I’ve been seeing this a lot in my personal life, online, on the news, etc. and I’m just curious why. Its sad that men are regressing and thinking of women not as equals again.
Why is the “alpha male” or open misogyny/sexism gaining so much popularity?
r/answers
Comments
Hello u/Icy-Time3025! Welcome to r/answers!
For other users, does this post fit the subreddit?
If so, upvote this comment!
Otherwise, downvote this comment!
And if it does break the rules, downvote this comment and report this post!
(Vote is ending in 72 hours)
Trump is sitting arguably on the most important chair in the whole world , as a rapist and open misogynist. And we can’t even change that, so….
From what I can tell, a lot of it is a reaction to changes in society. Traditional ideas about masculinity are getting challenged, and for some men, especially younger guys who feel like they’re struggling, these online communities and influencers offer a sense of belonging and a simple but flawed explanation for their problems. They blame women or feminism for men’s issues and sell a lifestyle that promises success and dominance. The algorithms on social media also make it worse sadly
ignorance, frustration, lack of critical thinking, low emotional intelligence, … a combination of things.
Easy target
Social Media has a knack for highlighting the worst of human behaviours.
Some men really hate women &/or blame them for their problems. These alpha types will eagerly fuel other men’s insecurities & anger.
I have a theory.
Men enjoy bullying each other. Many men see life as a competition, and so they see alpha males as “leaders” and higher up the rank. The men who think they are alpha actually just bully other men, and so if they all agree to put women lower than men, then no man is the lowest.
If you look at social events, men are always making fun of each other. But “chill dude, it’s just a joke”. They’re actually awful to the men in their circles who need support, advice and friendship…. unless they see that man as being someone they can benefit from. Then they will respect them, and actually help. But most times, men don’t ask for help from each other irl because they know they can’t show weakness – it makes them a target. But as long as women are below them in the rankings, then they all feel better.
Sexism alleviates responsibility. Why learn to have a decent conversation or train your tone to sound pleasant when you can just blame 304s for only caring about height?
As for the Alpha Male, it’s about masking said insecurities by fixing the most obvious real issues, then feeling entitled to success. Like learning to stand up for yourself, then expecting to boss everyone around.
One side is full set on blaming men, and the other kinda corrupts the youth’s mind while promoting good health and hard work in a twisted way. Also, if a teenager has some misogynistic view on issues (cuz they are teenage boys who haven’t matured enough and learn the misogyny from their surrounding which is very much prevalent) on any social media platform that isn’t the red pilled alpha male echo chamber, 1 woman will explain why his view is problematic and 49 others will call him a troll or ragebait, and 50 will call him an incel. If the message of that 1 woman reaches him, he will broaden his mind and learn new things. If the other 99 bury that one reasonable voice, he will retreat to his echo chamber where he will not be bullied for his views and even teach him worse views on woman. The assumption that every single sexist view, even the minor ones, is inherently born from cold antagonistic intent and not just immaturity, ignorance, or just lack of a different perspective is one of the main cause. That’s just social media, irl I think boys learn to respect women if there is at least one woman who can teach him some things. That’s what I hope at least.
Edit: Didn’t mean to say women need to be the guiding light to boys. Just meant that calling names is not the solution.
Same reason why many Americans are coming out as proud Nazis and white supremacists: we have one of the the worst piece of shit humans to ever exist as our fucking president, so it’s seen as OK now to be a complete piece of shit in public. This is why leadership matters.
It’s an equal and opposite reaction
When I fell down the alpha male pipeline it was due to lack of confidence in myself and finally hearing that I wasn’t a waste of life like social media said I was.
What sucked me in to the content was the self help side of it. Getting fit, make a lot of money, be mentally and physically strong. Etc.
I’m not a part of it anymore but it was a time in my life where I needed to hear those words
Men don’t want partners anymore.
some men feel threatened by the shift in traditional gender roles
Social media platforms reward attention-grabbing, polarizing content. (people make money with this type of content)
Many young men today feel lost or disempowere, struggling with economic precarity, lack of mentorship, social isolation, and unrealistic expectations. In the absence of healthy outlets, some turn to toxic ideologies that offer:
A clear identity (“Be an alpha”),
A scapegoat (“Feminism ruined everything”),
A community (online forums or influencers).
Misogyny has been subtly present in pop culture for decades,
Lack of Critical Education
Echo Chambers & Radicalization
Because more inclusive spaces have a no tolerance policy when it comes to prejudice. So normal people with a few problematic takes get isolated. This wouldn’t be a problem if we weren’t all so chronically online, but since the internet is the only place we talk to each other now, more and more people get filtered out.
