Why write about this?
Usually, I prefer to stay on the philosophical side of things and as “fundamental” as possible. For example, when it comes to atheism, I like to amuse myself with the so-called “god of the philosophers”, the idea of the uncaused cause, unmoved mover etc. and focus less on a specific notion of God as various monotheistic traditions decide to interpret these ideas of philosophy. But occasionally I will make an exception if I perceive a topic, idea or phenomenon as particularly toxic or harmful. So, it’s come to this. Time to look at the Manosphere, what it is and why it is childish crap. We will start with the definition and a look at the various “subcultures” it contains.
Introduction
The Manosphere is, generally speaking, not a single idea, a single movement or even an ideology. It is instead a sort of an umbrella term which houses the beliefs of various subcultures which may have different conclusions about how to go about what they all perceive to be a problem: “Feminism has instituted an unnatural way of life”, with men becoming more and more disadvantaged and women more and more privileged.
While the issues these subcultures and mindsets inside the manosphere have are somewhat different, I feel it can be roughly said, that their solutions all include speaking out against feminism and embracing certain archetypal behaviours to get what they want. What I am talking about should sound familiar to anyone who spent time online – the “alpha male” concept.
So, at the very least, they all believe that:
- feminism violates the “natural order” and has disrupted “normal sex roles” on how we should act for the worse
- men should “force“* women to be obedient.
* not necessarily with physical violence, but culturally
Definition
While it is a play on words on the term “blogosphere” and many online sources define it as a collection of online spaces that concern themselves with the rights of men and masculinity, I feel that is not going far enough. Namely, I believe that the manosphere is an idea that lives in one’s mind, similar to the “women are inferior to men” idea.
Loosely defined, yes, in the context of an interconnected world – it’s a collection of online communication channels which one way or another support an ideology which is based in and encompasses toxic masculinity, resentment towards women and opposition to feminism.
This post concerns this ideology. If it can be roughly said that the manosphere is rooted in the idea that a) feminism has destroyed society and b) men should return to their traditional roles by becoming “alpha,” then a “citizen of the manosphere” would be anybody who holds those two ideas alive in their head. In a sense, he brings the manosphere with him wherever he goes, be it online or offline.
Groups and Subcultures of the Manosphere
As described above, the manosphere is not a single movement or a single idea, it is a loose mindset of resentment towards women – and this mindset then interconnects various other ideologies that converge around it. Let’s see what these ideologies that together create a vast web of manosphere are.
Incels
Incels (the word comes from “involuntary celibate“) are men who are willing – willing in the sense that they have desires, but are unable to romantically or sexually attract women, or at least, men who believe that they cannot attract women romantically and/or sexually. Naturally, they tend to blame everything but themselves – but they blame mostly women. Sure, buddy, it’s the fault of absolutely every single woman alive – and not yours, because, well, that makes sense.
To be more precise, they blame women and societal norms. They blame women for unfairly not choosing them because they favour the wealthy and attractive men. They call these men “Chads“. Incels often see their situation as predetermined by their not being rich or because of predetermined biological factors and genetics.
As one can imagine, these views have led to some feeling they are entitled to their share of women and believe that women should be “forced” or subjugated and restricted to monogamy, which naturally revolves around the idea that men are entitled to sex by society and that women are to be treated almost like sexual subjects.
Naturally, some might say that they don’t believe all that and are posting it “for the lulz”, but this runs the risk of not taking the phenomenon seriously enough and in doing so opening the door for a potential incel funnel through humour. Even some flat Earthers have been taking that stuff seriously, investing money in experiments and such, so it’s not hard to imagine some taking the “lulz” too far. If you’re one of the sceptics, I urge you to reconsider and take these issues seriously because this ideology has real consequences.
Individuals associated with the incel movement (and self-identified as incels) have been responsible for several mass shootings and violent incidents. See, for example, Elliot Rodger and the 2018 Toronto van attack. So, yes, this crap should be taken seriously and spoken out against.
Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs)
This is essentially a group which claims that society favours women (as if the society wasn’t set up by men and for men, but I digress).
In essence, this group, ideology or whatever you call it claims to advocate for men’s rights in areas such as education and family law. But I am sure you can imagine by now how this goes – they take a seemingly legitimate issue, like men’s suicide rates and then blame it on feminism, instead of um, let’s say toxic masculinity which teaches men not to seek help and deal with their problems alone.
Naturally, then there are almost always discussions about false accusations of rape as if somehow men are falsely accused of rape more than there are cases of rape happening. Naturally, nothing could be further from the truth, as in reality in Europe approximately 4-9% of allegations are “false”, according to a study – Different systems, similar outcomes? Tracking attrition in reported rape cases in eleven countries. This includes the “no evidence of an assault” category and not only cases where it was proven that no assault had occurred. In the UK that number was closer to 3%. See Wikipedia for more.
While ideally, the number of intentional false rape allegations should be zero, the situation is much, much better than the MRAs would have you believe – and of course, according to them, this is all in one way or another because “women are privileged”.
And sure, once you adopt the “women are privileged” mindset and the “return to traditional values” solution, only one thing can happen – harassment towards feminists and men who do not think and feel like them.
Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW)
Men in the MGTOW communities believe that women are privileged and manipulative, only interested in men for the money and resources – you get it by now – the usual. Add a sparkle of the idea that women are promiscuous and abandon a man if a “higher-value man” shows interest.
What is different about MGTOW is that they – as the name says, advocate that men should best avoid relationships with women, or at least, limit themselves to casual encounters. Some advocate against friendships as well.
They will even sometimes go as far as to say that one should be isolated from society as well, as it was “corrupted by women”.
While this sounds more benign that Incels, it should not be difficult to see how such ideas might lead to loneliness, isolation or eventually even suicide.
What is additionally interesting about them is that they hate the next group within the manosphere – the so-called “pickup artists” because they see them as boys who are overly dependent on the approval of women and are contributing to the “cucks” overvaluing women. In response, Pickup Artists are calling MGTOW “losers” and “virgins”.
Pick Up Artists (PUAs)
Pickup Artists are a group which shares many of the ideas of the manosphere – that men should be entitled to women and that women prefer alpha males. The Pickup Artist community is focused on strategies for seducing and tricking women by exploiting psychological tricks that sometimes work due to the factors that played a role in our evolution, for example, gossiping and talking about crazy behaviours or pretending to be seeking advice.
While there’s nothing wrong with learning to become more sociable, the problem with the Pickup Artist communities is that they dehumanise women, and treat them as prizes to be won, rather than as individual human beings. It is not difficult to see how this leads to emotional manipulation and ultimately to a shallow and empty dating life where success is measured in numbers. Naturally, in these cases, it could easily happen that the question of consent is often overlooked.
Luckily, in the last few years, I have begun seeing a new wave of dating advice for men which is “passive”, in the sense that it focuses more on the men being the best version of themselves to attract women naturally and through being an interesting person. Hopefully, this version of dating advice will coon abolish the toxic PUA style of advice.
Why is any of this a Problem, why call the Manosphere Toxic?
If you’re still wondering which is a manosphere such a problem and think that all is mostly for the lulz, I urge you to go back and reread the part about incel killers.
But, a summary might be worth it, so that we have all the bullet points in one place:
- It promotes misogyny and hostility towards women who are blamed for the problems of men and society in general
- This, in turn, leads to the reinforcement of harmful stereotypes and the ideas of returning to traditional values where men are to be dominant and women are to be obedient and dependent on men.
- All of this makes men likely to not look at themselves as the source of problems in their lives, instead, they start looking for someone else to blame not only in dating but in all areas of their lives. This makes people extremely susceptible to right-wing ideologies and racism because blaming others and the sense of entitlement becomes their go-to for all problems.
