The Limitations of Hashtag Feminist Activism on South African Twitter: A Case Study of #MenAreTrash and #WomenAreTrash

Abstract

Social media has become a central arena for debates around feminism and gender in South Africa. One recent example can be found in the hashtag #MenAreTrash, which has been a trending topic multiple times on South African Twitter. However, despite the prevalence of gender-based violence in the country, these conversations have also come under strong criticism, especially from men. Existing literature on social media expressions of misogyny and anti-feminism has primarily focused on North American and European case studies. This article expands existing literature by analyzing men’s reactions to the #MenAreTrash hashtag and highlighting the role and backlash against feminism in South Africa. Based on a thematic analysis of 600 tweets, this article explores the discursive strategies employed by South African cisgender men on Twitter in response to the #MenAreTrash hashtag. Beyond some marginal yet relevant examples of reflexibility and allyship, the overwhelmingly negative response from men online, as found by the study, reflected a lack of self-reflection about their masculinity. The article provides additional insights into the role of digital feminist activism in shaping networked masculinities in the South African context.

Keywords

Twitter South Africa hashtag feminism #MenAreTrash networked misogyny networked masculinity

Introduction

Social media platforms have enabled women to build feminist movements and activist networks around the world (Chen, Pain, and Barner 2018). This type of networked activism is often referred to as digital feminism or hashtag feminism (Chen, Pain, and Barner 2018; Mendes, Ringrose, and Keller 2018). The term hashtag feminism refers to the process through which feminist activists use hashtags to create virtual “safe spaces” or “intimate publics” where women can come together to discuss issues affecting them and galvanize public support (Dixon 2014; Chen, Pain, and Barner 2018). A growing body of literature has explored the use of social media by victims of sexual violence to share their personal experiences of abuse and seek support from others (Dixon 2014; Mendes, Ringrose, and Keller 2018; Bogen et al. 2019). Hashtags like #MeToo, #YesAllWomen, or #AmINext have allowed victims to tell their stories and challenge the shame and guilt often associated with sexual harassment (Dixon, 2014; Chen, Pain, and Barner 2018; Mendes, Ringrose, and Keller 2018; Bogen et al. 2019). In South Africa, Twitter has become a popular platform for feminist activism against gender-based violence (GBV) (Bashonga and Khuzwayo 2017; Makama et al. 2019). Bosch (2011) proposes social media as a prominent tool for African women, who are often marginalized and misrepresented in mainstream media, to advance their feminist agenda. However, digital feminist movements are also a common target of criticism and misogynistic attacks (Flood 2019; Marwick, and Caplan 2018; Venäläinen 2019; Trott 2020).

This article analyses online reactions to the #MenAreTrash movement, a South African example of hashtag feminism against GBV, as well as the critical responses that gathered under the hashtags #WomenAreTrash and #NotAllMen. The phrase “Men Are Trash” first emerged on South African Twitter in 2016, with women highlighting and profiling examples of problematic and violent masculinity (Samanga 2017). The hashtag has since become a trending topic on multiple occasions, often in connection to highly-mediatised cases of gender-based violence (GBV) in the country, such as the murders of Karabo Mokoena in 2017 and University of Cape Town student Uyinenne Mrwetyana in 2019 (Mushomba 2020). Similar to the #MeToo hashtag, #MenAreTrash as a virtual space for women to speak out about their experiences of sexism, harassment, and sexual violence and denounce the normalization of and lack of solutions to the GBV crisis in the country (Ratele and Helman 2018; Mushomba 2020).

Despite its structureless and informal nature, #MenAreTrash was defined as an anti-patriarchal movement shedding light on the challenges and oppression faced by women in South Africa (News24 2016). #MenAreTrash, along with other trending hashtags such as #AmINext or #TheTotalShutdown, was part of a wider wave of online activism against GBV in South Africa that culminated in a series of mass protests in August 2019 to demand government action regarding the high rates of femicide in the country (Bauer, 2019; Francke, 2019). According to Ratele and Helman (2018), the hashtag represented an attempt to disrupt and redirect the shame of sexual violence, that often deters women from speaking out about abuse. Defenders of the movement portrayed #MenAreTrash as an opportunity for cisgender men to listen to the experiences of fear and anger of women, call out the misogynistic attitudes of their peers, and take action to improve their own behaviour (Rogers, 2020). These demands were very similar to the ones raised by the #MeToo movement in the US (Flood, 2019).