In reality I see much less sexism about, compared to when I was younger 20 years ago. And in mainstream media over the past 10 years I would go so far as to say there is an open culture of shaming men and masculinity.
Sometimes it’s delusional men. Sometimes it’s legitimate and women are delusional about that as well.
I would say it comes heavily down to two things… lack of self-worth and lack of purpose/clarity.
The self-worth part would simply be that someone is there to tell you have this massive worth despite not having achieved anything. And, as you can imagine, that can be quite comforting and empowering. Especially if you are feeling that women do not perceive any worth in you (as in, they do not show interest).
The lack of purpose/clarity would be that the world is changing so fast and people are struggling with adapting to the changes. Before we had “Men should X, Women should Y”. Say what you want about it, but it was more clear. Now, not so much. But do not fret, here comes these Andrew Tates of the world that say it still IS that way and you just need to do this and that and all the pieces of the puzzle will fall in place.
Why? The internet promotes radicalisation. It promotes conflict. In real life most interactions and the ideas that are spread are contained to one’s personal network. Online? Everything can spread. But conflict, extremist opinions? Those gain ire. It’s no surprise that when misandrist opinions pop up, when opinions that are generalised against men as a whole, then those innocent men are going to be unhappy. And those men? They are the majority—especially when the environment that nurtured them was so progressive, given the recency of civil rights, the fact that the 2000s, 2010s were fertile ground for the womens’ rights and teaching about them etc etc. You see it happen all the time. “I choose the bear”, “men men men”etc. Then when a man who isn’t a rapist—or any other threat for that matter—replies to said comment, they always get the response of “then we’re not talking about you”. This is ignoring the fact that the initial statement made is always a generalisation. Shift it away from this topic, practically all of Reddit hates you know who, if I now said “Americans Americans Americans” and gave you no chance to rebutt by grouping you together, you wouldn’t sit well with that. Innocent men suffer the same thing. Going about and saying “then it isn’t referring to you” is just a misandrists’ cover up for being able to generalise all men and hide their internal hatred. It is semantic meta awareness weaponised to manipulate. Manipulation is in its ambiguity, their statement reads as such to generalise all men, but if they deny you as being a part of it then there are exceptions. Because if it’s not obvious or has to be interpreted, then it loses grounds on credibility, even if intent is clear to see. This mode of antagonising gains ground because yes if you were sensitive to men, you could say it in a better, more situationally appropriate manner, but so far as it concerns content, there is nothing wrong with saying something which has an undertone of bad intent. In large part all of this is because of the struggles of women in the past—which should not be ignored. So what have women done? Advocacy for equality. Rightfully so. But when advocacy goes from equality to wars on gender superiority, then the narrative underlying feminism is not the same. Except for a few, I’m sure most guys are feminists, they support women, but not misandrists, and that’s the distinction. If there is a heavy overlap of misandrists and women, then it will seem they are misogynists. I agree that in function they are, but that is retaliatory hatred for their haters. That retaliatory hatred is directed towards the women that hate them, not women in general. Save the few. Because women would advocate for such things, they are susceptible to a certain few narratives. This introduces some level of social blindness. It’s like thorin once Smaug was killed. These advocates in initially pursuing equality have also foregone those who were beside them. They cast them aside. Going back to the internet and virality, when a harsh opinion is put out, due to social blindness and susceptibility, they agree with these opinions.. but this is just a classic tale of the start of the slippery slope. Likewise to the hobbit, for reconciliation to happen, Thorin, women, have to acknowledge their own wrong doing and feeding into a narrative which is implicitly hating. And men have to acknowledge that and cast it aside. But ultimately they need to face the goal of defeating Azog and his army, i.e. the misandrists and misogynists that allowed their ideas to spread, the misandrists and misogynists that caused this social gap and conflict in society.
Beyond that and all the hating, you also see “pick me’s” like women who have decency—to treat men and women equally well—getting effectively compliments from these “misogynists”. I say “misogynists” because i don’t think they hate women for being women but because of the state of how they are treated by the apparent majority. So, compliments how? They see a woman who is loyal, who isn’t so quick to assume wrong doing etc, who doesn’t want someone else to suffer, just to be fair in life, and they go about praising her.
It takes the spot of being “baller”. It’s the new fad word popular with certain guys. My bro thought he was an alpha male and he’s a weed smoking excon covered in tats. Wears heavy metal tv shirts and has a perpetual anger just below the surface where his own ego rules.
