I finally got round to watching Louis Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere documentary. It was uncomfortable viewing, not just for the obvious reason that watching men revel in degrading women and manipulating young men is disturbing, but because I couldn’t shake the feeling that our cultural obsession with a handful of high-profile US and British influencers is a distraction from the deeper, darker global problem.
HStikkytokky, Myron Gaines and co are the visible, “glamorous” figureheads of misogyny. Brash and offensive, they make good telly – and there is nothing wrong with that if it provokes public debate and conversations with teenagers. But behind that flashiness, in the murky depths of the internet, lies a world of abuse, threats and sexualisation of women and girls that gets little, if any, media coverage.
