The righteous outrage of post-truth anti-feminism: An analysis of TubeCrush and feminist research in and of public space

Abstract

Contemporary gender relations occur in a polarised environment characterised by popular feminism and networked misogyny. This context structures feminist researchers’ public engagement and exposes them to online hostility. Addressing a paucity of work on the affective dimensions of digital hostility, this article analyses 2400 comments made in The Daily Mail Online in response to feminist research on TubeCrush, a website featuring unsolicited images of men on the London underground. Our analysis shows feminists constructed as powerful but hypocritical; as discredited post-truth experts and, along with gay men and women in general, as being less knowledgeable or valid than white men. These discourses were united by an affective texture of an outrage that positions itself as righteous, undoing feminist knowledge and recuperating (white) male power. Identifying this as ‘righteous outrage’ offers important insights into the workings of contemporary anti-feminist sentiment where visibility is permitted so long as credibility is undone.