Reactionary dis/affect

Exploring the affective politicization in the manosphere

Bibliographic Data

ID24020646
AuthorsSilvia Díaz Fernández (0000-0002-9118-8090, Spanish Research Council (CSIC), corresponding author)
Year2026
Pages1-18
Publication date2026-08-05
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Gender Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0958-9236 • E-ISSN: 1465-3869
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09589236.2026.2713185
OpenAlexW7197018036
LanguageEN
References cited63

This article examines the affective politicization of the manosphere, focusing on how a discourse of dis/affect shapes its political imaginaries. This theory-building piece with ethnographic insight conceptualizes the manosphere as an affective space embedded in digital affect culture. Drawing on theories of disaffection as a politics of feeling, the article argues that manospheric actors appropriate and rearticulate the affective logic of disaffection through narratives of male grievance, dispossession and perceived victimization. Rather than challenging existing structures of power, this discourse reverses the political orientation of disaffection, mobilizing feelings of loss and resentment in ways that feed anti-feminist and reactionary imaginaries. It traces how a discourse of dis/affect circulates through digital interactions and media practices, mobilizing a constellation of subject positions: (1) the injured subject, (2) the dis/affected man and (3) the counter-revolutionary. Rather than unfolding as linear stages, these positions coexist and intersect, offering a repertoire through which participants navigate and articulate political belonging. By theorizing dis/affect as reactionary appropriation of a politics of feeling, the article shows how emotions shape political subjectivities, reinforce anti-feminist gender imaginaries and sustain the affective politics of the manosphere, offering new insights into the relationship between affect, digital publics and politicization online.

Affect (linguistics) · Appropriation · Feeling · Narrative · Politics · Precarity · Reactionary · Resentment · Temporality · Contemporary Cultural and Social Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism

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Open DOIOpen Access