Manosphere

Vorlage:Pp-protected Vorlage:Short description The manosphere is a loose collection of predominantly web-based misogynist movements associated with the alt-right.Vorlage:Refn Movements within the manosphere include the men's rights movement, antifeminism, incels (involuntary celibates), Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), pick-up artistry (PUA), and fathers' rights groups.Vorlage:Refn Prominent websites and forums in the manosphere include Return of Kings, A Voice For Men, and SlutHate.

Terminology

Manosphere is a neologism, a portmanteau of man and sphere. A related term is androsphere (from Vorlage:Lang-grc, anḗr, genitive ἀνδρός, andros, "man"). The term "manosphere" first appeared on Blogspot in 2009, and was subsequently popularized by Ian Ironwood, a pornography marketer and author. It was eventually adopted by men's rights activists (MRAs) and journalists to describe a loose online network defined largely by misogyny and the concept of the "red pill", a metaphor borrowed from the film The Matrix. A person who frequents online communities associated with the manosphere is sometimes called a manospherian.

The manosphere has its own distinct jargon. Red pill and blue pill imagery is common: accepting the manosphere's ideology is equated with "taking the red pill", and those who do not are seen as "blue pilled" or as having "taken the blue pill". A red piller (or redpiller) is someone who has shifted from previously held mainstream or feminist persuasions towards those that are widely held within the manosphere. They sometimes pejoratively refer to their detractors as blue pillers. The terms "alpha male" and "beta male" are also commonly used.

Ideology and content

The manosphere includes the men's rights movement, antifeminism, incels (involuntary celibates), Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), pick-up artistry (PUA), and fathers' rights groups. These online groups promote certain forms of masculinity and are generally hostile to feminism. Some of these groups have adversarial relationships with one another, a phenomenon that author Donna Zuckerberg writes has increased since 2016 when some manospherian leaders adopted a more political tone.

Manospherians believe that feminists and political correctness obscure the truth that society is dominated by feminist values, and that men are the victims of a misandrist culture who must fight to protect their existence. The severity of the antifeminism espoused within these communities varies, with some espousing fairly mild sexism and others glorifying extreme hatred. Racism and xenophobia are also common among groups in the manosphere, and perceived threats against "Western civilization" are a common topic. Social stratification is also a common theme of discussion, and men at the bottom of sociosexual hierarchies are sometimes referred to as truecels in incel communities, or omega males by manospherians in general.Vorlage:Sfnp

The "red pill" philosophy is a central tenet of the manosphere, which concerns awakening men to the supposed misandry of society and delusions of feminism. The term originated on the antifeminist subreddit /r/TheRedPill and was later taken up by men's rights and MGTOW sites.Vorlage:Sfnp Author Donna Zuckerberg writes, "Red Pill represents a new phase in online misogyny. Its members not only mock and belittle women; they also believe that in our society, men are oppressed by women."Vorlage:Refn Zuckerberg links the manosphere with the neoreactionary, white nationalist alt-right movement: many alt-right members are either pick-up artists or MGTOW, and "the policing of white female sexuality is a major concern" of the alt-right.Vorlage:Sfnp Many manospherians view the sexual revolution of the 1960s in a negative light.Vorlage:Explain

Sites

The manosphere comprises various websites, blogs, and online forums.Vorlage:Sfnp Noted sites include Return of Kings, A Voice for Men, PUAHate, and SlutHate.Vorlage:Refn

Reddit has been a popular gathering place for manosphere supporters, and several forums on the site are geared toward its ideas. However, in the late 2010s Reddit began to take steps to discourage more extreme manosphere subreddits. Some manosphere subreddits were banned, such as /r/incels (banned in 2017) and its successor /r/braincels (banned in 2018); other subreddits such as /r/MGTOW and /r/TheRedPill have been "quarantined", meaning that a warning is displayed to users about the content of the subreddit before they enter. As a result, some of these communities have found new homes on websites that are more welcoming of extreme content, such as Gab.

PUAHate

PUAHate was a website for men who felt they had been tricked by members of the pick-up artist or "seduction community" who they had paid to teach them how to get attractive women to have sex with them. PUAHate criticized "the scams, deception, and misleading marketing techniques used by dating gurus and the seduction community to deceive men and profit from them". The site complained that the seduction gurus' techniques did not work.

One PUAHate user remarked about the site, "The moderation policy was very laissez-faire. There was racism; definitely a lot of misogyny." Journalist Patrick Kearns noted that the site had threads with titles such as "Are ugly women completely useless to society?" Users would also ask each other questions such as "what's your rape count?"

