The roots of the manosphere lie in themen's liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s,[13] which began as a critique of the limiting nature of traditional malegender roles.[14] However, in the 1970s, the nascentmen's rights movement began to attribute men's problems to feminism and female empowerment.[14] Media scholar Debbie Ging posits that the growth of theWorld Wide Web has enabled the spread of "virulent" anti-feminism, misogyny, and associated violent rhetoric.[14]
Recent research traces the manosphere's modern incarnation to early online men's-rights discussion forums and pick-up-artist communities that emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s.[15] Its ideological roots reach further back to twentieth-century activist organizations that claimed men were disadvantaged in divorce and custody proceedings. Over time, these loosely connected spaces coalesced into a cohesive ecosystem united by shared frustration over perceived injustices against men, a development amplified by social networks and online forums. Scholars note that high-profile figures—through blogs, YouTube channels, and other web platforms—popularized these ideas, engaged followers, and helped establish the ideological framework that now shapes the broader community.[16]
Building upon these early foundations, the manosphere gained momentum in the early 2010s as online influencers and content creators promoted "red pill" philosophies—ideas that claim society is systematically biased against men—through viral videos, podcasts, and debates.[17] Media reports and academic studies have observed that many of these influencers intentionally use controversy and confrontational language to expand their audiences and generate revenue. A January 2020 study found that such tactics have spread misogynistic speech beyond fringe websites, fueling widespread online hate campaigns and, in some cases, contributing to violence against women.[18]
The term "manosphere", a play on the word "blogosphere", is believed to have first appeared onBlogspot in 2009.[19] It was subsequently popularized by Ian Ironwood, a pornography marketer who collected a variety of blogs and forums in book form asThe Manosphere: A New Hope For Masculinity.[20] The term entered the popular lexicon when news media began to use it in stories about men who had committed acts of misogynist violence,sexual assault, and online harassment.[21]
JournalistEmma A. Jane identifies the late 2000s–early 2010s as a "tipping point" when manosphere communities moved from the fringes of the Internet towards the mainstream. She hypothesizes this was related to the advent ofWeb 2.0 and the rise ofsocial media, in combination with ongoing systemic misogyny within apatriarchal culture. Jane writes that the manosphere was well established by the time of theGamerGate controversy in 2014, and misogynistic language such as graphicrape threats against women had entered mainstream discourse, being deployed by men not necessarily identified with any specific manosphere group.[22]
FollowingDonald Trump's victory in the2024 United States presidential election, theAssociated Press reported that an "emboldened" manosphere used Trump's win "to justify and amplify misogynistic derision and threats online" and that it was no longer an online-only phenomenon. It highlighted the phrase "Your body, my choice" being used against women coined byNick Fuentes, along with the phrases "Get back in the kitchen" and "Repeal the 19th" receiving millions of views on X. It also reported that the phrases had moved offline, "with boys chanting ['Your body, my choice'] in middle schools or men directing it at women on college campuses", and highlighted a man holding a sign that read "Women Are Property" atTexas State University.[23]
Themes and ideology
The manosphere is a varied group of online communities[24] that includes men's-rights activists (MRAs),[2]incels (involuntary celibates),[3]Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW),[4]pick-up artists (PUAs),[5] andfathers' rights groups.[6]Some groups within the manosphere have adversarial relationships with one another.[25] Groups such as MRAs and PUAs tend to exaggerate their differences with one another, despite their philosophies being almost identical.[26]
While the specifics of each group's beliefs sometimes conflict, the general ideology of manosphere groups centers on the promotion ofmasculinity,antifeminism, andmisogyny.[27] In particular, feminists are portrayed as ignoringmale victims of sexual assault and encouragingfalse rape accusations against men.[28] JournalistCaitlin Dewey argues that the main tenets of the manosphere can be reduced to (1) the corruption of modern society by feminism, in violation of inherent sex differences between men and women; and (2) the ability of men to save society or achieve sexual prowess by adopting ahyper-masculine role and forcing women to submit to them.[29]
A central theme permeating the manosphere is that ofmisandry (hatred of men).[30] Disparate groups within the manosphere are united by the central belief thatfeminism dominates contemporary society, promoting a misandrist ideology that needs to be overthrown.[20]
Jargon
