatives ostracized/ insulted/ persecuted for their beliefs 26 Divorce/ system/ society unfair to men 14 Red Pilll Donations 48 Relationship with audience Empathy for (young) men + fathers 29 Conservative gender roles and norms Regressive gender roles and norms Females advantaged by society/ school 6 Framing mainstream issues as under attack 5 Left/SJW/Feminists love to be victims 5 minorities/ otherized groups actually have advantages/ privileges 9 Otherized group should live lives quietly 1
Otherized groups using white feminists to dismantle Western world 4 White supremacy Otherized man: hypersexual, aggressive, dangerous 15 White supremacy
Otherized women either hypersexual and aggressive or victimized 7 White supremacy by otherized men Protecting male ego 5 Reversing leftist/feminist discourse 38 Single mothers enforce egalitarianism or female superiority 3 Regressive gender roles and norms women believed at face value 10 Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 55
Victimhood is a choice 3 Antifeminism Feminism attacks who opposes it/ is hateful 10 Antifeminism Feminists are irrational, hysterical, aggressive, crazy 15 Antifeminism
Relationship with audience Code Count Other Groups #relatable 44 Actor of change for personal +/greater good 15 Advocating for traditionalism not just about biological duty 3 Alternative social media vs. persecution/ censorship 4 Re-defining victimhood Audience engagement 43 Backlash from audience 7 Being a hypocrite doesn't mean you are wrong 1 Donations 48 Re-defining victimhood Framing criticism 27 Normal is now abnormal 11 Personal story to explain political position 23 Plugging previous work 12 Plugging social media accounts 10 Professional 7
White Supremacy Code Count Other Groups #Metoo actually about black and Jewish men 6 Red Pill
European traits are unique, envied by rest of world, must be 10 protected Existance of Europeans depends on reproduction of white race 7 Feminists/ women biting hand of those who fed them (white 7 Red Pill ancestors) Great Replacement/ white genocide 11 Women RedPilling Women: Anti-feminist Radicalization on YouTube 56
Idealized homeland 4 Internet/millennial jargon 6 Interracial babies threaten preservation of unique white traits 5 Interracial relations fake + unsuccessful 4 Jewish people are not white 1 Jewish people run Holywood 1 Left promoting + rewarding interracial babies/ couples to end racism 6 Migrant invasion caused rape epidemic 8 Other races have options to preserve racial purity 2 Otherized groups using white feminists to dismantle Western world 4 Re-defining victimhood Rape culture not in West (ME, Africa,...) 8 Red Pill Reference to other YouTubers 5 The left brings up race 11 West built by and for white people 4 Western civilization/men (=white) have given women everything, not 14 Red Pill feminism white men don't rape (black women) 7 Red Pill
white people: real victims of discrimination vs. blm: fake victims 33 Re-defining victimhood Red Pill White women: pure, angelic + sacrificial lamb 13 Conservative gender roles and norms Women as sexual, racial gatekeepers + cultural transmitters 4 Red Pill
Women as sexual, racial gatekeepers + cultural transmitters 4 Red Pill
Otherized man: hypersexual, aggressive, dangerous 15 Re-defining victimhood Otherized women either hypersexual and aggressive or victimized 7 Re-defining victimhood by otherized men