Academics are calling for the so-called manosphere to be treated as a public health threat, arguing that the online harms it fuels should be confronted with tactics once used against the tobacco industry.
In a new report, the authors described the manosphere as “a diffuse commercial ecosystem and loose collection of online communities united by shared beliefs about masculinity, misogyny and male victimisation”.
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They said the movement, built around claims of a “crisis of masculinity” and the belief that feminism has systematically disadvantaged men, was contributing to a range of health-related harms.
Those harms include violence against women and girls, mental health problems and the “delegitimising” of boys and men who seek support.
The report, published in the medical journal The Lancet, said: “Similar to the tobacco and ultra processed food industries, content creators and hosting platforms deploy strategies that individualise responsibility.
“Men’s problems are framed as the result of feminism rather than structural conditions, and masculine identity is commodified through products and paid content that normalise and reinforce health-harming and performance-oriented masculinities.
“Efforts to regulate or moderate content are frequently framed as threats to men’s autonomy, restricting political space for intervention.”
The authors said problems including educational marginalisation, social exclusion and isolation among boys and young men needed to be tackled through a range of measures.
They called for greater employment opportunities, skills programmes to improve access to work, efforts to reconnect boys with education and “equitable access to mental health and other frontline health services” designed to reach them.
The authors argued the manosphere ‘is best understood and addressed as a public health problem’
The report said governments, schools, health services and community organisations should work together to address the manosphere, using the same coordinated approach applied to other public health risks.
Communication campaigns, it suggested, should avoid “framing masculinity as inherently toxic or boys and men as inherently problematic”. Regulation should instead target online platforms rather than users, in much the same way that tobacco advertising aimed at children is prohibited without criminalising smokers.
The authors said the manosphere “is best understood and addressed as a public health problem”.
They recommended “strengthening existing content moderation to restrict harmful environments and harnessing the power of algorithms to promote positive messaging and norms alongside regulation of the structural features that sustain harm”.
Professor Sarah Hawkes, a report co-author and co-founder of the Global 50/50 social justice think tank, said: “The manosphere offers boys and young men belonging, identity and an explanation for why life feels hard.
“Those needs are real. A response that only removes the manosphere, without offering something credible in its place, will fail.
“We need to offer boys something better, not just tell them what to avoid.”
Fellow co-author Professor Kent Buse, who is affiliated with the Department of Global Population Health at Monash University Malaysia, said boys and men were not the problem. Instead, he pointed to the business model built around targeting them.
He said: “This is a business model, not a fringe. Outrage and grievance are good for business, so the system rewards the most extreme content.
“Expect the playbook that served tobacco so well: blame the individual and call regulation an attack on freedom.
“Public health has a tested toolkit for commercial harms and we should use it.”
Professor Buse said boys and men “are not the problem”, adding: “The problem is the conditions that leave them isolated and without a secure future, and the companies that profit from their anger and insecurity.”
The report concluded: “The harms to boys and men, to women and girls, and to wider society, provide a clear basis for action.
“Reducing these harms requires addressing the societal and economic conditions, commercial structures, and social norms that sustain the appeal of the manosphere.
“This is a political, legal, economic and social challenge demanding coordinated, sustained action on multiple fronts – a public health framing can unlock such an approach.”
‘Consider the wider environments’
Mark Brooks, of the Centre for Policy Research on Men and Boys charity, said: “We’re extremely pleased to see this report classifying this as a public health issue and making the really important point that men and boys are targets for online harms as well as women and girls.”
Mr Brooks said discussions about the manosphere “too often” portrayed men and boys as the problem while overlooking the wider economic, educational and cultural pressures that draw them towards such content.
Separate research, also published in The Lancet, examined the ways patriarchal expectations surrounding masculinity damage men’s health. It argued that online narratives focused on masculinity and male grievance were filling a gap created by a lack of support.
Professor Jim Catto, a urology specialist at the University of Sheffield and the paper’s author, said: “These findings highlight why we need to look beyond individual behaviour and consider the wider environments that shape men’s attitudes and actions.
“Tackling the online influence of the manosphere should be part of a broader public health conversation about how we support men and address the social factors affecting their health.”
Jake Richards, the British Minister for Human Rights with responsibility for Men and Boys, said: “This report lays bare the impact of toxic online influences and why action is needed now.
“This is not just an issue for men and boys – it is a wider societal challenge.
“As the first minister for men and boys, I’m determined to drive this issue up the national agenda, dismantle the manosphere, and give young men the opportunities and role models they need to thrive.
“This all goes hand-in-hand with our work to tackle violence against women and girls and create safer communities for everyone.”
