Entering the ‘Manosfear’: supporting young men and boys in the 21st century

Brendan Shaw

“You could be forgiven for wondering whether looksmaxxers are obsessed with the opposite sex or scared of them.”

-          Christine Emba, “The Reason Gen Z Isn’t Dating”, New York Times, 3 March 2026

“Our No. 1 political enemy is women because women constrain everything, every conversation, every man – everything.”

-          Nick Fuentes, far-right political figure

"The discourse around young men’s place in the world is frustrating. On the one hand, the idea that men may genuinely be having a harder time of it is often summarily dismissed. On the other, for many young men, the scapegoat for difficulties is either women or feminism. Both are wrong."

-          Burn-Murdoch, John, "Feminism didn’t kill the male breadwinner model, the economy did", Financial Times, 21 August 2026

“Men go crazy in congregations; they only get better one by one.”

-          Sting, “All This Time”, 1990

The Manosphere is a network of online communities promoting masculinity, often mixed with misogyny, anti-feminist views, and extreme or toxic ideas of male identity.

I’ve managed to ignore it and remain ignorant of it for a while now, but it's got to the point now where I just felt I couldn’t ignore it anymore.

The Manosphere has become an online movement where young men and boys are swindled and deceived by people out to make money for themselves. The people driving it manipulate and monetise the fear and insecurity of men and boys to build their own personal fame and fortunes.

For these reasons, I call it the ‘Manosfear’, because it preys on the fears of boys and men about their future.

The talk, behaviours and values epitomised in the Manosfear are often toxic. They typically degrade women and girls and target people who are ‘different’. At its extremes, it is dangerous to modern society.

But the Manosfear exists at all because of the fear young men and boys have about themselves, the world, and the future.

The fear that they won’t be successful, that they won’t matter, that they won’t be loved, and the fear that they won’t amount to anything.

A quarter of the way through the 21^st century, some of these fears are not without foundation. John Burn-Murdoch's brilliant recent article in the Financial Times shows that less educated young men in many countries the world over are being left behind by fundamental global economic changes. There's a genuine issue to address here - and that's before we start talking about AI.

But the Manosfear has become something else. It’s become a toxic social grouping that has filled a void left in modern day society.

Like moths flying towards a burning flame, the Manosfear is attracting young men looking for answers and looking for a place in the world. But it risks putting them in a whole lot of trouble.

Male roles in ancient traditions

In the Namadgi National Park, just outside of my hometown of Canberra in Australia, there is a mountain that dominates the landscape.

On a clear day, standing on the top of Tidbinbilla Mountain, you can look 360 degrees for hundreds of kilometres in any direction. You can see the distant horizons, smell the forests, witness the beauty of nature, and survey the world in all its glory.

A sort of clarity comes over you as you get a fresh perspective of your place in the world and what might be possible as you gaze out to the distant horizon.

The name ‘Tidbinbilla’ derives from the traditional name of the Ngunnawal people of what is now the Canberra region. It comes from the word ‘Jedbinbilla’, which in Ngunnawal language means ‘place where boys become men’.

The traditions of the Ngunnawal people, going back thousands of years, are that when the boys of the tribe reached their coming-of-age, the tribal male elders would take the boys to the top of Tidbinbilla for initiation rites.

The journey to Tidbinbilla Mountain and back from the Molongo River plains where Canberra is located today might have taken a few days.

Like many first nations peoples in human history, the initiation process was a test for the boys who had reached the age of manhood. Once completed, the boys would have been accepted as young men by the tribe. It was a sign to these young men that they had reached the age of maturity, where they were recognised for their role in society, but also to recognise their own responsibilities and obligations in supporting their culture’s customs, laws and community.

The initiation rites would also have signalled to everyone else in the tribe, that these boys were now accepted as men. It was sending a message to the young men themselves and the rest of the community that these men were fully fledged, considered adults, and that they had a place in the community.

"When the boys were about seventeen to twenty years of age, and a sufficient number of them available, say five or six, then all the men together left with the boys for Jedbenbilla Mountain, the sacred space so to speak, sanctified for that purpose. It was a very solemn affair and great secrecy observed. I never heard what the actual rites were, but the boys returned fully made men, with one tooth knocked out, then all proceeded to Kamberra for the great feast."

William Davis Wright, Canberra, 1923

Source: ACT Government, "Tidbinbilla", Canberra Tracks, https://www.canberratracks.act.gov.au/heritage-trails/track-1-ngunnawal-country/tidbinbilla, accessed 6/8/2026.

The Manosfear preys on insecurity

Part of the problem for young men and boys today is that often we don’t give them this type of reassurance that they matter. We don’t tell them that they mean something, that they’re an important part of someone’s life or of society’s structure.

In the Manosfear the talk amongst men and boys is about how the world is stacked against them. About how men are supposedly disadvantaged compared to women, and how there is apparently a plot to keep men subjugated. It’s driven by a belief or feeling that there is a conspiracy to denigrate men in modern society.

Amid all this are many social media influencers making a buck. These are other men, often with right wing political tendencies, who promote role models and patterns of behaviour that discriminate and objectify women, and characterise women as stupid, subservient or weak. These influencers promote the conspiracy theories about why the world is supposedly against young men and boys.

