The men and women, guys and girls of the 'manosphere': A corpus-assisted discourse approach

This study investigates how the lemmaswoman, girl, manandguyare used to discursively represent and construct gender identities in an anti-feminist forum on the discussion websiteReddit. The lemmas were analysed using corpus-assisted social actor analysis and appraisal theory. Similarities and differences within three sub-communities of theTRPsubreddit were considered:Men's Rights(activists who believe that men are systemically disadvantaged in society),Men Going Their Own Way(who abstain from relationships with women), andRed Pill Theory(primarily pick-up artists). The corpus was characterised by bare assertions about gendered behaviour, although the masculine gender role was less well-defined than the feminine one.Womenandgirlswere dehumanised and sexually objectified, negatively judged for morality and veracity, and constructed as desiring hostile behaviour from male social actors. Conversely,menwere constructed as victims of female social actors and external institutions and, as a result, as unhappy and insecure.