I dont see it at all maybe it’s where you point of view is being directed
You can read a bunch of theories about feminism, the economy, me too etc etc. But ultimately a lot of it is down to guys not getting laid, and seeing other guys on social media getting laid a lot. And not coping well with all this.
Here’s my version: once tinder exploded, and in parallel a lot of women decided they didn’t want anything to do with traditional dating structures and were happy to have fun when they’re young, it led to a big of a disruption. A bunch of guys started having sex with a lot of women, and a lot guys weren’t getting any sex. These guys, deep down, feel cucked for the lack of a better word. But instead of being annoyed with the slutty guys, all their anger is pointed at the women. Why? Because they’re too weak to admit they lost to other guys, so they degrade the women who didn’t choose them. Notice how none of these idiots ever criticize the guys for sleeping with shitloads of women and taking their presumed “share”.
World leaders and social media give them permission. The climate is open to it now.
It’s an easy way out. It’s the easy sell. Maybe the easiest sell in human history. That’s why it’s been working for all history.
It’s: “You feel this way because of x.” In this case x is women and power for women.
“You were always right about how you thought about women. If things were how they how they used to be, you’d have much more but women ruined it. Women wouldn’t be able to resist you if things hadn’t changed. You are a catch, it’s just that women have been allowed too much decision making power and need to be course corrected.”
It’s all about confirming biases and allowing someone to crawl up into a safe place where they’re never vulnerable. At the root, it’s about a fear of pain and rejection and that garbage supplies men an armor of sorts.
For example, the vulgar and objectifying language that goes with the scapegoating does the work of distancing men from actually engaging with relationships honestly. What they’re really afraid of is real sex. To be vulnerable, alone with the other person in true intimacy. By turning women into objects and sex into a vulgar act it allows a young man to suck all that potential vulnerability out of the experience.
When I was a teen, I remember a friend got rejected by a crush and his response was to question God. Now—I make no claims on what religion should be—instead I question why such a small rejection was so powerful as to shatter his lived reality. This was not an isolated incident. Many of my friends suddenly became nihilists after a girl (most times quite sensitively) rejected them or ended things with them. At their core was always the idea that it was unfair. That attitude stayed with them. I didn’t see healthy attitudes towards women in a group until the end of college and I had moved through multiple groups at that point.
My point is that misogyny in reaction to pain is at the root of the world views of so many men, it’s so easy to manipulate.
I don’t understand the alpha male thing.. there are few men who are alpha males, that is the whole point of alpha male.
I could be wrong, (it happens from time to time,) but I’m not sure its any worse than its ever been, its just easier to see.
Its always been there in some form, but right now its more visible thanks to how easy it is to share even the stupidest ideas and opinions with a very large audience across social media platforms.
I also think there’s a new desire to shine a light on it and hold it up as an example of a “new normal” to make a social point….weaponizing someone else’s stupidity to gain your own points isn’t such a wild idea that its outside the realm of possibility.
I’m no fan of the current political administration in the US – not even a little. But I cant help but wonder if there’s not an effort to dig up all these latent ideas that have festered and been a thorn in society for generations, and say “this how it is now” as one more condemnation of the ruling party…..as if we needed any more.
I’m going to guess because times are hard, men feel emasculated by the economy, so in order to feel strong they overcompensate
Because a lot of men don’t have safe spaces that encourage the opposite. A lot of men rely on these spaces because they’re struggling in one way or another, usually relating to cultural/patriarchal pressures that are reproduced by men and women (height, skin tone, ability to “pull” a woman). But saying that comes across as condescending, reductionist, reducing a problem to “well that’s just how it is”. Radicalisation works best on the people who are on the edge, who internalise real or perceived injustice, and have been taking it out on themselves, usually for years by the point they delve into the manosphere. And when those people tell them “hey, you’re on the ledge anyway, why care about taking down more people with you? Why care about taking down women, when they are the ones who have rejected you, who have made fun of you, and blamed you?”, it’s an easier pill to swallow than hundreds of years of complex social relationships leading to privileges in some areas and injustices in others.
When you give that weapon to a man who has been beaten down emotionally, you have righteousness. We have a real problem culturally right now where we have widely accepted that men are given certain social affordances others aren’t, and in the process have settled on the conclusion that “these guys are on top, what do they have to complain about?”. So when there is one booming voice saying “you DO have a right to complain! There is a fault, and it is with THEM!” You lose good men, with mothers and sisters, who if they were shown more compassion, would not be reproducing a culture that encourages division and further isolation
Some men are confused how they fit in modern society.
