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Abstract

This article explores the affective dynamics of researching boys’ views on gender inequalities, (anti)feminism and ‘misogyny influencers’ such as Andrew Tate. We interviewed boys (aged 13–14) who had participated in ‘rethinking masculinity’ workshops delivered by an educational charity at their school. Using an affective ethnographic approach, this article focuses on a particular research encounter, where boys expressed heightened misogyny and homophobia. Through discussion of interview transcripts, field notes and retrospective memory work about the experience of participating in the research, we dwell within the deep discomfort and ethical challenges of conducting research with boys who express these views. We conclude with a set of recommendations for researchers working at the intersection of gender/sex/uality and feminist pedagogy and in dialogue with discourses and practices designed to critically engage with masculinities, considering how gender transformative work may need to disrupt the gender binary.

Keywords

Boys youth masculinities misogyny homophobia affect feelings positionality Andrew Tate

Introduction

The research took place in the summer of 2022, amid growing concerns over the influence of Andrew Tate and other ‘misogyny influencers’ (Haslop et al., 2024) on teenage boys. We conducted two focus groups with boys in one London school, following their participation in ‘rethinking masculinity’ workshops facilitated by a partnering charity. While the intention of the research was to explore boys’ views on gender inequalities, feminism and their sources of online (dis)information on the subject, the rising popularity of Andrew Tate meant that he and his content dominated our interviews. This article focuses on the experiences of the interviewers (a white British cis-gendered gay man, a Turkish cis-gendered heterosexual woman, and a white Canadian cis-gendered heterosexual man) in one focus group with five boys, where we saw support for Andrew Tate, misogyny and homophobia. We use an affective lens to analyse the interview transcript, the interviewers’ field notes and post-interview reflections. We explore the boys’ aggrieved (Kimmel, 2017), misogynistic, anti-feminist and anti-LGBTQ+ views and affective practices (Wetherell, 2012) and their intra-actions with the researchers (Barad in Ringrose & Renold, 2016). We reflect on the difficulties involved in researching turbulent gendered topics and hegemonic positionings from marginalized positionalities (Daly, 2022), including queer subjectivities (Hanks, 2020). We de/re-construct the meanings attributed to ‘good/bad’ feminist and queer research, and the ethical dilemmas of remaining ‘silent’ or ‘neutral’ as interviewers (Gailey & Prohaska, 2011). We conclude with recommendations for researchers working at the intersections of gender/sex/uality and feminist pedagogy.

Research on Young Masculinities and Online Misogyny

Online anti-feminism and misogyny, involving hostility, hatred and violence towards women, is on the rise (Ging & Siapera, 2019). While far from new, these discourses have become increasingly visible and networked (Banet-Weiser & Miltner, 2016). This is evidenced by the rise of ‘misogyny influencers’ (Haslop et al., 2024; Martin, 2023; Roberts & Westcott, 2024; Setty, 2023), such as Andrew Tate, who have garnered millions of views, likes and followers on social media. Tate symbolizes a re-centring of young cis-gendered, heterosexual men and hegemonic masculinity (Wescott et al., 2023) at a time when increasing gender equality and neoliberal socio-economic conditions create feelings of aggrievement at their loss of gender power (Kimmel, 2017). Preliminary research point to an uptake of Tate’s misogyny among teenage boys (Haslop et al., 2024; Roberts & Westcott, 2024; Wescott et al., 2023), which fits with mainstream media concerns over boys’ vulnerability to misogynist radicalization (Das, 2022; Fazackerley, 2023), and efforts to engage boys and young men in school interventions (Women and Equalities Committee, 2023).

Correspondingly, researchers in gender/sex/uality and feminist pedagogy should investigate Tate’s influence on boys’ ideas of gender politics and masculinity and assess the effectiveness of interventions targeting boys’ supposed misogynist radicalization. Yet, this research presents risks for women, feminists and queer researchers. Women describe interviewing men as oppressive and emotionally taxing (Arendell, 1997; Huggins & Glebbeck, 2009; Lefkowich, 2019) and leading to feelings of unease and vulnerability (Grønnerød, 2004; Gurney, 1985; Lee, 1997). There is increasing literature problematizing the methodologies used to research men’s lives (see Pini & Pease, 2013). There is limited scholarship focusing on non-hegemonic men’s (e.g. gay men) experiences conducting research on hegemonic masculinity, and their experiences of homophobia. Exceptions are the geographer Vanderbeck (2005) who experienced direct homophobia as part of their ethnographic work with men, often silencing their experiences of homophobia for fear of seeming like a ‘bad’ researcher and Flood’s (2013) minimization of his femininity/gay allyship in interviews with men expressing homophobia. There is an even greater gap in literature reflecting on interviewing boys (vs. adult men). An exception includes the work of Allen (2005) who reflects on her experiences as a woman conducting focus groups’ interviews with boys on sexuality. While Keddie (2022) discusses the challenges that teachers and facilitators face when engaging with boys who respond to gender transformative programs with defensiveness and ‘discomfort’, conducting research (vs. pedagogy) with boys poses unique challenges, which we will address in this article.

