How online toxic masculinity is shaping politics worldwide

FRANCE 24 English

Toxic masculinity and its incarnation on digital spaces, the so-called manosphere, seeks to normalise and legitimise hatred of women, and more and more young men are subscribing to these ideas. FRANCE 24's Sharon Gaffney speaks with Mariel Barnes, Assistant Professor at the La Follette School of Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Madison, about the impact they are having on politics worldwide.  Visit our website: http://www.france24.com  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/France24_en

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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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