However, as with other digital feminist campaigns elsewhere, #MenAreTrash was met with intense criticism and resistance from some parts of South African society. Despite the indisputable problem of GBV in South Africa, the #MenAreTrash hashtag proved to be very polarising, with many cisgender men, but also cisgender women, opposing the social media trend (Rogers, 2020). Criticisms against #MenAreTrash even emerged from within South African feminism. For example, Makama et al. (2019) argued that the #MenAreTrash movement was counterproductive because it villainized men, discouraging them from trusting and engaging with feminism. For Makama et al. (2019), digital feminist movements like #MenAreTrash are embedded within a Western feminist framework that demonizes black men and perpetuates colonial and racialized narratives that portray women as docile and passive victims and men as violent and barbaric. In response to #MenAreTrash, men created other hashtags, such as #WomenAreTrash and #NotAllMen, to express their opposition to the feminist movement (Fenton, 2016; Gualtieri, 2019). Reversing the target of the original hashtag, the hashtag #WomenAreTrash aimed to highlight that women can also be perpetrators of violence. Twitter users deployed this hashtag to attack defenders of #MenAreTrash, which they considered an offensive and unfair generalization (Mushomba, 2020).

Background: Social Media as a Gendered Space

Feminist scholars have highlighted how cisgender men’s and women’s experiences in virtual spaces are radically different (Shaw, 2014; Iyer, Nyamwire & Nabulega, 2020). Despite the perceived benefits of social media, the internet is often a hostile environment for women due to the prevalence of digitally-mediated forms of gender-based violence (Fleming, Lee, and Dworkin 2014). These range from trolling and harassment to violent threats and abuse, which can sometimes extend to the offline world (Lewis, Rowe & Wiper, 2017). Rather than sporadic micro- and macro-aggressions, online gender abuse is best understood as a continuum of behaviours of varied frequency and gravity that women routinely experience as part of their virtual lives (Lewis, Rowe & Wiper, 2017). Researchers have theorized how the perceived sense of anonymity and unaccountability afforded by virtual spaces creates an online disinhibition effect that makes harassment and hate speech more effortless and widespread (Gray, 2012; Fleming, Lee & Dworkin, 2014; Brooke, 2019). A recent study claims that 23.3% of women in South Africa have experienced online gender violence (Iyer, Nyamwire & Nabulega, 2020). Despite its prevalence, online gender violence remains largely unregulated and understudied in the African context (Shaw, 2014; Iyer, Nyamwire & Nabulega, 2020).

Within the field of digital media studies, there is a growing body of research exploring the prominence of misogynistic expressions of masculinity online (Trott, 2020). Banet-Weiser (2018) refers to the spectrum of hostile anti-women and anti-feminist content in online spaces as “networked misogyny.” With the rise in visibility of popular feminism online, there has been an emergence of counter-movements promoting “men’s rights,” which borrow from the same vocabulary of empowerment and confidence but posit men as the victims (Banet-Weiser, 2018). Critical feminist media scholarship has approached online gender harassment as an expression of men’s anxieties or frustrations to fulfill normative masculine gender roles and assert their masculinity (Moloney & Love, 2018). The internet has enabled these scattered communities of men to join under a common public, generally referred to as the “manosphere” (Ging 2019). While the topics discussed by these networked communities of men are wide-ranging, and their supposed goal is to support men, an overarching characteristic of these discourses is the attribution of blame for men’s problems to women and feminism (Banet-Weiser 2018). This is best exemplified by their coordinated attacks to discredit online discussions around GBV, gender equality, and feminism (Marwick & Caplan, 2018; Venäläinen, 2019; Trott, 2020). However, very few studies so far have explored local expressions of networked misogyny and anti-feminist sentiments in the South African context.

In South Africa, the study of gender power must be linked to wider dynamics of race and class playing out in the country. Therefore, the theories on digital feminism and networked misogyny, which emanate primarily from the Global North, should be revisited when applied to the South African context. African feminisms have developed the theoretical and methodological tools for unpacking these intersectionalities, which can be of significant value for the critical study of masculinities (Ratele, 2013a; Makama et al., 2019). As Moolman (2013) argues, “a theory of masculinities has to acknowledge feminisms’ contribution and influence on the interconnectedness, relation, and transition between masculinities and femininities” (Moolman, 2013: 102). Pointing specifically at the field of African media studies, Bosch (2011) advocates for a further engagement with feminist theory to study “issues related to the creation of masculinities and femininities,” especially in connection to less explored new media, such as social networking sites This study provides an entry point to the analysis of hashtag feminism and networked misogyny in South Africa through the lens of critical African masculinity and feminist studies.

