This article was originally published in May 2025, in issue #1 of International Marxism, international political journal of International Socialist Alternative. Click here to buy/subscribe.
“Your body, my choice.” “Get back in the kitchen.” These short, threatening phrases exploded on the internet in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s reelection to the U.S. presidency. The misogynist online influencer Andrew Tate responded to the news with the words “Thank God.” A chorus of self-proclaimed “heterodox” online influencers, who have pivoted toward Trump, were remarkably united in their election night joy. This was a moment of universal celebration across the varied internet spaces collectively dubbed “the manosphere.”
A 2021 study found that one of the single biggest predictors of support for Trump (even when factors like age, gender and race were taken into account) was a belief in “hegemonic masculinity.” In other words, Trump’s sexism is not some sort of achilles heel, nor is it in any sense a secondary part of the reactionary ideology he both promotes and benefits from. The reassertion of backward gender norms is an essential part of Trumpism’s appeal to a wide section of people who have been successfully radicalized toward the right in the recent period.
This right-wing radicalization around questions of gender is not limited to the U.S., nor has it happened overnight. Importantly, it is also neither a universal nor an irreversible trend. What has taken place in the recent period is a very profound process of polarization. This is true of politics in a general sense, but it is especially intense on these questions. The failures of the left and the workers’ movement have created the space for these reactionary ideas to grow.
Strikingly, some of the most prominent manosphere commentators and podcasters who have come to embrace Trumpism had previously endorsed Bernie Sanders. Joe Rogan is a prominent example of this. His podcast tops the charts and has an 81% male listenership. “Sneako” is another well-known YouTuber who switched from at one time being supportive of Sanders to promoting full-on pro-Trump reaction. He took to the streets in the days before the election saying that Kamala Harris was an example of why “women shouldn’t vote.” Indeed, by the time of the 2024 presidential election, the vast majority of U.S. online voices appealing specifically to young men were enthusiastically backing Trump.
Many of the young men currently taken in by this deeply backward politics can potentially still be won back toward socialist ideas—especially through experiences of class struggle. But this does not diminish the extreme dangers the rising right poses for women, trans and queer people, migrant communities, Black people and people of color—as well as the working class as a whole. Many of the gains that the women’s, LGBTQ+ and workers’ movements have won in the past are being actively attacked and dismantled. Meanwhile, a long-term trend toward young people having more progressive and left-wing views—especially on questions like feminism and LGBTQ+ rights—has in many places been thrown into reverse for one half of the population.
Anti-Feminist Backlash
A 2024 study by the polling company IPSOS, which included data from Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Turkey, showed some dramatic differences in outlook among young men and women on questions of gender. Among 18-29 year olds in the countries the study covered, 52% of women defined themselves as feminists, compared to just 34% of men. Meanwhile, 60% of young men reportedly agreed with the statement “we have gone so far in promoting women’s equality that we are discriminating against men.”
This contrasts dramatically with the results of similar surveys of young people just a decade ago. One 2015 poll of young Americans saw 74% of young women and 51% of young men describe feminism as “needed” in the developed world. Among young men, it seems the previous trend toward increasingly progressive views about gender has been turned on its head. Meanwhile, the online subcultures that make up the manosphere have increasingly broken out of isolated pockets on the internet and infected mainstream discourse.
So how has this been achieved? And more importantly, how can it be reversed? The 2010s were a decade in which feminist struggle exploded across the globe. This reflected the radicalizing effect of the 2008 financial crash and its impacts on especially those most oppressed. The mismatch between the expectations of equality sold to women, who around the world make up a greater part of the workforce than ever before, and the impact of austerity policies, along with the ongoing reality and normalization of gender-based violence, set the stage for massive movements.
It is striking that the initial response to the victory of Trump in 2016 was the pouring onto the streets of millions of women across the country. The women’s marches that accompanied his first inauguration were the biggest demonstrations in U.S. history up until that point—surpassed only by the enormous Black Lives Matter movement that exploded following the police murder of George Floyd. At the same time, the 2010s were a decade in which the visibility of trans people also exploded, with millions more (especially young people) feeling greater confidence to come out as trans, non-binary and queer.
