Metaphorical framing of feminism and women in Spanish online media

ABSTRACT Online media has enabled the representation of important feminist ideas. However, a tendency towards a negative and sexualized construction of feminism in popular culture has been documented. One way to examine opinions and attitudes towards social matters is to explore metaphors as they influence reasoning and decision-making. Previous work has shown that common metaphor patterns for women include comparing them to animals or plants, body parts, commodities or outsiders. Here we use standard methods of metaphor identification to explore the framing of feminism and women in feminism-related news in online popular media in Spanish, using a sample of articles taken from News on the Web (Corpus del Español). The results show that the most common metaphors on feminism and women are warfare ones, highlighting the intention of empowering the movement. However, war metaphors may convey negative connotations such as an increase in fear emotions and political polarization. Other metaphors found for feminism also tend to foreground power and force. In the case of women, many metaphors convey victimization and objectification. Finally, some metaphors used to frame women that are common in other discourses – such as women are animals or farmland – were absent in online articles on feminism.