Ep. 180-The Psychology of the Manosphere: How Loneliness and Disempowerment Fuel Violence
This episode explores the psychology behind the manosphere, online communities that promote men's power over women and resources.
Most men today feel more disempowered and lonely than ever, despite the world’s vast commitments of power and wealth. In this episode, Dr. Kibby exposes the psychological roots of the Manosphere- a shadowy online movement that preys on young men’s humiliation, disconnection, and search for purpose.
If you’re confused by how communities like incels and influencer figures like Andrew Tate manipulate masculinity, Dr. Kibby reveals the compelling truth behind their rise and the real power structures they serve. She uncovers the emotional and societal forces fueling the Manosphere, from the deep shame of rejection and emasculation to misguided evolutionary ideas that frame women as deceivers. This discussion breaks down how online communities exploit feelings of helplessness, offering false promises of dominance, wealth, and instant respect, which are all driven by a culture of humiliation and rage.
Dr. Kibby shares eye-opening examples from her own life, including the notorious Neil Strauss “pickup artist” movement to today’s high-profile social media figures, revealing the hypocrisy and hierarchy beneath the chaos. In this episode, you'll discover:
The psychological triggers behind men joining the Manosphere, especially humiliation and loneliness
How these communities distort evolutionary psychology to justify misogyny and power fantasies
Why top male influencers maintain their dominance while most followers remain stuck in disempowerment
Practical strategies for loved ones to support men in leaving these harmful narratives behind
The broader societal implications of online misogyny, from mass shootings to ongoing abuse
The dangers of the manosphere creates a call to action for anyone invested in healthy masculinity and equal relationships. The real power lies in consciousness, community, and genuine respect - tune in to learn how to foster that in yourself and others.
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Dr. Kibby McMahon (00:00)
Hey, little helpers. Today I'm going to be talking about the Manosphere and the psychology behind the Manosphere. Why do people join it and what should loved ones, especially partners do? So I got really interested in this topic ⁓ for a while now. So I've talked about, you know, this, the male female divide and ⁓ relationships in the U.S. and how that
affects mental health and connection and family. ⁓ So I've talked a lot about these gender politics, so to speak, and mental health, but since working in KulaMind with loved ones and people with mental illness, I've come across a lot of people that have a similar story where they, it's usually a woman across different,
Political ideologies right so like both Republican or conservative and liberal women are saying you know my husband is Starting to withdraw get angrier ⁓ Spending less time with us as a family. they're drinking or vaping more playing video games and They're going down these toxic Manosphere rabbit holes on YouTube and social media
And I was like, what? mean, it was just a profile that kept coming up. And I was like, my God, this is an epidemic that's happening. And I'm going to talk about this, and I will say upfront that I'm not going to talk about whether conservatives or liberals are right. Like, I'm not going to take a political side here because I think it has a little bit, it is, the Manosphere is more associated with conservative. ⁓
⁓ and write ideologies and political orientation, the psychology behind it has been really interesting to me. So I'm going to try to keep it as apolitical as possible. Although it's a very political movement.
And even thinking about doing this episode, I was both excited. Like, I'm so, I really want to talk about this. This is a really interesting topic. But literally a few minutes before I pressed record, I was terrified. I still kind of feel like jittery right now. I'm a little bit anxious. And I was like, what is going on? Usually I don't really feel anxious about talking about a topic.
And I could see that I was like trying to research more, which is something that I do when I'm nervous. I try to look up more papers and more papers, because whenever I feel nervous or scared for my own safety, so to speak, I try to learn more. My defenses are really like intellectual. So I was like, wow, I'm really nervous to talk about the Manosphere. And that even of itself is interesting too, because I know that this is going to
I'm going to publish this to YouTube and Spotify publicly. Maybe I'll share these clips online. And most people, if they disagree with something I'm saying, they make a comment of, like, I disagree. But whenever you say something against the Manosphere or men or the way men are handling their mental health, the kinds of responses I get are a little scary. So it kind of speaks to how
this topic of Manosphere is pretty terrifying to women at least because there's a real threat of violence there, a real threat to safety. ⁓ So I'm just saying that to be honest and if I sound more nervous it's because I am. But I think it's really helpful for us to understand what's going on with the Manosphere for both men and the women to understand like what is happening, what needs
does this Manosphere culture meet and like, are we gonna do about it? So just before I dive into the psychology and mechanisms behind the Manosphere, I'm gonna define the Manosphere. So the Manosphere is basically a different online community, mostly online communities, also in person, but they really gathered a lot of momentum on Reddit or other kind of like anonymous online communities.
that really talk, they're very misogynist and they talk about how men have to defend themselves and their right to power. ⁓ And they are against this feminism in general, like it's a backlash against feminism, right? It's like that ⁓ these communities see the rising power of women as a threat and this is in response to that to get the power back from men.
