Covert Resistance to #MeToo: The Uptake of Social Change and Public Anxiety in the Men's Lifestyle Magazine Cover Genre

Abstract

While the #MeToo social movement begun in 2017 raised awareness around sexual violence and its role in masculinity, its larger impact on masculine ideology is difficult to gauge. Employing an ideologically rich genre—the covers of men’s lifestyle magazines— and concepts from Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS), this paper investigates #MeToo’s impact on the (re)production of masculinity in the genre, further considering the extent to which social movements and the resulting public anxiety can impact ideological (re)production in genres. Comparing covers from before and after #MeToo, this paper argues that patterns in the genre represent a sidestepping of the issues raised by #MeToo and a covert resistance to the movement rather than a fundamental shift in American masculinity.