‘Fight pandemics with protective masks or gender?’ Emerging collective identities and anti-gender movements on Twitter during the COVID-19 crisis in Sweden

ABSTRACT

The focus of this article is the formation of collective identities and mobilization of grassroots anti-gender movement in Sweden in connection to the intensification of activities on Twitter during the initial period of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020. This loosely connected network understands itself as being outside of what is described as a dominant gender order in Sweden, where feminists, gender perspectives and work for LGBTQ-rights supposedly undermine the power of the state and its ability to protect the people during the pandemic. The network is also against Islam. The network does not necessarily have an ambition to come together and organize manifestations. Instead, an imagined collective identity has been formed through an interpellation of the state to implement the “core tasks” and not be governed by feminists. A political will is articulated, which threatens the centrality of equality and social justice for democracies. We found the performativity of digital technology to be of importance for how these network and identities come into being. Crisis periods produce a context of intensification of affects and emotions that, supposedly, have been there for a long time and mobilizes desire for an authoritarian state.

KEYWORDS:

• Collective identities
• anti-gender movement
• Twitter
• COVID-19
• Sweden

Introduction

We must hold the people in charge accountable, for they have neglected Sweden’s security, safety and crisis preparedness in favor of hand-hearts, gender stupidity, value nonsense, and other worthless shit in recent years.

This comment was published on Twitter on March 17, 2020, written in Swedish, by an account that either represents an actual person or just another fake account among the myriad fake accounts that spread populist anti-gender messages on social media. It was posted just after the danger of the coronavirus had been made clear in Sweden and reiterated the dichotomization between, on the one hand, work for gender equality and LGBTQ rights and, on the other hand, societal crisis preparedness. The comment was retweeted by a handful of Twitter members and liked by about ten other accounts. By itself, it might seem harmless and not worthy of attention, given that it had a rather limited impact and could not be said to be of any wide-ranging influence. Yet the apparent insignificance of a comment like this proves a point in its own right. The tweet is just a frozen moment and a rather random pick from the constant flow of anti-gender speech in these forums. We want to emphasize that there appears to be no center or source to be nailed down; rather, anti-gender speech in these forums expresses messiness, multiplicities, and erratic transformation and the numerous connections made on Twitter are far from predictable. We understand these tweets as part of a broader, ongoing, and transformative struggle about how gender, sexuality, and multiculturalism must be understood in a national and transnational context. This struggle in the digital space also includes participation from feminist, queer, trans,* and anti-racist movements (Aristea Fotopoulou 2016, Evelina Liliequist 2020, Fanny Pérez Aronsson 2020).

In order to understand the anti-gender movement, it is crucial to pay attention to the mobilization in social media among the grassroots who are not famous opinion makers. Through this mobilization, collective identities are produced and performed with performative effects through the reiteration of anti-gender comments and alarmism. Since we began to collect material from the digital space in 2018, we have learnt how anti-gender discourses in the Swedish context have been articulated and connected with ongoing constructions of crisis and notions regarding system collapse. We documented the trope that gender ideology infiltrates authorities and obstructs society’s ability to handle, for example, terrorism, wildfires, or migration. This trope also includes the notion of a dangerous multiculturalism, reiterating racist and Islamophobic discourses in which Islam and Muslims are understood as a threat against the nation and society (Arun Kundnani 2015). The anti-Islam and racists discourses in our material could itself be the subject of this article and even though we will come back to the relationship between anti-gender and anti-Islam expressions and connection, we decided to direct attention to anti-gender discourses. However, it is important to emphasize the interconnectedness of these different forms of anti-discourses.

When the pandemic hit, it was immediately articulated with rhetoric regarding the collapse of a system due to gender ideology. The sudden dramatic threat of the pandemic intensified the anger against authorities and gender ideology. The aim of this paper is to analyze a specific, time-limited case of anti-gender expressions, possible connections, mobilization, and the emergence of collective identities among the grassroots on Twitter in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. What sorts of ideas, practices, and political subjects are produced or come into being? What is the performativity of the technology? The context is the ongoing construction of the coronavirus pandemic in Sweden in spring 2020. Individual comments, like those we focus on, might be regarded as insignificant and we must not give these our attention and energy. Simultaneously, the flow and cacophony of comments like the one above add up to frustration, pushing people to disconnect and give up on social media altogether. Other users of Twitter are drawn in, connected, and recognize each other, identifying as those who can finally speak the truth. This is part of the performativity of social media. The recognition that becomes possible is, we argue, of crucial importance for this movement on the internet. The anti-gender movement, as we have seen it, produces a vision about a society where the struggle for gender equality and LGBTQ rights is abandoned. We argue that it is a highly undemocratic process that does not recognize the centrality of social rights and equality for a democracy (Wendy Brown 2019).

