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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Inspired by leaders such as Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson, the online Manosphere has exploded in recent years. Dedicated to anti-feminism, these communities have orchestrated online campaigns of misogynistic harassment, with some individuals going as far as committing violent terrorist attacks.
Although the Manosphere has become a focus point of the media, researchers and governments alike, discussions tend to either over-sensationalize the community or offer simplistic explanations for their existence. This book uses a mixture of historical and economic analysis, alongside actual Manosphere content, to delve deeper. With The Male Complaint, Simon James Copland explains how the Manosphere has developed and why it appeals to so many men. He argues that the Manosphere is not an aberration, but is deeply embedded within mainstream, neoliberal, social structures. For a cohort of alienated men, the promise of community provides a space of understanding, connection and purpose.
This insightful book dares to dig into the corners of incel communities and online spaces where misogyny thrives. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand, and do something about, this growing and worrying phenomenon.
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Seitenzahl: 386
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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CONTENTS
Cover
Table of Contents
Dedication
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
1 Introduction
Enter the Manosphere
The Manosphere is us
Beyond bad men
2 Alienated Young Men
Are things really that bad for men?
The promises and betrayal of manhood
Betrayed by sex
The red pill
Notes
3 We’re Being Oppressed! Manosphere Men as Injured
Identity politics and injury
The new culture wars
Attacked by government
Men can’t win (and they might not even want to)
Notes
4 A Community of Manly Men
Men searching for friends and belonging
Self-help in the Manosphere network
Get strong for your country!
Escape through consumerism
Belonging and the limits of an online community
Notes
5 Nihilism and Violence
Masculinity and nihilism in the twenty-first century
Anger, radical nihilism and violence against women
Sadness, passive nihilism and suicide
The limits of complaint
Notes
6 Tackling the Manosphere
Against the Manosphere
A misogynist response to a problem of capitalism
The cruel optimism of the Manosphere
What are we to do?
Notes
7 Conclusion
Let’s summarize
References
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1
The Virgin vs. Chad meme
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1
MGTOW post ‘Found this on Facebook, next thing you know they’ll have women only …
Figure 3.2
MGTOW post ‘This is how feminism and the government that supports it, pay our tr…
Figure 3.3
MGTOW post ‘If you want to win, don’t play just walk away’
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1
r/MGTOW post ‘Quad bike’
Figure 4.2
MGTOW post ‘Apartment’
Figure 4.3
MGTOW post ‘You guys live in apartments like this …’
Figure 4.4
MGTOW post ‘Bitches aint switches’
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Dedication
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Begin Reading
References
Index
End User License Agreement
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Dedication
For Beatrix, Max, Ethan and Levi, who I am loving watching grow and thrive. And for Isaac, who I miss with every fibre of my heart.
The Male Complaint
The Manosphere and Misogyny Online
Simon James Copland
polity
Copyright © Simon James Copland 2025
The right of Simon James Copland to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2025 by Polity Press
Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press111 River StreetHoboken, NJ 07030, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-6257-2
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2024942097
The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.
Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.
For further information on Polity, visit our website:politybooks.com
Acknowledgements
I wrote this book on the lands of the Ngunnawal people, and acknowledge elders past and present. My book has only been possible due to the ongoing colonization of this land, and I recognize that true justice will never be achieved until we have truth telling and a treaty. This always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land.
I must start by thanking my two amazing partners, James and Martyn. Both have been there from the very start and have stuck with me through every up and down. They listen to my ideas, give feedback, worry about me when I go to far-right rallies or speaking events, and have come to multiple presentations. They also provide a safe and welcoming home for me to come to every night. I could not have done this without the support of either of you. I love you both so much.
I am enormously grateful to those at my university who supported me through my PhD and in turning this into a book. Particular thanks go to Mary Lou Rasmussen, who was my PhD supervisor. Mary Lou has turned into a good friend and intellectual sparring partner. I most appreciate Mary Lou’s willingness to let me go off on intellectual tangents, while simultaneously reining me in when I need it.
Thanks also to the other academics who helped me through my PhD process: Helen Keane, Rob Ackland, Timothy Graham, Elizabeth Humphrys and Hannah McCann, who all sat on my PhD panel at some point in time. There is also an endless list of other people at my university and school – students, academics, the research office and professional staff – who have all created a supportive environment for me to complete my thesis and then my book. In the last few years of my study, we had an influx of new PhD students who fostered an amazing culture (I’m sorry I can’t name you all!). We had daily lunches, Friday-night drinks and a monthly movie night. It was so nice to have people around to talk about the day-to-day minutiae of the research as well as to give me a distraction when I needed it.