But at the same time as all this was happening, the seeds of the current right-wing backlash were already being planted. Ideas that started off gaining traction in obscure corners of Reddit, Discord and other social media forums have made their way to the mainstream.
Out of the Dark Corners of the Internet
These ideas have steadily grown in influence for some time, but specific political moments have acted to help accelerate their rise. Covid gave a particular boost to these online phenomena—along with all right-wing conspiracy theories. The isolation people experienced during this time, the failure of governments around the world to get a grip on the pandemic, the huge numbers of (especially younger people) who lost their jobs, all contributed to an acceleration of the growth of reactionary online movements.
Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, which he renamed X, was also a before-and-after moment when it came to massively expanding the online reach of these ideas. His blanket amnesty for accounts previously banned for hate speech allowed figures like Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson, Kanye West and later conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones to not only rejoin the platform, but to have their content aggressively promoted by the newly rewritten algorithms.
Even so, the changing moderation policies of social media giants is not enough of an explanation for the growth of this phenomenon. It is the ongoing crisis of the capitalist system, its inability to maintain, let alone improve living standards for the vast majority, and the failure of the left and labor movement to offer a clear alternative to this situation, which has created fertile ground for the right. The capitulation of Sanders and the so-called “squad” of left Democrats, who loyally fell into line behind the Biden administration, is therefore another important “before and after” type event. The betrayals and disintegrations of a generation of new left political formations which rose in the 2010s in Europe are also significant.
The manosphere has now broken out of the internet “subcultures” where it began. But that doesn’t mean these subcultures have ceased to exist or be of significance. Rather, ideas which were previously reserved for the internet’s darker corners are now being shouted loud and proud in the spaces most ordinary people occupy.
Incels, PUAs (pick-up artists), MRAs (men’s rights activists), and MGTOW (men going their own way) are all examples of specific subcultures identified with the term manosphere. Today this word is commonly used more generally—referring to the overall proliferation of sexist and misogynistic online forums and influencers. What unifies all these subcultures and defines every facet of the manosphere is a belief in male entitlement to women’s bodies, and a perception that it is men, not women, who are oppressed and victimized on the basis of gender within our society.
At the most extreme end, specific subcultures have inspired terroristic violence. It’s now more than a decade since the incel Elliot Rodger murdered six people and injured a further 14 in a knife attack and shooting spree in California. He had posted an “incel manifesto” online one day prior to the attack. Rodger continues to be valorized in incel forums. In fact, his initials are frequently capitalized in the word “hERo” in online chat spaces—a sickening reference to his crimes.
Beyond this kind of terrorism, the misogyny which is being aggressively promoted by a chorus of online voices—and echoed and reinforced by far-right politicians—has huge day-to-day implications. Most of all, its impact is the normalization and sometimes explicit encouragement of “everyday” violence against women, trans and queer people. Roosh V, the so-called “Pick Up Artist” influencer, has explicitly called for the legalization of rape, for example. In a horrifying case reported in Britain this year, a man named Kyle Clifford killed his ex-partner, along with her sister and mother, using a crossbow. It was revealed after his conviction that shortly before committing these horrific acts Clifford accessed one of Andrew Tate’s podcasts.
Trans people are a particular target of this hate—something that was mirrored in one of Trump’s day-one executive orders which legally asserted that there are “only two genders.” Figures at the more “respectable” end of the manosphere, such as the pop psychologist Jordan Peterson, emphasize a crude, biologically essentialist view of gender—one which is degrading to trans and non-binary people, as well as to women.
Andrew Tate is arguably the most famous “manfluencer.” He, along with his brother, landed on U.S. soil in February clearly confident that they would find a safe haven in Trump’s America. Trump has denied intervening on their behalf, and they have subsequently returned to Romania, seemingly voluntarily.
Tate’s pyramid-scheme model for building online influence has helped make him a multi-millionaire. His online reach is exceptionally large. A recent UK-based study showed that 79% of boys aged between 16 and 17 had watched at least one of Tate’s videos, with 52% of them saying that they viewed him in a positive light. Studies based on school students have shown the way many young men are echoing the misogynistic rhetoric of online masculinity influencers. This has included an increase in male students talking about “men being better than women,” or making derogatory remarks suggesting women “belong in the kitchen,” and sexually objectifying girls’ and women’s appearance.
