This documentary raises important concerns, but I suspect we need to look deeper than the surface narrative.
When movements like the “manosphere” gain traction, it is rarely just about the ideology itself. More often it signals that something in the wider cultural environment has fallen out of balance.
Many young men today are navigating a world where traditional reference points around identity, responsibility and purpose have shifted dramatically, yet few constructive alternatives have taken their place.
When that vacuum exists, simplified narratives about power and status inevitably become attractive.
In my work exploring what I call Emotional Architecture — the hidden structures that shape behaviour within individuals, organisations and societies — I often see that what appears as ideological conflict is actually a signal that the underlying environment needs redesigning.
The deeper work may be rebuilding environments where both men and women can develop dignity, emotional maturity and mutual respect.
Otherwise we risk continuing to argue about the symptoms rather than addressing the conditions that produce them.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. So Called documentaries like this always address the surface level issues and don’t go deeper into causation. They are designed to push a certain narrative and I don’t understand why any of those men agreed to be in the show. They all seem broken and all shows like this do is exploit their brokeness.
Thank you for writing this article, it is such an important discussion for us to have with our sons as well as our daughters for that matter. It also raises so many important questions such as ‘how do we tackle it’ and ‘where do we focus’, none of which are binary or straightforward.
On the one hand we have the online world, probably the most compelling medium for the escalation of this content due to its unprecedented reach. Prior to the internet, young boys had their parents, family and immediate friends as their influencers, now they have glamorous, power posing men from all over the world portraying what most insecure boys and adolescents think are 'success' criteria for being a man; having money, women, admiration etc beamed into their bedrooms, sitting rooms, downtime 24/7. As you say, tell someone something enough times without an equal alternative perspective and their perception can soon become their reality.
These are, in my personal opinion, men who have not moved with the times. They’re men who hark back to previous times and generations where men got their sense of Self from their muscle mass (look how big and strong I am, that must make me manly and attractive) or their bank balance (look how rich I am, that must make me manly and attractive).
Both perspectives risk exposing a root limiting belief along the lines of either ‘I am not enough’ (as I am) and ‘I am not lovable’ (for who I am). Put another way, my muscle mass can physically dominate you so you’ll become submissive to my wants and my bank account will create financial dependency for you on me so you’ll become submissive to what I want.
Why I think this is a reflection of me because this is the man I grew up to become having been raised in a highly patriarchal environment and culture in the north of England in the 1970s and 80s at the hands of a highly emotionally, physically and financially abusive father and subservient mother, it’s what I grew up believing was normal.
Thus, it is my personal experience that points me towards seeing the problem these men now face as:
‘The manosphere exists because many men have lost a healthy sense of identity and purpose in a changing world’.
Women can become as physically strong as they are, allowing for the age old belief that a woman can never be as strong as a man based on physiology. They can be financially as and even more successful than them now and most certainly financially independent.
So…what is the purpose of a man now?
This appears to be the problem statement these boys and adolescents trapped inside adult male bodies are facing. Society’s challenge is that no-one has equipped them to deal with it nor is it protecting those vulnerable recipients of this portrayal.
The men in question are not prepared or willing to address it by looking beyond their desperate need to keep what they believe is their divine right. Their yearning for power, money and domination is everything we need to see to understand that they are indeed emotionally no older than a boy or teenager. So what do we do?
How do we replace the need for multiple and submissive partners with the realisation that a deeply loving relationship can provide us with more than the others ever could. One is generally fuelled by chronic insecurity and lack of self-worth, whilst the other is generally fuelled by self-awareness, self-acceptance and self-worth. Sweeping statements granted.
Education is too simple and, when we look at the world’s education systems, generally lacking in any powerful influence; why believe a teacher when I could believe a rich, powerful looking man draped in attractive looking women? It has a part to play for sure but I’d argue that this needs to happen at home within the family dynamic. Parents need to make the time for these discussions rather than either lecturing their children or ignoring them and hoping the problem will go away.
Male role models are essential, equally powerful and successful men living the values, garnering the visibility and respect of the very audiences these young men wish to attract and be attractive to, showing them how to become the quality of man they so desperately seek to be but without any healthy idea of how. Young boys need to be exposed to this calibre of man and young girls also do, so they too can learn what healthy male behaviour looks like.
Female role models are essential, equally powerful and successful women living the lives they wish to live as not only the quality of woman these young men wish to attract and be attractive to but also showing young girls that they absolutely do not have to put up with anything less than being treated respectfully.
