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Paper short abstract

Drawing on digital ethnography of the Spanish-speaking manosphere, this paper analyzes women's constitutive role in validating and mainstreaming antifeminist discourse, and its challenge to feminisms.

Paper long abstract

Research on the manosphere has largely focused on male actors—influencers, men's communities, grievance discourses—treating female participation as peripheral or anomalous. This paper, based on ongoing digital ethnography of the Spanish-speaking manosphere conducted as part of a doctoral research project, proposes an analytical shift: women are not external to the manospheric assemblage, but constitutive of its functioning.

Fieldwork across platforms including TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram has revealed the significant presence of two types of female figures. First, women who explicitly identify as antifeminist and position themselves as "defenders of men," validating male grievance narratives. Second, women who claim earlier feminisms to invalidate what they call "radical feminism," characterized as punitive, anti-men, and destructive. Though differently positioned vis-à-vis feminism, both perform convergent work within the assemblage: they validate, mainstream, and contribute to the confusion surrounding gender discourse that adolescents navigate today.

Drawing on Barad's agential cuts and Berlant's cruel optimism, I analyze how these women produce specific distinctions that reconfigure the terms of debate while participating in the same cruel optimism the manosphere fosters: promising a restoration of gender order that benefits those who preach it while leaving followers vulnerable.

The paper concludes with a challenge to contemporary feminisms. If these voices resonate among adolescents who find no meaning in our narratives, this cannot be reduced to a misinformation problem. Following Puig de la Bellacasa's invitation to dissent-within, I propose these figures offer an opportunity to revise our own strategies—particularly those that have turned punitive or closed conversation with young men.