“The big bang of chaotic masculine disruption”: A critical narrative analysis of the radical masculinity movement’s counter-narrative strategies

The chapter problematizes the social scientific tendency to perceive counter-narratives as benign. It examines the recent phenomenon of online radical masculinity, or the manosphere, and considers how groups utilize counter-narratives to further their antifeminist ideology. The analysis focuses on a specific self-introductory text, “The Manosphere”, produced by an antifeminist movement called Men Going Their Own Way. The text manufactures a master narrative of feminism and offers at least three opposing antifeminist counter-narratives.

The chapter considers how the material at hand strategically employs intertextuality, hypotheticality, positioning, and counter-narratives to embrace a masterplot of resistance. “The Manosphere” seeks to recruit new members and asserts narrative control to address its audience and to silence opposing voices. The text makes visible how the master narrative is a construct created in relation to proposed counter-narratives. The manosphere’s use of counter-narratives challenges the theoretical discussion and demands the reorientation of our perspective on counter-narratives.