Transnational anti-gender mobilizations—the Swedish case

Sweden is an interesting case of the reiteration of transnational populist anti-gender mobilization, given that it is known for its progressive politics on gender and LGBTQ rights. A number of scholars have identified how conservative, ethnonationalist, and right-wing movements and political organizations mobilize against gender in a range of different national contexts (Giritli Nygren, Lena Martinsson Katarina and Diana Mulinari 2018; Roman Kuhar and David Paternotte 2017), such as Italy (Anna Lavizzari and Massivo Prearo 2019), Poland (Elzbieta Korolczuk and Agnieszca Graff 2018; Pawel Żuk and Żuk Piotr 2019), Bulgaria (Shaban Darakchi 2019), Hungary (Isabelle Engeli 2019; Weronika Grzebalska and Pető Andrea 2018), France (Jayson Harsin 2018), Croatia (Amir Hodžić and Aleksandar Štulhofer 2017), and Russia (Yuli Gradskova 2019). Gender ideology is the joint term that is particularly addressed around the world, although it may have different and local expressions (Kuhar et al. 2017). According to Korolczuk et al. (2018), the anti-gender movement marks a ‘transnational political mobilization—an alternative illiberal civil society—based on an alliance between religious fundamentalists and illiberal populists’ (Korolczuk et al. 2018, 798). Scholars have paid attention to how gender is used as a common target to unify and pull together mobilization across ideological divides. Weonika Grzebalska, Eszter Kovatz and Pető Andrea 2017 describe the anti-gender movement in terms of a “symbolic glue” in the formation of anti-modernist and nationalist projects. Some point out the central importance of social media in this movement. In reference to France and North America, Harsin (2018) argues that anti-gender rhetoric is born out of the click-economy of social media forums and alternative media, which effectively profit from the demonstration of aggression, rage, and bullying since these attract attention and become widespread. However, according to Harsin (2018), it also has to do with the political mobilization in a post-truth era by introducing a form of “emo-truth” where “someone is a truth-teller because they address supposedly–hot button topics, too controversial for more cowardly communicators to touch”. One of the questions that arises in relation to other studies is what kind of social movement is this and in what ways does it constitute collective and political will? The anti-gender network and movement transforms and articulates different discourses in different local and national contexts. We analyze the reiteration of this transnational movement in Sweden, a country usually called one of the most gender-equal and secular countries in the world, a description that has become part of the national identity (Lena Martinsson, Gabriel Griffin and Katarina Giritli Nygren 2016; Ylva Habel 2012).

In the Swedish context, “gender-ideology” is not mainly a threat against the Church. Instead, gender equality, gender studies, and gender ideology are said to be superstitious, threats against modernity, free speech, academic freedom, and security (Mathias Ericson 2018). Given that gender equality is part of the narrative of Swedish exceptionalism, mobilization against gender does not always disregard it altogether; rather, it makes a distinction between good and bad forms of gender equality. Sweden has not experienced the same forms of manifestations of anti-genderism as those in numerous other countries, such as big demonstrations or the violent attack on the American philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler in Brazil (Ingrid Cyfer 2018). Rather, the anti-gender mobilization takes place in the form of a trope in social media and political debates, and we emphasize the importance of the loose and contingent forms of collective identities established by the use of social media. We aim to investigate the assemblage of technology and politics. We understand this, what we preliminarily call movement, as part of a continuously ongoing political struggle regarding gender and its implications and practices.