The Study

Working with a charity who offers masculinity workshops (facilitated by men) to boys in schools, we conducted two semi-structured focus groups in a co-ed secondary school in North London. The school was selected because of its participation in the workshops, and its institutional support for gender and sexual inclusivity. We worked with 12 years 9 boys aged 13–14, all of whom had taken part in workshops designed to engage boys to rethink masculinities, support gender equality and challenge gender-based violence. Mirroring the diversity of the school, our sample was ethnically diverse: group one included two Black, one Turkish and two White British boys and group two was a mixture of Chinese, Indian and White British students. For safeguarding reasons, we did not ask about the boys’ sexual or gender identity. Although we did not ask about their friendships, the group dynamics indicated that the boys knew each other from their year groups. In both groups, two boys appeared to be closer friends. While some boys tried to dominate discussions, the facilitators regularly intervened to include others.

The focus groups were conducted by one white British cis-gendered gay man (research lead), one white Canadian cis-gendered heterosexual man (educational charity facilitator) and one Turkish cis-gendered heterosexual woman (research assistant). To prevent overwhelming participants, the interviewing team was limited to these three (of five) research team members. The two additional research team members, one white Canadian cis-gendered queer woman (research assistant) and one white Canadian/permanent resident of England cis-gendered heterosexual woman (co-investigator), contributed to analysis alongside the research team.

Each interviewer was allocated specific questions from the interview guide. The research was intended to explore the boys’ experiences of gendered disinformation online and the positive masculinities workshops—which our opening interview questions reflected. However, in both workshops, conversation soon turned to Tate’s views on gender politics. In the interest of exploring the boys’ views about Tate, the interviewers allowed those discussions to dominate large sections of both groups. Participation was optional, but the research lead assured everyone they could speak or ask questions. The charity’s facilitator joined to maintain continuity from the workshops and, being more familiar with the participants, also asked several questions.

In this article, we focus on data from the first focus group with five boys because of their embodied and discursive expression of misogyny, heterosexism and anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination. Of note, this group’s views should not be read as homogenized nor representative of all boys in our study. For example, across the two groups, about half the boys did not support Tate’s content, and two boys were highly critical of his content. For the purpose of this article, however, we focus on the first focus group and the harmful views expressed because of the affective relationalities and power dynamics involved. When different subjectivities are in play, interview scripts offer limited insight into flows of emotion and affect. Thus, we triangulate the boys’ discourses with team debriefing of the field notes, and collective reflexive journaling to reflect on the intra-action of discourse and materiality (including embodied affects) throughout the research process (Ringrose & Renold, 2016).

Prior to fieldwork, we consulted ethical recommendations (Sim & Waterfield, 2019) and achieved ethics approval by the University of Liverpool ethics committee. Our field team also underwent a DBS check and obtained informed consent from interviewees highlighting voluntary participation and participant anonymity. We were aware that drawing on schoolboys’ insights on the resurgence of misogyny and anti-feminism was a decision that required sensitivity and careful handling (Pascoe, 2007). Based on recommendations for ensuring safety and confidentiality for women researchers (Lee, 1997; Sharp & Kremer, 2006) and queer researchers (Katz, 1994; Sousbois, 2023) in heteronormative, hypermasculine environments, we held the focus groups in a conference room away from the classrooms with circular seating and big windows (Gailey & Prohaska, 2011) which allowed for private group discussions to take place in a publicly transparent space without disruption.