One of the joys of doing this book has been being surrounded by a community of people I love and care about and who love and care about me. I want to thank Yvonne and Robyn who both read through my PhD before publication, and my mum who read through my entire book (twice!) to provide comments. Thanks to my entire family – mum, Mohammad, dad, Robyn, Sarah, Craig, Isaac, Ethan, Levi, Josh, Dee, Beatrix, Max, and my in-laws Joy, Don, and Charlie, who have all been there, checking in on me, asking me how I’m doing, and providing feedback when needed. I also have an amazing community of friends – Halie (+ Winnie), Liam, Maiy, Robyn, Imogen, Louise and Cam (+ Katherine and Eleanor), Pam, Tess and Frank (+ Annie), Bondy and KL (+ Charlotte), Anna, Ebony, Katina and Andrew, Luke and Alex, Emily, Ben, Maeve, Lina, Millan, Hannah, Tim, Clare and Holly, James C, Henry, Skye, Pat, Jack, Lucy, Nick and Zev, Mia and Mat (+ Sammy), Sean and Ashleigh, and many more who have not just supported me during my writing but have given me the space when I needed to escape it at times. It is amazing to have such a support network around me.
Finally, thank you to the publishers at Polity Press, in particular Karina Jákupsdóttir, who has guided me through the publishing process. All the team at Polity Press have been an absolute joy to work with and I’m glad I went with such an excellent publishing house for this work.
I don’t know how to end this, because thanking people seems like such a small thing given all the support I have received. I cannot thank you all enough!
Abbreviations
AWALT
All Women Are Like That
IRL
In Real Life
MGTOW
Men Going Their Own Way
NNN
No Nothing November
OP
Original Poster
SMP
Sexual Marketplace
SMV
Sexual Market Value
THOT
The Ho Over There
TRP
The Red Pill
1Introduction
Meet poor, sad Arthur.
Arthur works in a menial job at a rent-a-clown joint, and dreams of being a stand-up comedian. That is never going to happen – he just isn’t funny! Part of Arthur’s problem is that he has severe mental health problems, including one socially awkward condition where he laughs uncontrollably in the most inappropriate moments. If things weren’t bad enough, Arthur soon becomes another victim of government cuts. He loses access to his social services, and in turn can’t afford his medication or the counselling he desperately needs. Arthur and his mum, who also suffers from mental health issues due to a long history of trauma, live in abject poverty. Arthur just can’t win a trick. Things really tip over, however, when at work, where he holds up signs for businesses on the street, he gets beat up by a mob of teenagers. Instead of looking after him as he should, Arthur’s boss makes him pay for the ‘going out of business’ sign he was twirling at the time. Then Arthur gets fired.
Arthur does what anyone would do in this situation. He gets angry. But then this anger goes further, and he starts to get violent. He kills someone, first in self-defence, protecting himself and a woman who were attacked on the train. But in killing he realizes he had something he never felt he had in his life – control. In living a life of crime, Arthur says that ‘for my whole life I didn’t know if I even really existed. But I do. People are starting to notice.’
Some of you might already know this story. Arthur was portrayed superbly by Joaquin Phoenix in the 2019 movie Joker, a role for which he won an Oscar for best actor. Joker also won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, and with it a seven-minute standing ovation. At the Oscars it was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. As I am writing this, I am eagerly awaiting the sequel, which features none other than Lady Gaga.
But Arthur turned into more than just a movie character. He became a symbol during a particularly heightened political moment. Joker was released three years after the election of Donald Trump as US President, and in a time when Western societies were dealing with the re-emergence of far-right violent political movements. Watching the film, some immediately drew comparisons between Arthur and these violent individuals, in particular a group that was of particular concern at the time – incels (involuntary celibates). Incels believe that due to genetic traits they are unable to form meaningful relationships with women (which to them means not having sex) and have become the poster boys for isolated and alienated men. Some, like Arthur, have committed mass violence.
