Discursive analysis reveals how emotional blame attributions reinforce gender polarisation in online forums, suggesting everyday interactions actively sustain social divides.
Key Points
To examine how gender polarisation is discursively and affectively constructed through everyday online interactions concerning perceived ideological gender divides.
Applied an affective and critical discursive framework to evaluate online interactions regarding gender polarisation.
Analyzed user comments across two Finnish Reddit discussion threads dedicated to debating the ideological gender gap.
Polarisation was negotiated and sustained through competing attributions of responsibility, including societal neglect, media dynamics, failed dialogue, ideological extremism, and gendered power relations.
Accounts of blame were emotionally charged and oppositional, which actively reproduced the ideological divisions participants attempted to explain.