Christian anti-feminism and media coverage on digital platforms

Abstract

This article analyzes the role of two anti-feminist digital courses, one Catholic and one Evangelical, centered on the idea of “feminine virtuousness” within a context of religious intolerance and the growing mediatization of religion on digital platforms in Brazil. Through their public identification as Christian content producers, these actors dispute the category of “woman” and commercialize courses on “feminine vocation”, virtuous cooking, skincare, modest dress, personal style, table setting, and the pillars of the feminine ideal, among other topics. This universe targets mothers, wives, tradwives, coaches, female pastors, church workers, laywomen, politicians, lawyers, and physicians, among other women who share situated confessional identities, in a context in which the Christian right consolidated its visible political expression. The article develops a discourse analysis of the construction of gender repertoires, regimes of truth, authority, visibility, and theological and doctrinal utterances within the digital religious market, examining which categories, networks of formulation, and utterances are mobilized by conservative Christian influencers to sell anti-feminist courses, monetize discourses on virtue and biblical femininity, build authority within digital communities, and confront, through binary logics, feminisms and the democratic mechanisms that guarantee social and sexual rights in a plural society.