Affective Methodologies

We take a posthuman analytical approach to our research, using the concept of an ‘assemblage’ to refer to the complex network of relations between bodies, discourses, space and time (Fox & Alldred, 2015; Ringrose, 2011)—and consider affect as ‘scaffolding’ for these dynamic relations (Khanna, 2012, p. 220). Key affect theorists, such as Massumi, Deleuze and Guattari, conceptualize ‘affect’ as embodied, pre-personal intensities that are ‘associated with human emotion (although not reduced to it)’ (Wetherell, 2012, p. 4). Deleuze and Guattari understand affect as the capacity for bodies to affect and be affected (Coleman in Ringrose, 2011). Beyond something that is felt within bodies, the communal circulation of affect and emotions can allow for the ‘possibility of collective action and to sociality and polity’ (Wetherell, 2012, p. 142). In this sense, affective practices can be understood as contributing to either the reproduction or transformation of social norms (e.g. gender and sexuality norms) that create inequalities (de Boise & Hearn, 2017), and thus critical to the research of young masculinities (Bragg et al., 2022). We aim to map (some of) the diverse affective intensities, practices and emotions in our research encounter, attuning to the dynamic ways in which they are felt and enacted collectively, and attach to discursive norms and power relations.

Drawing from new materialist research design (Fox & Alldred, 2015), we shift from traditional reflections on the location of the researcher (as separate subject) and participants (as objects) to patterns of diffraction or ‘effect[s] of connections and relations within and between different bodies, affecting other bodies and being affected by them’ (Bozalek & Zembylas, 2017, p. 118). To identify and explore these diffractive patterns, or patterns of difference (Barad, 2007), we analyse the many bodies and subjectivities in the research assemblage to ‘maximize our awareness of multiplicities of difference’ (Bettez, 2015, p. 5). We explore how hierarchies of gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, nationality and job tenure shaped affective intensities (Ringrose & Renold, 2014) and influenced knowledge production (O’Brien, 2019). In line with post-human theory, we treat their identity markers as forever becoming (Deleuze & Guattari, 1996) and their relevance as coming in and out of focus according to the intra-actions (Barad, 2014) with the other bodies in the research encounter. In our collective reflections and retrospective memory work, we aim to offer ‘messy’ and ‘discomforting’ (Pillow, 2003, p. 193) accounts of our qualitative research, with a focus on the moments that ‘glowed’, that is provoked or affected the research team (Ringrose & Renold, 2014).

Research Findings: Affect and Researching Politically Charged Perspectives on Masculinities

Boys’ as Affective Conduits for Misogyny and Anti-LGBTQ+ Content

From the outset, it was apparent that the boys followed a range of misogyny influencers, including Tate. As the interview proceeded, the boys’ support for Tate’s misogyny coincided with two key exclusionary, embodied practices that carried meaning: aversion of eye contact and giggling. We consider these embodied practices as indicators of unconscious or pre-personal affective intensities. We use affect theory to reflect on their intra-action with the discourses, bodies and subjectivities in the research assemblage to create new meanings and knowledge.

Revisiting the RA’s fieldnotes reveals that the boys’ aversion of eye contact was not random. Instead, it was directed and (re)occurring. The RA observed that the boys rarely made eye contact with her throughout the interview. We argue this embodied response carries meaning because it was directed to the only woman in the room and co-occurred with their misogynistic and anti-feminist remarks. For example, when asked whether they agreed with Tate’s views on feminism, Tom claimed that feminists ‘want more rights for women’ and ‘don’t really care about what men get’. The boys continued with a discussion surrounding the injustice of false rape accusations, recalling TikTok influencer, Joey Swoll and his ideas of women ruining men’s lives by accusing them of rape (see Banet-Weiser, 2021) and referencing Amber Heard as evidence that women lie. During this discussion, the woman RA silently noted:

They mention Amber Heard and how she’s ruined a man’s career and took all his money…. While they mention Amber Heard, two of them looked at me … but the eye contact was very quick and hesitant. They then move on … women can accuse them with rape and send them to jail.

When asked about their views aligning with Tate, some boys agreed that a woman should be subservient, do housework and care for a man’s health if he is ‘supplying her with everything’. Simultaneously, the RA writes: ‘During this extremely derogatory discussion about women and their womanly roles, no one even looked at me and I’m the only woman sitting in the room.’ By reflecting on the intra-action of the boys’ direction of eye contact (affective intensity) with the bodies and discourses in the interview space, we can observe how the embodied response ‘stuck’ (Ahmed, 2004) to or reproduced dominant masculinities and hetero-patriarchal gender relations (Ringrose & Renold, 2016). The avoidance of eye contact with the RA could be read as the boys’ haptic strategy to (re)establish their hetero-masculine dominance (Lefkowich, 2019), resist the woman researcher’s legitimacy (Pruit et al., 2021) and position the male interviewers as authoritative. Looking beyond gender, the RA’s status as a Turkish, non-native English speaker and PhD candidate also positioned her as a young foreign researcher or an unfamiliar outsider to the participants. It is thus also possible to interpret the boys’ limited eye contact as affected by and reproducing (affecting) structural inequalities based on nationality, ethnicity/race and language competency (Best, 2003). The facilitator reflected on the relevance of his positionality to the interview:

As a cis, white, hetero-presenting (in that they assumed I’m hetero, which I happen to be) man who some of them knew from earlier sessions, I know I got a high level of respect from the participants.

Not only does the facilitator highlight his and the boys’ ‘matching’ identities (i.e. gender and presumed sexual identity), which likely contributed to rapport (Thwaites, 2017), he also attributes his whiteness as contributing to a heightened level of ‘respect’ from the boys, three of whom were non-white. While the facilitator’s (and research lead’s) whiteness could have contributed to their authority in the eyes of the boys at points, it is possible that their whiteness could have positioned them as ‘outsiders’ at other points—for example in discussions about race/ethnicity (Best, 2003). For the purpose of this article, we thus focus on the relevance of the gender and sexual identities in the interview space, as the discourses shared in our interview centred on these topics.

In addition to the direction of their eye contact, the boys’ engaged in collective giggling when uttering misogynistic words. When asked why they thought girls wore revealing clothes online, Ramon responded that ‘sluts … just like show their bodies just for like follows and likes’. At this moment, the RA noted:

The word ‘slut’ was followed by collective giggles, and none of the boys made eye contact with me during or after using or hearing the word.

While there is no universal meaning attached to laughter in the literature (Grønnerød, 2004), the facilitator (he/him) reflected on the potential meaning of this laughter, based on his previous experience facilitating workshops with boys:

Workshop participants often laugh when they get the chance to say words in workshops they aren’t normally allowed to use at school (e.g. slut). The different element here is they laughed and ignored the only femme-presenting person in the room. They would have known these comments would have an added impact.

Building on this comment, we could conceive of these giggles as a form of bonding or approval among boys, often associated with ‘lad culture’ (Jackson, 2006), whereby the boys felt united by the collective uttering of derogatory words that they knew to be problematic. In this sense, the giggles could be said to enhance the boys’ power and control over the interview process (Pascoe, 2007, p. 14) and transform (affected) the power dynamics between the woman researcher and participants (Mügge, 2013). Conversely, their combined giggles and aversion of eye contact could be interpreted as recognition of the potential ‘impact’ of their words on the woman researcher, and potential feelings of ‘discomfort’ or ‘shame’ (Keddie, 2022, p. 407) in doing so. In this way, their embodied intensities, of giggles and aversion of eye contact, could be interpreted as unconscious ‘slippages’ of their ‘real’ feelings of shame or discomfort that were concealed by their performances of hegemonic masculinity or ‘identity work’ in the all-male focus group (Allen, 2005). However, this interpretation risks using deterministic, individualistic and Darwinian models of ‘basic emotions’ (de Boise & Hearn, 2017) and discounts the value of analysing displays of hypermasculinity as data (Allen, 2005). Instead, we adopt a relational and political approach to affect, focusing on how these intensities shape the boys’ performances of hetero-masculinity and the power dynamics between the RA, the facilitator, research lead and participants in the interview space.

One of the boys also shared anti-gay sentiments. The research lead (he/him) asked the boys how they felt about a workshop exercise on gender stereotypes. One of the boys invoked notions of a ‘natural’ gender and sexuality order (in line with Tate’s views), when remarking that people should behave according to what’s ‘natural’ to them. When prompted to expand, the boy described his concerns over primary school teachers ‘convinc[ing] people to be gay’, when people ‘would normally be straight’ because of their ‘natural instincts’—reflective of longstanding homophobic fearmongering that children are vulnerable to ‘predatory dangerous queerness’ (Kerpen, 2024, p. 199). Interestingly, in this instance, the boys discussed their discriminatory views while making direct eye contact with the research lead, a self-identifying gay man. Since the interview, the research lead has noted that his own identity as a white cis-gender queer man who can ‘pass’ as heterosexual affected the research process. The research lead does identify with ‘straight-acting’ masculinity, where some gay men distance themselves from stereotypes that equate being gay with being feminine (Clarkson, 2006)—which can contribute to the devaluation of effeminate gay men (Sarson, 2020). However, the research lead does not always present as camp or feminine, leading others to project assumptions about his potential heterosexual masculinity onto him. As a result, it is possible that their embodied confidence (direct eye contact), or absence of visible indicators of affect, when expressing homophobic remarks to a gay researcher potentially stemmed from their heteronormative assumptions about the research lead (and the research team). This demonstrates the relevance of the male researchers’ ‘identity work’ (Allen, 2005; O’Brien, 2019) in the interview, as their speech, embodiment and demeanour affected the participants’ production of a joint heterosexist masculine identity in that particular moment. Likewise, Flood (2013) reflects on his intentional distancing from his more feminine, gay masculine demeanour in order to minimize male interviewees’ discomfort in expressing homophobic remarks. We discuss the ethics of encouraging or ‘colluding’ with (Flood, 2013, p. 72) heterosexist masculinity in the interview setting in the final section.

