Breaking the cycle: The ‘manosphere’ is real and it’s corrosive

Every woman has felt it. That moment when you realise your life is going to be a wildly different experience to that of a man's. For me, it was a boy I thought was a friend refusing to leave my flat until he was scared off by a noise from outside. For others, it might have been a lingering stare, an uncalled-for comment in the street, or being talked over in a meeting room. And for many, their experience will go far beyond this to something that is far darker and far more dangerous. 

Ninety-seven per cent of women in the UK aged 18-24 have suffered some form of sexual harassment. But we are not just statistics. Behind every number, there are millions of girls, each with their own story about how their sense of safety was taken away forever. The fear of harassment or worse is part of every decision we make. It shapes our daily lives, from how we dress and what we say to what route we take home and how we navigate our relationships. And it’s only getting worse. 

We’ve all heard this number before – so often, in fact, that it has become almost meaningless. But the truth is, the message still isn’t getting through.  

Last year, a UN report revealed that one in four countries have seen a backlash against gender equality. And in a society where 45 per cent of boys aged 16-24 have a positive opinion of Andrew Tate, and ‘challenges’ that glorify sleeping with hundreds of men are being hailed as the ‘new feminism’, it's clear that we are at risk of losing even more ground. 

A generation is growing up that will not only accept harmful stereotypes about women but actively perpetuate them.  

So when Ofcom last month published its research on the ‘manosphere’, concluding it is “misunderstood,” I was struck to the core. The report suggested that we may have “overestimated” the risks posed by the manosphere (the online community that promotes toxic masculinity and misogyny) to women as only a minority of users engaged with “extremely misogynistic content.”  

The research was based on interviews with 38 men and one woman. And in its 65-page report, the watchdog admitted that the sample was self-selecting, adding “it is possible that those with more extreme views would have been reluctant to speak to researchers”. Despite this, Ofcom still published the findings, unsurprisingly attracting backlash from campaigners. 

Just a month earlier, top academic and policy experts urged the House of Commons’ Women and Equalities Committee to regulate the normalisation and monetisation of misogyny online. Three months before, Prime Minister Keir Starmer backed calls to show Netflix’s Adolescence in schools, saying the harm caused by young men who are influenced by online content is a “real problem” and “abhorrent.” 

As Chief Constable Jo Farrell said, while discussing women in policing at Holyrood’s digital justice event last week: “Cultural privilege is particularly hard to shift, and it takes time and energy and patience.”

And when an institution like Ofcom, one that wields power and influence, publishes flawed research and trivialises the very real harm being done to women, it sets that progress back. It reinforces the dangerous narrative that we are blowing things out of proportion. Ofcom should have known better.