Even after the #MeToo movement, we're still in a world where the dominant narrative is that feminists are overreacting to online misogyny and the so-called "manosphere," a loose collection of "pick-up artists," "incels," "men's rights activists" and various troglodytes who spend hours online spitting venom at women and celebrating the most toxic of masculinities. When feminists point out the proliferation of online forums dedicated to misogynist talk or organized social media harassment campaigns like Gamergate, they are generally dismissed as hysterical or told that they can simply log off and it will all go away.
"Our society has sublimated the threat posted by online misogynistic extremism ito the perception of a small group of immature, annoying, sometimes funny teeangers, joking around and playing technological tricks," Laura Bates writes in her book "Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How It Affects Us All." Bates explains that "The most important element of this caricature is that it is perceived, above all, as harmless, or at least not genuinely harmful." Online misogynists are generally spoken of as "trolls," she writes, a non-threatening term that implies they are "too stupid to do much real damage beyond giving people the occasional scare."
It's a persistent bit of wishful thinking in our culture, that misogynist talk somehow has no relationship to actual violence against women.
That discourse dimmed a little in the past couple of years after the Proud Boys — a group that emerged from the world of online misogyny — were involved in the Capitol insurrection of January 6, 2021. There have also been numerous examples of real life violence committed by so-called "incels," a subset of online misogynists whose main gripe is that women don't "give" them the sex they feel entitled to. Still, the tendency in both mainstream media and the larger public is to minimize online misogyny as mere "trolling," something that fundamentally will go away if studiously ignored.
This week, the world got another stark reminder that the world of online misogyny is not contained to the internet, but shaping the behavior of boys and men offline. British national Andrew Tate, one of the most popular "masculinity" influencers on the internet, was indicted on Tuesday after initially being charged with rape, human trafficking and organized crime with his brother in Romania. Tate, who has denied the charges, is up there with pseudo-intellectual Jordan Peterson and thick-necked podcaster Joe Rogan as a leading figurehead in the wildly popular online movement to protect and restore caveman-style masculinity. Except Tate, a former kickboxer, speaks to a much younger male audience, targeting primarily teenage boys.
As Shanti Das at the Guardian explained last year, Tate "is one of the most famous figures on TikTok, where videos of him have been watched 11.6 billion times." He "talks about hitting and choking women, trashing their belongings and stopping them from going out," Das writes. He also "says women belong in the home, can't drive, and are a man's property."
Tate is a phenomenon among boys junior through college age. As Madeline Will wrote in Education Week in February, "Teachers across the world, including in the United States, have shared on social media that they've seen an uptick in male students repeating sexist vitriol" they picked up from Tate. Even though Tate has been banned from TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, "fan clips of his videos still circulate on those sites" and he's able to post on Twitter, which is now controlled by alt-right troll and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, after initially being banned from the social media site.
"Tate draws young boys in with his talk of fancy cars, the money he makes, and his experience as a professional kickboxer," Will writes. He also offers supposed "advice" on working out and meeting girls. But once in, young boys get drawn into his misogynist worldview. As sociologist Mairead Moloney told Education Week, it's "really seductive" for boys to listen to "a worldview that puts you at the very center of the world and, in essence, makes all other groups beholden to you."
The Tate fans who are making pro-rape and anti-woman comments in class will often pivot to a "just joking" stance when teachers confront them. But as these charges show, Tate is not actually kidding when he suggests men have a right to abuse women at will.
The Tate fans who are making pro-rape and anti-woman comments in class will often pivot to a "just joking" stance when teachers confront them. But as these charges show, Tate is not actually kidding when he suggests men have a right to abuse women at will. His online bragging about controlling women is reflected in the stories women tell about his offline behavior, including accusations of rape and strangulation. One woman shared a recording with Vice News of Tate sounding very much like he's rubbing her nose in a recent rape.
Among the dozens of messages and voicenotes that Tate sent the woman is a voicenote in which he says, “Am I a bad person? Because the more you didn’t like it, the more I enjoyed it. I fucking loved how much you hated it. It turned me on. Why am I like that?” pic.twitter.com/drAFHkvf2d
— VICE World News (@VICEWorldNews) January 11, 2023
It's a persistent bit of wishful thinking in our culture, that misogynist talk somehow has no relationship to actual violence against women. Donald Trump, for instance, was able to wave away a tape of him bragging about sexual assault by claiming it was just "locker room talk." It was not, as a jury found just this spring, ruling that journalist E. Jean Carroll told the truth when she said Trump sexually assaulted her in the 90s.
In February, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released a report on the teen mental health crisis which had an alarming statistic in it: Nearly 20% of teenage girls reported being the victim of sexual violence in 2021. More than 1 in 10 said they'd been raped. This cuts against longer term trends showing an overall decline in sexual assault, and so was especially alarming. Some conservative writers tried, and largely failed, to discredit the survey, which also found that 30% of teen girls had considered suicide and 20% reported online bullying.
The pandemic, of course, is the most dramatic event in the lives of kids (and everyone) in the past few years and got the lion's share of the blame for these stomach-churning numbers. But what cannot be overlooked as a likely factor: American boys are swimming in online propaganda that celebrates sexual violence as both their god-given right and as a way to demonstrate their manliness. One of the most famous figures in the world of teenage boys right now is imprisoned in Romania on charges of rape and forcing women into sex work. It's highly unlikely that the legions of boys who admire Tate and imitate his workouts, his tastes, and his rhetoric aren't also emulating the violence against women celebrated in Tate's videos.
In most other aspects of life, it's generally viewed as common sense to see a link between a person's beliefs and behaviors. A person who believes in god is more likely to pray. A person who agrees with traffic laws is more likely to obey them. A feminist is more likely to date and marry a man who treats women with respect. A person who likes Donald Trump is more likely to vote for him, etc. But when men say terrible things about women, there's persistent resistance to the idea that their actions might reflect their words. There's so much pressure to write it off as "just trolling" or engaging "locker room talk," and ignore the fact that men who hold misogynist beliefs are also a danger to women.
Sociologists have tried valiantly to break the stranglehold the "just joking" argument has on our discourse. Study after study shows what common sense should tell us, which is that men who tell rape "jokes" or otherwise express hostile views towards women are also more likely to beat and rape women. Worse, when men hear other men expressing misogynist beliefs, their proclivity to commit rape rises.
This sobering set of serious charges against Tate will hopefully be a wake-up call. When men brag about violence and egg each other on with competitive misogyny, it's not just talk. Tate's popularity isn't just disturbing because teen boys are repeating his misogynist rhetoric in classrooms. There's a very real danger that many of them are acting on his words in real life.
