Paper short abstract:

Increased digitization has meant that gender inequities and misogynistic ideologies are being replicated in digital spaces and gained virality. This paper illustrates the challenges of researching online misogyny as a phenomenon that has transgressed the boundary of the physical and digital.

Paper long abstract:

In recent years, significant attention has been drawn to digital spaces where contestations around feminism, and traditional gender roles have occurred. Given that the infrastructure of our technologies is designed with inherent biases and inequities, it has an impact on how researchers and scholars may use technologies to successfully analyze and produce meaningful work.

Feminism is an issue that receives significant backlash in Bangladesh and is a major driver of conversations in public groups on Facebook often dressed in religious and nationalistic undertones for the preservation of state and society. In order to address and understand the nature of anti-feminist backlash, qualitative researchers conducted a research study from August 2021 - January 2022 to analyze the language of misogyny expressed in the form of reels, videos, memes, posts, and reshares from famous backlash enactors in the Bangladeshi manosphere.

In the context of the global south, where digital infrastructures are privy to an atmosphere of surveillance boiling down from public places to digital platforms in the form of strident censorship laws regulating content online, this is a key point of contention researchers must grapple with. The paper will explore the opportunities and challenges in deep diving into understanding anti-feminist backlash as a phenomenon which has crossed the boundaries of physical vs. digital. The researchers share their personal experiences, challenges, and ethical quandaries associated with conducting participant observation and interactions in social media spaces, alongside their understanding of how communities are formed and sustained in these online platforms.