The cultural code of antifeminist communication: Voicing opposition to the ‘Feminist Zeitgeist’

Abstract

The paper investigates the mechanisms of antifeminist communication norms, both on a theoretical and empirical level. Applying the concept of ‘cultural codes’ to the study of antifeminism we argue that statements denouncing feminism are often used as a signal to communicate a more general authoritarian worldview and an opposition towards ‘political correctness’. In the empirical part we present a factorial survey design applied to a German sample. This design is used to experimentally vary four situational characteristics which hypothetically influence whether individuals comply with antifeminist communication norms: (a) the gender of the speaker, (b) the topic of the conversation, (c) the personal attributes of the mentioned ‘feminist’, and (d) the type of sexism (benevolent vs hostile) articulated. The study shows that compliance with antifeminist communication norms increases if respective statements are voiced by women instead of men, especially if respondents report higher social status. Antifeminist norm compliance is also higher if men instead of women mention sexual harassment accusations of feminists. For left respondents, compliance increases if benevolent instead of hostile sexism is articulated. Intersituational person-related factors of antifeminist communication which we observed are: authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and distrust in public and political institutions.