- This effectively makes the manosphere a funnel to the alt-right and the extreme-right.
- This all plays a major role in isolation, suicidal thoughts and thoughts about subjugating the privileged, the ones who are to blame that they are not doing well.
- All in all, the manosphere will lead towards despair and not towards becoming an alpha male or towards happiness.
Why do men enter the Manosphere?
I do believe it starts with a need for a support system. Thanks again to ancient, outdated notions of masculinity, there are not nearly enough resources available for men to turn to when they feel bad or when they need support.
Often due to the feeling of inadequacy at the place of work, university or school, often due to sexual and romantic rejection, men begin searching for answers to why it happens and what can be done about it. Due to a huge number of the manosphere resources, variations and ideologies it is very, very easy to find the resource that opens the door to it, be it a PUA or an Incel website, or a YouTube or TikTok video.
Then the Algorithm takes over. Be it Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, or some other online media, the Algorithm makes sure to give you more of what you already watched and down the rabbit hole you go.
Now, when it comes to cat videos, this is all well and good, but the algorithm rarely discriminates and simply gives you even more of what you already watched, so if you watch a few posts which argue that women are to blame for the downfall of society, it will continue to serve you more, all in the name of engagement and advertising.
The left is not entirely blameless in this. We often neglect that there are not that many online resources for men and fail to provide our own, healthy ones. For example, I strongly believe that more dating advice from the left would greatly improve the situation. Unfortunately, women are, in my opinion, in a poor position to give dating advice because of societal pressures they will often say only minimally controversial stuff, like “be yourself”, instead of what really would work, like “work on yourself and don’t be boring“.
Also, if I am right, that would mean that men on the left who have had successful and healthy relationships need to provide this and similar advice and enable women to do the same.
How to exit the Manosphere
I am not a psychologist, so I cannot answer the question of how to get someone to leave the manosphere, but here is my opinion on what would help.
- The realisation that it DOESN’T WORK. This unfortunately can probably come only from within, but it is in my opinion the most powerful catalyst. Once someone realizes that the Manosphere can offer only half-explanations which are often not based in reality and harm their mental health, then they will be ready to leave.
- Positive experiences with women in real life. This is unfortunately very hard to get, once one gets deep in the manosphere, but it is not impossible. These positive experiences do not have to be romantic or sexual, it might be enough for someone to see a woman being very good at her job and accepting that she got it because she is an expert.
- Finding alternate communities. This will rarely work on its own as I cannot imagine someone who is deep inside the manosphere to actively look for alternatives without coming to some sort of a realisation beforehand. What could happen, though is they find a gaming community, a football community, a chess community, or a fishing community which values diversity and inclusivity and has no place for the “Red Pill” content, even if it’s “for the lulz” – and let me tell you, often it is deliberately posted as a funnel to alt-right, as mentioned above, and not really “for the lulz”.
What can we/others do?
Men have entered the manosphere because it offered them explanations, community and results. In this sense, exposing them to alternate ideas or spaces won’t be of very much help. Instead what should be done is: listen to them and help them achieve their goals in a non-toxic way.
Also, one important thing to remember – and the left is often at fault for doing just that – is not to mention to someone in the manosphere that they are brainwashed by the “patriarchy” or “toxic masculinity”. Even if that might be true, it is not helpful and makes us lose an audience with them. We should listen instead, gently ask why and give empathy. After that, we might suggest alternative solutions to their problems, such as not spending all their free time on games or pornography.
So, in essence
- Avoid division
- Don’t make fun of them. Tough love is not always the answer. Don’t make their problems small, instead understand that for them it’s a struggle.
- Gently provide solutions, like working on their personality or finding interesting hobbies and becoming a more interesting person. Remember, they want results.
The struggle is long and important and we all should attempt to participate because the weaker the manosphere is, the better we all will be and our online and offline communities will be healthier.