#HimToo and the networking of misogyny in the age of #MeToo

ABSTRACT

This article brings together a quantitative approach which seeks to map and understand actor centrality and connectivity in relation to Twitter using social network analysis, with a qualitative set of interdisciplinary concerns around media representations of men’s sexual violence against women. Our focus is #HimToo, a short-lived Twitter-backlash to #MeToo concentrated around the Brett Kavanaugh hearings and confirmation. We explore how #HimToo flourished and floundered across two key periods: the first related to the broadcast confirmation hearings; the second a backlash triggered by a Kavanaugh-supporting mom. With a dataset of over 277,000 Tweets, we argue that the first period shows an actor-centric conservative engagement which is dominated by female commentators, but displays a male orientation. The second period presents both a serious and satirical response to the first. Whilst there is a significant reorientation of both activity and actors in this second period, we identify persistent gendered and generational patterns which warrant a more cautious response from feminist critics. We thus connect our analysis to debates about social media connectedness, gendered patterns of social media ab/use, and the role of social media in a highly polarised political climate in the USA.

KEYWORDS:

• Twitter
• #HimToo
• #MeToo
• connectivity
• men’s violence against women

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We used the Standard Search API which allows free access to data for accredited researchers. Researchers who pay additional fees can access data going further back.

2. Deplorables is a reference to Hillary Clinton’s description of Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables” during the Presidential campaign.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Karen Boyle

Karen Boyle is Professor of Feminist Media Studies and Programme Director of Applied Gender Studies at the University of Strathclyde. Her research has long been concerned with questions of gender, violence and representation and her latest book - #MeToo, Weinstein and Feminism – will be published in 2019. Email: [email protected]

Chamil Rathnayake

Chamil Rathnayake is a lecturer in the School of Humanities at the University of Strathclyde. His current research focuses on social media affordances, issue-response networks, and cross-ideology exposure, with a special emphasis on the ways in which new media affordances restructure collective activity. E-mail: [email protected]