Arthur’s potential likeness for incels immediately drew the ire of many film critics and many in the public. These folks believed that Joker empathized too heavily with Arthur and in doing so provided justification for his violence (e.g., Edelstein, 2019; Ellwood, 2019; Zacharek, 2019). Joker, they claimed, idolized those who commit murder and other violent crimes. As the senior movie critic at Vulture, David Edelstein (2019) complains ‘actually, you don’t just admire Joker. The parade of insults is so repetitive and finally so tedious that you root for his alter ego’s emergence. Kill someone, Arthur! Anyone!’ The film critic for Time Magazine, Stephanie Zacharek (2019), made the direct link between Arthur and violent movements, saying:
The movie lionizes and glamorizes Arthur as it shakes its head, fauxsorrowfully, over his violent behavior … He could easily be adopted as the patron saint of incels.
Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, Zacharek’s comments became real. After hardly being noticed, Joker suddenly became a topic of discussion in incel communities. While some incels were confused as to why they were associated with Arthur, many began to connect with him. Incels began posting about the movie, sharing their views, organizing screenings and changing their online avatars to pictures of Arthur. As one commenter on the Reddit incel forum r/Braincels said, using derogatory language that is common in the community: ‘Some retards claimed that the new Joker movie was an incel movie, so it became a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy where the Joker is now actually popular amongst us.’ Getting excited about seeing the film, another said, ‘Joker is incel. I can’t wait.’
For incels, alongside some other conservative commentators, the film was a story of the struggles of men, showing how recent social changes have led to the demise of modern manhood. The problem wasn’t rampant capitalism, it was changing social circumstances that have destroyed men. The American conservative commentator Chadwick Moore (2019) tweeted:
What did emerge as the most twisted themes in the movie? Single motherhood (#1), pharmacology, and the absence of god in a dystopian administrative state. That’s why the left can’t truly understand this film.
Appearing at a pivotal moment, Joker became a focal point of a debate about what is happening with men in our society and why so many of them are turning, once again, to violence and extremism. Unfortunately, much of this debate missed the point. On one side, progressives reduced Arthur to being an inherently ‘bad man’, completely scrubbing away the complex reasons he, and others, commit violence. They turned real-world situations into black-and-white superhero movies, where the goodies fight the baddies, and there’s nothing we can do to stop violence happening in the first place. While at least incels and conservatives acknowledged the potential social causes of the complaints of Arthur, they too ended up blaming ‘bad people’ – in this case women, feminists and ‘social justice warriors’, who have emasculated men, destroyed systems of faith and created an epidemic of single motherhood. This is not only factually incorrect, but also takes away all of Arthur’s agency.
This book is not about Arthur, but people who share many of his complaints, and a small few who have been just as violent. It studies real men, who are undertaking real violence in our community. I study ‘bad men’ who reside, chat and organize in ‘bad places’ online. I aim to do what I personally think Joker does so well: to do a careful reading of these men, to complexify them, to show both the good and the bad, and even to empathize with them. I do so, however, without taking the approach of these men themselves – that is to blame women and feminism for all their complaints. So, join me as we delve deeper into the complex social structures that underpin communities of ‘so-called’ bad men.
Enter the Manosphere
The Joker controversy centred on a community called incels. Incels are part of a broader group, movement and community, called ‘The Manosphere’. This group, and the men behind it, is what this book is about. The Manosphere is:
a neologism used to describe a loose network of blogs, forums and online communities on the English-speaking web that are devoted to a wide range of mens’ interests, from life philosophies and gender relations to self-improvement tips and strategies for success in life, relationships and sex. (Know Your Meme, 2015)
The Manosphere consists of a range of different groups, who believe that feminism, and women more broadly, have destroyed not just their lives, but politics, the economy and society. These groups all come together under this banner due to a consistent belief ‘that feminine values dominate society, that this fact is suppressed by feminists and “political correctness”, and that men must fight back against an overarching, misandrist [male hating] culture to protect their very existence’ (Marwick and Caplan, 2018: 546, emphasis in original).
The term ‘Manosphere’ dates back to November 2009 and a blog called ‘The Manosphere’, but was popularized in 2013 by the porn marketer Ian Ironwood with his book The Manosphere: A New Hope for Masculinity. It has since become a term readily adopted by many men’s rights activists and other male communities online (Ging, 2017). You may already know some of the leaders of these communities. The Manosphere has spawned a series of high-profile celebrities, including the former kickboxer Andrew Tate, the psychologist Jordan Peterson, the right-wing shock-jock Milo Yiannopoulos, and the famed pick-up artist RooshV. These men have profited heavily off Manosphere, or Manosphere-adjacent ideas, through speaking tours, social media income and running courses teaching men how they can improve their lives. At this time, it is worth noting that while these figures are clearly important, and I will quote them regularly throughout the book, they are not my major focus. I am looking at the men who join a community, post online or participate in one of these workshops and will be studying their content a lot more.
