All entries on Feminist Legal Clinic’s News Digest Blog are extracts from news articles and other publications, with the source available at the link at the bottom. The content is not originally generated by Feminist Legal Clinic and does not necessarily reflect our views.
Let’s say a teenage boy is looking for some dating advice.
He’ll be served a typical dating coach video like this, which, at first glance, seems harmless enough.
But note how this influencer is already normalising the sexist claim that women are “not the same as men” because “men are logical”.
Some claim if you don’t make a woman feel inferior, she won’t believe she’s “dating up”.
Many manfluencers believe women are genetically hardwired to mate only with so-called “alpha males”.
This video peddles the manosphere belief that women don’t like good men because they are “naturally” attracted to “dark-triad” personalities (narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism).
This tactic endorses and excuses toxic behaviours.
But it starts to get darker, suggesting women enjoy sexual aggression and violence.
And because of those earlier videos about female inferiority and male aggression, he’s been primed to accept what comes next.
The dating coach in this video uses language and concepts from evolutionary psychology.
This lends “scientific” legitimacy to his claims and recasts male sexual violence as motivated by a desire to protect women.
At this point, our teenager is also receiving videos about concepts like “the Red Pill”. This is the idea that by refusing to blindly accept the world as it is, they learn the “truth”: that men are at the whims of women’s power and desires.
This messaging reframes hypermasculinity as edgy and anti-establishment. But in reality, it’s about preserving the status quo, not disrupting it.
By now, we are quite deep in the manosphere.
A steady stream of narratives about male victimhood and “wokeism” make our boy feel both enlightened and aggrieved.
Videos will often start referencing the film The Matrix.
Manfluencers describe how the corporate world, liberal government and education conspire to keep “blue-pilled brokies” in a life of wage slavery.
Our teenager’s mindset has started to change.
He is now engaging with overt misogyny, as well as common far-right tropes, such as that single mothers produce murderers, drug dealers and criminals.
These ideas are probably manifesting in his behaviour at school, and in how he is treating girls and women both on and offline.
Not all boys exposed to this content will pursue it. Many get themselves out.
And while the social media ban may put a brake on younger boys accessing this material, it will not solve the problem. Misogyny is rife beyond the digital world, and male supremacists will inevitably find other platforms to reach younger audiences.
The challenge is to reach men and boys before the manosphere does, which given its power, is a significant challenge.