I think it is fair to say that there are more dynamic, successful and amazing female role models out there in the world currently than there are male equivalents. Men need to step up MUCH more.
The patriarchy damages both boys and men and also girls and women. It is my life’s purpose to support the dismantling of it. This is everyone’s responsibility but especially men’s. Both genders are needed to support and change the world and more female leaders in our communities, companies and governments is a start, a shout out goes to Iceland and Finland as leading examples or promoting more women leaders.
As always, it comes down to balance and we live in a world that is very out of balance currently. Each and every one of us can play our part in restoring or working towards a more balanced world, even if, or especially if, it appears too big and overwhelming. That’s the point. We must do this in spite of it appearing overwhelming so that it ceases to remain that.
So the question we can all ask ourselves is ‘what am I doing today to make a difference to this dynamic? Am I:
• Refusing to be in a relationship with a man who does not treat me respectfully
• Calling fellow men out when they’re sexist, disrespectful or misogynistic
• Changing my behaviours to reflect my unwillingness to play this game anymore’
Thank you for writing this piece, I didn’t know I was going to write a response like this until I read it!
I a mum of two boys and this is something that I have thought about a lot. I am very mindful of the role models my boys have, especially as they head into the teenage years, and my parenting. It’s a lot but I look at the boys around them and the mothers that raise those boys and am so, so thankful. I know their bubble will grow and my control will lessen and I can only hope I’ve raised them in an empowering and safe way and them and their friends can counter the toxic masculinity that’s out there
"I’m angry for the young women who will be forced to deal with the dangerous consequences. And I'm disappointed that, somehow, this is where we are again."
This accurately sums up the disappointment and exhaustion I feel as a woman so thanks for writing this! I'm glad you mentioned how these issues affect young men too. I work with little kids and seeing how kind and gentle the toddler boys are makes me sad about how the world could possibly change them.
I watched this a couple nights ago and my husband eventually got up and left. He couldn’t listen to any more of the “bro code” rhetoric. He’s one of the good ones but he also doesn’t understand that not all men were raised like him.
I watched this last night and couldn’t look away—like a terrible car crash. One big realization I had about the men being interviewed is that they quickly fold when pushed by Theroux. It’s easy to “speak the truth” when you’re staring into a monitor with a mic, with no credible person pushing back. This is why they avoid mainstream media because they know they’ll need to answer follow up questions.
"Another thing that frightens me is the sheer volume of content people like this are producing. If you are ‘doomscrolling,’ as so many teens and young men are, it would be almost impossible to avoid it entirely - and once you hear something often enough, what stops it starting to sink in?"
I've been saying this for years about the alphabet people game plan.
What struck me most in your piece is this line: "Across the entire documentary there is barely a single moment where these men describe liking a woman for who she is." That's the core of it. These ideologies exist to justify treating women as objects to film without consent, to profile without permission, to control without question.
I'd add one layer though the real problem isn't only these individual influencers, it's the platforms algorithmically amplifying them.
YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook profit from engagement, and extremist content drives engagement. These platforms have the data and the power to intervene, yet they choose not to at meaningful scale. That's where accountability needs to focus.
As a men, father, husband, citizen and individual, this shows something needs to be addressed in our society, these man seem to be suffering by some void in their lives, now filled with these dangerous ideologies. I will not discard that some of them are dangerous people, taking advantage, that simply believe in their narratives and use aggression among other assumptions to make their own reality. But I do believe through education and making these platforms accountable, is some of the steps we need to take, among others.
The documentary simply didn’t go deep enough. It showed the problem but left us to piece together what that actually means… I also wrote about it last week and explained what can result from the things we saw in the documentary
(e.g. one of the highest risk factors for relationship violence is female submission)
The thing that stood out to me about this is, how are these people allowed to have a platform? It’s not freedom of speech, it’s bullying and hate speech. Growing up in South Africa I know a bit about what hate looks like, and no one wins when someone is being suppressed. Wounded boys like this ‘I refuse to call them men’ have always existed - the scary part is that now they can spread misinformation without anyone holding them accountable and as you point out the one’s that are most impacted are the kids who watch it and think it’s real.
Thank you for writing that and I think every interaction with the movie or with those men realities gives them power and their aim is us to be scared. Netflix is contributing to that fear and promoting those people. Energetically we need to distance ourselves !
This documentary raises important concerns, but I suspect we need to look deeper than the surface narrative.
When movements like the “manosphere” gain traction, it is rarely just about the ideology itself. More often it signals that something in the wider cultural environment has fallen out of balance.