So, who are these disparate, but overlapping, groups? They include:
– men’s rights activists, a movement that has been around since the 1970s, and who argue that men are discriminated against in society;
– pick up artists (PUAs) and the seduction industry (who often appear under communities called ‘The Red Pill’), which teaches men manipulative techniques to pick up women;
– incels, who believe that due to a range of genetic traits they are unable to obtain romantic or sexual relationships with women; and
– men going their own way (MGTOW) – they are often, but not always, divorced men who are so angry at women that they decide to avoid sexual and romantic relationships entirely.
While predominantly white and Western, these groups are often extremely diverse across racial, socio-economic, age and other demographic lines. They do, however, have a consistent ideology, although not all members believe or sign up for each idea. They all claim there are inherent and genetically determined differences between men and women (Ging, 2017). They see men as inherently rational and logical, while women are irrational, emotional and, most of all, hardwired to pair with what Manosphere men describe as ‘alpha males’ (Ging, 2017). Meanwhile, they believe society has always been gynocentric – a term that means focused on the needs of women. Women are revered, while men engage in hard and dangerous work. In decades gone by, they claim, society created balance between the two genders by giving men purpose by making them leaders in fields like politics and business. These inherent differences were respected, and society was much more harmonious. Manosphere men believe that recent social changes, particularly the rise of feminism, have not only reinforced gynocentrism, but have taken away any social purpose or value men have. Feminism has removed the balance, upset the apple cart so to speak, giving women a dominant position. Women have taken over men’s roles and attack men’s inherent masculinity, leaving men out at sea.
This may sound very similar to the grievances of many in the far right. Just think of Donald Trump’s slogan, Make America Great Again, which spoke as if something has gone fundamentally wrong with American society and that this needs to be turned around. This is no coincidence. The Manosphere and the ideas it incorporates are connected with much of the far right and, more specifically, the alt-right (Marwick and Caplan, 2018; Bratich, 2024). Both the Manosphere and these movements express resentment about changing social norms and structures. This is particularly true of many of the most influential leaders of the community, such as Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson, RooshV and Milo Yiannopoulos, who straddle the boundary between both these two. Both the alt-right and the Manosphere appeal to men who feel socially isolated and alienated, men who see themselves as left behind and oppressed by recent social changes and progress. The Manosphere is also often very racist (Ging, 2017; Farrell et al., 2019; Bates, 2020), with strands of white supremacism running through the movement. This creates natural links between the two groups.
Like the far right, members of the Manosphere have also become violent in their beliefs. Manosphere men have been involved in a series of campaigns of coordinated, online, harassment (Marwick and Caplan, 2018), primarily targeted at women. This has included: #gamergate, a systematic campaign of abuse targeted at female games developers (Massanari, 2017; Salter, 2018); #TheFappening, which involved the illegal release and sharing of thousands of nude photos of female celebrities (Massanari, 2017; Moloney and Love, 2018); and #thotaudit, in which men reported female sex workers in the US to the Internal Revenue Service for auditing (Copland, 2021). These campaigns have at times spread into ‘offline’ action, with anti-feminist and anti-women sentiments being behind several mass shootings, massacres and terrorist events (Dragiewicz and Mann, 2016; Kalish and Kimmel, 2010). The most prominent of these attacks have been undertaken by self-described incels, including the 2014 Isla Vista shooting, in which Elliot Rodger killed six people before killing himself, and the 2018 Toronto van attack in which Alek Minassian killed eleven people.
The Manosphere is us
Policy makers, the media, researchers and even the broader public have all become increasingly concerned about the Manosphere, and for good reason. First is the obvious threat of violence, including incidents of rape, sexual assault and terror attacks. In addition, leaders such as Andrew Tate have become international superstars who are shaping how many young men think about gender, and not in a healthy way. I am also really worried about the influence Manosphere ideas are having on a lot of young men.
