00:00This is apropos. There's no excuse for online abuse. That's the message from the United Nations
00:08on this, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. This year, campaigners
00:14are focusing on online platforms and say this form of violence poses a serious and rapidly
00:20evolving threat. Here in France, activists are warning that an increasing number of young men
00:25are subscribing to narratives that seek to normalise and legitimise hatred of women,
00:31as James Fazina reports.
00:35Their ideas are spreading online via social media. While toxic masculinity isn't new, as
00:41it came about in the 1980s in North America, it's gaining attention and appealing to some
00:46younger men today. Those relaying its ideas say that they're oppressed and are losing out
00:52as gender equality progresses. A report by France's High Council for Equality Between Women
00:58and Men has warned about the issue in the country.
01:01There is a polarisation happening among some young people. On one side, there are women
01:07embracing feminism. On the other, there are men who are adopting harsh sexist ideas, promoted
01:12by those who spread toxic masculinity, as well as reactionary and politicised movements.
01:19The report states that 45% of men under the age of 35 believe that it's difficult to be
01:24a man in today's society. And that includes a 19% increase among 15 to 24-year-olds over
01:31the past two years. Meanwhile, 13% of 25 to 34-year-olds believe that being a man is difficult,
01:39but being a woman is easy. And these ideas are leading to a change in attitudes. Still among
01:46men under the age of 35, 53% think it's important to know how to fight. And 46% believe that it's
01:54wrong to show their emotions. The council has advised that an awareness programme be put in
02:00place for all young people. It says that it should educate them about respecting others and preventing
02:08sexist and sexual violence.
02:12For more, we're joined now by Mariel Barnes, Assistant Professor at the La Follette School of Public Affairs
02:18at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Thank you so much for being with us on the programme.
02:23You've actually studied the so-called manosphere and its rising influence on politics, particularly
02:29in the United States. What exactly is the manosphere? And is it contributing, do you think,
02:35to rising rates of violence against women?
02:39Yeah, so the manosphere is a collection of online websites, blogs and forums that are really united
02:46behind this idea that men are subjugated in modern society. They call this the gynocracy.
02:52And they blame women, essentially, for that subjugation. And it's been around now for about a decade,
03:00a decade and a half. And it really started in about 2008 and then has subsequently really taken off once
03:08we've seen Web 2.0 come about in terms of like social media. So Twitter, Reddit, Blue Sky, Instagram,
03:16those kinds of websites. And it's had an increasing influence on politics, both in the United States,
03:24but also elsewhere throughout the world. But it does predate the rise of kind of the far right.
03:29But the far right has been very successful in kind of co-opting this toxic masculinity rhetoric
03:37and incorporating these men who think they're aggrieved in modern society into their movements.
03:43And what kind of role exactly then has technology played in how this manosphere,
03:48as we call it, operates? We saw warnings from the UN earlier, for example. It says technological
03:54development has exacerbated some kinds of violence, as well as creating others such as non-consensual
04:02image sharing, doxing, deep fake videos, that type of thing.
04:06Yeah, technology has played a huge role in the rise of the manosphere. So
04:12previously, before we had the internet, if you were a man and you held these kinds of views,
04:17it would be very hard oftentimes to find other people who would also hold these views. And so
04:22the internet's provided this communication channel for other men to find men who think like them,
04:28and then it kind of becomes an echo chamber where you're constantly talking to each other
04:32and relating stories about how you've been discriminated against and
04:38hurt by women. And so that increases the legitimacy of your claims in your mind.
04:48And then also with the rise of social media, we've really seen kind of this ability for men to connect,
04:55and also the ability of the manosphere to draw new men who maybe don't think like this into their web.
05:02And so this has really become a problem with kind of social media algorithms. So
05:06if you take a clean social media profile and you're a young man, it only takes, I think, about seven
05:12recommendations before you start seeing this kind of toxic masculine content on YouTube or on Twitter.
05:20And so maybe you don't believe it initially, but if you watch enough of this, all of a sudden,
05:25these kinds of ideologies start making sense to you and then you watch more of it and you seek out more
05:32and more content. It also makes it seem like these ideas are mainstream and that these ideas are accepted
05:39within broader society. And so then it becomes easier for you to express those ideas publicly and express
05:45them on social media as well.
05:48And another layer we've seen in the last year or so, particularly artificial intelligence. Is that
05:55amplifying the threat here? Are we seeing more examples of this kind of violence directed towards women?
06:01It might be a little early with AI to see what the implications of that are. It is concerning that AI is so
06:11obsequious to people and is so agreeable. And so if you talk to it about your concerns as a man,
06:18then it will probably most likely agree with you. But we do see that social media and these communities
06:26are more violent and advocate for violence against women, particularly in the US, like gun violence,
06:32mass shootings, oftentimes mass shootings that are targeting women are celebrated within these
06:38communities. And so it becomes kind of more normalized to commit these acts of violence against women.
