Claudia Young

Thesis

The "mainstreaming" of the manosphere

The ‘manosphere’ is a group of interconnected communities that, while disparate in the specificities of their beliefs, are united by their anti-feminist and misogynistic ideology. However, while its constituent communities are largely regarded as fringe groups or subcultures, their anti-feminist ideology has begun to rapidly spread beyond the already-amorphous boundaries of the manosphere and into the ‘mainstream’. Using four manosphere influencer case studies (Jordan Peterson, Andrew Tate, Estee Williams, and Pearl Davis), this project aims to better understand why and how the manosphere has ‘gone mainstream,’ and contribute to a larger body of research that attempts to mitigate the risks associated with far-right anti-feminist communities.