At the same time, however, I’ve been frustrated at conversations about this community. Let’s go back to the criticisms from many of the film Joker to explain. Many of the reactions from progressives I mentioned above boiled down to a simple objection – that the film did not represent Arthur as a ‘bad man’. In moving beyond the tropes of good and evil portrayed in superhero films, Joker had the audacity to ask viewers to empathize with a character doing terrible things, rather than just condemn him. David Edelstein (2019), for example, claimed the film gave too much credence to the complaints of Arthur, and ‘panders to selfish, small-minded feelings of resentment’. He added that we should stop empathizing and instead simply ‘make them look like the loser schmucks they are’.
Quickly search on social media, or even the comments of political and social leaders, and you’ll see that many are describing Manosphere men in these exact ways – as ‘basement dwellers’, ‘the losers of society’ or ‘man children’. Disappointingly, even some researchers head down this path. Talking about a trend of incels using plastic surgery to change their looks, the Australian researcher Emma Jane (2019) writes ‘this is just more radicalised misogyny from a legion of noxious internet bottom-dwellers’. One of the most prominent researchers in this area, Michael Kimmel (2014) argues:
Most of what constitutes Men’s Rights activism is this sort of recitation, supported by a few anecdotes, and the occasional series of empirical inversions that usually leave the rational mind reeling. To hear them (men’s rights activists) tell it, white men in America are steamrollered into submission, utterly helpless and powerless. They’re failed patriarchs, deposed kings, and they’re not only the ‘biggest losers’ but also the sorest.
This kind of language has been a common response from so-called progressives to the rise of the alt-right and similar groups around this time. During the 2016 Presential campaign, for example, Hillary Clinton famously said ‘You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?’ The comment, rightfully, caused outrage amongst many, and led many Trump supporters to own the label as a badge of honour. It spawned T-shirts, hats, flags, banners and more. I saw similar sentiments during the COVID-19 pandemic, with those who questioned the science of vaccines, or the logic of lockdowns, called ‘cookers’ (because they’re cooked in the head) from progressive friends and colleagues. Even public leaders did this. During anti-vaccine mandate protests in Australia, the former Federal leader of the Labor Party, Bill Shorten, described protesters as ‘man baby Nazis’, while the Chief Health Officer of the state of Victoria, Brett Sutton, accused protestors of ‘living in a fantasy world’, saying ‘let’s not pretend these are otherwise rational individuals. They’re absolutely wacky.’
This ‘smug politics’ (Sparrow, 2018), which looks down at Manosphere men and others in the far right, is anything but helpful. It assumes an inherent ‘badness’ of Manosphere men, which is both incorrect (misogyny is a social disease), but also leads us nowhere. If Manosphere men are just inherent losers or misogynists, then there’s nothing we can do except to chastise them, or maybe lock them up. I just don’t accept that.
Sadly, attempts to look more deeply can also fall into similar traps. I will also not be blaming the Manosphere on ‘toxic masculinity’, which is probably the most common way people explain the community. Toxic masculinity refers to the idea that there is a range of ‘toxic’ masculine traits, which, when expressed, result in violence, hatred and other problematic behaviours. Toxic masculinity is in turn positioned against ‘healthy masculinity’ (Waling, 2019a). Debates assume that all men have both ‘toxic’ and ‘healthy’ attitudes within them, with social circumstances then bringing out these more toxic traits in particular men (Salter, 2019). Toxic masculinity has become an increasingly popular term in some feminist and media circles, and has been blamed for male violence, the suppression of men’s emotions (leading to depression, anxiety and suicide), the deterioration of men’s physical engagement, homophobia and sexism, and even for climate change and the rise of Donald Trump (Salter, 2019; Waling, 2019a).
Unfortunately, this term has become over-used to the point where it has lost all value. While not inherent in the term itself, the way toxic masculinity is used in public discourse often assumes that toxic masculine traits are somehow inherent within men (and, in turn, not in women) (Salter, 2019; Waling, 2019a). This is embedded in the term ‘toxic’ itself, which makes it sound like men’s bodies have become diseased or infected (Waling, 2019a). Bad masculinity, in turn, is seen as inherent, rather than the product of social relationships (Waling, 2019a).
