This is one of my biggest concerns with my sons. I plan on talking about it often and I'm going to keep an eye on what kind of content they consume. The older one is turning 20 this month and he's doing great. I hope it goes the same way with the younger one and I'll have big brother there to help.
For our family we had to keep an eye on his YouTube consumption, it slowly drifts from gaming into the manosphere. A couple of times we had to have talks with him and ask him about what he was watching and if that's the way he should treat people he cares about. He's 24 now and doing fine but we really had to stay on top of it.
To me it seems like a huge reason for this is social media and conservative influencers in addition to worsening economic conditions. Social media platforms have way too much control over the content people consume and there's also a huge amount of money being pumped into right-wing and manosphere content specifically because it helps rich people stay in power.
So what I'm saying is, the problem is capitalism.
Might take a while to fix that though and I agree that teaching empathy and compassion are a good start. Also critical thinking. Parents should probably be aware what content their children are watching and help them engage with it critically. Outright bans probably don't work.
I think that better education would actually help with most of the world's problems.
Target the manosphere archetypes and they just become martyrs. Screaming for your rights as a woman unfortunately does little to convince those already too far gone. Ostracizing misogynists just leads to misogyny support groups that are self-reinforcing. That said, I believe in the power of shame.
It's going to be hard and it's going to take a long time. Respected men will have to take a visible stance, champion women's voices, and promote compassion - even for people who suck. Kids need more spaces outside the internet to hang out, too, and those are slowly being erased since free third spaces don't have a profit margin. Having diverse friends is a great way to learn compassion for diverse people, but equally important is recieving compassion from diverse people.
I have my own experiment going: real emphasis on empathy, kindness, and care for others. Exposure to diversity of people, thought, and experiences. Strong relationships that foster communication and love.
Remove access to the toxic manosphere, good access to therapy, exposure to people of different genders (under supervision, with consequences for misogny), and remind them that socioeconomic disparity is caused by capitalist oligarchs not paying their due share.
This is an excellent point. It HAS to be peers, women can't get through to a misogynist and research shows a link between misogyny and other prejudices.
god i wish i knew. teaching them empathy and compassion would be a good start. it would be especially effective if that came from adult men they respect, given the misogyny might obstruct them receiving that lesson from women. helping them to understand and express their emotions in a healthy way would also help. i was socialized as a boy and the only emotions i was allowed to express were anger and happiness but not too strongly or too often. i suppose im saying the fault lies with adult men ultimately. what else is new...
Well, how far up the chain do you want to go? Right-wing streamers (Sneako, Nick Fuentes, Andrew Tate, Asmongold, the list goes on) are direct causes for a lot of it, but they're enabled by tech billionaires and some are lent credibility by their opposition to Israel's genocide (generally on antisemitic grounds and not humanitarian ones).
18 replies
This is one of my biggest concerns with my sons. I plan on talking about it often and I'm going to keep an eye on what kind of content they consume. The older one is turning 20 this month and he's doing great. I hope it goes the same way with the younger one and I'll have big brother there to help.
For our family we had to keep an eye on his YouTube consumption, it slowly drifts from gaming into the manosphere. A couple of times we had to have talks with him and ask him about what he was watching and if that's the way he should treat people he cares about. He's 24 now and doing fine but we really had to stay on top of it.
To me it seems like a huge reason for this is social media and conservative influencers in addition to worsening economic conditions. Social media platforms have way too much control over the content people consume and there's also a huge amount of money being pumped into right-wing and manosphere content specifically because it helps rich people stay in power.
So what I'm saying is, the problem is capitalism.
Might take a while to fix that though and I agree that teaching empathy and compassion are a good start. Also critical thinking. Parents should probably be aware what content their children are watching and help them engage with it critically. Outright bans probably don't work.
I think that better education would actually help with most of the world's problems.
There's a reason they started with gutting education
mixed gender third places
any free third spaces at all would be great
Target the manosphere archetypes and they just become martyrs. Screaming for your rights as a woman unfortunately does little to convince those already too far gone. Ostracizing misogynists just leads to misogyny support groups that are self-reinforcing. That said, I believe in the power of shame.
It's going to be hard and it's going to take a long time. Respected men will have to take a visible stance, champion women's voices, and promote compassion - even for people who suck. Kids need more spaces outside the internet to hang out, too, and those are slowly being erased since free third spaces don't have a profit margin. Having diverse friends is a great way to learn compassion for diverse people, but equally important is recieving compassion from diverse people.
I have my own experiment going: real emphasis on empathy, kindness, and care for others. Exposure to diversity of people, thought, and experiences. Strong relationships that foster communication and love.
Remove access to the toxic manosphere, good access to therapy, exposure to people of different genders (under supervision, with consequences for misogny), and remind them that socioeconomic disparity is caused by capitalist oligarchs not paying their due share.
Peer pressure. They need to be called out by someone they relate to/respect.
They already don’t respect women, feminists, PoC, LGBTQI+, elders, so we can’t do anything except ostracise them.
Eventually enough of them will ask themselves AITA?
This is an excellent point. It HAS to be peers, women can't get through to a misogynist and research shows a link between misogyny and other prejudices.
Parents have to attend training classes with the teens that attack women/girls. Eat a few Saturdays and watch it start to fade
god i wish i knew. teaching them empathy and compassion would be a good start. it would be especially effective if that came from adult men they respect, given the misogyny might obstruct them receiving that lesson from women. helping them to understand and express their emotions in a healthy way would also help. i was socialized as a boy and the only emotions i was allowed to express were anger and happiness but not too strongly or too often. i suppose im saying the fault lies with adult men ultimately. what else is new...
Find out who's infecting them with misogyny and slap them to perdition on live streaming.
Well, how far up the chain do you want to go? Right-wing streamers (Sneako, Nick Fuentes, Andrew Tate, Asmongold, the list goes on) are direct causes for a lot of it, but they're enabled by tech billionaires and some are lent credibility by their opposition to Israel's genocide (generally on antisemitic grounds and not humanitarian ones).
Just go to the base of the chain. Slap to perdition. Go up the chain. Slap to perdition. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Target the grownups. These values doesn't selldom come from home.
Well at the cognitive core of misogyny is the primal drive to form in and out groups of things that are similar and different than you.
So inclusion in diverse groups that are small and that encourage engagement and healthy productive interaction.
Aka smaller class sizes and better funded schools.
Because undoing a negative association loop is much harder…