06:44Anna, you said a little earlier that the rise of the manosphere and this kind of toxic
06:50masculinity, it predates the rise of the alt-right. How do the two play into one another?
06:58Yeah, so in my research, we gathered a whole bunch of websites to do with the manosphere and really
07:05they start peaking around 2012, 2013. And if we look at the rise of kind of particularly in the US,
07:13of the Make America Great Again movement, though that starts kind of starting to peak in or come
07:20rise in about 2014. And so what we hypothesized happened is that the Make America Great Again
07:29movement actually incorporated misogynistic rhetoric into it to gather these men kind of together
07:36and, you know, incorporate them within the movement. The other thing I think this does
07:43is that misogyny is very mainstream and very common in today's society, or sexism is at least.
07:51And we also hypothesized that misogynistic rhetoric like this has been used as kind of a gateway rhetoric
07:58into other hateful ideologies. So white supremacy, anti-Semitism, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.
08:06And so like once you hate women, it's then much easier to hate other groups within society as well.
08:11And so incorporating the manosphere into kind of the far right and alt-right rhetoric
08:17was very easy and a very easy way to build a coalition for a lot of these groups.
08:21And the UN says this form of violence, this kind of violence that we're seeing on online
08:28platforms, it's increasing partly due to weak technological regulations. So why are regulators
08:34so slow to act? Why aren't they being forced to bring in more regulations to monitor this kind of activity
08:41online? I think it's often a lack of understanding about how this technology is going to be used
08:48against women. So revenge porn, like no one initially would have conceptualized that when it was happening.
08:56And so slowly regulators were responding to that. Nowadays, we're looking at other forms of technological
09:04violence against women. So smart home technology is often used against women to control like
09:09thermostats and blinds and locks on doors. We're seeing AI being used to create pornographies or deep
09:18fakes. And regulators just often don't have the full picture of what the technology is going to be used
09:27for. Like they're not thinking necessarily in nefarious ways as many in the manosphere are. And like
09:33regulators aren't thinking about how could we hurt women because they're trying to do their best.
09:41And so like that's why they've been a bit slower, I think, to like implement laws and implement regulations
09:48to stop this kind of violence against women.
09:51And we hear a lot, you know, about younger men and we saw some of the statistics in James's report earlier.
09:56They're feeling victimized, you know, when it comes to their relation with women.
10:02But is this something that is confined only to younger men or is it just because they're more exposed to the
10:08Internet and they have more time to spend online?
10:12I don't think it's confined at all to younger men. You often see older men in the manosphere having similar
10:19problems in the relationships. You do have some manosphere participants who think that they should
10:24not date women at all, actually, because women in their in their words are leeches.
10:31And so their strategy is just to avoid them entirely. But dating in general is fraught within the manosphere.
10:37And it's oftentimes about taking advantage of women. And that's where you get groups like pickup artists
10:43as well. And that it is their philosophy is to sleep with as many women as possible. And
10:48there you teach they learn techniques about how to get women and how to have romantic interactions
10:56with women. I won't call them relationships because they're not relationships. And so it is a broader
11:01range of men than just young men. But oftentimes I think young men are the most prominent and maybe
11:06the most loud. And that's why they get the most attention.
11:08And why do you think we're seeing such a big backlash against women, particularly in the US?
11:18I think part of it is a normal cyclical pattern that we see. And so across the 20th century,
11:25there's been moral panic about the decline of masculinity and the decline of men's roles
11:30at multiple times. So in the 1920s, the 1980s. And so part of it is just this natural
11:37pushback against progress for women and gender equality. I think, though, at the same time,
11:45certain people have realized that this rhetoric and these ideas and this ideology are motivating.
11:51And this is a way to get young men out and voting and participate in the political
11:57process. And so if you can motivate people, that's very good for some politicians.
12:05Right. And so that's also why we see like an increase in rhetoric, an increase in young men
12:10participating and an increase in young men participating in voting for the right.
12:17Right after the US election, we saw that there were a whole bunch of young men who were chanting,
12:23you know, your body, my choice in regards to abortion rights and seeing that Donald Trump's
12:28win was really kind of a triumph against feminism and gender equality. But I think oftentimes this
12:35rhetoric is motivating. And so that's why we're seeing it being used.
12:38Maria, we'll have to leave it there for now. Thanks so much for your analysis
12:42and for all of that information. And that is Maria Barnes,
12:45Assistant Professor at the La Follette School of Public Affairs. Thank you.
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