Reflections from the University of Miami’s Human Rights in the Americas Symposium
By Saba Ghori, Center for Global Rights for Women at BWJP In November 2025, I had the privilege of representing…
Enter The Manosphere
By: Rachel E. Barkley, JD MBA, Staff Attorney, National Center for Legal Approaches to Prevent Family Violence
I was born in 1996.
I grew up in a home with a family computer that took up space in our recreation room, and eventually, secured my own coveted lime green Dell Inspiron laptop when I was 10 years old. My obsession with online spaces emerged after I watched my first YouTube video – 2005’s Charlie the Unicorn – and only grew once I found an online writing community and began logging into a Pro Boards server every day after school to roleplay online with my friends – most of whom I only knew virtually. As a Zillennial, or a person straddling the line between Millennials and Generation Z, I remember a time before the use of technology and the internet as a major source of social interaction, yet I spent most of my life with easy access to the World Wide Web.
This isn’t a unique experience. Many folks my age had access to the internet growing up. Still, what is unique is the unfettered access that I was afforded. The fact that I have navigated the experience of having never met many of the people you consider to be friends in person and only knowing them through an alias, an avatar; of seeking community through anonymity because people in the real world are difficult to connect with and you don’t feel like you fit in. As a Black, closeted lesbian, I had a lot of difficulty navigating real world spaces. I felt lonely and like an outsider in the real world, so I used the digital world to gain validation. Luckily, the community that I found was safe, welcoming, and taught me how to treat others with respect and empathy – unlike the online spaces that many young men and boys find themselves entrenched in today which foster communities based on a culture of misogyny and incendiary language.
Violent rhetoric online is a threat that has moved from fringe internet communities to mainstream platforms and social feeds. This has resulted in increased gender-based violence and harassment offline. In response, legislators worldwide have sought to find solutions to deter individuals from participating in these online behaviors and from acting out their fantasies outside of digital spaces. From the European Union’s Digital Services Act to Mexico City’s Cyber Intelligence Unit of their Investigative Police Force, global initiatives to address technology-facilitated harassment and violence have been launched with varying degrees of success. Still, the threat of digital misogyny looms large, with vulnerable young people, who are overwhelmingly young men and boys, becoming increasingly radicalized each day, leaving many to wonder, why and how?
The traditional social contract, which once rewarded masculine norms of toughness, self-sufficiency, and stoicism with social status, power, and privilege, has eroded, leaving many men feeling displaced and in crisis. As a result, the landscape of masculinity has shifted. Rising suicide rates, increased social isolation, under-education, and job insecurity provide evidence that male futures and identities are shifting. Seeking emotional support and validation, some men are turning to online communities that challenge mainstream perspectives on gender to quell their fears.
Enter the “Manosphere” – a network of communities and a collection of websites, blogs, and online forums that promote hyper-masculinity and opposition to feminism. By feeding on insecurities, leveraging male pain points, and preying on young men’s anxieties, the manosphere transforms online spaces for men and boys into echo chambers of destructive ideologies that impact all genders. From the insular world of incels to the organized ranks of men’s rights activists, the manosphere promotes a brand of digital misogyny that is often overlooked in favor of other forms of online extremism, but what if we took a closer look?
Over the next several months, we’ll break down the landscape surrounding the manosphere, online misogyny, and other forms of technology-facilitated gender-based violence, with special attention to the implications of such violence outside purely digital spaces. We will explore solutions crafted globally, while paying special attention to legal and institutional reform. Lastly, we’ll explore the advocacy needed to change cultural attitudes and stop mobilization of violent extremism with an understanding that online misogyny bolsters systems of oppression and greater receptivity to disinformation, conspiracy, and fringe ideas of white supremacy and misogyny.
The History of the Manosphere
In the 1970s and 1980s, the men’s liberation movement (MLM) began as a critique of the nature of traditional male gender roles 1. As an offshoot of the women’s liberation movement, the MLM sought to deconstruct the harmful hegemonic masculine ideal, and both groups held a common belief in the harm caused by rigid gender roles and expectations. To both groups, the patriarchy was at fault for the damage incurred by men and women.
Yet, the diminishing social status of cisgender, heterosexual, white men caused discord. Likewise, those who sought to recreate the same capitalist hierarchy in “quasi-feminist” font devalued the importance of emotional exploration for men, reinforcing the very sex roles they sought to dismantle. Thus, the men’s rights movement emerged from the men’s liberation movement and began attributing men’s problems to women, feminism, and female empowerment.
As society began to make major shifts toward equity between the sexes and pop cultural icons began transcending gender norms, those within the MRM clung to traditional masculinity to garner support from men who felt dissatisfied with their place in the cultural zeitgeist. Legal gains like family law legislation and criminalization of domestic violence empowered MRMs and informed their school of thought: men were disenfranchised by women’s increasing value and traditional American masculine culture was under attack.
The late 1990s and the early 2000s saw the dawn of the manosphere’s modern incarnation. Online men’s rights forum discussions and pick-up artists 2 communities emerged and drew from the ideological roots of the MRM. In 2009, the term ‘manosphere’ was first used on Blogspot. It was then popularized by Ian Ironwood, a pornography marketer, who collected blogs and forums in a book called “The Manosphere: A New Hope for Masculinity.” From there, this “decentralized network” was formed.