Methodology

The present study follows a qualitative small-data approach to analyze men’s reactions to digital feminism on social media. Instead of attempting to provide a representative picture of the selected hashtag, a small sample of tweets was selected for manual content analysis (Latzko-Toth et al., 2016). This decision was inspired by the decolonial approach to African digital media research proposed by Schoon et al. (2020), which privileges small data qualitative methodologies over “quantitative approaches that tend to flatten or homogenize social experiences on the continent” (3). This methodology allowed for a richer understanding of the narratives and themes discussed under the hashtags. The dataset collected for this case study comprises a combination of three samples from October 2016 (3,643 tweets), May 2017 (25,713 tweets), and August 2019 (4,114 tweets) for the hashtags #MenAreTrash and #WomenAreTrash. These three periods were selected by looking at media coverage of when the hashtags were trending on South African Twitter. The searches yielded a total of 30,317 tweets for #MenAreTrash and 3,103 for #WomenAreTrash. Tweets were collected using the Twitter scraping tool, snscrape. This method does not provide an option to filter results by location, which proved a challenge since the hashtag was also popular in other African countries. This was resolved by selecting a temporal range for when the hashtags were trending specifically in South Africa. Additionally, any non-South African tweets were filtered out during the manual coding. Of the 33,420 tweets collected, 600 were randomly selected for manual coding, one hundred from each recorded period and hashtag. Additionally, some comments, related tweets (such as retweets), and attached visual elements were also analyzed when additional context was needed.

The selected tweets were analyzed using thematic analysis. In particular, the article drew on the critical thematic analysis methodology, conceptualized by Lawless and Chen (2019) as a constructivist approach to draw connections between discourses in the data and broader socio-cultural practices and ideologies. The method consists of a two-step coding process, starting with a rich data-driven inductive coding process and followed by a second theory-driven deductive coding process (Lawless & Chen, 2019). Compared to traditional thematic analysis, this method allowed for a closer interpretation of the discursive strategies embedded in the tweets, from the theoretical lens of critical masculinity and feminism studies. To protect the users’ privacy, direct quotes from tweets were not included in the analysis below (Townsend & Wallace, 2016).

Findings and Discussion

The #MenAreTrash hashtag was far more popular and more widely used than #WomenAreTrash. The number of tweets for each hashtag also differed substantially between the three selected dates. Of the three samples collected, #MenAreTrash had the largest number of tweets in May 2017, coinciding with the news of Karabo Mokoena’s murder. Several articles mention this case as the event that triggered the hashtag into virality (Samanga, 2017; Solomons, 2017). In contrast, #WomenAreTrash was most popular in 2016, which is also when it received the most media attention, including from international media (Fenton, 2016). The data suggests that this was the only time #WomenAreTrash was a trending topic, with only a few hundred tweets mentioning it during the two other recorded periods. This suggests that the #WomenAreTrash hashtag did not manage to maintain the same momentum as #MenAreTrash after its initial emergence in 2016.

Based on an overview of the most used hashtags within the sample, there was also substantial interaction between the #MenAreTrash hashtag and other trending anti-GBV hashtags, e.g., #AmINext; and hashtags related to highly mediatized cases of sexual violence at the time e.g., #RIPKarabo or #LadyZamar. This suggests that conversations denouncing gender-based violence were not limited to a single hashtag. Future studies might consider a different sampling strategy to capture conversations beyond specific hashtags.

Despite the seriousness of the issues that gave rise to #MenAreTrash, one striking feature of the sample was the large number of tweets that had a humorous tone. For example, multiple users joked about being, literally, trash – sharing pictures of dumpsters and bins. While these tweets could be interpreted at first as trivializing the #MenAreTrash movement, it is a common feature of South African Twitter to have political discussions intertwined with more inane content (Mpofu, 2019). Furthermore, there was a sense of spectatorship among some of these users, who were making comments and jokes about the trend itself rather than getting actively involved in the discussion. The more problematic instances of sexist humour were found within the #WomenAreTrash sample. However, in this case, women also deployed humour as a defense strategy against misogynistic claims that emerged under the hashtag.

The section below outlines in more detail the four main themes which emerged from the thematic analysis of the randomly selected sample of tweets for #MenAreTrash and #WomenAreTrash.

