How do we protect our sons from the manosphere?

[MyKindHiker]

Just this. I watched the Louis Theroux documentary with horror. What shocked me was all of these young men who have this horrible anti-woman ideology have mothers who loved them and specifically didn’t raise them with these ideas. How do we protect our sons and teach them decent values when they are coming across these attitudes online or amongst their peers?

Is this suitable to watch with a 10 year old daughter? I mean is it educational or just something she shouldn’t see? I’ve not seen it and she’s up until we go to bed.

There is a fair amount of swearing and nasty / sexist / racist commentary, especially if you read the online comments they put up on screen. Also some violence. I would possibly watch it with my 13 yo but don’t think I would with my just turned 11 yo.

Ah Ok thanks

Oh my god. What are you talking about disowning your kids. What terrible parenting advice.

Excellent liat. I would add:

• delay smart phones and social media for as long as possible

• encourage the men in their orbit to stay healthy, trim, and well presented so that they have credibility with them, and stay relevant

@minipie you are absolutely spot on that these manosphere bros are operating a pyramid scheme.

It was also embarrassing how thick most of them were and completely unable to argue their point. HS just took to shouting "Jimmy Saville" at Louis Theroux. So teaching our children critical thinking and respectful debate is also important.

I don’t think the guys featured were thick actually. I think the ones who have made the money are pretty smart. (Although not clear how much money HS has actually made). They’ve seen an opportunity and are making money out of it.

The ones they are making money out of, the followers, those are the thick ones. They are the ones being used - even if they’re not making payments, they are being monetised, as the main guys need lots of likes/followers etc. Their insecurities are being exploited.

The Jimmy Savile stuff from HS was because that’s what his followers were telling him to say. He’s very clearly doing whatever will get him more likes and views and followers as that’s how he makes money. He said this quite openly.

I would absolutely disown my son if he grew up to be a misogynist.
I am a woman and I have 2 daughters, no misogynist will be under my roof - they’re all somebody’s son.

Just because some men are the type only a mother could love doesn’t mean they have to.

In truth, my brother is probably about 5cm away from engaging in this nonsense.

When he split up with his last girlfriend he referred to as “for the streets” and said she was a “typical lass, doing his head in.”

The thing is, he wouldn’t dream of speaking to me, my mum or my older sister like that, and quite quickly backs down when one of us tells him not to talk to his partners like that.

He has his new girlfriend making his breakfast every day in the exact same way my mum does. Like he’s Lord of the Manor.

We have less and less to do with him as time goes on, and I wouldn’t trust him with my son.

Thank you for sharing your experience, really interesting to read

Nailed it.

that was what stood out to me about HS - his mum on the surface seems to have tried to bring him up right but has over compensated for lack of a father by doting on him too much.

spoilt man baby!

I’m not watching it, I already know men like this unfortunately, I don’t want to give them the attention. Luckily I know DS18 respects women, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Most of his friends are girls. He’s always stuck up for them against men like that. My little brothers are the same..

I really do wonder if good parenting and role models etc really matters. It's a form of radicalisation and I don't know if other factors really can overcome it. All I know is the boys who get sucked into it are often vulnerable and young and open to corruption. Much like grooming. We are supportive of girls who get sucked into this so it should be the same for boys who get sucked into the incel world. Advice on how to deradicalise (is that even a word?) for parents and young men and teens would really help. Most of us haven't a clue where to start.

I worry for DS who has a high functioning autism but can be easily influenced. He could spend all day online and for now I can control that. But what happens when he is 18, how do I stop this from happening. I'm not sure if all the love and support in the world can stop this without proper tools. The platforms that support these guys should also be taken into account.

This is what occurred to me from the thread title too.

If it’s issues with their male role models and anger about their dad’s lack of care, why is it women who are taking the brunt? And why women who have to do extra to compensate? I think this kind of thinking is only helping the sexism around us.

@OrdinaryMagicOfAcorns it's a parenting site for women and a thread about parenting young men and boys. It's hardly a case of 'why should we do it' we aren't talking about filling the dishwasher here, we are talking about raising men to respect women. Saying men should fix the problem is avoiding the problem. Where do you think a vulnerable boy with no role models will go for validation? Online to the very places we are discussing.

So remembering ‘Adolencence’ the drama. His parents weren’t unloving but they created trauma through having busy lives and there was a lack of active engagement. How many parents do the same? Many.

This, absolutely.

HS came across as evenly matched with Louis (to me) in terms of intelligence. He's marketing and delivering a product and getting very rich out of it.

His hanger-on mate was a dickhead. Didn't have the intelligence and just made poor attempts at emulating him. Neither the intelligence nor the capability of HS. Just another Saturday night twat on the piss.

The business guy too, very intelligent, very smart, very capable.

The guy with the radio show less so. Just a belligerent presenter - a bit like Jeremy Kyle really. Just confrontational - could be thick as mince or sharp as a razor, we didn't really get to see deeper.

There was another one but he was irrelevant.

So, two of them were, imo, very intelligent. Absolute narcissists. Psychopathic mindset. Disregard for the weaker people below them, male or female. Focused, driven, successful and will continue to be so. People look upwards and want a bit of that, to emulate, to fantasise, to get a few breadcrumbs from the top table.