Theoretical starting points

An important theoretical starting point for this article is that communities and collective identities constantly appear, grow, and expand as well as diminish and transform through performative reiterations and interruptions. Collective identities are built everywhere, online as well as offline (Judith Butler 2015; James Dennis 2019; Robert V. Kozinets 2015, 15); in this text, collective identities are not understood as a starting point, an essential identity that people share before mobilization (cf. Mario Diani 1992, 1). Collective identities and political notions of “we” and “them” are rather an ongoing result of far from predictable connections, performative practices, reiterations, recognitions and segmentations, as well as transformations (Butler 1993; Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe 1985). We use the concept of messiness in order to address this unpredictability of productive (dis)connections and frictions (Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing 2004; Martinsson 2018). Digital technology increases the proportion and intensity of connections in a manner that was not possible a decade ago. The digital technology is performative (Richard Baskerville et al. 2020). As Kozinets (2015) emphasizes, being able to connect is an authentic social power. This implies, among other things, that it is not only a matter of producing collective identity; it is also a power to transform the social fabric through connectedness (Kozinets 2015). When focusing on an authoritarian network that has been established worldwide, this material condition of making it possible to connect locally, nationally, and transnationally is of special importance. It is also possible to say that political discourses today are “algorithmically amplified” (Jessie Daniels 2018). The digital technology is certainly not the explanation for why transnational authoritarian movements exist,but is an entangled part of the movement’s existence (cf. ibid.; Nicholas Michelsen and Pablo de Orellana 2019; Sarah Pink, et al. 2016). It is one example of co-determination between technology and social movement, an intertwining of actants (Bruno Latour 2005; Kozinets 2015). This having been said, neither culture nor technology—if it is possible to to ever separate them—are predictable (Mia Liinason 2020). In order to understand this production of collective identities, we also address the politics of emotions, of performing feelings and being affected, such as expressing and engaging in discussions and aggressive debates and confrontations (Harsin 2018; Sara Ahmed 2004). The performance of emotions brings a political will into being and invites other people to join in and be recognized as sharing the same political will. Chantal Mouffe suggests that “a collective will cannot be constructed without some form of crystallization of common affect” (Chantal Mouffe 2018, 70). Our concept of crisis is in relation to this concept of common affect and notions of urgency. We understand crisis and feelings of urgency as constructions based on assumptions regarding normalcy or the normalcy we must strive for (Ahmed 2004; Mark Neocleous 2008). Crisis and urgency do not need to be sudden or out of the ordinary (Lauren Berlant 2011; Kathleen Tierney 2014). An excellent example is the climate crisis. Whether something must be recognized as a crisis is a discursive and political question (Laclau and Mouffe 1985). With the recognition of something as a crisis, feelings of urgency emerge, accompanied by open possibilities of political action that would otherwise not be possible (Naomi Klein 2007; Neocleous 2008; Tierney 2014). Feelings of urgency are pivotal to analyses of how a crisis is recognized and used for mobilizing political will. We argue that it is important to acknowledge a desire to be part of a “we” or a community that recognizes you and that is possible for you to identify with and feel passionate about, also in studies on anti-gender movements in social media (Mouffe 2018; Butler 2015).

Methodology and material

The material analyzed in this article is a limited selection of a broader collection. The background is that in 2018 we began collecting material on anti-gender activity from media such as editorials, YouTube videos, podcasts, Internet forums, think tanks, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. These forums are all interconnected, with YouTube clips referring to tweets and tweets referring to editorials, etc. We followed the term gender (genus) and how it was used to signify a very wide range of areas, including gender equality, LGBTQ rights, gender research, gender theory, feminism, feminist governments, feminist activism, and gender mainstreaming. When the COVID-19 pandemic reached Sweden in February–March 2020, we began focusing on the connection between discourses on anti-gender, the coronavirus pandemic, and Sweden, delimiting our analyses to a specific subject, time, and national context. In this article, we have selected to focus on this material from Twitter for a number of reasons. One is that Twitter offers special opportunities to obtain material on the wishes and hopes of finding and being in conversation with others, gaining recognition, and being able to try one’s ability to engage in debates with virtually anyone who might be interested. Often, it is possible that no one responds. The second reason, which also is ethically important, for us to focus on Twitter is that it offers open public material possible for any user to retweet in comparison with Facebook, where debates are most often developed in closed groups or among “friends” that you have accepted as your followers. However, we decided to anonymize non-public persons’ accounts. We bring their tweets into a new context, which they might not have been fully aware of earlier (cf. Kosinetz 2015). Our third reason is that Twitter, in comparison with internet forums such as Reddit or Flashback, uses more far from predictable connections and nonlinear forms of communication. There is a messiness in the manner that this community is established on Twitter that we found important to study. We, as those we have followed, have used computers and smartphones. To participate in Twitter has become an everyday practice for both of us authors. Because the smartphone is often accessible, it easily becomes part of one’s routine (Zeynep Tufecki 2017; cf. Coppélie Cocq and Thomas DuBois 2020).