Not All Men are Trash: Denial, Resistance, and the ‘Good Man’

The hashtag #MenAreTrash was met, from early on, with fierce opposition mostly driven by men, but also from a significant number of women (Andersen, 2017). In the sample analyzed, many users reacted to the #MenAreTrash movement with a vigorous rejection of the “trash” label. One way they channeled their opposition was with the hashtag #NotAllMen, indicating that not all men should be considered “trash.” As early as 2004, the phrase “not all men” and ‘not all men are like that (NAMALT)’ has been widely deployed online as a defensive strategy against comments about men’s gendered behaviour, particularly around discussions of sexual abuse (McKinney, 2014). The analysis shows how “not all men” made its resurgence in South Africa in response to #MenAreTrash (Ananya, 2017). Many of the tweets that used the term accused women of generalizing the actions and behaviour of some bad men. Most of these tweets rejected the generalization that all men are bad, claiming that only a minority of men commit violence against women, thus refusing to accept any collective responsibility or social dimension to the issue of GBV. This strategy of blaming a “deviant minority” of men has also been found to be used against other feminist hashtags, such as #MeToo (Flood, 2019).

More importantly, underlying the #NotAllMen tweets, was also an assumption that patriarchal violence only involves its most gruesome expressions, such as rape or femicide. This narrative ignores how everyday sexism and other less visible forms of harassment can also harm women, and how everyday sexism contributes to the normalization of rape culture and patriarchal oppression (Flood, 2019). This omission was made explicit by tweets from women, and some allied men, that called out the prevalence of sexist behaviours like “locker room talk” and “catcalling” in South African culture. Furthermore, #MenAreTrash supporters highlighted the role that men play not only as direct perpetrators but also as bystanders and facilitators of their peers' actions. For example, multiple users criticized a tweet from a man taking a selfie video while a woman is screaming for help in the background. This video was framed as an example of men’s passive response to the problem of GBV in South Africa.

Many users in the sample took #MenAreTrash’s denunciation of misogynistic masculinity as a personal attack on their manhood, ironically reacting in an overly aggressive manner. Their strong reaction seemed to emerge from a perceived attack on their sense of pride. Several tweets framed the #MenAreTrash hashtag as disrespectful, abusive, and hurtful. Analyzing men’s response to the changes in women’s rights in South Africa, Dworkin et al. (2012) found that men would complain about the “assertiveness” with which women claim these rights by alluding to a loss of respect from women. A similar process seemed to be at play here, with men complaining not necessarily about the content of #MenAreTrash but about the language used by the feminist movement. Women responded to the allegations by repudiating men for centering the conversation around themselves. For instance, a tweet claimed men are trash for being more interested in protecting their egos than in protecting women.

Furthermore, men defended themselves against the allegations of #MenAreTrash by portraying themselves as “good” men. For instance, some users argued that they were not bothered about the hashtag because they knew they, and their friends, were not trash. These users claimed that they, like most men, had never abused or mistreated any women. By presenting themselves as “good,” these men attempted to distance themselves from the other “bad men” (Flood, 2019). In a few instances, this differentiation was performed by resorting to ethnic stereotypes around traditional Zulu masculinity. This strategy resembles how white men under #MeToo resorted to racialized stereotypes by framing perpetrators as more likely to be black men (Robins, 2006; Flood, 2019). Ultimately, by portraying bad men as the other, these users were diminishing their responsibility towards widespread GBV. In this sense, “not all men” is not only a “rejection of the feminist insight that perpetration and perpetrators became common in society but also a more personal rejection of the request that they critically examine their own behaviour” (Flood, 2019: 289). These men dismissed the opportunity provided by the movement to engage in the process of self-reflection about their own behaviour (Ratele & Helman, 2018). In response to users’ portrayal as “good men,” #MenAreTrash supporters clarified how the movement was not denying the existence of good examples of men and positive masculinity, but rather attempting to highlight the structural problem of patriarchy and violent masculinity. This was best exemplified by the multiple tweets and threads in which users tried to explain, sometimes through analogies, how #MenAreTrash did not mean that “all men are trash.” Additionally, some users in the sample accused men of not listening to the message that the hashtag was intending to convey, and “shutting down” the movement with their resistance strategies.

As evidenced by the analysed sample, the “not all men” argument became so widespread that the original purpose of the #MenAreTrash movement was somewhat eclipsed by discussions about the name’s appropriateness (Ratele & Helman, 2018). Furthermore, responses like #NotAllMen meant that women, and some allied men, had to continually clarify and justify the purpose of the movement to dissenting men (News24, 2016). This was visible in the sample through lengthy back-and-forth conversations with users questioning the hashtag’s meaning. Gqola (2016) explains how arguments like “not all men” can silence the debate about gender-based violence by acting as “passwords” or prerequisites that are repeatedly demanded before women are listened to. Similarly, #NotAllMen obstructed the emergence of a virtual space around #MenAreTrash, where women and men could freely express and discuss their experiences as victims of violent masculinity and patriarchal culture (Mushomba, 2020). These defensive mechanisms point to a definitional clash in the understanding of GBV between supporters and detractors of the #MenAreTrash movement, with the former seeing it as a structural problem, and the latter as an issue caused by individual men.