So some people believe being an “alpha” is the answer.
Or is it just more, more and much more daily tripe, and news/social/media/lifestyle/likes/selfies/studs/tits/of/pouts or bellends.
Ultimately everyone is vieing for your undivided attention in this social media age, advertisers and political actors. And the best way to do that is by fueling emotion and the best one to fuel is rage and righteousness.
So fox news and the rest on both sides of the spectrum make you feel the world is ending cos of the other side.
Iran. Then there’s the bots, spewing their propaganda to further divide people such as Iranian bots Screaming for Scottish independence. And then there’s scammers and bots producing rage bait to keep you invested.
And there those capitalising on the mess, promising easy ways out and the way life should be, because right now it so unfair.
I think as women gain independence and raise their dating standards off the floor, men say fuck them i didn’t want them anyway. Blame instead of the admittedly hard work of therapy.
Because they have in many cases identified the correct issues, but are offering wildly incorrect and disturbing answers to the issues.
It is true that life suck for many men, it is true that it’s hard to be young, and hard to make money, and hard to find a partner, and hard to buy a house and all of that stuff they talk about.
But, it’s not the fault of feminism or the “woke” leftists. It’s not the fault of immigrants or the trans community. Strict family values won’t solve it.
But, the problems are real, and sadly for many young, impressional boys and men, the manosphere/far right/alpha male gang is the only place they feel seen, heard and accepted.
The rest of us need to take that in and do better.
Because many men didn’t consider women to be equal to begin with. And since it’s ok to be an open bigot, the airwaves are filled with misogynistic rhetoric that used to be shared in locker rooms or pubs or churches.
People generally seem hell bent on extremes, and being unbalanced will result in a deficit.
Be manly and be caring.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactionary
The world is in a pretty bad state right now. It is easy for grifters to appeal to that suffering by claiming they can explain it. And it is easier when men as a group are so commonly slandered and abused in culture and media, to direct that sentiment at women, who have gained much in the same period.
Have you seen the women talk about men these days? Most things you notice in life is a reaction rather than a new movement.
Like why many right-wing groups gaining popularity? Have you seen how the liberals act?
Because getting to coast through life on being the privileged gender, skin color, ethnic background, and religion is not as easy as it has been. Lotsa dudes whose fathers and grandfathers had a nice little life have been revealed to be decades of subsidized mediocrity.
Society has shifted. Lots of people, as evidenced by hundreds of thousands of videos online… have seen that simply existing as a man is against the rules. There seems to be no winning in the eyes of lots of men. For every “leave me alone” video, there’s a scathing “where are the real men?” Video. If a person can’t speak to you, and it’s also a problem they’re not speaking to you, you get an extreme.
Because males are being indoctrinated on the Internet.
All people love messaging that plays to their natural inclinations and makes them out to be deserving of admiration even when they’re antisocial. Pick any group you like, and you’ll find voices who amplify their basest aspects, because it’s an easy way to gain followers.
I don’t think they are regressing, I think they are feeling free to express what they always thought with the disguise of “freedom of speech”, I have been hearing more and more bigoted, prejudiced people feeling free to say the most horrendous things against minorities that they before would just whisper to a smaller circle, thinking I was like them and would agree, but I would call them out, now I can’t call them out anymore because they say they are “expressing an opinion” and when they do it online and people call them out, at least in my country, they call it “government censorship”. Now people are free to say the most horrendous things about others with the excuse of “freedom of speech”. Calling LGBT+ groomers, perverts and pedophiles, for example, or showing humiliating depictions of us, lying saying we have “propaganda” to “turn children into LGBT+”, all because they are free to treat people different than them like shit. The same with women, my family have always been extremely sexist and racist, now they are just free to be worse than ever, I don’t even bother calling them out anymore because they start saying even worse things out of spite, I just say I don’t agree with their views and keep to myself. People like these are just finding their groups and gaining platform.
Heres my analysis. Divorce rates have been at an all time high for 40+ years now. The divorce rate is the same as bisinesses failing. So you end up with sons that never had a father figure to show them what being a man is about. Then these guys grow up and have sons of their own and have no idea how to teach their son how to be a man. They think being a man is about shitting on women and doing whatever they want because they have the “alpha male” tag. They think pumping iron and having the biggest muscles makes them the alpha of alpa males and everybody is just a beta. They were never taught about honor, respect, understanding, empathy, sympathy, being a gentleman, being chivalrous, and how to use your brain.
