On trolls, slimes, and other misogynistic subspecies We tend to think that those who are dedicated to spewing hatred towards women on internet forums are the weird four cats. Youth virgins, defenseless monks, a pair of online followers posting slurs and conspiracy theories against feminism from a dreary room full of empty bags of Cheetos in the early morning. But according to Laura Bates, author of Men Who Hate Women (Captain Swing, in the bookstores this Monday), we are making a serious mistake by underestimating the real threat posed by the manosphere and how its ideology seeps into the youngest.
“Look at Andrew Tate [actualmente encarcelado en Rumanía por presuntos delitos de trata de personas y violación]videos of him advocating rape, grabbing women by the throat and making them look like dogs violate their policies TikTok and yet they have over 12 billion views. That’s more than the number of people on the planet. AND nobody does anything because it’s extremely lucrative“It’s criticism. It’s outrageous that they enrich themselves with this hatred that affects millions of people every day,” he said.
A world divided between ‘alpha fucks’ and ‘beta dollars’
Tate is not the only case. Bates’ article features an assortment of seemingly functional adults, such as respectable members of his society (political representatives, children’s soccer coaches with six kids), who later turn out to be utterly corrupt minds and fiercely misogynistic. Inceller, short for “reluctant celibacy”, has been Outstanding impact on websites, YouTube channels, podcasts, forums and chats with millions of users spreading their ridiculous theories. According to one of the most common, 20% of men (the most elegant) enjoy 80% of sexual relations with women. They are accused of sleeping with attractive men in their youth until they settle down and marry less handsome men they don’t actually want just to be supported.
A worldview of sexual-emotional relationships that divide humanity. “alpha fucks” (damn alphas) and “beta dollars” (paying betas) and like endless subcultures “height” (very short), ‘ginger’ (very red), “bald” (hopelessly bald) and a long racist subsection like that “currycels”, “blackcels”, “ricecels” or “ethnicels” to denote black, Asian, or Indian men who, for ethnic reasons, do not have the success they deserve with women.
Youth radicalization
The maximum illusion that could be taken as a joke were it not for the fact that it penetrates much more than one might think, especially among adolescents. Bates realized this two years ago, when he started meeting women in talks about sexism in schools and institutes. Children and adolescents very familiar with the usual conspiracy theories in the manosphere: if feminism is a witch hunt, the pay gap is a myth., women lie about rape, good men lose their jobs, and unskilled women take over. “There is an idea that feminism has gone too far, and all these sexist ideas are circulating very effectively. Parents and teachers are not aware of this. Many young people are radicalizing, but it’s hard to see because, like terrorists, it’s an invisible process. “I am concerned about the long-term effects of such a widespread invasion of extremism,” he warned.
Why is it so hard for us to point out men who hate women? “There is a terrible fear of offending people, something that scares us. The same argument comes up whenever they are accused of something: You cannot generalize”, famous “Not all men”. “Last December in Spain, a woman was killed by her partner or ex-partner every three days. It has been so normalized that it is almost impossible for us to consider violence against women excessive because it happens every day.“, pointing out. “98% of mass murderers in the United States are white men. What if this 98% has some other defining feature? We would be talking about it,” he says.
Is misogynistic violence a form of terrorism?
“It is the international definition that a group spreads some form of violence against a certain demographic in order to instill fear. terrorismand we don’t call it that. But that’s exactly what we see: acts of violence in real life designed to sow fear and promote a particular ideology,” Bates accuses. “There have been misogynistic terrorist attacks in Toronto against Alek Minassian that have not been prosecuted. He admitted that he hated women and wanted to punish them, and 80% of his victims were women. However, the police made no mention of it and it was not taken into account when prosecuting.”
How can women cope with all the hate they get online? For Bates, women should not pay for misogyny. “Those who lose access to social networks must be misogynistic. We never talk about the freedom of expression of those who were expelled from those areas. harassment or harassment. The debate is always completely one-sided and I think the answer cannot be to teach women to stay safe online, the solution must be to stop harassment from happening. There should be more regulation, more enforcement and transparency across platforms. It’s up to them to fix the problem, but they won’t unless they have to,” says Bates. The internet we live in today is the result of algorithms designed by men thirty years ago, in the 90s.
everyday sexism
Ten years ago, at age 24, Laura Bates founded the project. Everyday Sexism dedicated to collecting examples of everyday sexism. The trigger was a particularly rough week when Bates chained several events in London: sitting on the bus talking to her mother on the phone a man touched her groin without permission (“I complained loudly and no passengers interfered or made eye contact with me,” he recalls), a stranger approached him aggressively and followed him home despite Bates’ repeated refusals, and two construction workers made middling comments about her breasts. your street is in front of it, as if it were not in front of it.
“I would continue to think these things happen to women and are a part of life, if they weren’t probably all in the same week. I didn’t even tell anyone. But something stopped me and made me think: why is this so normal I started talking to other women and girls, and they certainly all told me that this happens to them every day on the street, at school, and at work. I was stunned by the scale and seriousness of the problem,” he explains.
Ten years and more than one year million references When it was later shared, Bates’ life completely changed: He now receives dozens of death and rape threats every day – grisly threats of cruelty and hatred, which are crimes but go unpunished, lurking in the anonymity that the manosphere moves through.) and needs police protection. when you go to a public place to give a speech. “Some days I go over 100. It is difficult. Even though you know most of them are trying to scare you, it’s very scary. It’s difficult,” he admits.