Women are Trash Too: Degendering the Problem, Gendering the Blame

Beyond #NotAllMen, there were other ways in which users within the sample resisted the message of #MenAreTrash. Bern (2001) defined two discursive strategies deployed in media discourses about gender violence to obscure cis-men’s role as perpetrators of violence and shift the responsibility to women. These strategies were also found in the hashtags analyzed. The first discursive strategy, degendering the problem, consists of obscuring the role of gender in cases of violence against women by reframing the problem as an issue of human violence. A very clear example of this within the sample was the tweets claiming that “everyone is trash,” “society is trash” or that “murder is not about gender.” These tweets tried to downplay the gendered message of the hashtag. Berns (2001) argues that this strategy most often involves equating men’s violence with that of women. This was precisely the intention behind the #WomenAreTrash hashtag, through which some men attempted to highlight how women are also perpetrators of violence. Tweets under #WomenAreTrash claimed that women were as bad, if not worse than men. To prove this, users provided multiple examples that ranged from women cheating on their partners to more serious criminal acts, such as homicide or baby dumping. By arguing that both women and men can be violent or “trash,” these users were obscuring the fact that perpetrators of sexual violence are overwhelmingly men (Dartnall & Jewkes, 2013).

One of the goals of #MenAreTrash was to shift the blame for GBV away from the victim and towards the perpetrator (Ratele & Helman, 2018). However, there were multiple examples of the opposite happening in the sample. For instance, some men responded to #MenAreTrash by accusing women of being responsible for the violence. This reaction aligns with Berns’ (2001) second patriarchal-resistance strategy of gendering the blame. These tweets blamed women by resorting to familiar misogynistic tropes, such as rape myths and victim-blaming, that portray women as allowing or even inciting abuse, obscuring the responsibility of the perpetrator as well as the role of social and cultural patriarchal structures (Graaff & Heinecken, 2017). The best example found in the sample was tweets blaming women for “dating bad boys.” These users suggested that the women using #MenAreTrash had actively chosen to be with abusive partners instead of dating “good men.” The idea that women are attracted to “bad men” and “F-boys” with “thuggish” behaviour has also been identified as a prevalent argument within black anti-feminist online communities in the US (The Black Youth Project, 2018). Furthermore, studies in South Africa have identified this as a source of social pressure among young men, linked to conceptions of hierarchical hegemonic masculinities, which in some instances can encourage them to adopt more violent or assertive attitudes towards women (Langa, 2020a). Women reacted strongly against these claims denouncing men for reducing the severe problem of GBV to a “choice of men.”

Other tweets blamed women for “running to Twitter” to denounce their abusers instead of leaving them or reporting them to the police. These comments represent a dominant discourse that suggests women are complicit in domestic abuse if they are aware of the potential risk or toxicity of a relationship and do not act to avoid it (Berns, 2001). These patriarchal arguments are not only problematic for placing the responsibility on the victims of abuse but ignore the stigma and shame that often deter women from leaving or reporting abuse, which was precisely the point of the #MenAreTrash movement (Gqola, 2007; Meyer, 2016; Ratele & Helman, 2018).

Another way in which men “gendered the blame” was by “critiquing the social tolerance for women’s violence but not for men’s violence” (Berns, 2001: 269). Many tweets under the #MenAreTrash and #WomenAreTrash hashtags claimed that there was a double standard in the way society treats violence against women and violence against men. These men tried to make the case that the “system” is on the women’s side. These tweets speak to a previously mentioned sentiment shared by some South African men who consider that recent advances in terms of women’s liberation have led to a gender power imbalance and the subsequent neglect of men’s problems (Dworkin et al., 2012). For example, a user retweeted a news story about a woman who had thrown her baby in the trash, claiming that while men are called trash when they do something wrong, women are framed as “impoverished or oppressed” when they commit a crime. This tweet speaks to Makama et al.’s (2019) criticism of how #MenAreTrash failed to appropriately consider the context of economic and racial oppression that black men also face in South Africa. Another example of this, was some tweets that complained that #MenAreTrash was blaming men for things women also do. For instance, multiple tweets referenced the case of Flabba, a local singer that died in a confrontation with her partner (BBC News, 2015). These users denounced that Flabba’s death had not triggered a Twitter movement like #MenAreTrash and claimed that men would not blame an entire sex for a woman’s actions. This is striking, given that they were sharing these tweets under a trending #WomenAreTrash hashtag. Similarly, other tweets claimed that women had double standards for being offended by #WomenAreTrash while supporting #MenAreTrash. Studies in other countries have documented similar strategies of highlighting examples of abuse against men, which portray men as the victim and women as perpetrators, in response to anti-GBV campaigns (Flood, 2019; Venäläinen, 2019).