There's different subgroups within the Manosphere communities. There are incels, which are involuntary celibates, guys who can't have sex, men's right activists, pickup artists, and men going their own way. So those are just some of the names of the communities. And I'm sure I sound stupid saying it because I'm sure there's so much more and they have other names. But essentially all of these groups kind of ride on men's...
feeling of being disempowered and looking to become alpha male again by dominating women again. I'm sure I'm butchering it, but see? See, I'm nervous. I'm like qualifying it as I'm saying it. I'll just keep going. ⁓ You know, it's interesting because I'm talking about this today because I just saw Louis Theroux's Netflix documentary on, it's called Inside the Manosphere. I saw it this weekend and
It made me fascinated about this topic all over again. I'm also getting a taste of it being on social media so much and doing social media marketing.
So when I was in college around 2004, 2005, there was this movement of the pickup artists. And it was, I think, kicked off by this book written by Neil Strauss called The Game, Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists. it's about, Neil Strauss was a writer and a very nerdy one who started following this guy who called himself Mystery. And...
He followed his coaching on called the mystery method. Basically all these different ways to ⁓ pick up women. And there was all these different strategies, like really practical strategies that gave them like, like negging women, like putting them down while making fun of them, right? Or peacocking, like dressing really elaborately so that, ⁓ you know, almost like a peacock, right? To show off. And
I remember being so fascinated by this. I don't even know why. think because I was just, I've always been interested in the world of psychology and power and all these different ⁓ simple strategies to, I don't know, like to connect to people, but it got a little dark, of course. So I remember reading this book, The Pickup Artist or The Game, being really interested in thinking it was so funny or cool or whatever. ⁓
I had a really good friend who we both were into it. I don't know how this happened, but basically at some point we were invited, Neil Strauss reached out to my friend over the internet and invited us to a party at a club. Which looking back, I can't believe I did that. That was like, I don't know, what was I, like 20 or 19? I was just a baby. So both of us go to this club in New York, One Oak, I remember it was called One Oak.
We went to this club and we went into the VIP area and there was Neil Strauss, the author of the game sitting there, surrounded by these beautiful model women. And I remember looking at him, being in shock because he wrote with such confidence and wrote about how he like...
mastered the mystery method to start to be able to go from this nerdy, awkward guy to be able to talk to any women and pick up any women. And so he sounded like a larger than life person. But when I met him, he was short, he was bald, he was wearing ridiculous clothes. I think he wore a feather somewhere. And just surrounded by these models who, my God, I remember first of all,
It's been a long time actually like frequent in a club, but that club was so clubby. It was so loud and we were in the dark VIP area. And I was trying to talk to these women, trying to make friends with them. And they were just like, I mean, I don't know if they could put two sentences together. And one of them was talking to me about how she wants to start a bikini company or something. And I remember thinking like, my God, this is the dark place.
And I kept staring at Il Strauss and just being like, ⁓ my God, for all of this, know, bravado and the pickup artist and being famous for being in the fame and everything, like, look at this nerdy little guy just wearing a feather or something. And I just remember just seeing him and I felt bad for him. I felt pity for how much effort he looked like he was putting into becoming an alpha male.
And I'm sure that was probably his nightmare, right? That was the thing that they were the most afraid of is like being looked down on, being humiliated. And humiliation I think is a big part of the Manosphere. So I'll talk about that, but I remember talking to him and I actually found him to be really nice. He was really soft spoken and gentle. And he was, you know, making observations. We're both talking about like the different people in the club. And I remember thinking like, Neil, you don't need.
You don't need the feather. You don't need, you know, these women by your side. Like, if you had confidence in, like, your nerdy self, I would be happy to talk to you. ⁓ Either way, I wouldn't want to have sex with them. But, like, it's just... I just was... I just was surprised about, like, what men thought they needed to do to be alpha males and to get women. So, I don't know. That was a tangent. But I was watching this...
