This summer, I finally had time to read “Men Who Hate Women: The Extremism Nobody is Talking About” by Laura Bates. This book is a must read for those who dismiss online misogyny as nothing to be concerned about.
Have you ever seen a comment online that is so disgusting that it sends a shiver up your back? Have you seen a comment so misogynistic under a post of a woman that you wonder how someone could hold such nasty beliefs? But how often have you kept scrolling? How often have you, or others, dismissed these comments as simply internet trolls simply doing what they always have done? Rage bait and beg for a reaction from those online.
This book pushes back against this idea that internet misogyny is harmless. It is not just a small subsection of niche forums that have no effect on the real world. Bates highlights the hateful, toxic rhetoric they use when discussing women and society, how they indoctrinate young men, and ways these communities and ideas have made their way into mainstream media and our everyday lives.
Maybe you’ve heard about these groups that have become more popular within the last two decades: incel culture, Men’s Rights Activists, MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way), pick-up artist communities, and other organizations that target women. While these groups may not all think the same thing, one idea that they share is women are lesser than men.
When trying to discuss feminism with those who push back against it, I have found that when I mention the online abuse that women face, I hear that the perpetrators of this abuse are just losers in their parents’ basements hiding under a cloak of anonymity but never really act outside of this space. However, that is simply not true.
We should remember the 2014 shooting of the Alpha Phi sorority house at UC Santa Barbara. Six people were killed and 14 more were injured when Elliot Rodger, a self-identified incel, went on a mission to harm these women out of the desire for revenge. He claims that women should be punished for rejecting him.
Before his vicious murder-suicide mission, he wrote a 137-page manifesto detailing his isolation and blaming his troubles on women. This document still lives in misogynistic forums online. Men in these forums praise Rodger as “elite” (Chris Harper-Mercer who killed nine people), “the supreme gentleman” (William Atchison who killed two people) and that he “will not be forgotten” (Nikolas Cruz who killed seventeen people).
The violence that is spoken about in these online communities is not harmless. We see how this language and ideas have infected young men’s minds and even seeped into society and government.
The rise of Andrew Tate is the perfect example of this. Tate is best known for his online presence where he preaches to young men that women are meant to be dominated and are simply commodities for men to own. He has been charged with rape, sexual trafficking, and states that he believes that women bear the responsibility for sexual assault.
This rhetoric has influenced many young men to hold the same beliefs. The #AndrewTate has been viewed billions of times and Tate himself has been banned from social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X.
However, that has not hindered Tate’s influence. Tate and his brother, another popular influencer, have had meetings with many members of President Trump’s closest family and allies. The Tate brothers have had meetings with Baron Trump and Donald Trump Jr. This proximity to the most powerful in our government exemplifies our culture’s tolerance for their hateful, harmful rhetoric.
Tate, and other misogynist influencers, have created what is now called the “Manosphere”. This community of online hate has many specific phrases and features that make it easy to identify when you encounter it. The idea of being “Red Pilled”, a reference from The Matrix, is used to describe discovering this “hidden truth” that society favors women and something must be done to stop this. Alpha and Beta are words to describe men in this movement, with Alpha being used to describe dominant men and Beta describing submissive or weak men.
Manosphere influencers are focused on the idea that feminism has gone too far. It has stripped men of too much power and given women an unfair advantage in society.
You may be thinking, “How are young boys thinking to look up these extremist movements?” They aren’t. Social media algorithms, like those on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, often suggest content with this rhetoric when users search for unrelated content. Users looking for fitness, self-improvement, and finance content can easily find themselves going down this rabbit hole of misogynistic ideas.
I just did a little experiment. I simply looked up the word feminism on YouTube. I had logged out of any personal accounts and wiped any watch or search history. Starting from a clean slate I looked up “feminism” and want to share the disturbing content that YouTube first offers those interested in learning more about feminism. The first video is an informative video posted by educational channel “Crash Course”. After this recommendation it all goes downhill. The next three videos recommended are “Charlie Kirk debates feminism on whatever podcast”, “The Reality of Feminism” arguing that female empowerment is a lie, and the third one was “Feminist vs Anti-Feminist Women” a debate style video arguing the merits of feminism. This last video is both a good resource and inherently ignoring much of the work feminism has done to allow women to speak their opinions to an audience.
It is not hard to see how young men may fall into a trap they may not even realize is there. Young men then go on to spew this misogynist language and ideas online but also to their friends and peers.
Hatred of women (and let’s not sugar coat this; hatred is what it is) has seeped into our culture so seamlessly that people often don’t see that it is happening. The rhetoric that comes from this idea is often dismissed as “boys being boys”, harmless, joking fun, or just plain ignored.
We watch as society has dismissed Donald Trump’s quote “grab them by the p*ssy” or the laughter that followed the mention of a world class women’s sports team. We watch violent crimes being committed with the blatant motivation of hurting and blaming women. Yet we still hear online misogyny is harmless.
Hate in any form is never harmless.