Gender bias and gender violence are not new phenomena. The problem of patriarchal dynamics around the world is broadly studied from diverse perspectives, still presenting a gloomy panorama.
I come from Mexico, a country with heavy issues regarding machismo, a specific sociocultural kind of sexism, and misogyny.
According to the most recent Gender Social Norms Index, 9 out of 10 men in Mexico hold at least one gender bias—in the political, educational, economic, and/or physical integrity dimensions—against women.
In Canada, the picture is also negative because almost 1 out of 2 men also has at least one fundamental bias rooted in a patriarchal society. At the centre of this scenario, there is an online component that has primarily reinforced violence against women through varied means.
Social media is not a neutral terrain for digital life, and neither are Internet forums.
In most cases, Internet users, multimedia content creators, blogs, and posts are failing to apply minimum ethical conduct to avoid hate speech and dehumanizing diverse groups of people. This situation creates a context in which platforms, institutions, and governments deny or neglect their accountability for the harmful content they allow to circulate for the sake of profits and online audience engagement.
In the past two decades, patriarchy has heavily extended its reach over social media and the internet in general, scaffolding the basis for the creation of a digital environment of misogyny and anti-feminist discourses worldwide: the Manosphere.
In a world where, according to a recent survey, gen Z men have a dangerous view of gender equality, it is time to acknowledge the enormous harm the Manosphere has dealt to men’s populations.
This cluster of online communities is mainly supported and promoted by men to spread disinformation and hatred according to the biased expectations of their specific group.
For instance, incels adopted the idea that girls and women are withholding the access to sex-affective relationships even when they are not really listening to any woman to know what they want in a partner nor treating women and girls with human dignity and respect.
Redpillers sell young men the ideology of being “awakened” to societal gender norms, but in reality, they merely reinforce traditional gender roles and reproduce the ideals of a patriarchal structure in society from 20th-century imagery and earlier.
Men’s rights activists promote a distorted view of reality, claiming that men are “legally disfavored” in all aspects of their lives solely because they are men, while failing to acknowledge that many of the issues they raise are actually the result of interconnected systems of oppression, such as capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy.
Pickup artists teach young men ‘seduction techniques’ based on manipulation, psychological violence, coercion, or deceit, lacking any ethical view on interpersonal relationships, mutual well-being, eradication of gender violence and gender biases, or consent processes.
The manosphere is dangerous and harmful for everyone, but especially for women and girls who are targeted with several forms of violence, including technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV).
This digital ecosystem has developed violent communities that even create and circulate methodologies for sexual aggressions, including rape.
Men are the main active participants and content consumers in the Manosphere, literally constituting its target audience in terms of content and actual market regarding revenue. Therefore, what are we, men, waiting for to dismantle the Manosphere?
How much more damage will we allow to happen to everyone (including ourselves) until we recognize that the need to change is huge and inescapable for the sake of the well-being of all societies?
The Manosphere is just a digital consequence of patriarchy, and it can be dismantled if we take action as a community.