Louis Thoreau documentary. If you haven't seen it, you should definitely watch it. I think it was really well done and it was a really interesting, like I think Louis Thoreau is an interesting documentary and he goes into these special ⁓ niche communities like a swingers club and stuff. And he's so ⁓ curious and unassuming and like kind of British man that he is able to like get along with people and really get in deep with people and try to show a nuanced side of
the people he's talking to. ⁓ But you could see that the people he was interviewing, all these Manosphere influencers were feeling really threatened by him. But it was interesting to watch the whole time watching a power dynamic, right? These men were like, they were afraid that they were going to, ⁓ that the documentary was going to expose them or make them look bad. So they were using.
the doc, the filming of the documentary to make more content so they could puff up more. So it was just like a real like, you know, dick measuring contest, so to speak. ⁓ But it was interesting to really get the whole picture of this Manisfield world. And what it looks like to me now is ⁓ that there are certain social media figures, right? Like Andrew Tate was the most
famous one. And there's other ones in the documentary where they have podcasts or a social media following that basically are like, let's, know, the natural order is to dominate women. know, women are bad and we gotta, you know, take our power over them, right? And they also have these other symbols of like alpha male status, right? They like, it's not just about
dominating women, but it's also about like making money off of crypto or ⁓ like leaving the nine to five job, ⁓ leaving the what they call the matrix to ⁓ like that's why it's called red pilling. It's like like leaving the matrix and to come to the real world of reality, which is like don't just follow along with what people tell you to do, but get your own power, right? And make your own money online and
⁓ get all these women and dominate them.
What's sad about it and what's interesting about it is that these guys are saying, hey, leave all the things you've been told and be your own band, make your own power. But in fact, these guys were just doing that themselves. They're telling all these guys, these teenagers, teenager boys.
to not get a regular nine to five job and ⁓ get out of the rat race, but basically to join their rat race, their empire. So the funny thing is that there's these alpha guys who are preying on these men, these young boys who are frustrated because they're not alpha enough. So they have these, they look up to these influencers as like, yeah, I wanna be like that. I'm going to...
not go to school, not get a job and learn to like really dominate women, right? And I'm not going to give away too much. I'm tempted to give away too much, but it really exposes a little bit of the hypocrisy with that messaging.
He wasn't really covered as much in the documentary, but Andrew Tate is one of the biggest names, one of the biggest figures that started this whole Manosphere culture. So didn't really know a lot about his background, but apparently he was a former kickboxer and he was on the show Big Brother, but he got kicked off because of rape allegations and a video of him beating a woman or something, which he claims was consensual.
He had since made all these different communities and platforms online. ⁓ One was called Hustler's University and the other one was called the Real World. But all these different communities that the idea was to teach men how to be men, how to make money off of ⁓ cryptocurrency and copywriting and e-commerce, right? Like all these digital products.
and basically to put women in their place. So, Andrew Tate's openly said he's a misogynist and he loves having sex with young teenagers because they are more likely to not have as much sex as older women. ⁓ it's crazy how big his following was. It's like millions and millions of people, millions of boys were looking up to him.
Right now he is basically being tried for a bunch of different cases. He's charged with human trafficking, allegations, and so many different things in Romania, in the UK, and the US. So he is pretty much in trouble and he was banned by a lot of the platforms. But still, he is one symptom of the problem.
And the problem is one that I've talked about before, especially with the man-child ⁓ episode. Now that I'm saying it, I'm like, yeah. Stuff like the man-child is really part of the problem of why the Man-osphere has picked up so much steam.
There is this, there's a lot of data showing that men are not doing great overall, especially in the US. Their employment rates are going down, their academic success is going down compared to women. Women are doing better in school, life. Women are less likely to need a man to start a family, right? They could now have careers and support themselves financially, but also there's all these different fertility treatments that are
that give women the ability to have kids without having a man. So, and I've heard this from a couple of therapists that I've talked to about like, what's going on with our men? Why are they doing so badly? And they all agreed that, you know, women don't need men as much anymore. with, you know, there's a lot of problems for women with that. Like we're taking on so much. So we feel like alone in our burden, but then men feel lost in not knowing what to do, right?
I do believe that so much of male psychology is organized around how do I find a woman and mate, right? There's so much about it that's determined by like, how do I get a woman to have sex with me? And when that question is harder and harder to answer for men, one of the main drivers of their reason why they get up every day is gone, right?
the Trojan War famously was launched because of a battle over one beautiful woman, Helen of Troy. The biggest empires of that time fell because of one woman, right? So that's so symbolic about how men are driven to basically have sex with women. And when they don't know how to do that, they're not doing well.