‘Closed Off’, ‘Ignored’, ‘Angry’ and ‘Disturbed’: Negotiating Complex Feelings and Vulnerabilities as Interviewers

Critical masculinity theorists emphasize the usefulness of conceptualizing men’s (and boys’) affective intensities as affective and affecting other bodies (Allan, 2022; de Boise, 2018; de Boise & Hearn, 2017; Hickey-Moody, 2019). Beyond the boys’ reproduction of structural inequalities in the interview, we examine how their discourses and intensities affected the research team. Returning to our fieldnotes, we engage in a ‘revealing through feelings’ (Lennon, 2017, p. 8) approach, by interrogating the moments that ‘glowed’ (Ringrose & Renold, 2016) for the interviewers during and after the interviews. The RA’s notes communicate how the interview affected her embodiment in visceral ways:

I am affected by these discussions … I am feeling silenced and ignored … stuck, emotional difficulty, a need to cry, and an urgent need to burst out.

She goes on to reflect on the reasons for these unwieldy intensities:

I question why I feel like this as a PhD candidate who’s interviewed young boys many times and who’s familiar with emotional challenges during the field. Maybe it’s because this time there are five boys who use sexist narratives collectively.

We can conceive of the communal circulation of affects (Allan, 2022; de Boise, 2018; de Boise & Hearn, 2017; Hickey-Moody, 2019) as contributing to her feelings of vulnerability. Moreover, these moments ‘glowed’ (Ringrose & Renold, 2016) as they marked a rupture from the usual feelings she experienced in previous one-to-one interviews with boys. The RA records feeling excluded in her fieldnotes: ‘I am using the word they instead of we when describing this discussion because I don’t feel part of this conversation’. We can situate the boys’ affective practices within a lad culture that creates in/out-group dynamics and otherizes the feminine (Jeffries, 2020), contributing to her feelings of exclusion and lack of participation. She continues:

I want to talk and ask questions as the only woman researcher in the room – but I also feel kind of blocked, frozen, and angry.

This remark highlights the importance of using an affective lens in analysing power relations in an interview, revealing crucial contextual data beyond the transcript. The men only became aware of the RA’s feelings of vulnerability following the interview. The research lead has since reflected on the RA’s experience:

[the RA] and I had agreed she could question the boys if she wanted to, though there was no pressure to. This meant that during the interview I was not completely surprised by [her] silence; it is only since reflecting on the interview with [her], that I appreciate how the content and gendered affective dynamics of the interview created such a different and more oppressive experience for her. Frankly, I felt very saddened that as a man I had been caught up in the gendered affective dynamics of the interview and it has highlighted to me how easily gendered affective dynamics which reproduce inequalities can take hold in social situations as well as research.

Here, the research lead expresses his sadness for not recognizing the oppressive, gendered dynamics during the interview. What initially did not ‘glow’ to the research lead later became a moment of affective intensity (Ringrose & Renold, 2016), underscoring the importance of collegial communication and attuning to affect throughout the research process. The Facilitator also reflected on his limited awareness of these dynamics during the interview:

I noticed [the boys] didn’t look at [the RA], which is common in the rare occurrences I do workshops with boys and women in the room. That said, I didn’t pick up on all the nuance and severity of both the impact and subtle undermining of [the RA’s] presence they carried out.