Let’s not get it twisted, for the last 60,000 years masculinity has been a fundamental aspect of human survival. From an evolutionary perspective, it’s programmed into men. Since we’re all sitting around pushing buttons on a computer, and since women’s liberation, there’s no need for a lot of what men had to offer.
This isn’t something that needs to be surgically removed, it needs to evolve, be channeled into something more productive.
Not sure if you’ve ever lived in Latin America. Even right next door, you’ll find that masculinity has its place in a productive society. I’d put the cause and effect on misandry, generalizing the patriarchy into all aspects of society, like that of capitalism or institutionalized racism, young men are being treated poorly for simply being who they were programmed to be.
I’m alright with this comment being downvoted. But it would be a hell of a lot more manly to respond with informative criticism than personal attacks. I dare your dumb ass.
Because self reflection and improvement are hard and uncomfortable. Blaming others and being an asshole are easy.
At the heart of any insecure alpha male (the more they thump their chest, the more insecure they are) is only power and control! Alphas are like bad slave owners: they subjugate or insist on submission by any female, person of color, anyone they can convince or exploit. This is the white man’s wet dream, power and dominance with no responsibility or concern for another’s rights or respect. The world has lost its manners and is returning to tribalism! If you want an example: the BBB that was just passed in Congress. By 2026, the weakest, poorest, downcast will be stripped of any healthcare or government assistance. Why? To give more to the top 1%. What Christian country does that? Ones run by alpha males!
A lot of women respond positively to that behaviour IRL. Not to the extremes that incels online take it but most women aren’t the opposite extreme of crazy feminists you see online either. It’s a regression to the mean.
I’m convinced it’s evolved incelism
We make the sad jokes about women who didn’t grow up with an involved father. And I’m speaking for myself but tons of men don’t grow up with good mother figures…
Those men need to learn solutions to that problem, period. The devouing mother is real, for some men 1-15 years old was the worst times of their life around immature women in family.
Male loneliness is a real thing and unfortunately some of us choose to blame women in general the same way many of them choose to blame us in general for their issues.
The simplest explanation is usually the best one… ALGORITHMS. I also think a lot of us forget what being 13 was like. I think we THINK we remember, but not really, that’s not how memory works. I have NO IDEA what a 13-year-old’s internet looks like (I’m 38), and you don’t know either (unless you are 13). We DO know how the web works. So concerning gender roles, what do you suppose is shown to 13-year-old boys and girls? I’m genuinely asking, because again, there is no way for me to know. My internet will never show me that content. But it is most certainly extreme, polarizing, mean-spirited, and designed to maximize engagement (fighting). I was a shy teenager. I “asked Jeeves” how to kiss a girl. I forget what the answer was, but after I asked it, I didn’t start seeing short video clips of non-shy guys telling me how to be like them.
While few people on Reddit will admit this, a large portion of boys and young men are struggling in a large part because they have no strong male role models in their lives. Their fathers aren’t in the picture because they’re raised by a single or divorced mother, there are no male teachers in their schools, and they’re even being eliminated from media. This has created a vacuum that has to be filled.
Online influencers like Andrew Tate have filed some of the void. They produce a caricature of traditional masculinity that it attractive because it provides practical solutions to get what these young men and boys want: identity, purpose, direction, wealth, status, and women.
In contrast, the “left” simultaneously shames these men for their failures (calling them basement dwellers and incels) while blaming them for wanting these basic things. This tends to push any reasonable young man more towards these influencers.
In London there are a lot of women on the dating apps looking for alpha males. Maybe one in twenty.
I’m not sure they are looking for a misogynist, I think they are just looking for someone masculine, and don’t quite understand the connotations.
They tend to be the ones who want to “be in their feminine energy” or something.
But yeah, sucks.
What most men doesnt understand is they are being bullied by other men. The one that kept shitting on them is actually Other Men. Or women who’s literally Daddy’s Daughter. Yeesh, feminism already told you its Patriarchal thing and they dont listen.
Because it’s not misogyny/sexism your just overly sensitive. People are just normal
I find this so funny. You guy just don’t get it lol. Omegaverse is a branch of book, stories, movies and series about ABO. Alpha males and betas base males and omaga males. See the Alphas get the Omagas pregnant that is the story line. The not so bright straight guys have bought into the Alpha crazy and it’s gay. LOL I’m sorry but I’m 69f straight and I like the books and the series. Just Google it it you don’t believe me. Right now the best show is Desire. You can find the books under Omegaverse.