Many young men today are navigating a world where traditional reference points around identity, responsibility and purpose have shifted dramatically, yet few constructive alternatives have taken their place.
When that vacuum exists, simplified narratives about power and status inevitably become attractive.
In my work exploring what I call Emotional Architecture — the hidden structures that shape behaviour within individuals, organisations and societies — I often see that what appears as ideological conflict is actually a signal that the underlying environment needs redesigning.
The deeper work may be rebuilding environments where both men and women can develop dignity, emotional maturity and mutual respect.
Otherwise we risk continuing to argue about the symptoms rather than addressing the conditions that produce them.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. So Called documentaries like this always address the surface level issues and don’t go deeper into causation. They are designed to push a certain narrative and I don’t understand why any of those men agreed to be in the show. They all seem broken and all shows like this do is exploit their brokeness.
As a mother of two boys, this infuriates me.
I am working to create empathetic, strong-willed, respectful young men who will see their priviledge as responsibility instead of a right.
This makes me so fearful. Thank you for writing about it.
Thank you for writing this article, it is such an important discussion for us to have with our sons as well as our daughters for that matter. It also raises so many important questions such as ‘how do we tackle it’ and ‘where do we focus’, none of which are binary or straightforward.
On the one hand we have the online world, probably the most compelling medium for the escalation of this content due to its unprecedented reach. Prior to the internet, young boys had their parents, family and immediate friends as their influencers, now they have glamorous, power posing men from all over the world portraying what most insecure boys and adolescents think are 'success' criteria for being a man; having money, women, admiration etc beamed into their bedrooms, sitting rooms, downtime 24/7. As you say, tell someone something enough times without an equal alternative perspective and their perception can soon become their reality.
These are, in my personal opinion, men who have not moved with the times. They’re men who hark back to previous times and generations where men got their sense of Self from their muscle mass (look how big and strong I am, that must make me manly and attractive) or their bank balance (look how rich I am, that must make me manly and attractive).
Both perspectives risk exposing a root limiting belief along the lines of either ‘I am not enough’ (as I am) and ‘I am not lovable’ (for who I am). Put another way, my muscle mass can physically dominate you so you’ll become submissive to my wants and my bank account will create financial dependency for you on me so you’ll become submissive to what I want.
Why I think this is a reflection of me because this is the man I grew up to become having been raised in a highly patriarchal environment and culture in the north of England in the 1970s and 80s at the hands of a highly emotionally, physically and financially abusive father and subservient mother, it’s what I grew up believing was normal.
Thus, it is my personal experience that points me towards seeing the problem these men now face as:
‘The manosphere exists because many men have lost a healthy sense of identity and purpose in a changing world’.
Women can become as physically strong as they are, allowing for the age old belief that a woman can never be as strong as a man based on physiology. They can be financially as and even more successful than them now and most certainly financially independent.
So…what is the purpose of a man now?
This appears to be the problem statement these boys and adolescents trapped inside adult male bodies are facing. Society’s challenge is that no-one has equipped them to deal with it nor is it protecting those vulnerable recipients of this portrayal.
The men in question are not prepared or willing to address it by looking beyond their desperate need to keep what they believe is their divine right. Their yearning for power, money and domination is everything we need to see to understand that they are indeed emotionally no older than a boy or teenager. So what do we do?
How do we replace the need for multiple and submissive partners with the realisation that a deeply loving relationship can provide us with more than the others ever could. One is generally fuelled by chronic insecurity and lack of self-worth, whilst the other is generally fuelled by self-awareness, self-acceptance and self-worth. Sweeping statements granted.
Education is too simple and, when we look at the world’s education systems, generally lacking in any powerful influence; why believe a teacher when I could believe a rich, powerful looking man draped in attractive looking women? It has a part to play for sure but I’d argue that this needs to happen at home within the family dynamic. Parents need to make the time for these discussions rather than either lecturing their children or ignoring them and hoping the problem will go away.
Male role models are essential, equally powerful and successful men living the values, garnering the visibility and respect of the very audiences these young men wish to attract and be attractive to, showing them how to become the quality of man they so desperately seek to be but without any healthy idea of how. Young boys need to be exposed to this calibre of man and young girls also do, so they too can learn what healthy male behaviour looks like.
Female role models are essential, equally powerful and successful women living the lives they wish to live as not only the quality of woman these young men wish to attract and be attractive to but also showing young girls that they absolutely do not have to put up with anything less than being treated respectfully.
I think it is fair to say that there are more dynamic, successful and amazing female role models out there in the world currently than there are male equivalents. Men need to step up MUCH more.