There’s talk of taking the ‘red pill’ – an analogy, taken from the movie ‘The Matrix’, of seeing the wisdom of how the world supposedly is. There are podcast series from various divisive and sometimes violent influencers (some currently facing multiple charges for sex trafficking offences in the UK and Poland). The dialogue in this group often taps into resentment about jobs and services that, in turn, can be turned against immigration and cultural groups considered different. There are online chat groups criticising and targeting Jews, Muslims, and women. While women, particularly, have been targeted and denigrated, the Manosfear has also developed a very disturbing antisemitic criticism

There are online ‘universities’ established by influencers like Andrew Tate aimed at reinforcing traditional male hierarchies offering courses with questionable teachings - for a fee, while things like looksmaxxers and passport bros are other symptoms of the broader Manosfear.

A unique feature of this global-level misogyny writ large is that it is cross-cultural. While today we seem too focussed on cultural differences within and between the world’s populations, the degrading discrimination of women in the Manosfear seems to be something that unites many cultures.

The irony is that in a world of so much geopolitical, social and cultural division today, influencers leading young men and boys down the rabbit hole of degrading women transcends cultural barriers. The degrading description of women in men’s chat groups and online social media groups among young men in places such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, South Korea, and across racial and cultural groups.

The problem is that much of the Manosfear thing is a money-making machine that preys on the insecurities of young men and boys. Check out Paul Theroix’s recent Netflix documentary, Inside the Manosphere, if you’re prepared to see and learn about it.

It’s been a while since I was a young man, but I’m guessing the reason young men and boys are drawn to these sorts of ideas today is because they are scared.

That’s why I call it the ‘Manosfear’ – because it’s a coming together of young men who are fearful about their future, and because other influencers are leveraging these fears to promote their own businesses and make millions. They promote views and strategies that are morally wrong, that don’t work and risk landing young men in jail … or worse.

Strategies for young men and boys

Don’t get me wrong.

I believe that as a society we should be doing more to support young men and boys to find their confidence. To help them find their future.

As the data in Burns-Murdoch's article shows, less educated young men do have reason to be concerned, to a point. Their opportunities in the modern world are being constrained by global economic and technological changes. Their jobs and economic opportunities are not keeping pace with the rest of society.

The problem is that, like so many radical populist political movements, the Manosfear influencers have identified women and other social minorities as scapegoats for something caused by much more fundamental economic, demographic and social changes.

We should be helping young men develop the confidence to go out into the world and be better men. The confidence to build things, discover things, and solve things. The confidence to do good things and impress people the right way. To help make society a better place. To help grow, nourish and protect their society. The confidence to recognise that being different is a strength, not a weakness. To lead, collaborate and follow cleverly. To make themselves useful to their family, their partner, their friends, and their community in whichever way that works for them.

Whether it’s to start their own business, or to get a great job that pays well and earns them a living, or to give themselves a purpose, or to do something really cool and creative, or to help others and make the world a better place, or to help them find a partner, or to be proud of who they are, boys and men need to have the confidence to go out in the world and show everyone the gentlemen they really are.

And, yes, I mean ‘gentlemen’ in the old-fashioned sense. To be leaders in their own way, whatever they do and how they choose to do it.

The influencers, marketers and others running the Manosfear are wrong. They just don’t get it. Or, if they do get, it, they just don’t care.

A way forward

The late Celia Lashley was a parole officer in the New Zealand prison system. She spent a lot of her career sitting and talking with young men who had broken the law in that country. Young men who had run off the rails and made poor choices in their lives. And she was the one to decide what to do with them.

Out of this, Lashley got on the speaking circuit. She gave inspirational talks at boys’ schools around New Zealand to the male students and their parents. She talked about what makes young men and boys run off the rails, why they commit crimes, and how parents can help their sons avoid the traps and pitfalls that she had seen so many other young men fall into. And about how young boys can grow up to be good men.

Her book, He’ll Be Okay: Growing Gorgeous Boys into Good Men, is a good read for anyone interested in how to help boys and young men thrive and develop in today’s world.

One simple gem from the book is that we should spend more time supporting boys and young men by telling them that they’ll be okay. Reassuring them that they’re good and that they’re worth something and that they're part of something. Telling them that society values them and that people will like them.

Other strategies we can adopt include helping young men adapt to the new labour economy by encouraging them and supporting them to enter the growing sectors of the economy, including caring and personal service employment. Another is encouraging men to show and develop their care and interpersonal skills in the dating market as well as the labour market. It's a general truism that women don't like being treated badly, so we should help young men remember this.

Sadly, all of this is the opposite of the Manosfear narrative. Again, the irony is that what young men are hearing about the formula for success in the Manosfear runs counter to what's actually going to work.

In today's world, we need to find new and different ways for boys and men to succeed, but this isn't it.

Whether it’s just telling guys that they're okay, or the ancient initiation ceremonies of the Ngunnawal elders, or helping young men adapt to the modern economy, these strategies all tell boys and young men that they’re good, and that they’re worth something.

In England, football legends like Gary Neville and Gareth Southgate are starting to stand up against the toxic impact of the Manosfear. Meanwhile community groups like Beyond Equality are starting to educate young men about different masculine role models.

The truth may be that our current generation of men haven’t provided the leadership or role models that the boys and young men of the future deserve. It might be that the men of my generation need to take more responsibility in showing the younger guys that the Manosfear is wrong, and that there are better ways to grow up to be good men.

And it might need us older guys to tell the younger bros that it's okay just to be who you are. You'll be okay.

I’m not sure what that looks like or what is going to work.

But it probably falls on us to lead the way.

#society #manosfear #manosphere #politics