So what tends to fill this manuscript culture is a lot of these young, it's usually young men, young white men is really the more common one, ⁓ that feel like, feel lost, they feel ⁓ lonely and disempowered and they feel like they don't know how to get women, right? They feel like no one will.
is going to have sex with them, especially like the incels, right? So this feeling of just like, I'm worthless. And I think what's really driving that feeling is humiliation, the humiliating feeling of not being able to have sex with women, right? To be rejected or made fun of. The show Adolescence on Netflix also kind of really showed.
a pretty graphic and intense, emotionally intense view of what that looks like where a 13 year, it's about a 13 year old boy who was just, does horrible things because he felt humiliated by the hot girls, right? And, know, sexually rejected and being called an incel, drove him nuts. So I think this humiliation is a really big piece of what drives a Manosphere success.
Humiliation is an interesting emotion. ⁓ We did an episode on this a couple months ago, but humiliation is a feeling that someone, it's not the feeling, it's a feeling you have after ⁓ someone takes away your dignity or identity in public. So it's about like someone ripping away and taking away something that you... ⁓
you find is important for your self-esteem and our identity, and it takes it away in a very public way. So men who feel like, you know, are kind of like sexual rejects, so to speak, feel humiliated. And the interesting part about humiliation is that it ⁓ doesn't really encourage people to look inward and change and do better. It encourages this
Rage this this urge for revenge So humiliation breathes this urge to take revenge. So you have a lot of these Humiliated young boys who are lost who don't feel great about their standing in life and don't know how they're gonna ever find a woman to marry them and you know, Bear their kids they feel humiliated and they feel like I need to take I need justice, right? I need to right this wrong. I need to punish the people who made me feel this way
So in order to feed those feelings, like stoke those feelings, these online communities ⁓ will talk to each other a lot of just like about how women suck, right? How women are the cause of the problems. And when I was trying to research what exactly they were saying about women to really understand where they're coming from, I'm really, really confused. So I would love for anyone to write in the comments about, you know, like, do they understand?
what the central hypothesis is or like what they're driving on because it seems so contradictory to me. So for example, these incel and manosphere communities online talk about how women are, especially feminists, are inferior, right? They're like not as smart as men. They can't do as much as men. They're not as powerful as men. They're weaker. But also they're the threat.
They're violent and they're dangerous and they're taking the power. So it doesn't make any sense to me. I'm like, okay, they're weaker than men, but they're also taking your power. I mean, it's like, that seems contradictory to me. And what's also contradictory to me is that feminism is seen as like the threat to society, it's crumbling society and how women's sexual liberation is the real problem.
So women having sex more and being more sexually free is the downfall of society. At the same time, the same guys are complaining that they're not getting more sex. So it's like, these women are just like having a bunch of sex, but not with them.
So there's a little bit of the sense of ⁓ women are not giving, these men in the communities are like, women are not giving me what's due to me, right? Like I'm entitled to power, I'm entitled to my male rights, and these women and all the different feminist movements are threatening that. Some things that are a little bit dangerous too are how they misappropriate ⁓ evolutionary psychology or evolutionary data.
So one of the evolutionary hypotheses that they really fixate on is this extra pair mating hypothesis, which says that ⁓ for ancestral women ⁓ in history, it was genetically advantageous for women to marry or have a regular partner, like a nice guy.
but then have affairs with an alpha male for better genes. it's like they marry some guy who's stable, who gives them resources, who supports them, but then they go and cheat to have sex with the hot guy, the hot bad boy with the good genes. So hypotheses like that perpetuate this view of.
We'll see it's in women's genes to be deceptive, to use us men and to get what they want. Now there are a bunch of problems with that. Of course, it's like an evolutionary hypothesis. So this is not even like based on data currently. It's just like based on hypothesis of ⁓ like cave women at different times. Like who knows that, you know, how these research studies were done. Usually evolutionary psychology is not, there's not a lot of like
actual hard data on it. It's usually like hypotheses based on what we think we knew about the past. So, and in very different circumstances, Like, you know, like hunter gatherer societies are much different than now where we don't have to hunt for food. So, ⁓ and also genes is, you know, just even if there was something that happened for evolutionary sake, ⁓ that doesn't mean that we
use that as a strategy, right? It's like, because a group of people did it a long time ago doesn't mean that this is what we're naturally going to do forever. So it doesn't really make sense to apply that kind of research on, you know, why you're not getting sex now. But it's still basically using all of this different evidence of like, women are here to screw you over. And a lot of the narratives in these insults and like Manosphere
communities is it's really like, you know, let's talk about when a woman cheated on me or when they humiliated me or when they, you know, like ⁓ when I, you know, they, they, I couldn't have sex with them. And also it's like the, the dangerous part about how this, this messaging is perpetuated in these communities is this idea that women
are just naturally bad, right? This is just in all of them. All of them are born, like they're genetically predisposed to take advantage of men and beat them down. And there's nothing that men can do about it, right? This is just how we are and we're just gonna take advantage of men. And so it's not your fault you're not having sex. It's because women are terrible.