Tate and similar “copycat” influencers like Myron Gaines, speak to the anxieties and insecurities felt by young men in the precarious capitalist world we live in. They claim to have the solutions. They promote a hyper-masculine physical ideal and reject the reality of mental health problems, and instead encourage young men to suppress and ignore their emotions.
Part of Capitalism’s Reactionary Turn
These conceptions of what “makes a man” fit in with the drive toward militarism we are seeing play out in this age of inter-imperialist struggle. Tate and his ilk encourage young men to treat women with contempt and disdain. What’s more, they suggest that doing these things will offer their followers a path toward personal enrichment, respect, security and even happiness.
There is a strong connection between the misogyny and LGBTQ+phobia promoted in the manosphere and the racism and white supremacy of the extreme right. Nonetheless, figures like Tate do not appeal exclusively to white men. In 2022, seemingly as a ploy to assist his business prospects in Dubai, as well as in an attempt to gain new followers, he publicly converted to Islam (a faith he apparently dropped around a year later). This is despite the ongoing ratcheting up of Islamophobia by the right. Yet as insincere as it may have been, stunts like these do have an impact. A minority of men of color in the U.S. and European countries are increasingly becoming open to the right—a phenomenon that played out in the U.S. presidential election. This speaks to the danger of the far right being able to further expand its support in the absence of a robust challenge from the labor movement.
In mainstream discussions, one commonly cited factor in the rise of the manosphere is the feeling among many young men that feminism dismisses their pain, or that female empowerment comes at their detriment. The fact that young women now tend to outperform young men at school, and that in some countries—including the U.S.—women also earn more than men prior to having children, is also referred to frequently in discussions on this subject in the capitalist press. Meanwhile, following Trump’s victory, many liberal commentators have advised that it is necessary for the Democrats to “ditch woke” in order to win back lost ground.
Liberal identity politics places huge emphasis on subjective lived experience. But, at the same time, it generally refuses to acknowledge that the subjective experiences of working or middle class young men can be understood as important, except when being looked at through the lens of “privilege.” In a capitalist society where millions of young people (of all genders) struggle to make ends meet, with poor mental health and with the isolation and alienation that work in the modern economy often entails, this approach is understandably jarring for many.
This shows the dead end that liberal feminism represents for the women’s struggle. But it is of course not feminism’s fault that boys are doing worse in school. It is not because of feminism that secure, well-paid work is hard to come by. Young men’s greater difficulties in school are due in part to the restrictive gender roles that capitalism forces boys into, combined with scarce resources in public education. This tends to mean that those who are socialized to adapt most easily do best. The fact that girls do better in school, despite facing devastating gender oppression, also undermines the idea (repopularized in the manosphere) that women are intellectually inferior to men.
The manosphere’s toxic ideology is about pushing back women’s progress. It is able to grow now because it serves the interests of the new, reactionary capitalist era, which is leaning on the patriarchal family as a fulcrum for class society.
A Socialist Feminist Answer to the Manosphere
That’s why the left’s response to the rise of the manosphere needs to go beyond simply condemning these reactionary ideas and those who hold them. We need to build a mass socialist-feminist fightback against attacks on women’s rights and to defend LGBTQ+ people. And we need to build a united struggle against the far right which links this with the fight for a society in which everyone’s basic needs can be met. Reactionary forces are currently feeling confident. But we know that when the workers’ movement is able to put people on the streets to fight back, it can begin to turn this dynamic around.
The workers’ movement has a crucial role to play here. Questions of oppression are in no way secondary to the fight for decent wages, conditions or other economic demands. The workers’ movement stands or falls based on its ability to unite the diverse working class. The clock can never be simply “turned back.” Women around the world have been sold the promise of equality. The gains that workers’ and feminist struggle have achieved will not be relinquished without any fight.
The rise of horrific misogyny being promoted in the manosphere brings to mind the words of the great socialist leader Rosa Luxemburg: “socialism or barbarism.” Capitalism in its state of crisis and decay is leaning more and more heavily on reaction to defend itself. This underlines the urgency of rebuilding socialist forces capable of leading the fightback, and of pointing toward a society run in the interests of the millions. In this way, it would be possible to lay the basis for ending oppression for good.
photo: James Tamim, Wikimedia Commons
