Men Who Hate Women

I am not particularly interested in a ‘redemption’ narrative for incels. That is a question for those individuals to ponder. We do not implore the victims of other forms of terrorism to absolve and educate their tormentors. Nor do we require that other extremists be acknowledged as some kind of wounded, misunderstood victims

When a red flag crops up, challenge it. Challenge it again and again. The manosphere is an echo chamber. The very reason it is so persuasive is that the nature of its closed communities and algorithmically supported video loops totally indoctrinates. No opposing views are shared. So share them. Expose young people to other ideas, other options. Challenge and question manosphere assumptions.

We are too afraid of being labelled ‘misandrists’ or ‘man-haters’, of encountering the traditional cry of ‘not all men’.

We are letting down our boys if we don’t acknowledge the deeply damaging and deliberately manipulative messaging they are being targeted with online. We fail them if we don’t give them an opportunity to have open, robust discussions about these issues in a safe forum in which they feel supported and able to express their fears and anxieties. We are leaving them dangling, with no meaningful conversations or factually accurate information at all in the majority of cases, leaving them deeply vulnerable to the circling online sharks. And, of course, the widespread fear-mongering described in the previous chapter drives them straight into the waiting, open arms of internet extremists.

The more we underestimate the manosphere, the more we risk serving it our young men on a platter.

Imagine having to try to confront those views among your classmates. Imagine going to school and learning alongside boys who genuinely believe they are simply genetically superior to you.

if young people are confronted with material online that minimises or even glorifies sexual violence, it has a major offline impact on how they respond to it in the real world, too.

He seemed nervous but excited, confident he had caught me in a lie, with the air of triumphantly unmasking me in front of all his fellow students.

But not being a ‘misogynist’ doesn’t mean that you can’t sometimes behave in sexist ways.

Yes, it might only be a small group of men who are deliberately committing the crimes of sexual harassment or assault in the workplace and beyond, but, if the response of many men to hearing about this is to leap immediately to the defence of their gender and try to cast doubt on the validity of victims’ testimonies, that doesn’t exactly further the argument that not all men are implicated in the problem. No, of course, not all men are committing these acts. But those men who choose to respond to this moment of accountability by trying to discredit survivors remain complicit in the wider system that works, and always has worked, to silence victims and preserve the privileged status quo.

these arguments are not being made in good faith. They are simply attempts to dismiss and undermine the validity of women’s complaints.