Feminist and Sexual Dissidence Mythologies: distorting meaning and depoliticizing through humor

Abstract

This article examines the way coercive memes—whether those against feminism or sexual dissidence—that circulate through social media opposing “gender ideology” in Mexico, constitute practices of symbolic domination that perpetuate forms of oppression. Following the semiological perspective of Roland Barthes, coercive memes are analyzed as mythologies, which makes it possible to focus on three of their ideological functions: distorting meaning, naturalizing, and depoliticizing. The methodological strategy is based on the analytical centrality of returning to the ethnographic archive.