‘Sanna, Aren't You Ashamed?’ Affective‐discursive practices in online misogynist discourse of Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin

Abstract

This research examines online misogynist discourse related to the Finnish prime minister (PM) Sanna Marin's image published in Trendi magazine in October 2020. The affective-discursive analysis of online commentaries resulted in the identification of four affective-discursive practices: an immoral woman, incompetent woman, calculating woman and inferior woman. Misogynist discourse related to the PM Marin took the form of a moral act, drew from stereotypical images of women as less rational than men, appeared as accusations targeted at Marin for playing the gender card as a political tactic, and constructed an image of Marin and female politicians as objects of men's sexual desires and as inferior to men. These affective-discursive practices mobilized dehumanizing discourse ranging from milder forms of derogation, scorn and other-condemning practices to harsher forms of belittlement, humiliation and animalistic dehumanization. This study contributes to the current knowledge on the affectivediscursive processes underlying online misogyny against female politicians. K E Y W O R D Saffective-discursive practices, dehumanisation, discourse analysis, female politicians, online misogyny INTRODUCTION'To thank Sanna for the pictures, I sent a photo of my penis in erection. She's not responded yet. I wish to get a date with her.' 'Sanna, aren't you ashamed? I am ashamed that Finland's Prime Minister strips herself like this.'Two quotations taken from online communications dealing with the appearance of Finnish prime minister (PM) Sanna Marin illustrate the topic of this study: online misogyny against female politicians. The firstThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

Female Politicians as Climate Fools: Intertextual and Multimodal Constructions of Misogyny Disguised as Humor in Political Communication

“…The irrationality and vanity of the female politicians is constructed through the absurdity in preoccupying themselves with make‐up and listening to disco‐like music while being in the middle of nowhere in a seemingly broken car. Again, we can detect an intertextual reference here to the “lipstick government” that the female‐dominated Finnish government has been called in mockery in (social) media debates (Sakki & Martikainen, 2022; van Sant et al, 2021). From the perspective of multimodal construction of meaning, the irrationality is based of recontextualization, where the multimodal resources used in representing the female politicians (inside the car, finishing make‐up, disco music) are highly different from those used in representing the situation or environment (the “broken” car, the rural scenery, the peaceful music).…”

“…As the two van men offer their help (01.06), Marin points at the ashamed‐looking driver, who is blurred in the background: “This hero here forgot to charge the car with clean energy, and now we are running late—for a big magazine photoshoot!” (01.17). Marin's appearance, accompanied by the comment about the “big magazine photoshoot” is an intertextual reference to her outfit and posture in an interview she gave for the magazine Vogue in 2020, which caused her to be mocked in social media—not least by the FP and its supporters—and accused of putting vanity and her own fame and glory ahead of her responsibilities as Prime Minister (Sakki & Martikainen, 2022).…”

“…Here, she is depicted as strong and tough—qualities more commonly associated with male politicians (Alexander & Andersen, 1993; Heilman, 2001). The visual and sonic resources harnessed to represent the PM co‐contextualize each other (Liu & O'Halloran, 2009; O'Halloran, 2008), constructing a caricature of the PM who is self‐centered, bossy, and hungry for power (Harp et al, 2016; Sakki & Martikainen, 2022). On the other hand, the strongly different visual and sonic features related to the laid‐back men and PM Marin with her driver (physical appearance, clothing, way of speaking, colors of the cars) construct a division between jovial common people and a cocky elite.…”

“…Marin's distant, elitist position is enhanced in her belittling interruption “hush hush!” (as if talking to children) (cf. Sakki & Martikainen, 2022) and her vague reply containing typical political jargon and also a slip of tongue: “…and understand that, in order to prevent the climate change, you…—…ahem— we all — (02:29) have to make a hard effort….” This lapse ironically communicates that Marin's “true agenda” is that the people should strive and suffer for the sake of preventing climate change, whereas she herself is powerful and privileged and therefore must not.…”

Verkkoviha väkivaltana – vihapuhetutkijoiden näkökulmia

“…Tarkastelemamme sisällöt toimivat myös välineenä konservatiiviselle poliittiselle ja yhteiskuntakritiikille, jotka saavat voimansa ihmisryhmien leimaamisesta ja halventamisesta. Ylilaudalla erityisesti pääministeri Marin ja tämän naisenemmistöinen hallitus esiintyvät useissa misogyynisissä meemeissä, joissa ministereitä vastaan hyökätään sanoin ja kuvin heitä seksualisoimalla ja seksuaalisesti halventamalla (Saresma et al 2020;Gasparini et al 2021;Sakki & Martikainen 2022). Paikoin naispoliitikkojen seksuaalinen halventaminen liittyy myös muiden ihmisryhmien leimaamiseen ja solvaamiseen esimerkiksi Maria Ohisalon johtaman Vihreiden maahanmuuttopoliittista linjaa kritisoivissa meemeissä.…”