The patriarchy damages both boys and men and also girls and women. It is my life’s purpose to support the dismantling of it. This is everyone’s responsibility but especially men’s. Both genders are needed to support and change the world and more female leaders in our communities, companies and governments is a start, a shout out goes to Iceland and Finland as leading examples or promoting more women leaders.
As always, it comes down to balance and we live in a world that is very out of balance currently. Each and every one of us can play our part in restoring or working towards a more balanced world, even if, or especially if, it appears too big and overwhelming. That’s the point. We must do this in spite of it appearing overwhelming so that it ceases to remain that.
So the question we can all ask ourselves is ‘what am I doing today to make a difference to this dynamic? Am I:
• Refusing to be in a relationship with a man who does not treat me respectfully
• Calling fellow men out when they’re sexist, disrespectful or misogynistic
• Changing my behaviours to reflect my unwillingness to play this game anymore’
Thank you for writing this piece, I didn’t know I was going to write a response like this until I read it!
I a mum of two boys and this is something that I have thought about a lot. I am very mindful of the role models my boys have, especially as they head into the teenage years, and my parenting. It’s a lot but I look at the boys around them and the mothers that raise those boys and am so, so thankful. I know their bubble will grow and my control will lessen and I can only hope I’ve raised them in an empowering and safe way and them and their friends can counter the toxic masculinity that’s out there
"I’m angry for the young women who will be forced to deal with the dangerous consequences. And I'm disappointed that, somehow, this is where we are again."
This accurately sums up the disappointment and exhaustion I feel as a woman so thanks for writing this! I'm glad you mentioned how these issues affect young men too. I work with little kids and seeing how kind and gentle the toddler boys are makes me sad about how the world could possibly change them.
I watched this a couple nights ago and my husband eventually got up and left. He couldn’t listen to any more of the “bro code” rhetoric. He’s one of the good ones but he also doesn’t understand that not all men were raised like him.
I watched this last night and couldn’t look away—like a terrible car crash. One big realization I had about the men being interviewed is that they quickly fold when pushed by Theroux. It’s easy to “speak the truth” when you’re staring into a monitor with a mic, with no credible person pushing back. This is why they avoid mainstream media because they know they’ll need to answer follow up questions.
That is truly horrifying. If 31% of men think that wives should obey, I guess the dating pool for my daughters just shrunk by a third.
"Another thing that frightens me is the sheer volume of content people like this are producing. If you are ‘doomscrolling,’ as so many teens and young men are, it would be almost impossible to avoid it entirely - and once you hear something often enough, what stops it starting to sink in?"
I've been saying this for years about the alphabet people game plan.
Oh my good 😵💫I’m not sure I can watch it, maybe need to though it’s going on and we can’t just close our eyes 👀
I can't wait to watch this, thanks so much for sharing!
What struck me most in your piece is this line: "Across the entire documentary there is barely a single moment where these men describe liking a woman for who she is." That's the core of it. These ideologies exist to justify treating women as objects to film without consent, to profile without permission, to control without question.
I'd add one layer though the real problem isn't only these individual influencers, it's the platforms algorithmically amplifying them.
YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook profit from engagement, and extremist content drives engagement. These platforms have the data and the power to intervene, yet they choose not to at meaningful scale. That's where accountability needs to focus.
As a men, father, husband, citizen and individual, this shows something needs to be addressed in our society, these man seem to be suffering by some void in their lives, now filled with these dangerous ideologies. I will not discard that some of them are dangerous people, taking advantage, that simply believe in their narratives and use aggression among other assumptions to make their own reality. But I do believe through education and making these platforms accountable, is some of the steps we need to take, among others.
The documentary simply didn’t go deep enough. It showed the problem but left us to piece together what that actually means… I also wrote about it last week and explained what can result from the things we saw in the documentary
(e.g. one of the highest risk factors for relationship violence is female submission)
The thing that stood out to me about this is, how are these people allowed to have a platform? It’s not freedom of speech, it’s bullying and hate speech. Growing up in South Africa I know a bit about what hate looks like, and no one wins when someone is being suppressed. Wounded boys like this ‘I refuse to call them men’ have always existed - the scary part is that now they can spread misinformation without anyone holding them accountable and as you point out the one’s that are most impacted are the kids who watch it and think it’s real.
Thank you for writing that and I think every interaction with the movie or with those men realities gives them power and their aim is us to be scared. Netflix is contributing to that fear and promoting those people. Energetically we need to distance ourselves !