What Adolescence gets wrong. Violent misogyny wasn’t invented overnight

[IwantToRetire]

It would be easy to blame the manosphere for this dire predicament. That’s partly what Adolescence implies, with mentions of incels and teenage boys “taking the red pill”, much to the bewilderment of coppers and parents who aren’t as steeped in internet culture as their own children.

But, as the Centre for Social Justice warns, Andrew Tate and his merry band of masculinist blow-hards are merely symptoms of an underlying problem

This is not to downplay the threat of online radicalisation or the shocking levels of misogyny on the internet. But there are plenty of young men who don’t succumb to the siren call of Tate and the manosphere – we should be asking what makes a person vulnerable to their influence in the first place.

Violent misogyny wasn’t invented overnight. In 2010, the now-defunct Zoo magazine printed advice from actor and advice columnist Danny Dyer telling a heartbroken reader that he should “cut his ex’s face so no one will want her”. Dyer said he was misquoted and does not condone violence against women.

The manosphere isn’t a momentary blip – it’s the latest continuation of a long history of hatefulness, now made hypervisible and accessible on a scale that even the unrepentant lads mag hack would find shocking. But the factors behind the alienation and disenfranchisement of young men have been brewing for years now. Tackle those first, and the rest will follow.

Extracts from article in the i https://inews.co.uk/opinion/columnists/what-adolescence-gets-wrong-3590919

Can also be read at https://archive.is/ZFkqy

We have to remember that just as women have now realised how bad men are, thanks to the internet and all coming together, men have realised they aren't as great as they have always been told they were. Ego's have been challenged by the global community which arguably has affected them because they have been conditioned prior to this to only look at what other men say and do, not "emotional" women.

Everyone overlooks all this tho and simply blames it on social media…… even on bbc right now they are talking about it saying are we failing young men

ffs it’s so what about the men !!!

I think there are many parents failing their kids, boys and girls. I mentioned giving them self worth, but also how about teaching them to manage their emotions, teaching them how to communicate etc..

I work in schools, believe me it's not just boys behaviour and attitudes that concern me. So many disengaged (and frankly lazy) parents.

I just overheard a depressing conversation about Netflix's Adolescence. Woman to another woman, blamed the female victim saying "Well, she was a bully so that's what you get".

We need to tackle misogyny among women too, who have internalised it and coped with living in patriarchy by denying it exists and turning in other women.

Just to say although I started the thread I haven't watched the series. And am not a mother. Posted the article because I was surprised if media coverage is to be believed that everyone was saying how brilliant the series was.

And also, which I meant to add last night, that although boys growing up have almost always been seen to behave worse than in a pack, what is newer, and sadder is those who are using knives.

And quite often, not for instance being egged on by a group of other young males, but acting as an individual.

I have no idea whatever influence that has created this, has come from.

And am always astonished when tv news covers a stabbing and relatives, sometimes mothers, say why aren't the police doing more.

But the police can only be there at the end of the chain of events that led to some young boy setting off from home with a knife.

Is this use of knives an aspect of online incel discussion? Its not as far as I know say common theme in films or tv (or even Tate?).

In previous centuries when it was more normal for men to carry some sort of weapon, obviously violent deaths happened. But not this pattern of lone males setting out to cause harm with a knife.

In case anyone is a teacher there is this on AIBU https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5297619-teachers-who-have-watched-adolescence-what-are-your-thoughts?page=1

@CheekySnake just wanted to comment on this, about algorithms. You said ‘The interest has to be there in the first place, obviously, though the child may not even be consciously aware of it. But once it's identified the child is then firmly pushed in that direction.’

Sadly, the interest does not have to be there in the first place. If the algorithm knows the user is a boy or a girl, irrespective of what they’ve said they’ve liked or have already watched, they get very different content. A whistleblower from Google or Meta spoke out about this and Marianna Spring did a programme (possibly panorama?) where she tested this out. A boy who was into martial arts was suddenly being shown knife fight videos. And I think Marianna or another journalist set up various accounts a teenage boys and were horrified how quickly they were being shown violent videos. Let me know if you’d like me to find a link.

I've seen that before, and while I agree that boys get shown violent content quickly, what that tells us is that boys as a group tend to be more interested in it than girls as a group therefore early on with little user information the algorithm is a blunt tool. But over time, if the boy consistently clicked away/stopped scrolling when that content appeared then the algorithm would stop showing it to him. If it continues, it's because his pattern of use is showing that it holds his interest.

TBH martial arts to knife fights isn't that big a leap.

@CheekySnake i must not have explained it very well. That isn’t what it shows us. It partly shows that the algorithm is programmed to serve up stereotyped content - girls must be into skincare, boys must be into violence. Even if they don’t click anything violent and try not to see it. It happened within about 3 clicks. I’ll find the programme and article - I’d really urge you to to watch it.

@CheekySnake https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gdqzxypdzo.amp
‘cai told the BBC he tried to use one of Instagram’s tools and a similar one on TikTok to say he was not interested in violent or misogynistic content - but he says he continued to be recommended it’

Cai also said

He is interested in UFC - the Ultimate Fighting Championship. He also found himself watching videos from controversial influencers when they were sent his way, but he says he did not want to be recommended this more extreme content.

In other words, he engaged with violent content, therefore he got violent content. UFC is violent content. People who liked UFC also engage with other violent content, therefore the algorithm recommends this content to users who indicate UFC as an interest.

Cai says he has commented on posts to say that he doesn’t like them, and when he has accidentally liked videos, he has tried to undo it, hoping it will reset the algorithms. But he says he has ended up with more videos taking over his feeds

Again, he engaged with violent content, and therefore got violent content.