Our ethnographic method has been to follow a hashtag or search for a special concept or sets of concepts; for example, gender, gender studies, gender mess (genusflum), gender equality (jämställdhet) and gender ideology. We were interested in how these concepts gave and obtained meaning through connections to different discourses, images, practices and materialities. We also followed tweeted links to YouTube films or podcasts that users produced or participated in. We conducted the analyses through detailed readings of the tweets and of the contexts in which they were published as well as of the rooms the linked YouTube films were produced. All the hits were important for us, not just the selected ones. A search on gender (genus) yielded approximately 10–20 tweets per day but showed slightly higher frequency on certain days. On the 16^th, 17^th, and 18^th of March, when the gender issue was targeted by an editorial in the newspaper Göterborgsposten and blogger Rebecca Weidmo Uvell, the number of tweets was between 40–50 per day. Most of the hits could be classified as critical of gender issues, while the positive or neutral use of the term gender is much less frequent. We also found that the words are used in tweets that direct critiques against authorities and the government and evoke alarmist notions of Sweden as being led astray and lost. It became evident to us that gender equality and the authorities were connected in a critical manner. In order to delimit our topic, in this article, we focus on the period from March 1 2020 to April 30, 2020, when there were numerous debates in relation to the coronavirus pandemic. We used three keywords: corona, gender, and authority. The language was required to be Swedish. Many of the critical voices had only a few followers and occasionally got a mere 1–5 likes. However, one of them had over 11,000 followers. Further, many of them followed each other and retweeted each other’s tweets. We also followed retweets and again delimited our focus to those who came back to corona, gender, and authority. The tweeters were connected in a loose web but, as we will come back to later, with the possibility of being recognized and identified with. The role of the internet for this sort of communication and creation of communities has been thoroughly studied in other types of activists’ communities (Cocq et al. 2020). We aim to emphasize that we have no ambition to map or represent the anti-gender movement in Sweden. Instead, we focus on constructions of meaning, possible connections, and the emergence of collective identities. We have attempted to remain close to ethnographic thinking and practices of using digital media in the ways available to any other user. The ethnographic approach implies that we are not only interested in what is said and written but also in the images and YouTube films that are popularized through Twitter and what they say regarding the emergence of communities and identifications on Twitter (cf. Kozinets 2015). The ethnographic approach also entails a specific means of writing and acknowledging specific ways of presenting the material in a manner that ascribes attention to being part of the context and a sense of being present in this community (John Van Maanen 1988). Moreover, this approach is a means of writing analyses that are open to and benefit from the impressionistic, contingent, and messy practices that produce a sense of community and belonging using social media platforms, like Twitter (cf. Wendy F. Hsu 2016). We also attempt to be humble observers, showing respect to the phenomenon that interests us, although we do not share the political viewpoint. Our vantage point has been to remain focused on how the mobilization works and assume the position of being curious rather than hostile (Tine Davids 2014). Together, we continuously discussed our emotions and worries, reread and occasionally reworked our analysis. We strive to describe what the participants do and how communities are produced in order to place performative aspects in the foreground rather than assuming that the community and belonging to it constitute the background (Ahmed 2004).

A technology that builds a network for you and creates belonging

Twitter was, of course, once programmed by a human being, by a programmer; however, it has become a rather performative app beyond any possible intention that the programmer could have had (cf. Tufcki 2017). It has become an app that creates networks, recognizes people, organizations, and businesses and both connects and disconnects them. The technology makes you recognizable to others as well as presents you to them. The technology becomes entangled in the process of creating a “them”, the others, belongings and disbelongings (Cocq et al. 2020; Kozinets 2015). This performative ability is important for us to address when we attempt to understand how collective identities are created (Hsu 2016). For example, we decided to follow the blogpost Ledarsidorna.se on Twitter. On Twitter, Ledarsidorna.se describes itself as “Independent Liberal Conservative. Always in opposition.” We had noticed this blog previously in our collection of anti-gender material and we now became aware that this blogpost also has a Twitter account: Ledarsidorna.se. In April 2020, Ledarsidorna.se was followed by 20,200 and themselves followed 3,603 accounts. When we noticed that it spread anti-gender texts on Twitter, we decided to push the follow button using Martinsson’s own Twitter account. The activity on this account is low, with very few posts, retweets, and comments. There is no self-presentation, only her name. However, she follows a few fellow researchers, NGOs, and feminists, and her twitter account has of course been used to follow numerous accounts of interest in this article. When we pressed the follow button, we were immediately presented with three new suggestions for possible persons or organizations to follow. All three suggestions were similar to Ledarsidorna.se and they were also connected to Martinsson’s interest in research, including a right-wing organization and a researcher who is known for their critique against the Muslim civil community. Martinsson’s network began expanding, thereby indicating to her that there were more like her who were interested in the same thing. Therefore, she and her interests became recognized. Of course, all information on Martinsson’s account was used to present this expanded network—all you needed to do is to press a button and you became a follower. Meanwhile, the app learns from the user and creates statistics. By using it, we also influence it to follow us more efficiently (Daniels 2018; Tufecki 2017). The technology and algorithms are one connecting source.

