I don’t know if the makers of Adolescence, the Netflix drama about a 13-year-old boy who is accused of killing a female classmate after being radicalized into a toxic performance of masculinity by adult men looking for clicks and views, had Atwood’s observation in mind when they set out to make this series. It is, however, the one that I thought of constantly while watching it. Because that’s what happens—a boy is made fun of; a girl is killed.
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Some prickly male commentators have taken this to mean liberal society is villainizing testosterone, sports, body-building and male loners—presumably, all the things that make men, men. At least one column has been written that mocks feminism, gender studies, therapy, and even, puzzlingly, literary fiction, which has largely been the domain of male authors for most of its history.
It appears to question the very existence of the ‘manosphere’—a clumsy word, admittedly. It’s a corner of the online world that deals with telling boys and men that they are losing power in an over-feminized society and must claim it back by asserting their natural manliness.
Adolescence references the manosphere clearly and directly; its protagonist is said to have bought into this mode of thinking after being influenced by its most visible figure, former kick-boxer Andrew Tate. Tate has gone on record saying he likes to date very young women so that he can psychologically “imprint” them with his ideology of female submissiveness, that female rape victims must “bear responsibility” for attacks on them, and many other things damaging to not just women, but men as well.
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Yes, he and countless others like him, including Indian content creators, have talked to men and boys about fitness, building muscle and being physically strong, apart from taking good care of their hair, hygiene and get-up, not to mention ways of acquiring wealth.
There’s nothing wrong with such advice in general, but unlike the old ads for body-building machines that would give a macho makeover to a skinny guy who gets sand kicked in his face by a bully, this is not well-meaning or anodyne advice. In this world, the assumed bully is a woman—maybe all women. The problem is not fitness and body-building, but what boys are being told to do with the bodies they build.
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While reporting on a story on the Indian manosphere for Mint Lounge, I watched hours of reels and YouTube videos by Indian creators telling their ‘bros’ how to be men. In one, a 23-year-old influencer instructs his followers not to allow their girlfriends to have male friends. Another tells his ‘bhais’ that women with ‘daddy issues’ are easier to manipulate. I also interviewed some of them, and it became clear that while some of their attitudes were performative, on the whole they seemed to actually believe what they were advocating.
On X, this type of misogyny is rampant. You just have to follow posts like those about engineer Atul Subhash, who died by suicide alleging that his ex-wife harassed him over alimony and child maintenance, or the more recent case of startup founder Prasanna Sankar, who is in a divorce and custody battle with his wife.
These stories are being used by men’s rights activists (MRAs) to challenge laws related to domestic violence, divorce, alimony and child maintenance. In their rawest form, they are being cited by online-only MRAs as examples of “gold-digging” women who destroy the lives of good men, aided and abetted by the laws of the land.
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Even celebrity divorces are being looked at through this lens, often encouraged by the celebrities themselves—cricketer Yuzvendra Chahal’s much-publicized divorce hearings were made juicier by his wearing a T-shirt with the words “Be your own sugar daddy,” interpreted by many as a comment on his ex-wife Dhanashree Verma’s alimony claims.
To ignore the manosphere or mock those who are calling it out is to effectively side with people calling for violence against women who don’t actively serve them. To make fun of the fact that men need to pay attention to mental health if they feel inadequate in a world where their relative power seems to be diminishing seems to show a disturbing allegiance to ‘incel’ culture.
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There is no need to villainize testosterone and fitness because much of society seems to have ready-made villains in women anyway. Sometimes, they are women seeking alimony and child custody, and sometimes they are the girlfriends of actors who take their own lives.
We live in a period of intense misogyny. Some feminists have taken the glass-half-full view of this being indicative of the patriarchy being in its death throes (bless them). It’s probably easier to blame female-coded liberals for not understanding men and their quaint habits than to recognize this.
Still, as long as they don’t kill us, right?
The author is national features editor, Mint Lounge.
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