These reflections highlight that power imbalances in interviews can be hard to perceive for those in positions of power or privilege, especially when expressed subtly and through embodied means (Pease, 2010; Watt, 2007), or, in the facilitator’s case, when lacking experience with gender diverse groups. It is difficult predicting an interview’s power dynamics as they can unexpectedly evolve, transform and take further meanings through ‘more-than-physical’ (Agee, 2002, p. 570) configurations of affect or emotionality. We thus take these reflections as an empowering opportunity to open up safer and empathetic spaces to spell out researcher vulnerabilities and to imagine alternative scenarios or interventions.

As noted, the RA was not the only interviewer who was subjected to discrimination in the interview. The research lead, a gay man, also found himself negotiating difficult feelings when Ramon expressed homophobic views:

Looking back, I was surprised and disturbed. However, at the time I was not able to process it straight away and just focused on getting the data.

The research lead has reflected that he had to ‘minimize’ his feelings of shame in the moment, an approach LGBTQ+ people use to get through or survive homophobia (McDermott et al., 2008):

It was really difficult to hear boys reiterating falsehoods about the ‘naturalness’ of being heterosexual; however, on reflection, I realize that ignoring this type of homophobia has become naturalized for me over many years. It is a defense mechanism, which can be useful in a situation such as a research interview but does have emotional consequences because as LGBTQ+ people we store feelings of shame based on discrimination and can take them out on ourselves and others.

It is possible that ‘ignoring homophobia’ was ‘useful’, as it helped the research lead to maintain interview flow. By prioritizing the interview’s progression, he also created space for the RA to process hers silently. This relieved her of the obligation to engage and empathize with misogynistic remarks from the boys, a burden often felt by women researching misogyny in one-on-one interviews (Huggins & Glebbeck, 2009). The facilitator reflects on the ability for colleagues to take on emotional burden of boys’ LGBTQ+ discrimination in classroom contexts:

Many LGBTQIA+ facilitators have flagged the emotional weight of doing this work. This is why as a cis, hetero man, I feel well placed to do this work as I don’t face the same danger when these comments come out. All that said, I need to reflect much more critically on the spaces I’m creating and the potential harm they can cause for others in the room.

This idea that his privileged position made him less vulnerable is relevant. Being less affected by participants’ misogyny and homophobia, the facilitator could have stepped in to lead the interview, when/if the other interviewers were too upset. However, ‘research is a social process’ (Gelir, 2021, p. 232), and researcher vulnerabilities are difficult to predict. Furthermore, these feelings and affective intensities carry meaning and can offer valuable insights into the power relations of the research setting. Therefore, removing marginalized voices from interviews/workshops may reduce harm to interviewers/facilitators, but can be more damaging to knowledge creation, as those in privileged positions may lack awareness of how their practices affect marginalized bodies.

The Ethics of Researching Discriminatory Views

A critical, long-debated (Hearn, 2013; Natow, 2020; Ruan, 2022) question is what should be tolerated in the interview? Should ‘anything go’ to gain access to the interviewees’ views? In this section, we explore the dynamics of facilitating controversial interviews. For the misogynistic discourses to unfurl, the RA chose to remain silent:

We start talking about Andrew Tate’s misogynist and anti-feminist content. Boys mention his sexist statements about women and household management, something like: ‘…If the man’s supplying everything, women should at least clean…’ I want to ask, ‘what happens if women don’t clean?’ but I didn’t; I remained silent and kept making notes … though secretly, I’m wondering how they would react to my question.

We thus ask: in what ways does the RA’s silence affect the research encounter? By choosing to remain silent, the RA could have protected the judgement-free interview space, thus enhancing the boys’ openness and honesty. According to the RA, ‘as the conversation unfolds, they become more enthusiastic to discuss and/or share’ their misogyny and support for Andrew Tate. Upon reflection, the research lead also describes wanting to increase boys’ feelings of comfort (despite his discomfort) to gain ‘good data’. Similarly, Lefkowich (2019) emphasizes how ‘enduring sexualized and sexist interactions, in spite of personal discomfort, [can] be an intentional strategy for some researchers to maintain rapport with participants, solicit deeper reflections, and yield rich data’ (p. 5). The RA’s choice to remain silent could be seen as ‘good’ interviewing practice, as she avoided interrupting or disagreeing with interviewees (Boonzaier, 2014; Britten, 1995; Patton, 1987), maintained their comfort (Morgan & Guevara, 2008), avoided judgement (Patton, 2015, p. 458) and signalled solidarity with their values (Prior, 2017). Moreover, the RA was able to observe and document the boys’ performances of hypermasculinity and enactments of misogyny in practice (Allen, 2005), as well as her own affective intensities and feelings, which served as valuable resources for analysing the interview.

