We may be able to turn off the algorithm, but we can’t escape the misogyny of the manosphere
- Written by: Weekend Times
The federal government recently announced a suite of new laws designed to address harmful content on digital platforms.
Following campaigning organised by activist Chanel Contos’ youth-led organisation Teach us Consent,
the government has pledged to create an opt-out model that would allow users to return their feeds to a timeline-based setting.
The proposal forms part of broader digital duty of care legislation. It aims to place greater responsibility on tech companies to protect users from abusive and harmful content.
The proposed laws have been broadly celebrated as a win, particularly in light of growing evidence about the harms associated with manosphere content. These harms are being seen in Australian schools as well as in concerning attitudes and beliefs about gender roles, women and violence among Australian adolescents.
But while there’s no doubt allowing people to opt out of algorithms would help, the technology itself only partially explains why the manosphere is appealing in the first place.
The theme that unites all the manosphere’s disparate content is misogyny. As important as social media regulation is, no amount of it will meaningfully address the manosphere unless we also do the hard work of dismantling the misogyny that underpins it.
Chicken or egg?
As awareness of the manosphere has increased, so too has its use as a single and isolated explanation for the rise in misogynistic behaviour among boys and men.
But the manosphere did not create misogyny. It just capitalised on it.
Misogyny has been a historical feature of many societies for thousands of years, built into institutions such as legal systems, medicine and education.
The fact it continues today, despite our efforts to work towards gender equality, means we are missing part of the equation when it comes to preventing its spread.
Not just victims of the algorithm
Accountability for men and boys subscribing to misogyny and sexist beliefs often goes unmentioned in this conversation.
Instead, explanations such as poor mental health, loneliness and unmet needs have become more acceptable, even when the evidence for these connections is not clear.
While these are all worthy of attention, they do not account for the historical and ongoing presence of misogyny among some boys and men.
Nor, given poor mental health and loneliness are slightly higher among women than men, do they explain why boys and men are more likely to hold misogynist beliefs and significantly more likely to commit sexual violence than girls and women.
Grievances related to the economy, job prospects and other future concerns are actively promoted by manosphere creators as justifiable reasons for misogyny. While grievance can make something feel true, it does not make it reality.
It’s essential we also examine why hate and violence against women and girls remains an appealing choice, and hold men and boys to account when they make that choice or engage with those views. They are not just passive victims of tech companies’ algorithms.
Regulation of harmful content will not comprehensively prevent violence against girls and women, nor will it give them the support to recover and heal from these gendered harms.
Read more: From violence to sexism, the manosphere is doing real-world harm
Will people use the off switch?
This new legislation follows the Australian government’s previous intervention in online harms.
Social media age restrictions introduced in December last year placed the responsibility on platforms to ensure children aged under 16 were not account users on their platforms.
Early assessment of the effectiveness of the ban has found that circumvention tactics are common among young users. There has been little evidence of a reduction in use by children under 16.
This gives us some evidence that if users want to access content regulators have determined is harmful to them, they will find ways.
For the men and boys engaging with the manosphere, it’s therefore unlikely they’ll choose to opt out of the algorithm at all.
So what do we do?
If we want to dismantle misogynistic ideas, restricting the circulation of harmful content is a start, but it’s only one part of the solution.
We need to intervene before these ideas take hold, preferably in early childhood education.
We know high-quality, sustained education can shift the attitudes and beliefs that underpin violence against women. This needs to be holistic and ongoing – one-off lessons and short-term campaigns don’t work.
In Australia, Respectful Relationships Education, implemented across the whole school, is the best prevention measure we have.
But, we need the government to resource schools to do this work properly. This means providing the time, training and specialist support required.
Because misogyny also drives domestic and family violence, we need more resources for parents escaping violent partners. This includes “all-of-family” programs that have a joint focus on perpetrator accountability and victim-survivor recovery and healing.
It’s both unfair and unrealistic to expect traumatised parents, most of whom are single mothers, to manage their children’s recovery as well as their own while resources to support them remain so dramatically underfunded.
This makes the current policy action concerning. Regulation and education are complementary, not competing, approaches. We need both measures that reduce the amplification of manosphere content and sustained investment in helping young people critically understand the content they consume.
Only then will we start to tackle the misogyny fuelling the manosphere, and thereby reckon with the manosphere itself.
Stephanie Wescott receives funding from Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety (ANROWS) and the Australian Research Council.
Jane Gilmore receives an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) scholarship.
Naomi Pfitzner has received funding from the Australian Research Organisation for Women's Safety (ANROWS) and the Australian government. She is also an member of Consent Labs' Expert Advisory Group. This piece is written by Naomi Pfitzner in her role at Monash University and is wholly independent from her advisory role with Consent Labs.