There are, of course, other important aspects of connectivity, such as the self-presentation that users are asked to provide when setting up their account. These self-presentations are, we argue, important to study in order to understand how connections and collective identities are produced on Twitter. The images used by the accounts that we have followed are anonymous in most cases, although some use images that portray a person’s face, while others use images that are representative texts or symbols. In the text that presents the user, symbols are also added to the name of the account. One of the common symbols is the Swedish flag. Even if the rhetoric is nationalist and anti-global, there are numerous transnational connections; for example, occasionally, the Swedish flag is combined with the Israeli flag to indicate support for Israel and being against anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Some have also added the American flag and the Polish flag as well as flags of other Nordic countries. What we see is an ambition to signal that this is a transnational movement based on a shared collective will and in a combination of libertarianism, conservative Christian values, nationalism, and whiteness (Daniels 2018; Korolczuk et al. 2018). These transnational connections do not contradict that the users are concerned with the protection of Nordic nations. Equivalent to the expressions of an imagined transnational white, conservative Christian, or secular “we”, others are excluded in an effective manner (cf. Ahmed 2004; Talal Asad, et al. 2013; Linda Linda Berg, Mikela Lundahl and Lena Martinsson 2016). The Israeli flag is not used merely in support of Israel but rather in order to express anti-Islamic agendas. “Hate all evil that threatens humanity. Like cancer, Nazism, anti-Semitism and Islam.” Or “Democracy and freedom is the only really important thing. Hate socialism and Islam.” There are also short texts that express the direction of attention and the stances, such as being “honest”, “straightforward”, “critical”, “politically incorrect”, or “common sense rather than politically correct”. Expressions such as “Honest Swede” or “Pro free speech, against fascism in any way”, or “In the service of justice”, “Non-Politically Correct! Anti-Globalist, pro Trade!” are also examples when the users position themselves as speakers of truth and understand themselves as realists in contrast to others who are caught up in political correctness. There is also use of irony, assuming the position that would be suggested by one’s opponents, such as “Russian disinformation agent”, “On the right side of you”, or being “a radical extremist right wing specter that does not give a fuck about your interpretation claims”, or “I have opinions just like you and if you don’t agree with it, you’re probably right.” Some are eager to express toughness, such as positioning themselves as being part of the “go-to-hell-right” and adding a pointing finger. A recurring reference, of special importance for us, is constituted of expressions that position the individual themselves in conflict with the authorities and the government: “There must be a change of government in the country and the crazy migration and climate policy!” Often, this is also a critique that produces an imaginary of a degenerated and eroded society, such as “Grown tired of the decline of this country”, or “Conservative, Christian, married, father, full time worker and worried about the future!” or “Pragmatism, science, and Conservative values are the only thing that can save Sweden.”

The political content of the presentations tells the reader about the urgency of the current situation and the need for fighting political correctness. They present themselves as outsiders who no longer recognize the society they live in, as witnesses of a country in decline. Further, it is important to note that different discourses and hate speeches are connected to each other, such as hate against Islam, anti-Semitism, and socialism. They connect with some through creating disconnection from others. An example of this is from Andersson’s account. On March 28^th, he posted a YouTube film on Twitter that he presented in the following manner:

New video on my YouTube channel!

Fight pandemics with protective masks or gender?

Why do the government spend millions of tax money on fighting invisible power structures when we lack a contingency stockpile?