Elliot Rodger, the perpetrator of the 2014 Isla Vista killings, was an active member of PUAHate. He wrote, "One day incels will realize their true strength and numbers, and will overthrow this oppressive feminist system. Start envisioning a world where WOMEN FEAR YOU." In a manifesto he released shortly before the attack, Rodger remarked that PUAHate "confirmed many of the theories I had about how wicked and degenerate women really are". Some of PUAHates users argued that the shootings were the fault of the women who declined to have sex with Rodger.

In 2014, soon after the Isla Vista killings, PUAHate was shut down. Later, SlutHate was created and many of PUAHates users migrated there.

Return of Kings

Return of Kings (RoK) is a blog written by the mens rights activist and former pick-up artist Daryush Valizadeh, known online as Roosh V. Valizadeh has advocated for the traditional nuclear family and against socialism and same-sex marriage, while also writing how-to guides for male sex tourists. Matthew Lyons at Political Research Associates writes, "Valizadeh doesn't dwell on his own glaring inconsistency, but does suggest ... that the dismantling of patriarchal rules has forced men to pursue 'game' as a defensive strategy".Vorlage:Refn The actual size of the site's following is difficult to measure, but has been estimated to comprise a scattered readership throughout North America and Western Europe.

Return of Kings is distinct from men's rights forums such as PUAHate in that it promotes seduction techniques, known as "game", that those sites criticize. RoK writers also criticize the profeminism men's movement and The Good Men Project, arguing that they lead to feminized, passive, weak men who are content to remain on the lowest rungs of the social hierarchy.

Return of Kings has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a male supremacy hate group.

Public perception

The manosphere has received significant coverage in the media from its association with high-profile incidents such as the 2014 Isla Vista killings in California, the 2015 Umpqua Community College shooting in Oregon, and the sustained online abuse towards female members of the video game community that came to be known as Gamergate.Vorlage:Sfnp Following the Isla Vista shooting, many mainstream news sources reported links between the killer Elliot Rodger and posts to the PUAHate manosphere forum. Dewey wrote that while the manosphere was not to blame for Rodger's attack, "Rodger's misogynistic rhetoric seems undeniably influenced by the manosphere". Many manosphere commenters strongly rejected any attempts to blame the manosphere for the killings, with one commenter writing that Rodger was a "perfect case of someone who needed the red pill ... Because it's somewhere he could come to vent, and be angry, and not have his pain be dismissed, ridiculed or ignored." The sociologist Michael Kimmel argued "it would be facile to argue the manosphere ... urged [Rodger] to do this. I think those places are kind of a solace ... They provide a kind of locker room, a place where guys can gripe about all the bad things that are being done to them by women". In the days immediately following the shooting, other manosphere sites, such as A Voice For Men, saw a huge increase in traffic.

Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) said that the forums are filled with "pure unvarnished women hatred" and compared the manosphere to white supremacist websites. The SPLC later added a caveat, saying, "It should be mentioned that the SPLC did not label MRAs as members of a hate movement; nor did our article claim that the grievances they air on their websites – false rape accusations, ruinous divorce settlements and the like – are all without merit. But we did call out specific examples of misogyny and the threat, overt or implicit, of violence." The British anti-extremism group Hope Not Hate included the manosphere in its 2019 State of Hate report.

Eva Wiseman wrote for The Guardian that commenters on manosphere blogs often make statements to the effect that "women are designed solely for sex and sandwich-making" and suggests that the tone of the websites creates a culture that contributes to violence against women. Dewey said the manosphere excludes gay, lesbian, and transgender people. BBC television personality Reggie Yates filmed a 2016 episode of his show about extreme communities, Reggie Yates: Extreme, on Britons who take part in the manosphere.

See also

• Bro culture
• Complementarianism
• Hegemonic masculinity
• Identity politics
• Lad culture
• Masculism
• Patriarchy

Further reading

• Peter C. Baker: Hunting the Manosphere In: The New York Times Magazine, 13 June 2017 
• Rebecca Cohen: Welcome to the manosphere: A brief guide to the controversial men's rights movement In: Mother Jones 
• Lise Gotell, Emily Dutton: Sexual Violence in the 'Manosphere': Antifeminist Men's Rights Discourses on Rape. In: International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy. 5. Jahrgang, Nr. 2, 1. Juni 2016, S. 65, doi:10.5204/ijcjsd.v5i2.310 (crimejusticejournal.com). 
• Rhys Price-Robertson: Anti-feminist men's groups in Australia: An interview with Michael Flood. In: DVRCV Quarterly. Nr. 3/4. Domestic Violence Resource Centre Victoria, 2012, ISSN 1838-7926, S. 10–13 (xyonline.net [PDF]).