Home Office’s counter-extremism review warns of harm from an ‘online subculture’ associated with incel culture and misogyny

[IwantToRetire]

In a new counter-extremism review leaked on Monday, officials said that the UK’s approach to extremism should no longer be based on “ideologies of concern”, but on a wide range of “behaviours”.

After a page on “Islamism” and “far-Right extremism” comes a section detailing the harm flowing from “an online subculture called the manosphere”.

Though the paper says that “not all individuals or groups associated with the manosphere … promote extreme views”, it is listed alongside “conspiracy theories,” misogyny and “a fixture on gore and violence” as possible causes of extremism.

... The roots of the manosphere can be traced back to the men’s rights movement during the 1970s and 80s, which began to attribute men’s failure in life with women, money and status, to feminism and female empowerment. The idea was that women’s liberation was inflicting on men “the worst of both worlds”, according to a 2021 study about “The Evolution of the Manosphere Across the Web”.

... Last year police chiefs warned that the likes of Tate were fuelling a rise in sex offences committed by teenage boys.

But others have warned that there is a difference between men like Tate and others in the “manosphere” who promote traditional masculine values.

Miriam Cates, the former Conservative MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, argues that those such as Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychologist and author, are promoting a “positive narrative”.

Just a few extracts from a much longer article at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/30/manosphere-being-blamed-for-extremism-home-office-review/

Can also be read in full at https://archive.is/ahQQs

What are traditional masculine values?

More seriously, I think our security services would be much better employed keeping an eye on these incel loons, rather than worrying about the crusties who seem to have become one of their main obsessions, for some reason.

Oooh boy, well that was a worrying insight into the mind of Miriam Cates. Quote from MC:

“We know that status is incredibly important to men’s health. Andrew Tate offers them a fast-track route to status, but mainstream society no longer offers men any route status at all,” she adds: “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with strength, it’s right and natural that men want status and strength.”

where to even start?

1. I’d really like to see some evidence for status being more important to men’s health than to the health of humans in general (what with women being people too)

2. mainstream society offers men no route to status at all ? What, not even the 90 out of 100 FTSE 100 CEOs who are men?

3. it’s natural that men want status and strength? What, and women don’t?

yikes. The whole thing makes men sound, dare I say it, a little snowflakey

Its worrying that she sees anything positive in the manosphere, which directly blames women for men failing.
She is so focussed on 'men need status', it seems to blind her to 'using human trafficking and sexual abuse gives men status', and why that's a problem.

Of course, women naturally have no interest in status. That's why there's no female doctors, scientists, entertainers, sportswomen, astronauts, and certainly no politicians.

It's so nice to be free of these masculine concerns.

And yet they decided not to do anything about it.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3rwvjlln9wo

I mostly find the incel thing terribly sad. Not many of them well go on killing sprees (obviously any number doing so is too many) but maybe even above hating women, it encourages men to hate themselves. And for all the wrong reasons to be self critical as well. Like 'you have a weak chin' or 'your job is too low status'. But they get so drawn in that they can't see the world is full of ordinary looking people in ordinary jobs in relationships.

Although I think part of the 'point' of it is that if you can't get an A-Grade 10/10 babe, then you're a weak loser and you might as well die.

It’s about the ‘quality’ of your woman / women determining your value as a man I think

some men really do think about little else other than women I think. We’re weirdly important to them and much more important to them than they generally are to us

There is quite a 'poor men' vibe going on at the moment, and worse still, it's 'poor men - and what are you women going to do to make them better?'.

The incel/manosphere 'analysis', if I can call it that, is that it's all the fault of women especially the uppity women's libby kind, with their dangerous and destructive notions like fairness, safety, consent - that sort of mad stuff that interferes with men doing their masculine value things..