The manosphere has its own distinct jargon.[31] A central tenet of the manosphere is the concept of thered pill, a metaphor borrowed from the filmThe Matrix. It concerns awakening men to the supposed reality that men are the oppressed gender in a society dominated by feminism.[32] Manospherians believe that feminists andpolitical correctness obscure this reality, and that men are victims who must fight to protect themselves.[33] Accepting the manosphere's ideology is equated with "taking the red pill" (sometimes abbreviatedTRP), and those who do not are seen as "blue pilled" or as having "taken the blue pill".[34] Such terminology originated on the antifeminist subreddit/r/TheRedPill and was later taken up by other groups within the manosphere, including pickup artists and men's rights activists.[35] AuthorDonna Zuckerberg writes, "The Red Pill represents a new phase in online misogyny. Its members not only mock and belittle women; they also believe that in our society, men are oppressed by women."[36]
Men are commonly divided into"alpha" and "beta" males[37] within anevolutionary-psychology framework, where "alphas" are seen as sexually dominant and attractive to women, who are hardwired to want sex with alphas but will pair with "beta" males for financial benefits. Among MRAs and PUAs this argument is known as "alpha fux beta bux".[38] On the Red Pill subreddit, "swallowing the red pill" means understanding that women's innate biological nature is "manipulative, attention-seeking, inconsistent, emotional, andhypergamous [i.e. seeking a high-status partner]"; participants seek to use this knowledge to manipulate and dominate women in the hope of obtaining sex with few emotional demands.[39]
The idea ofmisandry (hatred of or prejudice against men) is commonly invoked, both as an equivalent tomisogyny and a way to deny the existence of institutionalized sexism.[40] However, there is little evidence to show that misandry is an issue affecting men's lives.[30] For instance, both male and female homicide victims are more likely to have been killed by a man, rather than by a woman. Although feminism is described within the manosphere as a misandrist movement, there are no significant feminist groups dedicated to espousing hatred of men or encouraging female violence against men.[30]
Associated movements
The manosphere overlaps withwhite-supremacist and far-right ideologies,[20] including theneoreactionary,white-nationalist alt-right movement.[9] Many alt-right members are either pick-up artists or MGTOW, and "the policing of white female sexuality is a major concern" of the alt-right, according to Zuckerberg.[41] The severity of the antifeminism espoused within these communities varies, with some espousing fairly mild sexism and others glorifying extreme misogyny.[42]Racism andxenophobia are also common among groups in the manosphere, and perceived threats againstWestern civilization are a popular topic.[43]Tracie Farrell ofOpen University and colleagues write that in addition to the "angry white men" associated with thealt-right, the manosphere also contains "men of colour, struggling withsystemic racism that extends to beauty ideals and status".[44]
Reddit has been a popular gathering place for manosphere supporters, and several forums on the site are geared toward its ideas.[47] However, in the late 2010s and 2020s Reddit began to take steps to discourage more extreme manosphere subreddits. Some were banned, such as/r/incels (banned in 2017), its successor/r/braincels (banned in 2018), and/r/MGTOW (banned in August 2021[48]); other subreddits such as /r/TheRedPill have been "quarantined", meaning that a warning is displayed to users about the content of the subreddit and users must sign in before they're allowed to enter.[49] As a result, some of these communities have found new homes on websites that are more welcoming of extreme content, such asGab.[50]
The manosphere has received significant coverage in the media from its association with high-profile violent attacks including the2014 Isla Vista killings in California, the2015 Umpqua Community College shooting in Oregon, and the2018 Toronto van attack, as well as the online harassment campaign against women in the video game industry that came to be known asGamerGate.[55]Following the Isla Vista shooting, the killerElliot Rodger was found to have been an active participant on the PUAHate forum.[56]
Arthur Goldwag described the manosphere in the Spring 2012 edition of the Southern Poverty Law Center'sIntelligence Report as an "underworld of misogynists, woman-haters whose fury goes well beyond criticism of the family court system, domestic violence laws, and false rape accusations... [who are] devoted to attacking virtually all women (or, at least, Westernized ones)."[57] In 2018, the SPLC addedmale supremacy as a category they track on their list ofhate groups.[58]
The British anti-extremism groupHope not Hate included the manosphere in its 2019State of Hate report.[42]
Following the British television showAdolescence, the Women and Equalities Committee launched an inquiry intoMisogyny: the Manosphere and online content, examining the manosphere's impact and what can be done to address it.[59][non-primary source needed] The 2025BBC documentaryMen of the Manosphere followsJames Blake as he enters the virtual world of the manosphere.[60][61]
See also
Adolescence (2025), British series depicting the manosphere atmosphere
^Barnes, Mariel J.; Karim, Sabrina M. (January 17, 2025). "The Manosphere and Politics".Comparative Political Studies.0 00104140241312095.doi:10.1177/00104140241312095.ISSN0010-4140.