People who happen to enjoy the good fortune of inherited wealth also have a tendency to be attracted to world views that explain their privilege as well-deserved, based on some imagined “natural” superiority of genetics, merit, gender, whatever. A fallacy of circular reasoning: I enjoy privilege, therefore something must have caused me to enjoy privilege, and what causes people to enjoy privilege? Deserving it. Ergo, you get the idea.
Young, white, cisgender males historically and by virtue of systemic inequality, tend to enjoy a disproportionate amount of privilege in our society. By virtue of a similar fallacy of circular reasoning, they convinced themselves they deserve this special societal privilege. They perceive the women’s movement, DEI, and immigration as direct threats to that “natural” privilege. Hence a sense of aggrieved, resentful indignation.
The myth of alpha male started with some articles that turned out later to be based on flawed science. Bad data, inaccuracies, and pseudo-science. We live in a world and a time when plenty of people are willing and eager to manipulate others with false teachings for kicks, power, and profit, unfortunately.
well if misandry is openly accepted why cant we have two way street
For every action there is equal and opposite reaction
Because feminism overstepped. Men were tired of masculinity being openly labeled toxic, and now the pendulum is on the back swing.
Hey don’t knock it till you try it. Being an insufferable douche canoe is lots of fun if you can get away with it.
We seen time and time again women go from the cheating scumbag over normal guys. We seen blind men get SA charges for ‘looking’ at a women too long. Sure, men don’t suffer as much as women…but even if we did none of us would tell anyone because we would be mocked for showing weakness
I want to preface this by saying clearly: I do not support misogyny, sexism, or the so-called “alpha male” ideology. It’s harmful, dehumanizing, and absolutely should not be accepted in a healthy society.
In short, to answer your question I would say it has become more comon because the influencers that spread this misogyny have a point. Please let me try and explain.
If we want to understand why this content is gaining popularity, especially among young men,we need to look deeper than simply dismissing it or mocking those who fall for it.
A major reason these influencers gain traction is because they exploit a real sense of imbalance many men perceive in mainstream narratives. Much of the cultural messaging today tends to prioritize women’s struggles (rightfully so in many cases), but this has often come at the cost of neglecting or minimizing men’s unique challenges.
This creates fertile ground for manipulative voices. The so-called “alpha male” influencers often begin their messaging with a grain of truth type truths that are uncomfortable, rarely acknowledged publicly, but feel deeply real to the men listening.
For example(just one, there are a few I can think of), the mainstream often tells young men to be emotionally open with their partners. And yet, many men who follow this advice report that it backfires.Their vulnerability actually leads to lost attraction or relationship instability. When they share these experiences, they’re met with denial or dismissal: “That’s not true,” or “You must be doing it wrong.” This dissonance between lived experience and the official narrative creates disillusionment. And when an alpha male influencer steps in and says, “You’re not crazy, everyone else is lying,” that message feels validating, and I believe this to be a powerful vector of attack used by influencers to get into the minds of our young or diseffected gys.
From there, it’s a slippery slope. Once the influencer has established credibility by “saying what no one else will,” they begin to smuggle in more toxic messages misogyny, rigid gender roles, intellectual inferiority of women, and so on. And now, because that initial seed of truth resonated so strongly, young men are more likely to trust the messenger, even when the message is plainly false or harmful.
It’s not the nonsense that pulls people in. It’s the truths that no one else is allowed to say and the mainstream’s failure to engage honestly with those truths that gives these influencers their power. The failure to meet men where they are doesn’t just alienate them it pushes them straight into the arms of the very people who want to exploit them and push these horrible ideas onto society.
If we want to turn the tide, we can’t just cancel or clown these influencers like some comments have suggested, and instead we should try to understand the reasons why men have chosen to go down this path, not just call them dumb and wash our hands of them. We need to be brave enough to talk about what is true for men, without shame, without ideological blinders, and build better, healthier narratives that don’t lead to hate.
Because men bad. Please look no further as it takes too much effort and has deep implications that we don’t want to confront.
Really? No no no. Women are more brazen and obnoxious than ever. Im a gen xer so we were raised to be misogynists sorry. Kidding but the first point is absolutely true
For some years now there’s been a lot of feminism in media.
More or less hostile, it has made many young men feel alienated, excluded or blamed over, thus, deviating to the other side of the spectrum.
