{"title":"研究我们反对的人:研究网上反女权主义女性的反身性伦理框架","authors":"Pauline Hoebanx","doi":"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103196","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>How can researchers ethically study online communities whose values fundamentally oppose their own? This article addresses the ethical dilemmas of conducting digital fieldwork with antifeminist women's communities. Drawing from netnographic research in four women's manosphere communities, Red Pill Women, Femcels, the Honey Badger Brigade, and Mothers of Sons, I develop a reflexive, feminist framework for ethical decision-making in politically contentious digital spaces. Rather than offering fixed rules, the framework consists of three sets of guiding questions that help researchers navigate ethical tensions at different stages of their project: when entering the field, during data collection, and throughout analysis. These questions are grounded in feminist epistemology, which prioritizes situated knowledge over claims to universal objectivity. I argue that studying ideologically oppositional communities does not require emotional alignment or political solidarity. Instead, it demands critical self-awareness and ethical transparency. The article highlights how antifeminist women's communities raise distinct challenges for digital research: their ideological complexity, gendered expectations of privacy, and resistance to academic inquiry all complicate the ethics of observation, interpretation, and representation. The framework presented here speaks to broader challenges in internet research and feminist methodology, offering tools for scholars working in polarized political contexts, especially with subjects who do not welcome the feminist researcher's gaze.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47940,"journal":{"name":"Womens Studies International Forum","volume":"113 ","pages":"Article 103196"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9000,"publicationDate":"2025-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Studying those we oppose: A reflexive ethical framework for researching antifeminist women online\",\"authors\":\"Pauline Hoebanx\",\"doi\":\"10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103196\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<div><div>How can researchers ethically study online communities whose values fundamentally oppose their own? This article addresses the ethical dilemmas of conducting digital fieldwork with antifeminist women's communities. Drawing from netnographic research in four women's manosphere communities, Red Pill Women, Femcels, the Honey Badger Brigade, and Mothers of Sons, I develop a reflexive, feminist framework for ethical decision-making in politically contentious digital spaces. Rather than offering fixed rules, the framework consists of three sets of guiding questions that help researchers navigate ethical tensions at different stages of their project: when entering the field, during data collection, and throughout analysis. These questions are grounded in feminist epistemology, which prioritizes situated knowledge over claims to universal objectivity. I argue that studying ideologically oppositional communities does not require emotional alignment or political solidarity. Instead, it demands critical self-awareness and ethical transparency. The article highlights how antifeminist women's communities raise distinct challenges for digital research: their ideological complexity, gendered expectations of privacy, and resistance to academic inquiry all complicate the ethics of observation, interpretation, and representation. The framework presented here speaks to broader challenges in internet research and feminist methodology, offering tools for scholars working in polarized political contexts, especially with subjects who do not welcome the feminist researcher's gaze.</div></div>\",\"PeriodicalId\":47940,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Womens Studies International Forum\",\"volume\":\"113 \",\"pages\":\"Article 103196\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":1.9000,\"publicationDate\":\"2025-08-20\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Womens Studies International Forum\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"90\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277539525001451\",\"RegionNum\":3,\"RegionCategory\":\"社会学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q2\",\"JCRName\":\"WOMENS STUDIES\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Womens Studies International Forum","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277539525001451","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"WOMENS STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
Studying those we oppose: A reflexive ethical framework for researching antifeminist women online
How can researchers ethically study online communities whose values fundamentally oppose their own? This article addresses the ethical dilemmas of conducting digital fieldwork with antifeminist women's communities. Drawing from netnographic research in four women's manosphere communities, Red Pill Women, Femcels, the Honey Badger Brigade, and Mothers of Sons, I develop a reflexive, feminist framework for ethical decision-making in politically contentious digital spaces. Rather than offering fixed rules, the framework consists of three sets of guiding questions that help researchers navigate ethical tensions at different stages of their project: when entering the field, during data collection, and throughout analysis. These questions are grounded in feminist epistemology, which prioritizes situated knowledge over claims to universal objectivity. I argue that studying ideologically oppositional communities does not require emotional alignment or political solidarity. Instead, it demands critical self-awareness and ethical transparency. The article highlights how antifeminist women's communities raise distinct challenges for digital research: their ideological complexity, gendered expectations of privacy, and resistance to academic inquiry all complicate the ethics of observation, interpretation, and representation. The framework presented here speaks to broader challenges in internet research and feminist methodology, offering tools for scholars working in polarized political contexts, especially with subjects who do not welcome the feminist researcher's gaze.
期刊介绍:
Women"s Studies International Forum (formerly Women"s Studies International Quarterly, established in 1978) is a bimonthly journal to aid the distribution and exchange of feminist research in the multidisciplinary, international area of women"s studies and in feminist research in other disciplines. The policy of the journal is to establish a feminist forum for discussion and debate. The journal seeks to critique and reconceptualize existing knowledge, to examine and re-evaluate the manner in which knowledge is produced and distributed, and to assess the implications this has for women"s lives.