My teenage son has become a manosphere ‘bro’, what can I do?

“From one day to the next, without realizing it, my teenage son began to change the way he dressed and spoke. He started training daily in the gym and used expressions that we didn’t understand at first: bro, fucking looser, burpees… He even talked about the crypto world, when at home we have never made references to that.” Pamela is the mother of a 14-year-old boy, a teenager who a few months ago undertook a change that at first seemed typical of his age. What began to worry her mother were the first references to sexist and misogynistic ideas: “One day, talking about her high school classmates, she referred to some of them in a derogatory tone because they had had sexual relations with several boys. Although he didn’t say it clearly, he let it slip that they had less value because they weren’t ‘virgins’, and that really set off all the alarms for me,” says Pamela.

Speaking with their son, they learned that he was consuming content in the so-called machosphere or manosphere, the online community that embraces anti-feminist and misogynistic discourses. This is what psychologists Isa Duque and Fran Jódar define in a chapter of their new book Accompanying the new generations in the age of screens (Ink Cloud, 2024). “[La machosfera] “It is a conglomerate of masculinist digital subcultures hosted in digital spaces – forums, websites, chats, YouTube, Facebook… – characterized by a misogynistic, anti-feminist and victimist discourse,” the authors explain. Both Duque and Jódar are psychologists specialized in adolescence, who address in their book the need to accompany young people in digital spaces, without judging them or alarming them and building intergenerational ties.

Upon finding out that her son was attracted to this whole digital context, Pamela had to make an effort not to get angry and seek professional support. “At first I got nervous, because I have made a lot of effort to give him an equal education. But I have worked on it with my psychologist and I assume that it is his way of searching for his own identity, in some way opposite to ours, and that I cannot confront him all the time. “I’m trying to get closer to him through the gaps he leaves me, offer him alternatives and contrast all the misogynistic discourse he consumes with other types of ideas,” he says.

If we demonize screens and the content they consume, they will automatically label us as boomers and never pay attention to us again. We have to know in depth the streamers, YouTubers and influencers they follow

Fran Jodar
— adolescent psychologist

That is exactly what Isa Duque proposes, who is also known on her social networks as The Psycho Womanand who works daily with young people and adolescents. “To those mothers, fathers or feminist teachers, who suddenly see that children and adolescents are full of this type of sexist discourse, I always tell them to do the same thing that they would have liked to be done with them when they were their age: accompany them with compression and affection, have a lot of patience. And go beyond what is seen, because in the end this type of behavior is a symptom that something deeper is happening to them, which has to do with their context of uncertainty and their search for identity and belonging to the group.” , assures Duque.

Fran Jódar believes that we must also shake off adultcentrism and Juvenophobia and know in depth what they like: “If we demonize the screens and the content they consume, they will automatically label us as boomers and they will never pay attention to us again. We have to know in depth the streamers, youtubers and influencers For those who follow, control their formats and codes to connect with them, validate them and show them interest in what they like; From there, we will be able to offer them other types of content to compare.”

The success that the manosphere has among young people, and especially among boys, is due to the fact that they offer an emotional space and identity security at a time when criticism of masculinity is fallaciously presented as a feminist attack.

Ivan Gombel
— historian and doctor in gender studies

In addition, he proposes starting early to establish healthy patterns of consumption of digital content: “We do not have to wait until adolescence to address these types of issues, but rather we must begin to establish good digital habits from an early age. And for that, as adults, we need to have previously trained ourselves, review our prejudices and biases and carry out this accompaniment throughout the different evolutionary stages,” he explains.

Construction of masculinity

Iván Gombel is a historian and doctor in gender studies, specialized in masculinities. He understands that adolescents and young people seek to socialize in this type of spaces: “The success that the manosphere has among young people, and especially among boys, is due to the fact that they offer an emotional space and identity security at a time when The criticism of masculinity is fallaciously presented as a feminist attack. They are very problematic ideas because they define the way in which that person is going to relate to others. Building who you are from machismo, hate speech and emotional repression is chaining yourself and limiting your own life, but it is also assuming a very violent position in society,” explains this expert.

Gombel proposes avoiding direct confrontations to address this type of situation as a family: “If our child feels challenged by the discourses of the manosphere, the first thing would be to understand why, what draws his attention, what emotions it stirs in him and what he finds They are offering these spaces. Sometimes it is complicated, because we have to listen to things that we don’t like and we immediately question ourselves as parents. The important thing is not to get into a war, to offer other perspectives, not to fall into a direct confrontation that will only distance us,” he says.

On social networks there are also people who are creating wonderful content that goes very against this type of misogynistic discourse, and we can use them to counteract. We also have to talk to you about the lies of these influencers, who perhaps say that they have I don’t know how many luxury cars and it turns out that they have rented them to make that video

Isa Duque
— psychologist

Although for him there are no “magic recipes” in egalitarian parenting, there is room for action for families: “We have to integrate an educational vision from childhood, because what is much more difficult for it to work is wanting to start conversations when they are teenagers. . We do it exactly the same with sexual education: we don’t touch the topic until a moment when we find it face to face and we don’t know how to approach it. The best thing we can do to prevent the generation of sexist behavior is to serve as egalitarian models, teach them the importance of respectful coexistence, encourage them to break gender stereotypes and understand the injustices that occur in their environment. We have to educate them to be part of responsible citizenship, to also be agents of change,” says this expert.

The psychologist Isa Duque expands the repertoire of tools to offer them: teach them positive references, dismantle the lies of this type of speech and use humor. “On social networks there are also people who are creating wonderful content that goes very against this type of misogynistic discourse, and we can use them to counteract. We also have to talk to you about the lies of these influencers, who perhaps say that they have I don’t know how many luxury cars and it turns out that they have rented them to make that video. And use humor, for example, I sometimes talk to the teenagers who come to my workshops like the supposed gurus of seduction, exaggerating the tone they use, and that’s when they see that it’s quite a joke. fake”Duke proposes.