The RA’s silence could have also validated (affected) the boys’ attachment to misogyny, anti-feminism and homophobia, as ‘silence can serve as a form of reinforcement and affirmation’ (Gailey & Prohaska, 2011, p. 379). Moreover, the RA’s embodied passivity could be interpreted as ‘stuck’ (Ahmed, 2004) to traditional femininity, reinforcing sexist stereotypes of women as empathetic listeners and facilitators of men’s narratives (Arendell, 1997; Flood, 2013; Horn, 1997). Additionally, the research lead and facilitator often signalled agreement with harmful comments through murmuring ‘mmhmm’, eye contact or nodding. These practices, intended to encourage openness, may have signalled tacit agreement with heterosexism. The Facilitator also noted that he altered his demeanour:

I also put on my usual facilitator, not teacher demeanor, so the participants would feel more comfortable saying what they actually thought vs what they thought they were supposed to say.

This decision likely reduced the power hierarchy between the adult interviewers and boy interviewees, aligning with feminist calls for non-hierarchical, empathetic research (Oakley, 1981). However, such approaches can clash with intersectional feminist goals if they allow oppressive practices to go unchallenged. Left unquestioned, these boys’ harmful views can contribute to broader gender injustices, posing particular ethical dilemmas with regard to our roles as feminist and queer researchers. Both male interviewers reflected on this dilemma:

I felt torn as a pro-feminist and queer researcher between being glad we managed to ‘get’ important data about how boy’s views and experiences aligned with or were informed by Tate’s messages, while knowing there was a missed opportunity to engage and potentially help the boys become more critically aware of their views. (Extract from research lead’s reflections)

In trying to wear two hats, I therefore allowed some harmful comments to go unchallenged, which created an unsafe (or at least uncomfortable) space at some points. I think I would need to understand this role better if I were to do this again and talk through strategies to both elicit information, but also have space to challenge harmful comments or call out sexist behaviour. (Extract from facilitator’s reflections)

Scholars interviewing men similarly experience competing desires to foster openness, empathy and bonding in the interview space, and to challenge heterosexism (Elliott & Roberts, 2020; Flood, 2013; Hearn, 2013). In our study, the RA describes how she felt she protected her feminism, despite remaining silent:

I convince myself (and also my feminism) saying that me being physically here is protecting my feminist space.

Similarly, Flood (2013) defends his decision to conceal his pro-feminist values in interviews with heterosexist men, because of his ‘awareness of the progressive political uses to which this research can be put’ (p. 71). Conversely, other researchers warn against giving men a platform to share these views, and the problems with letting men’s authoritative discourses about masculinities go uncritiqued in the interview setting (Chowdhury, 2017; Elliott & Roberts, 2020). The participants’ age further complicated these ethical dilemmas, as we felt a strong obligation to engage in gender-transformative work. However, doing so would have affected our capacity to conduct research. Gailey and Prohaska (2011) aptly describe this dilemma: ‘we certainly do not remain silent in our classrooms when students make remarks such as these, but how do we negotiate a situation where we are dependent on our participants for information?’ (p. 379). Showing our ‘feminist cards’ could have hindered data collection (Mügge, 2013), as critiquing the boys’ heterosexist remarks could have led the boys to ‘shut off’ or ‘disengage’ (Rodriguez-Dorans, 2018). This points to a particular dilemma created by the competing responsibilities attached to working as a feminist researcher with boys on the topic of misogyny. Given the likely surge in research on boys’ misogyny (with the mainstreaming of the manosphere and rise of misogyny influencers), we believe that it is pertinent that we develop guidance for future feminist researchers studying boys’ misogyny.

Conclusion

In this article, we explored boys affective practices as they expressed misogyny, anti-feminism and anti-gay perspectives. We extend work which looks at the impact of misogyny on feminist researchers by theorizing how the affective aspects of researching groups of young men and their homosociality. Our reflections on the research dynamics present several dilemmas, which we ponder in this final section of the article, also offering some potential recommendations for researchers in this field.

