Report calls for an effort to tackle harms in similar way to obesity and smoking, and stresses need to ‘offer boys something better’
The manosphere and online misogyny should be treated by the government as a public health issue, in the same way as obesity or smoking, experts have said.
Writing in the Lancet, the authors of a new report argue that a coordinated response is needed, involving governments, schools, health services and community organisations, similar to the public-health response to tobacco use and ultra-processed food.
“Men’s problems are framed [in the manosphere] as the result of feminism rather than structural conditions, and masculine identity is commodified through products and paid content that normalise and reinforce health-harming and performance-oriented masculinities,” the authors write.
The report defines the manosphere as “a diffuse commercial ecosystem and loose collection of online communities united by shared beliefs about masculinity, misogyny and male victimisation”.
It goes on to outline how the manosphere has evolved into a highly lucrative online industry that makes money by promoting “the most extreme expressions of misogyny and aggrieved masculinity”.
Prof Kent Buse, a co-author of the paper and co-founder of the social justice thinktank Global 50/50, said: “This is a business model, not a fringe. Outrage and grievance are good for business, so the system rewards the most extreme content. Expect the playbook that served tobacco so well: blame the individual, and call regulation an attack on freedom.
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