It was bad enough when they were just sitting around grumbling online about ugly dykes and feminazis and how no woman will shag them, and 'if you can't get an A-Grade 10/10 babe, then you're a weak loser and you might as well die' but it's being taken up by politicians, monetised by the likes of Andrew Tate, and now there are more cases of them coming out from behind their keyboards to actually kill women and girls.

I just find it extraordinary that it is all put in the context of what women do to men. Which in 99.9% of the time is more what men are making up about women and / or thinking how women should behave towards them.

There doesn't seem to be any consideration about how these various males behaviours all focused on how women are failing men, or the impact on women of men not just failing them, but attacking them, and killing them.

How is it possible that in 2025 everyone seems to locked into this chronically patriarchal, sexist perspective.

So much for women's rights.

Even when there's a report about women losing the right to live free of dangerous men, no one talks about why do men think the best way to deal with difficulties is to be violent.

Yes, it's yet another facet of women being held responsible for men's behaviour.

It is time the definition of terrorism was redefined to incorporate this kind of misogyny and manosphere nonsense that brought us Axel whatsisname.

Its worth remembering how sucessful the male backlash against women's liberation was back in the 80s, 90s.

No one questioned men about over re-acting. eg earlier rights campaigns whether about race or sexuality, might not have totally succeeded but the media, establishment etc., didn't all gang up and say its gone too far, its unfair on those being challenged.

And that is when queer politics took hold amongst "intellectuals" and sadly feminism. Which resulted in the reactionary 3rd wave feminism where older women were blamed for alienating men, and not being inclusive. the ultimate male cooption. women telling other women you are being too loud and too demanding.

Government not spending adequately or effectively to end VAWG

The study by the independent public spending watchdog examined government spending against outcomes relating to VAWG, finding a number of key areas of concern. These include:

• Violence against women and girls is a serious and growing problem
• To date, the Home Office has not led an effective whole-system response
• The Home Office has not made the most of the available expertise and knowledge to inform the VAWG Strategy
• The Home Office has made little progress developing measures to prevent VAWG
• The Home Office did not develop the VAWG Strategy based on an understanding of what works
• The Home Office does not know what impact the government’s work is having on VAWG

... The report highlights that the focus of the VAWG strategy, including most ‘prevention activities’, has been on supporting victim-survivors and preventing re-offending. These elements are crucial but much more must be done to prevent the harm from happening in the first instance.

While prevention was referenced as a central part of the previous strategy, this report confirms our concern that meaningful and dedicated primary prevention work has been sidelined.

... Alongside other specialist VAWG organisations, we have long criticised the absence of spending commitments to deliver the VAWG strategy. The report finds that the Home Office has historically underspent its own budget allocated to the VAWG Strategy, by an average of 15% between 2021-22 and 2023-24. This underspend is happening in a context in which specialist services are experiencing chronic underfunding and oversubscribed waiting lists. For example, 14,000 survivors are currently waiting to access rape crisis support, and specialist organisations led by and for Black and minoritised women are struggling to meet increased demand for their services.

End Violence Against Women Coalition response in full at https://www.endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk/government-not-spending-adequately-or-effectively-to-end-vawg/

Status talk and appropriate appointments that depend, effectively, on manly values and experience reminds me of this clip about women's equality and greater recruitment to the CS from Yes, Minister.

Grimsby! 😂

Lossiemouth!

In a remarkably anti-Nolan Principles exchange (admittedly, pre-Nolan, iirc they were introduced in 1995).

Bernard's being threatened with a possible future position in Lossiemouth if a scheme that both Hacker and the Employment Secretary support goes ahead. He asks if Lossiemouth is a real place.

Sir Humphrey: "Lossiemouth? What did you think it was?"
Bernard: "Well, I thought it was a dogfood."

The scheme would have been good for all sorts of decentralisation reasons and some levelling up of employment opportunities but it might have discommoded members of the Civil Service.

Like VAWG, what they endure is somehow set at nought when set against the costs and cultural shifts of making substantial progress in reducing this Public Health issue.