And the only way to rectify this is to dominate them and take control, right? And almost like objectify them and take what you want from them. So it has this really, I see this everywhere on the internet, not just the Manusphere cultures, but this idea of like, you are a victim, not because it's your fault, but you're a victim. And the only way to get justice for this and to actually fix your wounding is to,
is to be aggressive and take down someone else. Right? So there's no discussion about like how these boys can maybe learn to, you know, date better or like be kinder or better, better at, you know, new women or like, you know, you know, change their situation or, you know, improve themselves. There's not, it's not a lot of that. There are some communities that definitely do that, which I really do appreciate. There are some...
male communities who go, hey, you gotta work out, you gotta achieve your goals, you gotta focus on building your career, you gotta treat women with respect, like, great. But that's not what we're talking about with the mayosphere. Manosphere is basically like, the world is unfair, women are unfair, and it's not your fault, and you just gotta, you know, like, take revenge in this war against women. The problem too is that online communities, and,
consumerism in general feeds off of anger, right?
I noticed it in myself, I'm gonna call myself out, that whenever I put a post about how to spot a man child or how do you know when your partner sucks or something incendiary, something that's like, like fees on anger, ooh, like that post is gonna go viral. That post is gonna get engagement because people who are angry engage and people who are humiliated,
not only are angry, but they're willing to pay and invest in something that promises to restore their dignity, restore their power. So it is a real hotbed for these, these Manusphere communities are a real hotbed for young impressionable men who feel lost, who feel disempowered and are willing to pay money to feel like they are powerful again.
And that's the crazy thing to me.
Keeping in mind too, that the research shows that men who, young boys, men, who are most likely to join a Manisfier community and join that movement are men who are lonely and have lower social support, right? So they are vulnerable. are really alone and they don't feel like they have help. They don't feel like anyone really cares about them.
For those guys, having a community, right? To be with other guys, to have a role model, to feel like a part of something, like a belonging, right? It's really powerful. mean, they're, you know, especially Andrew Tate's whole world are likened to cults, right? So you have angry, humiliated, like out for revenge young boys who are lonely and...
and they suddenly find a community that says, you're valuable, you're powerful, you deserve more. Nothing you did was wrong. It's just women suck. And here are the tools to getting millions of dollars, this fancy car and getting a woman in the kitchen who doesn't mind that you are having sex with multiple women at the same time and she can't do anything about it. All right, so doesn't that sound appealing for a man who is, who feels disempowered? The problem
with that, you know, as I'm saying, I'm like, hey, you know, even watching the documentary, was like, you know, I see some good sides to it. Men should have a community. Men should learn to, you know, bond with each other and get, like, know, find ways to build their self-esteem. This is the problem with being a psychologist. You're always like, as soon as you say a strong opinion, you're always like, I could see the other side. So I could see why the Manosphere community is
gained so much ⁓ momentum. However, the downsides are one, there is a lot of links and associations with shootings, mass shootings in the Manusphere community. So it actually does, the online misogyny and the online hate does translate to real world hate.
And I think that these violent, these mass shootings are really what has driven a lot of like concern and public scrutiny of these Manasphere communities. For example, there was a, you know, that terrorist attack in Toronto in 2018, which killed 11 people. And the attacker later talked about how he was radicalized on these online communities. So he's, know.
saying directly that these online communities is like what drove me to do this. And others have come out and said similar things. It also is associated with a lot of emotional and physical abuse for partners. So people who are in Manusphere communities tend to also abuse women outside of it, not surprisingly. ⁓ The other part that's really interesting too that I think the documentary, the Netflix documentary shows is that these men don't always
get more power. The hypocrisy of this is that these, quote, alpha males, these men on top with money and riches and they have all these women that they could choose from, they're saying, hey, join me, join my community and I'll teach you how to do the same thing, how to dominate women and get this fancy car. Well, most of the men who join that community don't get there, right? It's still hierarchical.
the alpha males still stay on top and the rest are still struggling. So it doesn't actually translate into as much of this, like raising up of the male population as they're hoping, right? Otherwise we would say like, no, everything's fine now. Like the men have the power back. ⁓ So in fact, it's actually like in many ways,
keeping those men down because they have to pay so much money to be in these communities and know thousands of dollars and the only person who's really profiting is like the entertain people right the influencers so
You know, like, when I talk about this online, I get a lot of comments from men who say, you know, like, what are you talking about? You know, the reason why we're getting angry and the Manosphere is happening is because we've been asleep, we've been enslaved by women, and we are waking up. We're waking up and we are, you know, claiming our rightful place. We don't have the power. Women have all the power and we're taking it back.