Similarly, users also stressed the role of women as perpetrators of violence against other women. One tweet, for instance, highlighted a case where a woman was supposedly involved in the abduction of another woman, claiming that women are the biggest threat to themselves. These are examples of how men under #WomenAreTrash amplified women’s “evil” nature to deflect the attention from their role as men in perpetuating GBV. In fact, in multiple tweets, men framed themselves as the victims. These tweets often appealed to the manipulative nature of women, portraying them as “heart-breakers,” “cheaters,” “liars,” or as taking advantage of men’s money. When framing themselves as victims, multiple users argued that women under #MenAreTrash should not be allowed to date anymore. One popular image circulating in the sample showed a Whatsapp conversation where a man breaks up with his girlfriend because she used the hashtag.

Another harmful way in which men “gendered the blame” (Berns, 2001), was by attacking the women who started the movement and their feminist ideology. There was a general sense across the tweets opposing #MenAreTrash that women were actively trying to attack men. Some users referred to #MenAreTrash supporters as a “Twitter brigade” or a “witch hunt.” These tweets often expressed anti-feminist sentiments by accusing feminism of setting women against men. Here again, men felt personally attacked and portrayed themselves as the victims of “male bashing” (Cataldi, 1995). Other men went so far as to accuse women of having initiated #WomenAreTrash, as a fabricated strategy to attack men. While the origin of the hashtag is not clear, the purpose of these messages was, once again, to shift the responsibility to women, ignoring those who were using the hashtag to share misogynistic content and harass #MenAreTrash supporters. Interestingly, another user argued that black women prioritize gender over race by jumping “on anything that bashes black men.” This tweet speaks to the intersectionality of black feminism, urging black women to consider the racial oppression that they share with black men. As previously mentioned, the issue of black men’s villainization by mainstream feminism is a common theme within African feminist debates (Makama et al., 2019).

Family, Fatherhood, and the Provider Role

Another dominant theme highlighted through the analysis was the importance of family. This theme was reflected in the way some users were protective of their family and relatives. Multiple tweets in the sample expressed anger at the label “trash” being used to describe their relatives. These users claimed that the supporters of #MenAreTrash were offending and insulting their fathers, brothers, uncles, partners, or children. Interestingly, women deployed a similar strategy against #WomenAreTrash, arguing that it was disgraceful for men to start such a trend against women when their mother had “carried them for nine months.” Both examples point to the importance of respect for family and parental figures in South African culture (Bohman, Wyk & Ekman, 2009). The expressions of respect and defense for their relatives contrasted with the way users spoke of strangers, insinuating that their family members could not possibly be involved in acts of violence and abuse towards women. However, in reality, a large proportion of violence in South Africa happens within the family, in the form of intimate partner violence, child abuse, or elder abuse (Ryan, Esau & Roman, 2018).

Another way in which the theme of the family appeared in the sample was via the concept of fatherhood. One prolific user under #MenAreTrash posted multiple tweets with pictures of his family, arguing that, while some women were busy with #MenAreTrash, he was busy enjoying time with his wife and daughter. This user presented himself as a good and caring husband and father and argued that #MenAreTrash was unfair and discouraging for men like himself, who worked hard to be “good men.” His tweets received a surprising level of scrutiny. Many users joked about how the daughter and mother did not look happy in the pictures and claimed that he had missed the point of the movement. Some users clarified how #MenAreTrash was not trying to undermine but support positive masculinity; others pointed out that being a good father did not exempt him from wider social responsibilities toward gender equality. What is interesting about this example is how fatherhood and caring masculinity were deployed as a defensive strategy. This is another example of how men were trying to portray themselves as “good men to distance themselves from claims of misogyny and patriarchal violence. Apart from the critical comments, some men and women praised this user as an example of positive masculinity. This speaks to renewed importance of the nurturing family care and domestic responsibility within modern conceptions of masculinity and the “new man” in South Africa (Morrell, 2005). A more misogynistic expression of this portrayal of men as the provider was found in a tweet that argued that women should be thankful to men, who provide them with money, houses, cars, and sexual pleasure. Contrary to the previous example of loving and caring masculinity, this aligned with traditional and patriarchal notions that portray women as dependant on men and reduce men’s family role to that of material providers (Richter & Morrell, 2006; Lesch & Kelapile, 2016).