First, we continue to debate the competing and often conflicting responsibilities of being ‘neutral’ vs. actively feminist/queer researchers. Should researchers allow for the reproduction of misogyny and hypermasculinity without interrupting it? The research context is important. In our case, we worked with a charitable organization teaching positive masculinities in gender-divided group contexts, even in mixed-gender schools. The focus group replicated the dynamic of the workshop setting working in ‘all boy’ groupings. Working with the facilitator as a gatekeeper and interviewer for our research project meant some of the same dynamics from the workshop settings entered into the research space. For instance, the facilitator had little experience negotiating the way that lad culture and othering tactics may be impacting women or girls. Gender-divided pedagogy and research practices have effects and affects that may re-inscribe gender dualisms, whether these be ‘girl-only’ feminist spaces in schools (Retallack et al., 2016) or contexts where gender norms are worked upon in ‘boy only’ groupings. We are not ruling out using gender-divided strategies, but being mindful of how such gender divisions work and what they might intensify (including the othering of the ‘other’ gender and even denial of gender multiplicity, needs to be acknowledged and discussed). Like others, we are interested in finding strategies to encourage boys to reflect on their harmful gender attitudes and their immediate impact upon girls and women, including teachers in schools (Zhao et al., 2024) within a research setting. We acknowledge that engaging in gender transformative work creates conditions of ‘pedagogic discomfort’ (Keddie, 2022) for educators, students and also researchers and participants. We thus recommend finding empathetic ways to support and engage research participants, when and if they are reproducing hate and inequitable views, for instance by leaving resources and links to online information. By subtly questioning certain ideas and encouraging participants’ empathy, while avoiding shutting down participants’ narratives, the interviewer can initiate a ‘complete rethink’ (Elliott & Roberts, 2020, p. 777) or ‘flickers of transformation’ (Way et al., 2015, p. 720). It is also important to feed knowledge back to charitable organizations (and their facilitators) working in this field, as a form of co-productive praxis in ‘gender transformative’ research and education.

Second, we still wonder should researchers endure harm for the sake of ‘good’ data? What should they do to process these harms after the fact? While feminist researchers emphasize that enduring sexist interactions, in spite of personal discomfort, can be an intentional strategy to maintain rapport with participants, solicit deeper reflections and yield rich data, our research emphasizes the emotional toll that this work can have on the researchers. Mügge (2013) emphasizes how ethical guidelines and methodological literature rarely reference researcher well-being. There is consequently a need for greater awareness of the impact that conducting research on misogyny and other harmful perspectives can have on researchers, as well as the allocation of resources and guidance from universities. This could involve setting plans to ensure that researchers (of all academic positions) are able to seek mental health support if needed. We also believe that planning in advance (to the extent that is possible) for these emotional outcomes is beneficial. Indeed, another strategy we employed was creating systems of support within the research team. Gailey and Prohaska (2011) state that it is imperative for researchers to rely on each other to discuss their reactions to sexism, racism and so on in the interviews. Moreover, they recommend for women conducting solo research with men to identify colleagues with whom they can confide in and consult for dealing with emotions (Gailey & Prohaska, 2011). We also found it helpful for our team to regularly meet and correspond over e-mail after the interview took place. We thus similarly recommend for research team members to check in with one another after every interview—particularly when harmful remarks are shared.

Finally, then, we believe that it is important to reclaim our power as feminist academics. In a collaboration on a Twitter trolling attack (Xie et al., 2022), we wrote that it ‘takes time, space and a supportive community to generate the affective distance required to refuse a shaming collective action or the possibility to turn speech intended to hurt into something affirmative’ (p. 16). By interrogating and presenting discomforting accounts from our research (Pillow, 2003), this experience similarly allowed for us to create distance and reaffirm our commitment to being feminist and pro-queer researchers and pedagogues—and thus turn anger, discomfort and into something affirmative and hopefully supportive for others embarking on this type of educational work and research. We hope that our reflection contributes to the discussions surrounding how to appropriately and ethically conduct feminist, pro-queer activist research with boys on misogyny and homophobia.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

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

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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Researching Young Masculinities During the Rise of ‘Misogyny Influencers’: Exploring Affective and Embodied Discomfort and Dilemmas of Feminist and Queer Researchers

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Research on Young Masculinities and Online Misogyny

The Study

Affective Methodologies

Research Findings: Affect and Researching Politically Charged Perspectives on Masculinities

Boys’ as Affective Conduits for Misogyny and Anti-LGBTQ+ Content

‘Closed Off’, ‘Ignored’, ‘Angry’ and ‘Disturbed’: Negotiating Complex Feelings and Vulnerabilities as Interviewers

The Ethics of Researching Discriminatory Views

Conclusion

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

References