It caught a lot of traction in Europe because it’s were feminism is more direct, aggressive and in your face, making many people want to go back to when there was no feminism.
I don’t defend either side, I’m neutral and base my view on my own personal experience.
I originally was going to post this as a response to someone but it sort of took on a life of its own.
I got a bit carried away.
We are here – open misogyny and sexism are popular because we’ve always been headed this way. And it’s not new. It’s just changed forms multiple times over the decades. It’s just much louder and obvious because of social media and anyone can make content, have an opinion, and reshare that content multiple times.
Its long but bear with me.
I was going to respond to a woman who said that men wouldn’t marry women they hated. And I disagreed based on my experiences.
I worked construction starting in the 1990s. What was most shocking to my 20 year old self was how many men hated women – hated me – for simply being there. And I was warned by older women to tread carefully that the men weren’t my friends. I heeded the advice, and young women who didn’t, found out the hard way. It was a minefield, and I spent more energy than I should have always being on guard. And it wasn’t just women who warned me. It was also men. My dad laid out exactly what I could expect. He missed a couple of things, but he didn’t hold back on what he did know. I’m so glad for younger generations – both young men and young women – that things are better.
Granted, cuz it always has to be said for clarity! I did meet a lot of genuinely good men. I mostly loved working with men and I definitely loved the work I did.
But I also met a lot of men who did not feel women were people. There were many men who did not like or respect their partners, and some who openly seemed to hate them. And what was so crazy, when you’d see them out of work with their families and partners, they’d be completely different. So, which is the act?
If they were their true gross, cruel, brutal selves at home, they’d lose the benefits of having a wife/girlfriend and a family.
Im 57. I had access to a world most women didnt at a time when womens power was were shifting. People act like it’s the internet that’s changed anything. It’s magnified it. It’s allowed people of like minds and values to come together to communicate.
Older men have always indoctrinated younger men into their beliefs about women. It wasn’t always the fathers or family members, but neighbors or other community members.
Mad Men was a pretty accurate “documentary” and could even be considered mild to what women put up with on the job and at home. The media of the 60s, 70s, and 80s was extremely misogynistic. Women were denied a lot of basic rights. Primarily, the ability to divorce an abusive partner was not permitted without jumping through many many legal hoops.
When women started gaining rights and power, education, self agency, there were more limitations on what men could get away with in their treatment of women, especially at work but even at home.
This has all been developing since then. People forget about shockjocks like Stern and even Rush Limbaugh as well as many, many smaller, much less well known individuals who had shows. How women were treated and even talked to on various shows. How women were photographed and written about in the tabloids of the time. The cartoons and articles in men’s magazines, from the big porn mags down to the soft porn pulp mags that were so popular for almost a century up into the 1990s. The manosphere and misogynistic brocasts are all just a continuation of that.
It’s easy to look at this period in a vacuum and blame feminism and social media. But there is a long, complex history, an entire narrative that has carried through the years. We are born and think this snapshot of time we live through stands alone. But its all connected.
People in general can be pretty awful and cruel to each other. But women get a lot of shitty messages as girls. Suffer a lot of depression and struggle with the messaging they receive that brings on self loathing – just like boys do. But that’s often overlooked. Girls and women do not live on easy mode. It’s a matter of the grass is greener. What do women even have to complain about? They can have all the sex and all the drinks, right?
It’s a complex issue. Deeply complicated with a complicated history. But the incels are simply a product of the past beefs men have always had about women, except now, men have so little power and can no longer get away with a lot of the stuff they easily could in the past because women had little recourse or agency. It’s not legal to beat or assault your wife. Women and girls are no longer told to keep their mouths shut about assault or abuse. Theyre no longer forced to marry their rapists to spare their families and themselves the shame and embarrassment, especially if it resulted in pregnancy.
I know that there is so much happening and so much to know and understand about the world and its not possible to know or understand the history or make up of everything. But the past and today are connected by multiple threads and the past definitely has a huge impact on what’s happening now. No one is being unfairly punished for the sins of their ancestors. Its been one long, continuous, evolving entity that we are born into.
Because people are spoiled and don’t read books. EDUCATE YOURSELF!!!!
We molly coddled an entire generation of kids and told them they were special just because. We never made them earn anything and did everything in our power to make sure those kids never felt even the least bit of disappointment.
Then they grew up and don’t know how to deal with rejection and disappointment.
It makes dumb, medicorce dudes feel good.
Because “alpha females” or open misandry/sexism is and has been everywhere for the last 10yrs
Large amounts of young, single, poor men, lead to big problems in societies and this is the opening salvo of the conflict coming.
