Right-wing populist and anti-feminist movements are on the rise. Social media channels such as TikTok offer followers a platform where they can successfully reach young people – often disguising their messages as harmless lifestyle content. A research team at the UoC has set out to develop empirically based educational materials that arm young people against these trends.
Eva Schissler
A young woman – blonde curls and dressed in pink from head to toe – sits at her kitchen table talking to her audience about some of the principles that guide her life: she never leaves the house alone at night and always lets her husband know where she is. It has nothing to do with control, she says, it’s just about safety. In her world, a woman should submit to her husband and serve him. After all, that’s what the Bible says. Helping her husband is something she sees as a blessing.
Cooking, baking, caring for the children and supporting their husbands... this is the ‘traditional lifestyle’ of housewife and mother that so-called ‘tradwives’ are promoting on social media channels like TikTok and Instagram. Estee Williams, with her perfect hair and doll-like appearance, is one of the most famous tradwives of all. Many of these influencers are keen to assure us that this lifestyle, reminiscent of the dubious ideal of privileged white women in the 1950s, is their free choice.
Tradwives fit into a broader anti-feminist and anti-progressive genre of social media messages. There are also ‘manfluencers’, who preach about how a ‘real man’ should behave – especially towards women. For example, in a TikTok video posted by the so-called Alpha Brotherhood, one of these self-proclaimed alpha males explains that women should always love their man more than the other way round. Otherwise, the woman will lose respect for him. When a man takes the lead, it signals to the woman that he is the best she ‘can get’. And it goes without saying that men are only attracted to young, fertile women. It’s a biological fact.
“Videos sharing make-up, outfit or baking tips seem non-political at first,” says Dr Franziska Bellinger, Junior Professor of Media Didactics and Media Education at the Faculty of Human Sciences. “Yet some of these videos contain messages like: ‘Why should I always insist on my rights as a woman? We’re doing well after all.’ The boundaries between political and non-political content are blurred.” The content aimed at young men, on the other hand, offers questionable tips on how to become more appealing to women and how to succeed in a world of ‘sissies’ and ‘woke snowflakes’.
The political character of the tradwife and alpha bro scenes becomes apparent in their proximity to right-wing populist movements. In the US, for example, tradwives are closely associated with the strict conservative and Christian fundamentalist political camp. In Germany, AfD politicians attract attention with videos spreading the message that ‘real German men’ must be right-wing. Bellinger sees anti-feminism on social media as a kind of bridging ideology, a possible entry point for more extreme ideologies.
Making right-wing populism socially acceptable
According to the 2024 Shell Youth Study (in German), interest in political issues is growing among young people and social media is playing an increasingly important role in shaping political opinion. Election results worldwide show that right-wing and right-wing populist content is particularly popular on social media platforms: In Germany, the AfD is more successful on TikTok than any other party, and in the UK, the Reform UK party led by right-wing populist Nigel Farage is the strongest. In the run-up to the parliamentary elections in both countries, these parties specifically targeted young voters on social media.
Young people sometimes find it difficult to recognize anti-feminist content as political and to think critically about it, says Bellinger. What’s more: “Making fun of feminists seems to be a normal thing for some young people today. This makes much of the right-wing populist camp socially acceptable.”
Franziska Bellinger and her colleague Dr Michaela Kramer, Junior Professor of Educational Sciences with a focus on digital media in education, are researching various forms of anti-feminism found on the social media channel in the one-year project ‘Unlearning Anti-Feminism on TikTok’. The Volkswagen Foundation is funding the project as part of the ‘Transformational Knowledge on Democracies under Change’ programme. The educational NGO mediale Pfade - Verein für Medienbildung e.V., is also involved as a practice partner.
The project team not only researches anti-feminism on TikTok, it also develops open educational resources for schools and educational institutions to raise awareness among young people of the political dimension of much of the content. One thing is for sure: social media will continue to be an integral part of democracy education and socialization in the future.
The researchers and the partner organization are working to develop practical results as quickly as possible. “The political landscape and social media are both very dynamic. That’s why we need media education concepts and recommendations that help us take action as soon as possible,” says Michaela Kramer. The educational materials for the 15–25 age group will be available as early as the summer.