In this tweet, gender is understood as a bad and tainting word and is held responsible for the eroding society that is marked by degeneration (Darakchi 2019; Michelsen et al. 2019). Andersson presents himself as a “Liberal conservative student studying political science. Toxic male and happy to gender you. Former scaffold builder and professional soldier.” He is followed by 11,600 accounts; among these followers is an editorial writer in one of Sweden’s bigger newspapers, an anti-gender satirical artist, and Ledarsidorna.se. The self-description is antagonistic to the Swedish gender equality discourse, both with reference to the critique of masculinity and the struggle against stable gender categories with a new non-binary gender pronoun “hen”. Andersson clearly distinguishes himself from all this with his ironic presentation of himself as having a “toxic super masculinity”, positioning himself as belonging to a “we” who are resilient to all political correctness (Michelsen et al. 2019). Andersson, like many others we have followed, is not very specific in what he calls gender; rather, it is presented as a looming threat. He offers, through his self-presentation, a position that is possible to identify with and understand oneself from: a position of disidentification with gender-equality norms. Andersson’s tweet about the video was liked by 90 (17 April) and retweeted by 19, whose presentations of themselves share numerous similarities with Andersson’s self-presentation. These include “Retired teacher and researcher. Leaning more towards conservatism, that is, preserving the democratic rights that have been achieved. Vote MED 22. still has hcp 11.6 … ”, “Freedom of opinion, especially the commonsense tweets”, “Hope to soon experience a government that analyses reality before it makes a decision”, “A very ordinary Svensson” and “Democracy and freedom the only really important thing. Hate socialism and Islam. Believes that ‘multiculturalism’ and climate threats are extortion from globalist fascists”. Again, we encounter the understandings of socialism and Islam as un-democratic. Democracy is instead related to conservatism. What we particularly want to address here is how these Twitter users present themselves as alternative, as anti-establishment. They promise an alternative political consciousness that is easy for anyone to recognize. They become a “we”. We followed Andersson’s advice and looked up the video that he posted. The video displays how he speaks to those who understand themselves as ordinary people, or “the little guy” (Arlie R. Hochschild 2016, 52) who stands in opposition to the elite, beyond the establishment (Chantal Mouffe 2018). After a short explanation why it has been a long time since he made a video—which touches upon him becoming a father—he says that he does not want to talk about “corona”, he is too tired to talk about it; instead, he says, “I thought we would talk about the authorities and their non-existent emergency stocks” and then there is a cut to the next scene, which begins with him opening a can of beer (which we recognize as a regular beer, not the hipster type from the local brewery) and looks into the camera and says “Let’s begin.” Then, there is a clip again and an image of him standing with crossed arms, exposing muscular biceps in a red t-shirt with white text that says “Crush socialism” and a graphic image of a protester with a banner. After this clip, the video pans back to Andersson, who tells the audience that the Swedish Civil Contingency Agency had paid 10,000,000 Swedish kronor on gender research. This amount of money could have been used for protective masks instead, he claimed. The video is recorded in what appears to be a private setting or an ordinary Swedish living room. He is sitting at a table or a desk with his computer, and behind him there is a set of IKEA shelves with different sorts of glasses, neatly ordered, and a sofa. The walls of the room are white. A miniature of a Swedish flag is placed on the shelves close to a sort of diploma with a crown. The place/scene looks both consciously designed and very ordinary, giving an impression of authenticity and intimacy, inviting the viewer into Andersson’s home and living room. This setting stands out in contrast to videos from think tanks such as Axess or Smedjan (Timbro) are very often recorded in rooms or studios with a soft light, with books, art, wine etc. in the background. For example, when the anti-gender satirist Aron Flam presents his guest, he makes an artistic collage and places images of the guest in artistic paintings. In contrast, the more authentic and everyday setting of a private home in Andersson’s video communicates that he is one of the “ordinary people”. We suggest that Andersson’s video is, consciously or not, staged as an act of an anti-establishment setting and an alternative to the more highly profiled members of the anti-gender movement. In this living room, there is no fuss; it is authentic and a setting that a lot of people can easily be familiar with or for others to be disconnected from. Andersson’s approach to talk about a “we” who should speak up, his opening of a can of beer and the inviting gaze to the public, accompanied by his voice saying “Let’s start” also signal an interactive approach. The way of looking into the camera has a performative quality to it, in the sense of calling a “we” into existence and inviting the viewer to become part or find resemblance in and through the worldviews and shared sense of urgency to call attention to the disorder of society. It is also important to note the solitary man sitting at a table, positioning himself as one giving voice to a collective and, thus, becoming a leader figure who does the talking, fronting a group of people that he supposedly refers to and understands as like-minded. He is recognized by those he speaks to through likes, retweets and comments. Therefore, the technology provides a possibility not only for a collective political we but also for an individual political subject to emerge (Daniels 2018; Harsin 2018; Laclau et al. 1985). He can be heard where he sits alone and he is, of course, not the only one who sits alone like this. The video by Andersson might be an example of how these collectives are performed by a numerous of individuals’ solitary actions (Kozinets 2015). He participates in a flow of reiterations of the imagery of the lonely man, or the “little man”, against the world (Mattias Gardell, Heléne Lööw and Michael Dahlberg-Grundberg 2017).

Collective desire for a de-feminist state

The tweets are not only an ongoing construction of a “we” but also of the others. The “we” could be described as those who supposedly understand reality in the right way while the “others” are wrong. The “others” are the socialists, the Islamic religion, those who criticize Israel, or work for gender equality and LGBTQ rights, and the feminist government. While the feminists are just abjected, the state is both abjected and desired. The way society responds to the crisis are referred to as signifying that the state fails to do what it is supposed to do because it is infiltrated and governed by feminists and only cares about gender equality and invisible structures. We argue that this ongoing construction of a “we” and the “others” creates a political orientation or a political will (Laclau et al. 1985). The tweets direct the attention to the state and interpellate it to do what it is supposed to do, and by doing so, an imagined community of concerned citizens emerge, which deserves recognition. Meanwhile, gender is abjected and understood as both of marginal importance and dangerous. If we focus on one of the accounts, we can analyze the construction of “we” and “them” and the political orientation further. Svensson is one of the accounts we got in contact with when we did searches. On the March 30, Svensson wrote,

The big question is whether we will continue to spend billions on gender and core values in anticipation of the second wave of Corona? Or will the focus suddenly shift to build up the emergency stocks that have been slaughtered?!