In assuming something inherent to ‘male bodies’, the notion of toxic masculinity then blames masculinity as the sole driver for men’s, and often society’s, problems (Waling, 2019a; 2019b). These approaches ‘privilege masculinity as the sole driver shaping men’s lives’ (Waling, 2019b: 103). This is just not how men’s lives work. I think about this using a more benign example. I go to the gym three or four times a week. There are clear links between gym culture and masculinity. Men often go to the gym to build their sense of masculinity, and that can often create toxic cultures within. I am certain that, deep down, boosting my own sense of masculinity is part of the reason I go. Yet, it is certainly not the only thing I get out of it. I also go to the gym because it’s a great community. It is important for my mental health – I always feel happier when I leave. I want to get strong because I know the science shows that it can be beneficial as I get older. The gym is about masculinity, but it certainly isn’t only about masculinity. Attributing everything to masculinity therefore is just too simplistic, ignoring other issues we need to address.
Focusing on ‘toxic masculinity’ in turn creates a simplistic answer to broad social problems that doesn’t consider how men’s perceptions of their manhood differs across time, space, history and place (Waling, 2019a). Masculinity isn’t the same everywhere, and so it’s hard to blame it for all problems associated with men! As Michael Salter (2019) argues:
The concept of toxic masculinity encourages an assumption that the causes of male violence and other social problems are the same everywhere, and therefore, that the solutions are the same as well. But … material realities matter.
These issues are particularly true when toxic masculinity is applied to groups of men on the fringe of society. In a study of violent extremist groups in the Philippines, Duriesmith (2020: 25) talks about ‘the importance of understanding violent extremist masculinities relationally, avoiding monolithic accounts of “toxic” or “hyper-masculinity”’. He argues, and I agree, that research on extremist groups ‘tends to rely on generalised accounts of “toxic” or “hyper-masculinity” that struggle to explain the operation of gender in local settings.’ These concepts create a totalizing picture of masculinity, which gives the impression there is a singular ‘real’ or ‘good’ masculinity that is opposed to more harmful deviations. It also splits these harmful variations away from the majority of the population, ignoring that many ‘toxic’ traits (such as violence, for example) are deeply embedded in our mainstream institutions. The concept of ‘toxic masculinity’ separates ‘toxic’ individuals from the rest of society (Pearson, 2019). Pearson states the concept of toxic masculinity does nothing to disrupt existing gender orders, and that:
It is possible to recognize that many of the so-called toxic practices of the extreme fringes are present in society more widely. Just as extremists are in reality not separate from society, toxic masculinity is not separate from patriarchy or social gender norms. (Pearson, 2019, p. 1269)
Toxic masculinity both simplifies the male experience and separates ‘toxic men’ from mainstream society at the same time. Neither are useful for understanding the complexities of the community, nor how they connect to mainstream society. It is for this reason that I try to not use the term when describing the community.
The Banality of the Manosphere
We need to do better than this. The alienated men of the Manosphere, even the violent ones, are not an aberration, or even that radical, but they represent symptoms of the society that they and we live in. They are not monsters, nor in fact are they very different from many of us, and the problems they experience and pose are society’s problems. In fact, as I’ll continue to argue, the Manosphere is quite banal.
Here, I’m borrowing from Hannah Arendt’s concept of the ‘banality of evil’ (Arendt, 1994). In her book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Arendt reported on the war crimes trial of Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi operative who was responsible for organizing the transportation of millions of people to various concentration camps during the Second World War. Attending Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem, Arendt expected to find the face of evil. Instead, she found him to be an ordinary, bland, bureaucrat, who was ‘neither perverted nor sadistic’, but instead ‘terrifyingly normal’ (Arendt, 1994: 276). His main motive, she argued, was not evil, but instead to diligently advance his career. I don’t want to go into a debate about whether Eichmann was evil or not. Some have argued that Arendt either missed, or didn’t have access to, important facts about Eichmann that points to his commitment to Nazi ideology (White, 2018). However, Arendt’s broader point is still useful. Sometimes evil and violent ideas become so embedded within our society that they become the norm; a standard that becomes so mainstream that everyone – even the boring bureaucrat – become a part of that machine. The people participating in these movements are often not an aberration. Instead, they can be banal, boring, individuals, just like the bloke next door. They are often, like all of us, just trying to find a way through, a way to succeed in our everyday life. Like Eichmann, the Manosphere are banal men, seeking survival (in an awful way) in an increasingly difficult world.