Its gaining a lot of popularity online. As the saying goes, youtube / twitter / bluesky / facebook is not real life.
I dont think theres much evidence that sexism / alpha maleism is acrually incresing all that much out in the real world.
As to why there is a fad for this red pill nonsense online, I suspect its in part a backlash to the Me Too movement, or at least the excesses of it.
Ie, when Aziz (who imho did nothing wrong) got accused of being just as bad as Harvey Weinstein (an actual aweful person), I think a lot of impressionable young men just said “fuck it, if I am going to get accused of being a misogynist anyway, I might as well be one”. They might not be the majority, but theres enough of them to make noise.
Pendulum swinging back
This is not exclusive to men but as alot of men are treated badly by women now they see the podcast bros talking and relate so they become hateful and misogynistic because its what they see them doing and have success so of course they follow suit, people in general now are just shity so hate on both sides will just create more hate, women flood to assholes and go clubs excepting decent guys who want relationships then get upset when he is in fact an asshole and then take it out on the actual nice guy because he’s not as good looking or popular or wealthy then run back to the assholes excepting different, this in turn creates more assholes because that once genuine good guy got hurt for nothing so he now goes out and hurts a good women who then hates men and drags them all down finishing the circle, that’s how it will go from now on till eventually something big happens
Because misandry has so much popularity
Because society is failing everyone, capitalism is slowly killing us. One half of the population ignores that society is also failing men, and blames men for the failure of society, and projects hatred towards men. The second half says it’s the first half ruining society, that it’s not men’s fault, and that if men just buckle down and work hard they will succeed, in spite of the first half trying to hold them down.
Thing is, buckling down and working hard can kind of work for some people.
So those men who it works for double down on “it’s the first half fault”, ignoring that buckling down and working hard doesn’t work for everyone, just the lucky. And they serve as an exemplar to other men, and welcome other men, rather than recriminating them.
The reality is that capitalism is at fault, and the wealthy are to blame. And the wealthy are disproportionately motivated to keep this conflict going so they are not blamed, and therefore pump incredible amounts of money towards both sides to spur the conflict.
It’s comical and sad. there has never been such a thing as an alpha male in the animal Kingdom. The theory has been debunked, but unfortunately, it trickle down into men’s self-help categories. It’s just an excuse to essentially encourage men to be the biggest raging asshole they possibly can be to get what they want in life, which is essentially money in women.
Click bait influencers who prey on weak, emotionally unintelligent people are the ones that propagate this nonsense.
Because a lot of men would rather double down on hating women than admit they need to change their behavior. It’s straight up stubbornness.
It isn’t, that was 2019.
Because for every force, there is an equal and opposite reactive force. Everything in this world is on a teeter totter. Once it goes out of balance people feel it in very real and distressing ways. It isnt one of those, “Ahh they want it let em have it”. The truth is women take all the power they can get. They are not bound by moral responsibility like men thus do not have as much of a capacity to make these decisions. The result is something out of a horror movie. I think we have gone from blaming men to blaming women and that’s just balance and reality. Only good intentions.
You can see this force at work with anything in life. Literally anything. Employee employee? Yeah employees getting some balance recently.
Dems vs Republicans? Yeah Republicans getting some balance recently.
Do they take it past balance and take more for themselves than they deserve? Yes but that balancing factor will come back to bite them if they take more than they deserve. Meaning if men take it too far, the balancing act will be on the men in the future. The balance works both ways and every way. I called it 2 years ago that we will have mens rights movements due to this phenomenon. Where women were always shitting on men. Like I said it isnt something that is just said or done and it’s done. Men have to live here too and we can feel everything at a subconscious level. We just don’t show our emotions as easily.
This is the result of individualism and valuing currency over relationships.
Because young men are clearly telling society that the places and roles society is is not acceptable. But, instead of talking, listening and trying to compromise with those young men, society is instead trying to railroad them and shut them out. The idea being, shun them until they realize they have no other options.
The thing is, they are finding other options.
I recently heard someone say: “young men are being punished for crimes they never committed by women and minorities who were never victims of those crimes.”
Life is pendulum. Pendulum swing
It isn’t, it’s just an easy target to blame everything on.
Its a response to modern feminism being little more than activism and misandry.
Because people are pissed off and want any sort of change, even if it sucks.
Perhaps women want the security of a man, not just the company of a bff
The culture that has been suppressing that behavior is beginning to lose power.