The answer should be obvious, but who the f* knows in Absurdistan. (Twitter Svensson, March 30 2020)

This Twitter comment was (April 21) liked by 15 accounts and retweeted by 6 other accounts. When we follow the retweets, we end up finding other accounts, including a schoolteacher and local politician for the liberal party with 700 followers and a pensioner who declares that he believes in Darwin and evolution with 117 followers. But we also got in contact with three more anonymous accounts that do not bother to use an image or present themselves and that merely appear to retweet other people’s tweets. The question to the audience in the tweet reiterate a form of emotional identifier, constituting a “we” that are worried and feel as if society is being “slaughtered”. The question mark and the added exclamation mark are significant here, as they express that the concern deserves to be explicated and shouted out, as they should be obvious to anyone. The next sentence states that the answer must be obvious but that unfortunately this is not so, because there are others such as the billions-spending state, that do not understand. The desired state is here manifested in a form of present absence, a state that this imagined “we” cherish and long for in contrast to “Absurdistan”, we supposedly live in now. It is also important to note that merging of “Absurd” with “stan” is an articulation of racist and Islamophobic discourses. The tweet makes assumptions regarding the emotional and affective state of the reader. It mobilizes emotions that draw together and orient a “we”, speaking through the shared emotional state and hope of rebuilding what has been slaughtered. The sense of not being listened to, not expecting to gain recognition from the politically correct others, combined with the nostalgic hope for what has been lost, manifests a form of resentment as well as a political will (cf. Ahmed 2004; Harsin 2018; Mouffe 2018).

Svensson is an account that writes on Twitter daily and gets roughly only a handful of likes, often just one or two. Svensson also engages in discussions, making comments on tweets by more influential accounts, such as Ivar Arpi (15th April). The account continues to have a good number of followers—1,295 in April 2020. Svensson presents itself as “Conservative! Give ‘Likes’ to Tweets and not always the profile! Rigid understanding about just about everything (‘sarcasms’). For Sweden’s sake all left-liberal mess should be left at the garbage dump.” One of the followers of Svensson is Larsson, who also writes a lot of original tweets and engages in debates. Larsson wrote comments to Andersson on his tweet about the new video. On March 23, 2020, he shared the same link, as did many others, to one of the blogposts at Ledarsidorna.se, which claims that feminist governments are unable to handle the pandemic. Larsson writes, Read and ponder.

Unfortunately, political responsibility will never be demanded, as we live in the most gender-permeated country in the world where reality is considered unreal if it does not match our feminist government’s view.

Larsson interpellates a “we” who experience the world as strange and haunting. It is also a “we” that experiences being policed and surveyed by this false gender equality order. The “we” here stand against those who deny the true order of things. Andersson and Svensson reiterate the discourse of a reality that is not recognized by the government. In these reiterations, the others are the governing state and the feminists. When the government and feminists are connected, they appear to become a problematic and dangerous unit for political life. Part of Larsson’s activity on Twitter also includes writing comments to other influential tweeters and to politicians that he has no sympathy with. On the April 21, 2020, he wrote to Annica Strandhäll—who had just been elected to be the spokeswoman of the Social Democratic Party—on gender equality issues. Strandhäll has a clear feminist profile and is one of the most harassed Swedish politicians on Twitter:

I noticed that you are upset on Facebook that Hungary’s Orban is using its corona jurisdictions to prohibit gender correction to make it easier for healthcare to treat covid19 patients. Is this wrong, do you think, from your new position?

We claim that Larsson is being ironic and he gives Orban the right to exercise extended power. It is possible that he wrote this tweet to his followers and not to Strandhäll. Strandhäll becomes rather someone to joke and laugh together with the collective “we”. Svensson and Larsson are examples of the production and spreading of anti-gender rhetoric, claiming that gender equality takes up too much attention and money from real matters. In this sense, they not only mobilize an anti-gender and anti-state “we”. They also participate in the ongoing construction of gender and the state. The work for gender equality and LGBTQ rights is not only of marginal importance, but rather deepens the current crisis, endangering the lives of citizens and making the nation vulnerable and weak.

Another of Svensson’s followers is Karlsson, with 447 followers. On the April 10, this account shared a link to and commented on an article in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. The article is written by the Priest Stefan Nilsson, who criticizes those who “scream out groundless distrust” of the ability of Swedish authorities to handle the coronavirus pandemic. To follow law and order is said to be a “Swedish tradition”, as this is a well-informed criticism. This specific form of nationalistic rhetoric referring to the imagination of the rational Swede is countered by Karlsson, who claims that this “Swedish tradition” is no longer accurate, although it has been in the past, arguing that the authorities no longer deserve it since they are obsessed with “gender and equality”. Karlsson retweets the article and writes,

Little Priest. In which world do you live? The authorities are genuinely politicized and overpopulated by useful idiots who mainly tend to gender and equality tricks rather than carry on core business. Listen to the mongers around Damberg during press conferences. #svpol # clown world (written April 10, read by mif on April 16 2020 2 retweets, 5 likes)

Karlsson reduces Nilsson by calling him “Little Priest” and Nilsson is made into one of those others who are not participating in reality. There is a clear division between “we” who know and the unknowing authorities and public, including persons like the priest. Gender and equality are disregarded as something far from the so-called core business. The authorities are severely disliked in specific ways when connected to gender; therefore, it is not only gender and the work for gender equality that is called into question. What becomes evident in Karlsson’s tweet is that the work for gender and equality is understood as a pervasive conspiracy that damages and infiltrates or even fools the state and the population. Karlsson does not talk to the priest but to the followers, drawing a line between this “we” and the group who support the state. The same dichotomy and the same construction of the struggle for gender rights is described by the blogger and local politician in Medborgerlig Samling, a right-wing conservative party with a liberal understanding of the economy:

Finland sits well! They have millions of face protection in their emergency storage.