Fatherhood is a delicate topic in South Africa due to the historic high rates of father absenteeism and neglect of children, especially among lower-income groups, because of colonization and migrant labour flows (Lesch & Kelapile, 2016). Several users mentioned their negative experiences of growing up without a father as part of the #MenAreTrash call. One tweet argued that absent fathers are the reason that some young men become monsters. Some authors have indeed identified the lack of a paternal figure as a root cause of violent and patriarchal masculinities (Freeks, 2017; Meyer, 2017). At the same time, being raised in a women-headed household can positively influence children’s masculinity and overall support for gender equality, with them becoming role models. This was exemplified by some users who praised their single mothers' strength, in rejection of #WomenAreTrash (Helman & Ratele, 2016; Langa, 2020b). Ratele, Shefer and Clowes (2012) argue that while media and academia often portray men as either “absent” or “bad” fathers, positive fatherhood is, and has been, very common in South Africa. Ultimately, either by criticizing their absent fathers or taking pride in their caring fathers, cis men in the sample agreed on the positive value of being a nurturing and responsible father (Ratele, Shefer & Clowes, 2012).

Looking for Solutions: Allyship, Frustration, and the Limits of Hashtag Feminism

Beyond the broad range of critical tweets and resistance strategies analysed above, there were also some men in the sample who supported the message of the #MenAreTrash movement. Interestingly, some of the most popular tweets in the sample analyzed, in terms of retweets and likes, were from men expressing their support for the feminist message of #MenAreTrash. This included tweets from local celebrities. One example was radio host Bob Mabena, who had two trending tweets opposing #NotAllMen. One of the tweets argued that even the self-proclaimed “good men” are trash for not calling out their friends’ behaviour. Mabena’s tweets were also interesting for the reactions they provoked. On the one hand, several men commented in agreement with the message that men needed to do better. On the other hand, many users, including some women, reacted strongly against these tweets, deploying the same resistance strategies discussed above. More importantly, some users criticized those men who commented in support of the anti-patriarchal masculinity model advocated by Mabena’s tweet. In fact, most of these responses came from a few specific users who diligently targeted every supportive tweet. This is reflective of other studies that highlight how anti-feminist users deploy networked affordances to police and censure competing expressions of masculinity that challenge hegemonic ones (Moloney & Love, 2018; Trott, 2020). Furthermore, this example suggests that the criticism against #MenAreTrash was not universal among South African men, but likely heightened by a of active and vocal users.

Men supported the message of #MenAreTrash in multiple ways. Several men expressed their support by sharing stories and statements of women under the hashtag, while others defended the movement against its critics. There were men who used the hashtag to call out the misogynistic discourse and behaviour of other users. Some opted for an alternative approach of trying to explain the meaning of the hashtag to other men. Some of these tweets engaged in a feminist analysis of the connection between hegemonic masculinity, rape culture, and GBV. A few users in the sample shared their own experience of realization and self-reflection about their masculinity motivated by the hashtag and urged other men to do the same. These tweets suggest that the #MenAreTrash movement did have a positive effect on some men, who accepted the feminist message and even tried to circulate it among their peers.

Furthermore, even among the users who disagreed with #MenAreTrash, many seemed to agree with the underlying problem of gender-based violence in South Africa. For instance, the analysis unveiled a few accounts that posted tweets against #MenAreTrash but had an anti-GBV message on their Twitter profile. These users were, presumably, aware of the gravity of the problem but considered that #MenAreTrash was not an appropriate or helpful response. Other men expressed anger about the high levels of femicide and rape but distanced themselves from any responsibility, as if it were a problem external to them. Even those who accepted that men have a responsibility to do better considered the hashtag as unnecessarily “hostile” to men. These users argued that it was unhelpful to pit one sex against the other, that nothing good would come from the “trash wars,” or even that women should sympathize more with men.

