Helen Lewis

Why?

So many other things that you would never have thought would come back have come back.

This idea that there are sort of subhumans, you know, you find them all that so often in the kind of right-wing and non-discourse on things like X.

I mean, that's why it's appealing, because it's saying if you are alive today and unhappy, it's because of modernity.

And it may be any other number of other things, but it gives, you know, it specifically addresses itself to people who are alienated by society in whatever way it might be and latches onto that.

You know, who does someone like Andrew Tate appeal to, to go back to the kind of broader manosphere?

It's actually young teenage boys, right?

It's actually at that period of age where you're getting all these messages about how men are patriarchs and toxic masculinity and blah, blah, blah.

But you are maybe small and frightened and you don't really know if you're going to have any friends or girls are going to want to date you.

It preys on people at the most insecure moments of their life.

For a long time, the men's rights internet was specifically aimed itself to recent divorcees who were also absolutely primed to hear some thoughts about how women are pretty awful.

And I think that is really sad because that's the bit where I find these people quite predatory if they are taking people who have got genuine personal problems and supplying a kind of ready-made bad guy for them to fixate onto, which is probably not going to go anywhere.

What can you do about these things if you think that the world is rigged against you?

This is funny because they all believe very much in having agency.

But if you feel that the world is this gynocracy...

then, like, how?

How are you supposed to navigate that?

You just keep consuming more of their content and kind of wallowing in your own stew.

Helen Andrews writes for Compact magazine.

And the argument with that, it starts with Larry Summers being outed from president of Harvard in the 2000s.