We in Sweden, on the other hand …

We have nothing like that …

… But we have got pussy hats, menstruation art, diversity plans, gender neutral toilets, camel farms, Islamist associations, and a sound recording of silence. (March 21; 2,100 likes).

What we find noteworthy in this tweet, as well as in most of the other tweets we have discussed, is how different forms of gender struggles and feminist expressions are repeatedly connected to the state and to the failures of the state and the authorities. In the last quote, even pussy hats are related to the failure of the state in responding to the pandemic. The dangerous gender conspiracy becomes a narrative that makes the work for gender equality into something that is not part of reality and, therefore, unnecessary. But this also becomes an all-too-real manifestation in the form of political correctness and silencing of critique. Gender becomes dangerous and makes certain people feel as if they live in a ghostlike society where the state is no longer able to do what they think it is supposed to do. The arguments and emotions create a political goal: to erase the struggle for gender equality and social rights for groups such as Muslims and LGBTQ persons.

Conclusions

In this paper, we analyzed a possible formation of collective identities and mobilization of grassroots anti-gender movements in Sweden, focusing on the specific case of the intensification of activities on Twitter during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020. More specifically, we identified a loose and undefined network where individual and collective political subjectivities and identities emerge. We also discussed how conservative, Christian, secular, white, anti-gender expressions and presentations are reiterated in this messy network and how a crystallization of common affect is performed by a practice of differentiating the participants from Islam, socialism, political correctness, authorities, and the state. The focal point is this notion of being outside of what is described as a dominant gender order in Sweden, where feminists and gender perspectives supposedly undermine the power of the state. The network does not have a defined ambition to truly come together and organize demonstrations and manifestations. Instead, we argue that an imagined collective identity has been formed on the internet. We found the performativity of Twitter of special importance here through its openness and the easy way to connect to others. It gives anyone a possibility of identifying with certain ideas and understandings and a good possibility of recognizing and being recognized by these ideas and by those who express them without any demand for meeting in real life, even without telling one’s name.

The dissatisfaction with the state is simultaneously an interpellation to this state, thereby making it important and desirable. The state must be devoted to what the persons in the network approve as the “core tasks”, defined in contrast to and threatened by feminization, weakness, and gender ideology. The interpellation of the state and the hate against feminists and work for gender equality as well as the hate against Muslims, is, we argue, an orientation, a collective political will that threatens the centrality of equality and social justice for democracies. In this material, it has become evident that the anti-gender political will is possible for anyone in the network to practice online or offline. It is also through reiterating this political will that the lonely activist becomes part of and recognized by a community.

Times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, produce a specific context of intensification of effects and emotions that, supposedly, have been in existence for a long time: dissatisfaction with what is understood as the hegemonic order in general and the gender order specifically. The COVID-19 pandemic becomes a mobilizing node that brings a political will into being. Social media becomes a space for speaking the truth and bestows the ability to secure free speech. Twitter users find support from and become the subjects of others committed to the same sense of critical clarity. We aimed to emphasize that digital media is not only used as a technology but also becomes an active part in bringing a collective will into being. Twitter is a political space in its own right and a transformative force of social and political struggles.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This article/chapter was written as part of the following two projects: “Transformations of Struggle. Research Cluster on Gender, Sexualities, Emergent Communities and Technocultural Assemblages”, supported by the Swedish Research Council. Ref.nr:Vetenskapsrådet 2018-03896 (Martinsson) and “Power and Norms in the Work with Achieving Direction and Collaboration During Crisis” funded by the Swedish Contingency Agency from 2017–2022 (Ericson).

Notes on contributors

Lena Martinsson

Lena Martinsson is professor in Gender Studies at University of Gothenburg. She is part of the program: Transformations of struggle. Research cluster on gender, sexualities, emergent communities and technocultural assemblages’ (Technact). Her research interests focus on transnational social movement (feminists, queer, worker’s right, and anti-gender movement) Among her recent publications are Pluralistic Struggles in Gender Sexuality and Coloniality (2021). ‘When Gender studies became a threatening religion”. European Journal of Women’s Studies (2020); Dreaming Global change doing local Feminism (2018).

Mathias Ericson

Mathias Ericson, Phd in Sociology and a researcher at Gender Studies at University of Gothenburg. He is part of the research project Power and Norms in the Work with Achieving Direction and Collaboration During Crisis. Among his recent publications is “Sweden has been naïve”: Nationalism, Protectionism and Securitisation in Response to the refugee crisis of Social Inclusion.