Another line of argument questioned the effectiveness of hashtag feminism in solving the issue of GBV. These users accused #MenAreTrash of offering no real solutions or actions, claiming that “talk is cheap” or that South Africa is just a “Twitter country, no action.” Similarly, other tweets argued that the perpetrators were not going to stop because of a tweet or that they would not even receive the message as they are not on Twitter. The condescending tone with which these users belittled the movement, contrasts with the fact that they failed to provide any alternative solutions. Furthermore, this idea that the #MenAreTrash movement was not doing enough contradicts previous arguments that it had gone too far. These tweets once again suggest that men’s resistance strategies prevented many users from engaging in the process of self-reflexivity about their role within the patriarchal system that perpetuates violence against women. In other words, their patriarchal prejudice discouraged them from appreciating how this movement could benefit men too, as the primary victims of violent masculinities in South Africa (Ratele, 2013b; Ratele & Helman, 2018).

Ultimately, both #MenAreTrash and #WomenAreTrash became a space for portraying multiple understandings of masculinity. Beyond the defensive attitudes and reactive tweets, there was also some space for constructive dialogue. The analysis uncovered multiple examples of men with opposing views about feminism engaging in debates in which they tried to challenge each other’s position, sometimes reaching a compromise. An interesting feature of these encounters is that men tended to be more amicable with each other than when interacting with women, with whom they were often more aggressive or dismissive. Even though allied men seemed to be treated more fairly than women by dissenting men, the tweets analyzed do not suggest that they were more successful in convincing their peers. Instead, allied men were more willing to compromise or accept the counterarguments, in a sense capitulating to the pressures of hegemonic masculinity.

Conclusion

Social media research provides a unique lens to examine the active negotiation of contemporary masculinities in South Africa. The case study presented in this paper highlights the tensions surrounding conversations of gender-based violence and patriarchal power in South Africa, and how these are performed in digitally networked publics. While GBV has proven to be a strong mobilizing force for feminism in South Africa, this study found that a substantial number of men, as well as some women, rejected the #MenAreTrash movement. The findings support existing research which has highlighted how many men and women in South Africa struggle to identify with the feminist label, despite agreeing with the underlying issues (Motlafi, 2015). However, this study also found some relevant examples, including some of the most popular tweets in the sample, of men who were supportive of the feminist movement, and who even attempted to educate their peers on the issue.

The thematic analysis of the sampled tweets from #MenAreTrash and #WomenAreTrash enabled an exploration of the resistance strategies deployed by South African men in response to digital feminist movements. Men in the sample attempted to disrupt and undermine the intimate public created by #MenAreTrash, by either dismissing the problems discussed or constructing themselves as victims. In many ways, the narratives and arguments deployed by these users resemble those found in studies on networked misogyny and anti-feminism in the Global North. These included strategies to degender the problem and gender the blame, such as with the #WomenAreTrash hashtag, and their self-portrayal as “good” men, as exemplified by the #NotAllMen tweets. Nonetheless, men’s reactions to hashtag feminism were also defined by the specific cultural, socialand economic context of South Africa. Ratele (2015) points to three primary sources of South African black men’s resistance to feminism and gender justice efforts - economic marginality, racial discrimination, and cultural tradition - all three of which played a relevant role in men’s interactions with #MenAreTrash. Most importantly, the strong rejection of the “trash” label must be understood within a South African context in which black men have been historically portrayed as dangerous and violent (Makama et al., 2019). While high rates of violence in South Africa remain, the analysis suggests a growing number of South African men are trying to resist racial and gender stereotypes and are striving for more positive representations of masculinity.

In conclusion, this article argues that to adequately understand South African men’s interactions with digital feminism, it is necessary to frame these within a specific socio-cultural context. While existing Western-centered theories were useful in comparing the strategies and discourses emerging from the sample with those deployed by men in other localities, there is a need for more research on networked misogyny and networked masculinities outside the Global North. Therefore, we call on African masculinity researchers to further study these phenomena within their local contexts.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Pablo A. Reneses studies the intersections between technology, justice and development. He holds an MSc in global media and communications from the London School of Economics and University of Cape Town. Currently, he is a researcher and communications manager for the Fairwork project at the Oxford Internet Institute. He was previously a research fellow at Research ICT Africa, working on issues around digital rights, internet governance and ICT regulation. Recently, he has co-authored an article on labour rights in the platform economy for the International Labour Review.

Tanja Bosch is an associate professor of media studies and production in the Centre for Film and Media Studies at the University of Cape Town. She teaches journalism and multimedia production, social media, radio studies and research methods at the undergraduate and postgraduate level. Dr. Bosch studies radio in South Africa and social media activism, particularly on hashtag campaigns. Her recent books include, Broadcasting Democracy: Radio and Identity in South Africa (HSRC Press, 2017) and Social Media and Everyday Life in South Africa (Routledge, 2021).

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