It is this seeking of survival that is so key to understanding the Manosphere. The Manosphere is a response to the multitudes of crises that have been created by late-term capitalism. Men, as with everyone, are facing a significantly changing and increasingly complex and uncertain world, both economically and socially and it’s all happening at a rapid pace. The Manosphere is one way in which some men seek to understand and navigate this world. It gives men a place to air grievances, a narrative to understand why the world is at it is, a community of like-minded people, and a sense of purpose in what seems to them an increasingly purposeless world. Manosphere men are responding to these crises in ways that are deeply shaped by capitalism itself and little do they realize that, in turn, they are perpetuating the very problems they are complaining about. Of course, men have agency in the decisions they make, and I am not using this argument to excuse many of the awful things they do. Instead, however, I’ll argue that the violence that comes from this community is violence that is already deeply embedded in our social systems – men are doing what men have done for hundreds, if not thousands, of years to deal with their problems.
The Manosphere as an intimate public
Different men have responded to these crises in different ways. The likes of Tate, Peterson, Yiannopoulos and RooshV have very successfully sought ways to profit off this crisis, selling men the fantasy, often at exuberant prices, that if they follow their ideas, they will be able to escape the crisis and even thrive in it. The message they peddle means that they have become little more than merchants of snake oil.
The majority, however, and the ones that I focus on in this book, seek places and communities to understand, exist and survive amid these crises. The Manosphere is an example of what theorists describe as an ‘intimate public’. Intimate publics refer to groups who bond over a shared worldview and emotional knowledge. What on earth does that mean? In an intimate public, individuals come together both through connections to ideas as well as through a collective feeling about their position in the world. They reject politics, believing they can change the world through the sheer force of their community and the feeling behind it.
Intimate publics exist throughout our community, and this idea can be used to describe groups across the political spectrum. In their research, Lauren Berlant (1988; 2008) argued that the first intimate public was comprised of, primarily white, American women, who used texts such as romantic novels to create a collective complaint about their lives. Berlant described this phenomenon as The Female Complaint. As you can probably guess from the title of this very book, I borrow heavily from Berlant’s concept. The Manosphere creates a space where men can share grievances and create connection over these grievances – forming The Male Complaint. While not always rational, nor wellfounded, the male complaint provides a strong drawcard for some men, binding them together through a collective identity and sense of purpose.
In thinking about the Manosphere in this way, I am not aiming to reduce the impact of the bigotry and misogyny these men perpetuate. On the contrary, bigotry and misogyny is never inconsequential, and Manosphere men have used misogyny to justify several violent attacks. We must do everything we can to stop it. However, the misogyny of the Manosphere is not new. Manosphere men repeat tropes and ideas that have, sadly, existed for centuries, with the community using women as scapegoats for the problems facing our world. We are in another iteration of a ‘battle of the sexes’, with some men joining a side and fighting hard. Manosphere men do so because it is the only way they see themselves surviving, and maybe even thriving.
I believe looking at the Manosphere in this way is essential if we want to understand and do something about the community. If we treat the Manosphere, and particularly the men within it, as an aberration that is different and distinct from the rest of the world, then we are absolving ourselves, or more importantly our leaders and mainstream institutions, from any of the blame. This is a huge mistake. The Manosphere hasn’t just arisen out of thin air; instead, it is a response to both the ideologies and failures of our modern institutions – specifically late-stage capitalist neoliberalism (Bratich and Banet-Weiser, 2019). It is important to understand this, as many commentators talk about the misogyny in the Manosphere, particularly in the context of the rise of social media, as if it is a wholly new phenomenon. In her book on the Manosphere, for example, Donna Zuckerberg (2018: 3), the sister of the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, argued:
Social media has led to an unprecedented democratisation of information, but it has also created the opportunity for men with antifeminist ideas to broadcast their views to more people than ever before – and to spread conspiracy theories, lies, and misinformation. Social media has elevated misogyny to entirely new levels of violence and virulence.
Violent misogyny has, sadly, existed and spread well before the rise of social media and the Manosphere and, given our current social circumstances, would likely continue to exist if these platforms collapsed tomorrow. Zuckerberg’s claim seems, for example, to forget the witch trials, when women were literally burned at the stake in campaigns of misogynist violence (Federici, 2018). While the Manosphere may be presenting misogyny in a new way, most of the ideas are not new at all. Looking back and understanding the history of this community, and their misogynistic ideas, is very important.
My core aim is to try and understand where the misogyny of the Manosphere comes from. Misogyny doesn’t come from nowhere, and the Manosphere didn’t just sprout from nothing. We need to seek to understand these communities so that we can figure out the causes and tackle them. As Rachel O’Neill (2018b) writes, ‘unless we accept the idea that some men just hate women – that misogyny really is an immovable force – then we need to understand what draws men to the Manosphere’. That is the first and biggest goal of not only this work.