According to TikTok, the algorithms are not informed by a user’s gender. But Andrew says the interests teenagers express when they sign up often have the effect of dividing them up along gender lines.

The article supports what I said. What it does also emphasize is the fact that moderation on these sites isn't good enough so there is horrendous content, and that algorithms don't select content based on user age. This could be done but it would be expensive which is why social media companies won't do it (and why they've grabbed onto 'freedom of speech' with both hands).

I agree that knives are an increasingly worrying problem but there is the interlinked issue that some men and boys are prepared to resort to violence if they feel "disrespected". The teenager who murdered Elianne Andam in Croydon went out armed with a knife as he felt disrespected by her friendship group the previous afternoon because they teased him and he told his friends that he couldn't "let this slide".

I thought the show got it totally right. The mother spends all of episode 4 pandering to her husband to try and diffuse his anger. Telling him how good he looks in a shirt that doesn't fit, ( his daughter does the same), trying to sing and recall happy times while he's driving; only crying when he can't see.

His anger is explosive and then immediately vanishes, just like his son's, so you imagine they all walked on eggshells. His dad took his artistic son to footie to toughen him up and then wouldn't even look him in the eye when the other dads ( not the kids, their dads!) made fun of him.

The mum very gently says that it would help if they recognised they are partly to blame.

The bit when the father talks about his own dad beating him really struck home for me. My own dad was a difficult, horrible man and a lousy father in many ways, but he thought he was God's gift and that we should constantly praise him for being so wonderful because he wasn't as bad as his own dad. The bar was set so low, he thought perfect parenting meant not being as bad as his own dad. I think this was implied in episode 4 very cleverly.

@WinterFoxes I got the same message from my father - that we should be grateful that he wasn't as bad as his own father. But he was still absolutely foul. It seems to be quite a common thing.

Totally agree with all of this. I was watching with my 16 year old ds, we had a really good discussion about all the points you mentioned. Ds himself pointed out to me whilst we were watching that the wife was constantly appeasing her husband and trying to talk him down. Imagine that constant walking on eggshells 😢

My father was seriously abused by his father, and had a miserable and deprived childhood.
He made a choice to avoid the so-called 'cycle of abuse' and gave us, his children, the best, safest and most loving childhood he could, i.e. the childhood he should have had but didn't.

My father proved every day that he wasn't even remotely similar to his own violent father, and if my father could do it, so can any man, there was nothing superhuman about him.

This is why I don't relate to the comments about how it happened in your average family. This is a family with issues far predating Jamie. He is the one who manifested those issues.

I believe, absolutely, that my own father made choices. Some of the things he did were despicable and he must have known, on some level, that what he was doing was wrong. But I also believe that his upbringing combined with who he himself fundamentally was, the genetics he inherited, meant that he would never be able to break the cycle because he was incapable of being truly honest with himself about his own behaviour. There was something wrong with him that couldn't be fixed. It could perhaps have been moderated, given the right upbringing, but the one he had only served to bring out the worst in him.

I think cycle breakers are made differently. We got lucky on some level.

I've posted these links on another thread as well, I think they are worth sharing widely because they are rare pieces of good news about men challenging male violence.
The first is an article in the free local paper I picked up today:
Project calls on Dublin men to tackle domestic violence

and the second is a link to the website of the UK branch of the White Ribbon campaign, which is mentioned in the article:
White Ribbon UK

went out armed with a knife

Nobody has explained how and why lone boys / young men, some of whom are quite withdrawn loners, are mentally able to go out with a knive intending to use it.

I can more easily understand how in a situation of a gang or group someone being egged on.

None of the discussion about alienating fathers or other family influence explains that.

How and where did the idea of using a knive as the solution to the problem they are experiencing come from.

It is close contact violence. It isn't like shooters in the US which is violence from a distant.

This is about being right up next to the person you are stabbing.

Or is this about how watching vitrual violence you then dont relate that virtual act to doing it to someone who is real and breathing in your face.

Interesting post, however, I did have to eye roll at your last sentence about females having to learn to manage their anger - not really true for the overwhelming majority.

I don't think that the premise of the programme was that violent misogyny was a new thing. I think it showed very cleverly that Jamie was in an environment that was steeped in misogyny and toxic masculinity. The discourse around incels was on top of that, but not a separate thing.

In this article in the Times getting the reactions from young people one of them said something very similar to a PP about the influence of behaviour of the parents specifically the father:

I talked to my mum about toxic masculinity after the show. I think it starts with the parents, and the dad in the show acted like a big, strong, angry man, and talked about how he felt ashamed his son wasn’t good at sport. I felt like Jamie [the character who is arrested, played by Owen Cooper] had a low opinion of himself, and of what it means to be a boy. Social media lowers your self-esteem, and I think it lowered his.”
https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/parenting/article/what-teens-really-think-about-adolescence-in-their-own-words-v6s88m596
In full at https://archive.is/IdaQ9

Just posting to contrast with the myth being sold that girls and young women are having it easy and dont have any problems.

https://www.youngwomenstrust.org/media-centre/young-women-left-unsafe-hopeless-and-stuck-in-insecure-work-charity-finds/

I feel that we are looking at this the wrong way round. Since the end of WW2 we have seen white working class male Teddy boys, mods and rockers, skinheads and ad-hoc and organised football violence. Generally, we had a quiet 20 odd years around the turn of the century but now we are back to normal.

Is this the natural state of adolescent boys? Should we be like the Masai and send them away from the tribe for 2 years to fend for themselves and get their shit sorted out?