Manosphere's impact on boys and men calls for public health action, report warns

The ‘manosphere’ is fuelling harmful attitudes and worsening health inequalities among boys and men, prompting calls for a public health response that addresses the root causes of its growing appeal. Increasingly, boys and young men who feel misunderstood or overlooked by society are seeking a sense of community online. Some find it in groups within the manosphere, where men share a preoccupation with the so-called crisis of masculinity and a common conviction: that feminism has systematically disadvantaged men. “The manosphere offers boys and young men belonging, identity and an explanation for why life feels hard,” said Sarah Hawkes, co-founder of the think tank Global 50/50 and co-author of the report. However, the sense of belonging these communities offer can come at a cost. The manosphere — a loose network of online communities that claim to address men’s struggles while often blaming women and feminism — causes underrecognised harm to health and should be addressed through social and economic policies, requiring a coordinated response, according to a new Lancet report. The harm caused to boys and men, women and girls and wider society includes social isolation, reluctance to seek mental health care and gender-based violence. Reducing these risks requires tackling the societal and economic conditions, commercial structures and social norms that sustain the manosphere's appeal. This could include tackling economic insecurity through employment and social protection policies, encouraging boys to re-engage with education, and improving access to mental health support and other essential services for boys and young men. Therefore, the report argues that content moderation alone is insufficient: restricting manosphere content does nothing to address the unmet needs that make its explanations attractive in the first place. “We need to offer boys something better, not just tell them what to avoid,” Hawkes said. The report also highlights broader challenges facing boys and men. Boys are increasingly disengaging from education systems, while men are over-represented in suicide statistics and incarceration rates. In health and social care, men and boys — particularly those marginalised by social and structural factors — experience substantial unmet needs that are not adequately addressed by existing policies, systems and services. The manosphere operates with clear hierarchies of masculinity that are “mainly based on physical attractiveness and socioeconomic status”, the authors wrote. Idealised representations of the male body, including low body fat, muscularity and hypermasculine features, are widely circulated online and have been linked to mental health harms, such as body dissatisfaction and psychological distress. Incentives behind the manosphere The authors also point to the commercial incentives behind the manosphere, arguing that maintaining these online communities can be a lucrative model. “Boys and men are not the problem,” said Kent Buse, co-author of the report. “The problem is the conditions that leave them isolated and without a secure future, and the companies that profit from their anger and insecurity.” He added that the manosphere operates as a business model that exploits outrage and grievance, rewarding the most extreme content. Beyond the manosphere, public health strategies have been used to address complex issues such as gender-based violence and drug use by tackling their root causes, challenging stigma, improving access to support services and shifting public attitudes, rather than relying mainly on punishment and law enforcement. A similar approach should be applied to the manosphere, authors argued. “Public health has a tested toolkit for commercial harms and we should use it,” Buse added.