There has been much written in recent weeks about the Manosphere. This is a sub-culture which has grown significantly in the western world and is characterised by a mixture of so-called hyper-masculinity, pining for a return to traditionalist gender divides, blatant misogyny and a veneration for those displaying their “success” through purchasing expensive cars, clothes and houses. The key figures in the Manosphere movement heavily utilise live streaming and lifestyle content to generate followers and income. In so doing they have garnered an army of followers that they can call on to bully opponents.

Louis Theroux's documentary Inside the Manosphere has drawn scrutiny to the inherent exploitation that underpins much of the popularity of figures in the Manosphere. In his investigation he identifies the hypocrisies evident in the practice of how proponents of the Manosphere espouse that women should return to ethics of conservative traditional femininity while promoting and financially exploiting those whose lifestyle choices eschew such norms. Additionally, he shows how the promises of wealth and success that capture the minds of so many adherents proves to be illusory and yet another means of exploiting adherents.

In an article published this week in The Age, psychologist and researcher, Zac Seidler, describes a research project undertaken through the Movember Institute that seeks to examine males’ interactions with the Manosphere. The research involved analysing TikTok content consumed by 142 men aged 16 to 25. Seidler states that the findings were somewhat surprising as the degrading, misogynist content that typically raises concerns around the Manosphere represented only 6% of the content. The largest category related to lifestyle, self improvement and pop culture which made up 38%.

Seidler explains that they found that this other content acted as a platform that supported the more damaging messaging that lies at the core of the movement. He pointed out that the more benign content becomes a pipeline through which the algorithm feeds the more sinister material. He states that “[y]oung men don’t need to seek out extreme content for it to shape their sense of masculinity. Once they engage with what interests them, the platform does the rest.”

Seidler uses this research to argue that in the concern around males’ engagement with the Manosphere we have become too transfixed on the what and have not sufficiently asked the why. He writes: “What we have conspicuously failed to do … is sit with the more uncomfortable question of why this content lands, what it is answering, and what it tells us about the lives of the young men consuming it.”

While Seidler, nor this research, did not explicitly answer the question of what is the exact need that young men are seeking to fulfil with the Manosphere, this was explored in Theroux’s documentary. Theroux showed that at least some of the attraction stemmed from a quest for belonging and overcoming a sense of disempowerment and exclusion.

As a school that is entrenched in deep values of egalitarianism, community mindedness and Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) we categorically reject the offensive, misogynist and retrograde ideas that underpin the Manosphere movement. This is why teaching about the Manosphere and the lies and false assumptions that underpin it, is an important topic taught in our Wellbeing curriculum.

There is nothing wrong with seeking to be stronger, fitter, sustaining more healthy diets or consuming the latest music – but this must not come at the cost of elevating the worth and value of males to a higher standing than females, or privileging a toxic form of masculinity, and certainly not to reinforce disproven, stale, sexist stereotypes of capabilities seen through a gender lens.  

I am so proud that our school culture finds a genuine path to belonging, individual and collective empowerment and trust that through providing education and participatory opportunities for connection we provide an antidote to the insidiousness of the Manosphere.