Throughout the 2010s, the manosphere rose to mainstream popularity, with online influencers and content creators promoting “red pill” ideologies moving to the forefront of social media feeds and algorithms. By 2020, major talking points from the manosphere began to fuel online hate campaigns and studies began to track the rise in hateful rhetoric with the continued normalization of violence against women. As a result, social media platforms and governmental bodies within the United States and abroad have made attempts to use modes of demonetization and criminalization to act against manosphere figures who cause harm and amplify toxic beliefs.
Still, despite increased scrutiny and platform moderation, the manosphere remains a complex and evolving online ecosystem. Manosphere figures leverage social media to spread their core beliefs, taking advantage of algorithms and employing outrage marketing3 to gain attention and profit. As these figures gain influence, the manosphere’s overlap with other extremist ideologies like far right and white supremacist movements grows.
Core Beliefs and Harmful Effects
The Manosphere is made up of several different sub-groups including Men’s Rights Activists, Father’s Rights Advocates, Pick-Up Artists, Incels 4, Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW)5, and the Red Pill. Though there are many different realms of the manosphere, they all have a shared belief system made up of several core principles including concepts like gender essentialism, hegemonic masculinity, male supremacy, racial hierarchy, complementarianism, and the 80/20 rule.
Manosphere influencers have infiltrated the minds of young men, instilling them with a sense of aggrieved entitlement. Aggrieved entitlement refers to the negative reactions examined in members of a historically dominant group in response to increases in social equality for marginalized communities and loss of economic advantage. This entitlement breeds hostility, defensiveness, anger and rage toward the perceived threat of lost privileges.
In turn, boys internalize negative beliefs about women and girls. This makes it difficult to have productive conversations about sexism and gender stereotypes. It causes reduced empathy toward women and perpetuation of harmful gender stereotypes. Further, these beliefs make it difficult for these boys and men to form healthy relationships, which results in lower self-esteem in both boys and girls. These vulnerable young men and boys’ insecurities are heightened as they struggle to meet the unrealistic masculine ideal depicted by online manosphere influencers.
Though the manosphere exists predominantly online, the real-world effects of the manosphere and manosphere ideology are evidenced by rising levels of violence and crimes against women and girls. Online manosphere ideologies dehumanize women and normalize concepts like rape apologia and using abusive behaviors to maintain power and control. This makes it easier for followers to validate real-world violence against women. Pick-up artist groups teach men coercive techniques of “seduction,” encouraging men and boys to disregard sexual consent and normalize sexual assault. Manosphere influencers, some of whom are charged with crimes like sex-trafficking and rape, promote victim-blaming narratives, which are then parroted by young boys. Sometimes, digital radicalization even translates to mass shootings and other forms of extremist violence – and these acts are celebrated within these communities and replicated by copy-cats seeking notoriety, support, and “retribution.”
How Can We Combat the Effects of the Manosphere?
Solving the problem of the manosphere requires a multifaceted approach – one that addresses the personal struggles of men, while holding social media platforms accountable, improving media literacy, and challenging misogynist beliefs when we are faced with them. We can promote healthy masculinity and encourage a broader view of manhood that values empathy and emotional expression; teach media literacy in schools and help young people learn how to critically analyze online content to identify misinformation and manipulation techniques; have open conversations with young men and boys and cultivate positive role models; counter harmful narratives with facts; and encourage regulatory bodies and legislatures to enforce stronger policies that stop the amplification and proliferation of extreme misogyny.
The manosphere is more than just an online phenomenon; it is a manifestation of deep-seated insecurities that, when left unchecked, leads to harm and violence in non-digital spaces. As someone who sought connection with others online due to social isolation and identity-based insecurities, the urge to use technology for validation is a natural phenomenon, especially for digital natives. By examining the manosphere more closely, and developing a more sophisticated and factual understanding of it, we are taking the first step in stopping this cycle of exploitation and violence. It is only through increased knowledge and awareness, as well as deliberate and collective action, that we can effectively dismantle the manosphere’s influence and protect all of its victims from further harm.
- Lisa Seguira. The Emergence and Development of the Manosphere, in The Incel Rebellion: The Rise of the Manosphere and the Virtual War Against Women. 15-36 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83982-254-420211004. ↩︎
- A pickup artist refers to a community of “gurus” who teach online networks of heterosexual men to seduce women.” Jack Braitch and Sarah Banet-Weiser. From Pickup Artists to Incels: Con(fidence) Games, Networked Misogyny, and the Failure of Neoliberalism. (2019). ↩︎
- Outrage marketing refers to a media strategy where companies stimulate feelings of anger and upset to attract consumer attention. A recent example of a successful outrage marketing campaign includes the American Eagle advertising campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney. Mark Batholomew. The Law of Advertising Outrage. (2018). ↩︎
- An incel, or involuntary celibate, refers to an individual who experiences sexlessness “despite their desire to be active.” Brandon Sparks, Alexandra M. Zidenberg, Mark E. Olver. Involuntary Celibacy: A review of incel ideology and experiences with dating, rejection, and associated mental health and emotional sequelae. Sexual Disorders. (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-022-01382-9. ↩︎
- Men Going Their Own Way or MGTOW refers to a separatist community of men who advocate for men to withdraw from relationships, marriage, and society in general to fight against gender equality and promote violence against women and feminism. Anna Maria Gorska, Karolina Kulicka, and Dariusz Jemielniak. Men going their own way: a thick big analysis of #MGTOW and #Feminism tweets. (2022) https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2022.2137829