Their stated feelings towards women were despicable. Their entitlement to ram their rancid message outwards disturbing. The stupidity of their followers in sucking it up jaw-dropping. Awful people. But idiots? No way.

I think this is the most insightful suggestion in this thread.

I would expand "teach them cynicism about grifters" to include "teach them cynicism about conformity, fitting in and trying to be like everyone else" and "teach them media literacy". Manosphere grifters prey on social conditioning - the idea that men have to be (or naturally are) in one fixed role, and all women are in a different fixed role. You can't fall victim to it if you know that's a lie.

It's also important not to be didactic (this is something a lot of parents forget). Teenagers are naturally rebellious and often do annoying edgelord behaviour precisely because it outrages their parents. They often do it with irony at first but the line between "saying a misogynist thing ironically" and "saying a misogynist thing sincerely" isn't really meaningful. The root is a kneejerk antipathy to Being Told What To Do.

So instead of "tell them to be respectful, tell them not to be sexist", make the discussion more abstract. Instead of focusing on them as an individual, have conversations - two-way ones - where you talk about the big topics (gender roles through history and across cultures, different strands of feminism and how they are relevant to boys and men etc etc) without making it personal.

I recommend reading the principles and reports shared by Boys Impact. What they promote for educators is also true for parents, and applies to many boys not only those from poorer backgrounds.
https://www.boysimpact.com/principles

And if you’re in a position to share with a school or other relevant organisations, you could do that to help more people think about how to take action.

Similar concerns here with bright but ND DS and DD.

Both vulnerable in different ways.

is there a parenting class out there to help mums like us prepare our kids for life beyond our home and to help protect our sons from such radicalisation?

I have two young adult sons and I play them lots of clips from social media. I am on the side of social media that counters these arguments, men that call them out on their behaviour and question everything coming out of their mouths. (Speech Prof, Professor Neil and Will Hitchins to name a few) The main thing they say is for men to stop looking to men to provide "dating" advice but instead find out what women want. Especially blowing up the supposed 6 pack, 6 figure salary, 6 inch penis bullshit, the 80/20. The statistics behind the number of married men, the number of men over 6ft and the average penis length.

I got them to pay attention to actual couples in real life. To see the reality of women choosing men for a whole host of reasons. Sit on a bench in a city centre and just see it. You have to counter what they are being exposed to both online and from friends.

Last year was one all about how "real men" don't wipe their bums after pooing because it is gay, only gay men wash their arses in the shower or wipe after a poo. I couldn't believe that this was the literal shit "real" men were spouting, that skid marks are normal and your woman should just wash your pants. Luckily they were both horrified by this.

There is a narrative going around that men are not needed. The narrative I have talked to them about all the way through their lives is consider what you bring to someone's life, as a friend and then as a partner/husband. It isn't just about earning money. It is more than that. I am lucky that they both had female friends in the friendship groups so they were talking to girls when they were in primary, secondary and sixth form.

I don't wait for these conversations to happen, I start them. Dh and I call out toxic behaviour on tv shows by men and women. They have read MN for years over my shoulder and still do at age 23 and 20. They are curious about the world. Dh had also set a great example to them, being present, spending time with them, prioritising them. They understand that being a Dad isn't just providing a salary.

I agree with teaching cynicism and critical thinking.

Even regarding things like religious and youth leaders too (someone up thread mentioned "Good male role models")

Best to have the FULL picture as it could help keep them safe

(unlike me who did trust one of these trusting job titles & got harmed by doing so....)

Deal with internet use. Stop skivvying after your family while they do nothing and making excuses for lazy, lame men. Get your children involved in caring for their own household. Make it clear, from a young age, that these manosphere men aren't cool in way shape or form. Do not model centering men in your life. You can't make a huge deal of it or it will just turn most off, they won't listen to what you're saying, they'll listen to their friends. I like that video about how if your friends are dicks, you'll be a dick too. If your friends are good people, you'll be good people. Teach them the value of friendships and relationships. A lot of these men yes are growing up with loving mothers but often loving mothers who don't have expectations of them or their fathers, or boundaries.

I always remember reading this guy online talking about his son and how he didn't really know how to apply for jobs and hadn't had much success. This kid was 19, functionally helpless, not working. Didn't do anything around the house - in the poster's words, "runs the hoover round sometimes". It all fell on the mother. Neither parent made him cook, clean, repair, garden, nothing. Intentional or not, he's internalising the message that women are there to serve him and make his life easier. His parents were paying for everything. He had no impetus. Absolute prime fodder for sitting on the internet ingesting the words of misogynistic 'gurus'.

But I think we also need a great deal of research about exactly what these people are tapping into. There is a female 'equivalent' online in terms of pyramid schemes which is women directly targeting mothers who want to make an income while caring for their children, so it's fairly easy to see what that taps into. For this though it runs a lot deeper than 'guy wants to make money'.

I'm rather baffled by that last comment. Are you seriously suggesting men who are out of shape somehow lack credibility next to all these gym bros? Surely in some sense that's buying into the crap these manosphere types spout.

Yeah that is nonsense. Like respect is based on “being relevant.”

I’m not “relevant” or “cool” to a teenager, I’m a grown woman. I am not into teenager things. I’d assume it’s the same for grown men too.