Beyond bad men
Thinking and writing about the Manosphere in this way is difficult. It means looking at men who are often saying awful things, or committing violent acts, and trying to understand and even empathize with them. By doing this I’ve often been accused of justifying male violence, which is not my aim, nor what I am doing here! But it does mean thinking about, and approaching, this community in a different way.
You are reading a study about why men join the Manosphere, what they get out of the community, and what the Manosphere does for men and to society more broadly. When explaining groups like the Manosphere, many try to think about people’s participation like a series of steps. Research often focuses on trying to draw a line – how does someone get from point A (i.e. being a regular young man), to point B, then C, and on and on (committing mass violence as an incel). I don’t think this is useful, as no individual has the same path in life. Sadly, I cannot give you a definitive description of how each man ends up in this community and, in turn, at which step we can intervene to stop them heading in that direction.
Instead, each of the following chapters will explore a component of the community, putting together pieces of the puzzle (Hafez and Mullins, 2015) as to why men join the Manosphere, what they get out of the community, and how the Manosphere impacts them, and the rest of society. I will take you on an in-depth exploration of four topics (in order): grievances and alienation; the creation of identity; loneliness and community; and nihilism and violence.
I start in chapter 2 by trying to understand what it is that men are complaining about, where these complaints come from, and why they are important enough to bring men to the community. In chapter 3, I then look at how and why men form a collective identity around these complaints – asking, how is it that men can position themselves as being oppressed in our society? Chapters 4 and 5 then look at how Manosphere men respond and deal with the complaints they are making about the world. In chapter 4, I’ll look at why community is so important to the Manosphere, and how Manosphere men attempt to create community through practices of self-help. In chapter 5, I study how the complaint leads to violence and hatred directed at women. I finish, in chapter 6, by looking at how we can address the misogyny and violence that comes from the community.
These puzzle pieces are interlocking – community, for example, is both an attraction of the Manosphere, and it creates identity. Male grievances also clearly lead to violence. Underpinning these pieces of the puzzle are our dominant social institutions and ideologies, all underpinned by capitalism. I’ll detail each of these structures throughout. Like the Manosphere itself, the metaphor of a puzzle is not simple, but deeply complex. However, it is a valuable one, and will help shape how I explore the Manosphere.
This whole topic is hard, and I will present some tough content throughout. I do not shy away from highlighting the very real sexist content that underpins this community. Be prepared to read some ugly stuff. However, I strongly believe that we cannot deal with the issues associated with the Manosphere unless we properly understand it. So, buckle up and join me as we dive deep into this community.
2Alienated Young Men
Marriage is dead. Divorce means you’re screwed for life. Women have given up on monogamy, which makes them uninteresting to us for any serious relationship or raising a family. That’s just the way it is. Even if we take the risk, chances are the kids won’t be ours. In France, we even have to pay for the kids a wife has through adulterous affairs.
In school, boys are screwed over time and again. Schools are engineered for women. In the US, they force-feed boys Ritalin like Skittles to shut them up. And while girls are favoured to fulfil quotas, men are slipping into distant second place.
Nobody in my generation believes they’re going to get a meaningful retirement. We have a third or a quarter of the wealth previous generations had, and everyone’s fleeing to higher education to stave off unemployment and poverty because there are no jobs.
All that wouldn’t be so bad if we could at least dull the pain with girls. But we’re treated like paedophiles and potential rapists just for showing interest.
These are the words of Rupert, a young German video game enthusiast, whom right-wing provocateur, and now peddler of cheap religious items online, Milo Yiannopoulos claimed to have gotten to know when he wrote an extraordinarily popular article on Manosphere ideas for Breitbart news (Yiannopoulos, 2014). While expressed over a decade ago, Rupert’s words could easily be repeated by most Manosphere men today. Rupert encapsulates a series of complaints that dominate the community, ranging from issues with girls, to treatment at school and a sense of futility about his future.
You picked up this book called The Male Complaint, so the first question I have to ask is, what do men actually have to complain about? Should we take these complaints seriously, or are they the rantings of a privileged few who are angry that they’ve lost power they once had?
I’m not the first person to ask this question – in fact, in his book Angry White Men, sociologist Michael Kimmel asks the same question in this mocking way – ‘Middle- and upper-middle-class, white, middle-aged men – what could they possibly
