Seduction: Men, masculinity and mediated intimacy Rachel O’Neill

Hegemonic masculinities in the ‘Manosphere’: A thematic analysis of beliefs about men and women on The Red Pill and Incel

“…Endorsement of stereotypes, in turn, results in ideological beliefs about social issues, such as opposition to male political candidates who do not conform to gender stereotypes (Swigger & Meyer, 2019) and opposition to women's and trans rights (Wilton et al., 2019). More directly, viewing gender essentialism as predestined can lead to dismissal of attempts to foster equality between men and women as an impossible pursuit (O'Neill, 2018). Indeed, this belief in gender essentialism tended to also take the form of endorsing traditional gender roles, as is common in broader culture (Bem, 1993).…”

“…A recent content analysis of a MGTOW site revealed that many of the discussions about why posters identify as MGTOW concerned misogynistic constructions of women as a threat (Wright et al., 2020). In an ethnography of London‐based PUA communities O'Neill (2018) elucidated how neoliberalism and post‐feminism shape men's engagement with PUA instruction‐based seduction communities. Similar dynamics between masculinity and neoliberalism were present in The Red Pill message board's ‘sidebar’, a collection of essential readings prescribed by the moderators of the message board (Van Valkenburgh, 2018).…”

In(cel)doctrination: How technologically facilitated misogyny moves violence off screens and on to streets

“…Here, 20th-century MRA tropes of oppression and anger underpin the principles of this digital web. Within the umbrella of the Manosphere, exists a series of MRA groupings (Banet-Weiser, 2018;Ging, 2017;Jane, 2016;Massanari, 2015;Nagle, 2017;O 'Neill, 2018) including father's rights groups, who respond to higher rates of domestic abuse or homicide committed against women by victim blaming (Behre, 2014); Pick Up Artists, a community in which men cultivate skills and techniques to attract women (O'Neill, 2018); Men Going Their Own Way, which advocates that marriage and cohabitation with women is 'unsafe' for men (Pry and Valiente, 2013); and Incels.…”

Embodying aesthetic entrepreneurialism: Men, the body and the performing arts

“…Therefore, the relationships between subjectivity, self-transformation and the body, which was once thought to position women as the ideal subjects of neoliberalism (Gill & Scharff, 2011;McRobbie, 2009), has come to be increasingly recognized in the everyday practices of men (see Hakim, 2020). Building from the important critique of the cultural politics of neoliberalism offered by feminist scholars (see Elias et al, 2017;Gill, 2019), as well as those who have taken up this critique to examine the embodied subjectivities of men (see Hakim, 2020;O'Neill, 2018), we examine the processes by which neoliberalism is embodied by men in the performing arts, paying particular attention to the bodily and discursive practices of these men as they fashion a marketable aesthetic. In this article, we bring together feminist critiques of the contemporary cultural moment, the small but growing body of research on men, the body and neoliberalism, and critical literatures on the cultural and creative industries (CCI) to provide an analysis of the new labouring subjectivities of men in the performing arts.…”

“…Indeed, there is a significant and growing corpus of literature on CCI (for an overview see Banks et al, 2013;Conor et al, 2015), with most of this literature focusing on the precarious labour conditions in CCI, with comparatively less attention to how neoliberalism is embodied at the subjective level (Gill, 2014;O'Neill, 2018;Scharff, 2015Scharff, , 2018. Recent scholarship, however, suggests that precarity is no longer limited to industryspecific working conditions, but has come to characterize everyday life under neoliberalism (Elias et al, 2017).…”