Marwick & Caplan (2018), p. 553: "The manosphere is an aggregate of diverse communities brought together by a common language that orients them in opposition to the discourse and rhetoric of feminism."
Hodapp (2017), p. xv: "The manosphere is a group of loosely associated websites, blogs, and forums all concerned with masculinity and men's issues, and includes input from the MRM, pick-up artists, anti-feminists, and fathers' rights activists."
Jones, Trott & Wright (2020), p. 1904: "The Manosphere is now home to several different groups, including pickup artists, the more radical 'Incels', father's groups, Men's Rights Activists (MRAs) and the Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) group and each has important differences that need to be unpacked."
Kennedy-Kollar (2024), p. 17: "The ideology of the manosphere is misogynistic and anti-feminist. [...] Different groups within the manosphere emphasize different aspects of the ideology, but the main tenets remain consistent across groups."
Jane (2018), p. 662: "Despite some conflicting agendas and tribalism, [manosphere] groups are united by an antagonism towards women, a vehement opposition to feminism, and the production of hyperbolic misogynist discourse"
Hodapp (2017), p. 8: "The MRM is related to the manosphere, a loose association of websites and organizations promoting certain forms of masculinity and generally expressing a disdain for feminism."
Marwick & Lewis (2017), pp. 9, 13–14: "The 'manosphere' is a loose collection of blogs and forums devoted to men's rights, sexual strategy, and misogyny."
^Copland, Simon (2021). "The Online Manosphere and Misogyny in the Far Right: The Case of the #thotaudit". In Devries, Melody; Bessant, Judith; Watts, Rob (eds.).Rise of the Far Right: Technologies of Recruitment and Mobilization. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 122.doi:10.5040/9798881810740.ch-6.ISBN978-1-78661-493-3.
Friedland, Roger (2018). "Donald's Dick: A Man Against the Institutions". In Mast, Jason L.; Alexander, Jeffrey C. (eds.).Politics of Meaning/Meaning of Politics: Cultural Sociology of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 115–133.doi:10.1111/soin.12328.ISBN978-3-319-95944-3.S2CID210440082.
Jones, Callum; Trott, Verity; Wright, Scott (2020). "Sluts and soyboys: MGTOW and the production of misogynistic online harassment".New Media & Society.22 (10):1903–1921.doi:10.1177/1461444819887141.ISSN1461-4448.S2CID210530415.
Kennedy-Kollar, Deniese (2024). "The Ideology of the Manosphere".Extremism and Radicalization in the Manosphere: Beta Uprising. Routledge Studies in Crime and Society. New York: Routledge. pp. 14–29.doi:10.4324/9781032631080-2.ISBN978-1-040-03920-5.
Mamié, Robin; Horta Ribeiro, Manoel; West, Robert (2021). "Are Anti-Feminist Communities Gateways to the Far Right? Evidence from Reddit and YouTube".WebSci '21: Proceedings of the 13th ACM Web Science Conference 2021. New York: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 139–147.arXiv:2102.12837.doi:10.1145/3447535.3462504.ISBN978-1-4503-8330-1.S2CID232045966.
Nagle, Angela (2017).Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars From 4Chan And Tumblr To Trump And The Alt-Right. Alresford, UK: Zero Books.ISBN978-1-78535-543-1.
Nicholas, Lucy; Agius, Christine (2018).The Persistence of Global Masculinism: Discourse, Gender and Neo-Colonial Re-Articulations of Violence. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.ISBN978-3-319-68360-7.
Sugiura, Lisa (2021). "The Emergence and Development of the Manosphere".The Incel Rebellion: The Rise of the Manosphere and the Virtual War Against Women. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Limited. pp. 15–36.doi:10.1108/978-1-83982-254-420211004.ISBN978-1-83982-254-4. This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under theCC BY 4.0 license.
Winter, Aaron (2019). "Online Hate: From the Far-Right to the 'Alt-Right' and from the Margins to the Mainstream". In Lumsden, Karen; Harmer, Emily (eds.).Online Othering: Exploring Digital Violence and Discrimination on the Web. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 39–64.doi:10.1007/978-3-030-12633-9_2.ISBN978-3-03-012632-2.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under theCC BY 4.0 license.