Max Bravo

ENC 1102
Literature Review

Throughout the past few years, there has been a lot of discussion about “the manosphere”, a

collection of different male personalities that seek to red pill the male population about topics such as

dating, education, and politics. The movement has various categories that its members are perceived as

such as incels, beta males, gamma males, and the focus of my research, alpha and sigma males. These two

“personalities” have been surging in popularity among men recently due to the likes of different

influencers and phenomena that have taken place. These influencers look to radicalize young men about

their beliefs on many topics such as women and society as a whole.

To understand how they use rhetoric to achieve their goals, it is important to understand some key

parts of the movement such as the differences between the personalities. It is also important to analyze

what mediums they use to spread their ideology so that I can find sources that properly cover the aspects

of the movement.

The Male Social Hierarchy

One question it is important to answer is how this whole idea of a social male hierarchy came about in the

first place. The original idea goes back to 1970 when David Mech published his book “The Wolf: The

Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species”. In his book, he shares observations he made about

wolf packs and how in each one there was one wolf who was dominant over the rest of the pack. It is

important to note, however, that Mech later corrected his observation stating that the dominant wolf was

often the breeding wolf and the parent of the pack. “However, in natural wolf packs, the alpha male and

female are merely the breeding animals, the parents of the pack, and dominance contests with other

wolves are rare, if they exist at all. During my 13 summers observing the Ellesmere Island pack, I saw

none. Thus, calling a wolf an alpha is usually no more appropriate than referring to a human parent or a
Max Bravo
ENC 1102
Literature Review
doe deer as an alpha” (Mech, 1198). Despite this correction, this did not stop people from applying the

idea of alpha males to humans and creating the male socio-sexual hierarchy.

The Effects of Alpha and Sigma Male Rhetoric on Men

The popularization of the male socio-sexual hierarchy and terms like alpha and sigma males has had a

plethora of effects on men particularly young impressionable men. “The political rhetoric of the

manosphere, by contrast, is almost exclusively dominated by evolutionary psychology, which relies

heavily on genetic determinism to explain male and female behaviors in relation to sexual selection”

(Ging). The evolutionary psychology referenced by Ging is that males want to spread their genes as far as

possible and therefore have sex with as many females as they can while females choose to be selective to

get the best genes for their offspring. This ideology is harmful to both men and women as it reduces

relationships between the two to be only about genetics and completely disregards everything else about

humans. In addition to this, many men in this movement tend to fit themselves into the hierarchy.

How the Manosphere Ideology has Evolved

The “Manosphere” has evolved a lot over the course of its lifespan in both its ideology and its medium of

communication. “Although the earliest traces of a men’s movement were clearly intended to work in

concert with that of women, it seems that as the women’s movement gathered steam and established a

dominance in the field of gender studies, the reaction of the men’s movement was to oppose its newfound

enemy. In the modern era, it seems the men’s movement has thoroughly grounded itself in that

perspective and, more importantly, grown beyond a fringe group unknown to the general populace” (Price

6). The movement is considered to be known as the men's rights movement and formed as a rebuttal to

the women's rights movement that was popular in the late 90s. In addition, while the discourse of the

manosphere used to take place in a real-life setting, it now lives almost exclusively online. “Our analysis

indicates that the newer communities in the Manosphere (Incels, MGTOW, and TRP) are more toxic and

misogynistic than the older ones (PUA, MRA), as theorized by previous literature” (Ribiero, 206). With
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ENC 1102
Literature Review
the movement now existing mostly online, it has led to more extreme beliefs due to the effects of online

echo chambers and internet anonymity.

Works Cited

Mech, L David. “Alpha Status, Dominance, and Division of Labor in Wolf Packs.” Canadian

Journal of Zoology, vol. 77, no. 8, 1 Nov. 1999, pp. 1196–1203, www.wolf.org/wp-

content/uploads/2013/09/267alphastatus_english.pdf, https://doi.org/10.1139/z99-099.
Max Bravo
ENC 1102
Literature Review
Ging, Debbie. “Alphas, Betas, and Incels: Theorizing the Masculinities of the

Manosphere.” Men and Masculinities, vol. 22, no. 4, 10 May 2017, pp. 638–657,

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1097184X17706401,

https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X17706401.

Price, Emily. “We Live in a Society: Violence and Radicalization in the Internet Manosphere.” Capstone

Showcase, 1 Jan. 2020, scholarworks.arcadia.edu/showcase/2020/soc_anth_cj/4/.

Ribeiro, Manoel Horta, et al. “The Evolution of the Manosphere across the Web.” Proceedings of the

International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, vol. 15, 22 May 2021, pp. 196–207,

ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/18053.