Slowing down and thinking critically
The project chose to focus on TikTok because it is currently particularly popular among teenagers and young adults. However, TikTok is also characterized by an anti-feminist attitude. For example, many queer topics are censored there. As early as 2022, research by tagesschau revealed that words such as ‘LGTBQ’ and ‘gay’ are filtered out in comments. Both Bellinger and Kramer see queerphobia as part of the wider discourse of anti-feminist ideologies promoted by the platform, alongside content featuring conservative to reactionary images of women.
On the other hand, TikTok has a number of features that make it particularly suitable for cleverly conveying political content. The algorithms and underlying mechanisms are not transparent. This per se does not distinguish TikTok from many other social media and digital services. However, videos on TikTok are faster and follow each other more quickly. There are also more display options, with music backgrounds, emojis and text elements. “Last but not least, TikTok is special because it’s much easier for content to go viral there than on other platforms. All you need is one particular song that is trending,” says Kramer.
Another special feature is the ‘For You’ page, TikTok’s homepage, which shows content from accounts that the user does not actively follow. This means that users might unintentionally stumble upon explicit or hidden political content. “These factors make it difficult to stop, take a closer look and critically think about each individual statement,” says Franziska Bellinger. In workshops that the project partners held with teens and young adults, the first step was therefore to slow down and take a long, in-depth look at what would otherwise be swiped over or dismissed in a matter of seconds.
What would your perfect world look like?
Kramer and Bellinger bring their academic expertise to the workshops in a design-based research approach. This makes it possible to combine research and didactic-methodological design to solve a practical problem. “We observe participants during the workshops and incorporate a range of additional reflection loops. That way, we can be more precise and improve our results,” Franziska Bellinger explains the method.
The design is complex but it’s worth the effort, because it means that the teaching materials developed are based on solid research. The team also derives methods from the accompanying observations, which can be used to address other anti-democratic political movements. The result is a digital kit of materials and methods on the basis of which modules can be adapted for different groups and objectives – for example to reach even younger adolescents as well as those who are not interested in the topic or have already adopted certain anti-feminist ideologies.
When faced with defensive reactions, the two researchers emphasize that it’s important not to play the morality police, but to be open to the perspectives that young people bring to the table. To understand their attitudes, mediale pfade has developed a special task for the workshops: participants are asked to imagine and describe their ideal world. “The answers give us a sense of what young people are actually thinking – independent of what they are told by social media influencers,” says Franziska Bellinger. For young men, a critical attitude towards feminism is often fuelled by concerns about their own future: Will I be stripped of my rights or suffer setbacks? To dispel these widespread fears, the workshops and educational materials also explain what feminism actually is and that it not only affects women’s rights, but has also made society freer and fairer as a whole.
Although the body of right-wing populist and anti-feminist content on social media is constantly growing, Michaela Kramer and Franziska Bellinger do not see their work as fighting an uphill battle. “As academics, we can keep a critical distance from our subject matter. But we also want to make a concrete contribution to democratic educational practice,” says Kramer.
In order to publicize the results of the project in the summer, the project team has already outlined a broad science communication strategy. The two researchers have recently received follow-up funding from the Volkswagen Foundation to expand the project: In April, the project ‘Wissenstransfer für die politische Medienbildung’ (Knowledge Transfer for Political Media Education) was launched, once again with the participation of mediale pfade. Of course, they also want to tap the potential of social media to get the word out. Bellinger has a plan: “Instead of the tradwives and alpha bros, we’re hoping that our content will end up on users’ ‘For You’ pages.”
UNLEARNING ANTIFEMINISM ON TIKTOK
In order to promote democracy education, the project aims to strengthen the digital sovereignty and agency of teenagers and young adults aged 15 to 25 through preventative programmes. The project develops open educational materials and recommendations for educational work in the field of political media education. These materials can be used in both formal and non-formal contexts to raise awareness of anti-feminist and (right-wing) ideological content on social media.
The project by the University of Cologne and the independent organization ‘mediale Pfade - Verein für Medienbildung e.V.’ is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation from June 2024 to May 2025.