‘Tell this fuckin’ bitch to pull her head in’: affective infrastructures of gender injustice and manosphere classroom encounters

This paper offers an analysis of Australian teachers’ stories of classroom encounters shaped by the ‘manosphere’: i.e. online groups connected by anti-feminist, right-wing populism. Responses to gender-related issues in Australian schools have long been ineffectual and this policy failure is exacerbating unfolding circumstances. Using affective infrastructure, masculinism, and complaint as a tripartite lens, the paper examines conditions of social formation within which manosphere encounters surface. Consideration is given to the broader forces of neoliberalism that not only influence policy and institutional frameworks but manifest in micro-political practices shaped by masculinist norms that affect educators and students alike. The paper argues: (1) the populist subject of the manosphere is not pre-existing but contingent on infrastructural conditions; (2) we must take seriously the consequences of affective infrastructures of gender injustice for widespread coexistence. The paper is offered as an Australian case with international relevance.