And I thought to myself, OK, OK, it's true. The data is showing that women are doing well overall. ⁓ But men are in positions of power. So was trying to think about that contradiction. Like, why do so many men think that they don't have power? Here's the real secret.
think men in this world absolutely have more power than women, but it's really the few men on top. So three quarters of the federal legislature and two thirds of state legislatures are men. And 90 % of the Fortune 500 companies are led by men, right? Only 10 % of Fortune 500 companies are led by women. Wealth distribution, the wealth in...
this world is like very highly biased towards men. And like there's so many positions of power that are dominated by men, right? So why do so many men feel disempowered? Well, the thing is that there's like those couple men who are ruling the world. They have all the money, they have all the power, they are making all the, they're the highest in the political sphere, right? They are the ruling body is like these few alpha male.
but then all the other men, the men in the middle and lower classes are doing worse overall than the women. But these women, all of us women, even the ones who are top are not above the top men. it's like, so it goes like these few men on the top who are ruling everything. And then women are kind of like neck and neck in men except for in certain spheres like academic spheres, they're doing a little bit.
and also we're more employed. So you have that really biased view, but the funny thing to me is that the Manosphere says, hey, women are the ones who are keeping you out of power, right? You're the ones who, know, women are the reason why you don't have a job, you feel alone when we're not having sex with you. But actually it's these top alpha male, right? The men at the top, including Andrew Tate and all those Manosphere influencers.
they are actually the problem. They are the ones holding all the keys to the city, so to speak. But those people are saying, no, no, no, women are the problem. So it's really interesting scapegoating saying that women are the issue when it's really like, it's really the small band of powerful men. The P-Diddies, the Epsteens, the Trumps, the, you know, all the different men in power are the ones who...
are somehow getting support from these men, but also benefiting from their anger and humiliation. So I think it was a complicated picture. ⁓ But by far, men still have the power. It's just that they don't feel like they have the power anymore, for the majority's sake, right? And that feeling of disempower drives men to anger and violence.
It is also true that men tend to be more physically violent and cause more of problems, right? There's more shootings, but also data shows that men could be sexually aroused by both consensual and coercive sex. That's not the case for women. So men are just as turned on, not all men, of course, but the research shows that men can be turned on by ⁓ consensual sex, but also like rape or whatever.
violent sex. So when we talk about power, right, we're gonna talk about like, you know, these men going, ⁓ don't have any women having sex with me. I have no power or money. It's all women's fault. It's like.
They have a lot more power than they realized.
So the misperception and their lack of power is one thing I think that really fuels a manosphere. But what's interesting too is the different ways that they see it, right? So ⁓ when there's a study show that when men acknowledge their privilege relative to women, they are less likely to endorse the manosphere ⁓ culture in the communities.
And men ⁓ who acknowledge male power, like male privilege, they're less likely to be threatened by feminists.
And not only that, men who recognize their male privilege and who see gender roles and gender dynamics as changing, right? Like that men and women's relationship can change over time. And sometimes like men have more power, women have more power, right? When they are able to say, I could see that the men and women's relationships change over time, they're less likely to.
⁓ endorse the Manosphere ideologies,
Which makes sense, right? Men who recognize their privilege and who are open-minded and say, yeah, this stuff is fluid and changes over time, they're less likely to ⁓ endorse the manosphere. So it's really like people who are more likely to be vulnerable to the manosphere are people who, or men who ⁓ apparently identify a lot with their gender, like they're men and they feel very, ⁓
defensive over their maleness. And they feel like, well, the power difference, like me not being able to have sex with women, is something that is unchangeable. It's something that is just like, we gotta recognize that women are women and men are men. And now that I'm saying it out loud, the research doesn't make any sense because, I mean, like the findings don't make any sense because if men think that, ⁓ if men think that
gender dynamics don't change. They're more likely to ⁓ become part of the Manosphere. But the Manosphere talks about changing the gender dynamics. So I guess maybe it's like they think that this is a power differential that can't change unless they join these communities, unless they learn how to take back the power. I don't know. This is confusing, but.
It really does seem to be the case where men are a little bit more open-minded and say, okay, yeah, we do have power in this world. take away from themselves the ⁓ motivating belief system that the Manosphere drives on, which is like, hey guys, women have got you down. Women are the source of your problems and it's not your fault and you gotta rise up.
and put them in their place.
All this being said, what I do agree with, what I do understand with the Manosphere movement is that I don't think it's a great, it's been a great idea for us to, as women or as a society, to just ⁓ label toxic masculinity and then shame it. Like, I understand that...
Toxic masculinity and like the alpha male and men being aggressive and dominating and hurting women. I get that leads to a lot of pain, right? A lot of sexual assault, a lot of trauma, a lot of violence, right? Like that's bad. All those behaviors are bad. However, it's gotten to this extreme case where all kind of that like testosterone filled masculinity is seen as bad.
And what I see anecdotally is that men don't know what to do. They feel stuck. They feel like their hands are tied. On the one hand, if they're aggressive and they initiate and they ⁓ go after women or, you know, be power hungry or ambitious or something, that's seen as bad. I have seen as toxic. But then they don't know what else they should be. Right. They don't they're not given an alternative.
And I think that's really the downside. think that's really a disservice to men, just to say, hey, being men the way you've been men is bad. Figure it out.
So the Manosphere communities give a response to that, which is like, no, being alpha male and testosterone filled is great. But if we say, hey, let's get rid of those aggressive behaviors and the human trafficking and the rape and all that. ⁓ But let's replace it with something else. This is what...
This is what we want men to do. This is what would make us feel more attracted to them, right? Like actually pointing to the type of non-toxic or positive masculinity and having a lot more role models and discussion around it. I think it would be really useful.
So both men and women are on the same page where women still do like men to you know, to initiate, to have confidence, to ⁓ be aggressive in the sense that they go towards their goals and be ambitious, right? They still want like a powerful man in many sense, in that sense. And men are like, okay, but the way I learned how to do that was like to, you know, tell you, get back in the kitchen. So I don't know what to do.
And I think that it is, I know that people don't like it when I say this because it sounds like I'm saying to take on the emotional labor, but I do think is within our best interest to show men or communicate to men what we're looking for, what we're attracted to, right? Maybe flexing your muscles and beating up someone at a bar is not the way that I wanna feel protected by you.
But maybe you being attuned to my feelings and saying you're going to protect me when I'm emotionally scared of vulnerable, like my husband, ⁓ like me feeling like when I got the news that I had cancer, I felt so vulnerable and scared. And I was just so appreciative that my man manned up, right? He took care of the kid. He took care of our kid. He took care of the household. He went to work. He took me to...
the my chemo infusions, right? So he like maybe feel protected, but maybe in a different way than, you know, other generations before that would be considered toxic. I don't know. So I think really guiding people to like, okay, women don't need the version of men of masculinity as we had before, but what do we need now? What do we need in order to choose a mate, to choose someone that we're gonna have kids with?
The tough part is, is I think that what we're looking for might be a little bit harder for them to learn, right? Like we want partners to be empathetic and to listen to us and to validate our emotions. And that's really hard for men to just learn because they, I think they have a little bit less practice and maybe tides will return, but they're not as practiced with it as like other women.
So it is tough for men to be like, ⁓ you want me to do this thing that I never learned how to do and I'm doing it wrong and I'm not allowed to like be the breadwinner, but I still was told to be the breadwinner. So there's a little bit of like a little bit of transitional phase, but I think that's really important. And like right now I'm kind of going into like, what do we do about this? What do we do to combat the negative effects in the Manosphere communities? Well,
I think first and foremost is knowing, apparently there's not a lot of research on what partners or families should do about people who are sucked into the Manosphere communities. But I could say that, you know, from the research, there's a couple of important things. One is for us to stay away from humiliating men more. I know, I'm part of the problem. You know, I'm talking about like man child and stuff like that, right? And so, but.
ridiculing men for their hurt feelings and the way they are expressing them is just going to create more of that humiliation rage, right? That feeling of like, how dare you make fun of me? I'm going to take power, right? So making fun of them or shaming them is going to make things worse. What does seem to help is first of all, knowing that the number one thing is like making sure everyone's safe. So knowing that people, men who are in the manuscript communities and are
radicalized by these communities and their messaging tend to ⁓ be more abusive to the partners. So having really clear boundaries and safety protocols around that.
Anecdotally, what I see is that that is really difficult because the men in these communities are very vulnerable, right? So the husbands that I talked about who are like drinking and, you know, playing video games and are sad and lonely and are, you know, sucked into the Andrew Tate kind of like, you know, world, they are sad. They're depressed. They feel lost, right? They feel very vulnerable. So they might not always have the
presentation of like these like aggressive men, but they're like I'm sad and depressed and I don't know who I am and I and I feel devalued at my job and I don't feel anyone, you know I don't even know if anyone values me or respects me right they're very sad so the their partners or their loved ones might not always see and recognize the abuse that comes with it. So I've heard
you know, from my clients and different people that, you know, that the men and the women might fight, might be like, you know, like the men are like, you know, you don't respect me, you're just here to drain my resources and all the things that the manuscript will say. And the women just like fight back and say like, you're crazy, you know, like what are you talking about, ⁓ But they might not, or they like just.
just feel bad and try to caretake, right? I'm so sorry, know, make it ensue them, make them feel better. But they might be slower to recognize that this is coercive or this is abusive. So being really clear about like, you know, yelling at me or, you know, hurting me or threatening me with money or anything like that, that's actually abuse. And, you know, to really get therapy around that and to get crisis resources. ⁓ I'm gonna actually link the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
in the show notes just to, you know, if anyone's really in that situation. And then there are a few studies, there's not a lot, but there are a few studies showing that what helps these incels, these men come out of the communities is ⁓ different kind of exit support. So usually what's really helpful is clear and actionable steps. Like here is how to ⁓ get out of the community, here's how to connect to other kind of communities.
paired with empathy. So instead of saying like you're an idiot, don't follow these Manusphere communities, but saying like I totally get why, you know, feeling frustrated, feeling alone, feeling disempowered will make you want to ⁓ like follow these influencers who are just telling you that the keys to your kingdom are just like a couple clicks away, right? It's like, of course they would follow that. Of course they would listen to someone who says like,
naturally you're supposed to have power. And right now you feeling bad and bad about yourself is wrong. Not your fault at all, just something that is just like an injustice that can be easily rectified. Right? So like having empathy that these guys like went to, you know, was like sucked in by something like that.
But then the next step is to validate those emotions, like feeling lonely or feeling ⁓ sexually rejected, like validating that distress while at the same time not offering the solutions of, well, the way to fix that feeling is to dominate and take power from women, right? So like a different solution than just like, well, just like.
you know, objectify them and then you feel better because usually as men have shown that that doesn't actually lead to, doesn't really lead to more sex. It doesn't lead to them having more power. It usually like makes them feel good to hear that stuff, but it doesn't actually translate to a lot of social change for men. So I always say this and I stick by it. I think we need to stop seeing these gender.
gender dynamics as like, who has power over the other. I still do believe, and this is my personal opinion, speaking for myself, that men and women need each other. They might need each other in different ways for different things, like that's different from generations before when women really couldn't have the careers we do now, right? So our relationship is changing, but I don't.
think the solution is to say, well, who should be on top, men or women? I think we should learn how to find what we need from each other and how to actually communicate and ask for those things. Instead of saying, well, I just believe that men are all bad or all toxic, and I got to take, I got to objectify them and take what I need from them and not care about their feelings and vice versa. So like actual equality.
I just find the Manosphere psychology just so fascinating, especially because we're in the loneliness epidemic, right? Everyone, especially since COVID, everyone is feeling really lonely, but women have historically been better at forging social connections and community, right? Like women are just like more practice at that. And the Manosphere communities really give an outlet for those feelings for men in ways that they hadn't.
before. So I could see why the Manosphere became as popular and as powerful as it is, but we have to keep in mind that number one, it leads to actual shootings and actual abuse against women and it doesn't actually make men more powerful. You know what it does make more powerful? The couple men who are leading it. The Andrew Tates
And as you can see, the H.S. in the Netflix documentary, all these guys who say, I'm a leader, the leader of the Manosphere communities, they're the ones getting the power. The alpha males are just getting more and more power. And all the power and money and wealth is concentrating up at the top. So if any guy who's like really interested in the Manospheres somehow is still listening to this, I say, how about we?
How about we take the power from those guys, right? Those alpha males who are taking all the women and leaving you with nothing. Let's take them down together.
So this is an ever evolving topic. And I do believe that men are struggling now. And they do need solutions that, better solutions that we don't have. And I do see that there's kinds of therapies that don't really help men as much as women, right? Sitting and talking about your feelings is like really a woman's thing. So there really needs to be more solutions for men's mental health. And
feeling so disempowered, feeling so lonely and isolated and feeling so unloved.
If you have an opinion about this, you're listening to this and you have an opinion about the Manosphere or anything like that, I'd love to hear it.
And if you feel so inclined, please leave a five star rating on Apple podcasts or Spotify and I'll see you guys next week.