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Research Paper
Research Paper
Intro
Since the dawn of feminism in the late 20th century, there has been pushback from men who feel that
women are below men and shouldn’t have the same rights. Back in the day these movements such as the
Men's Rights movement and Men's Liberation movement were somewhat small and did not have a
powerful role in society. Today however, with the rise of the internet and social media, many of these
“manosphere” activists have began to amass a large following on platforms such as YouTube and
Instagram and have began spreading negative messages towards young men.
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
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 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.
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
the movement now existing mostly online, it has led to more extreme beliefs due to the effects of online
Methods
For my research, I decided to watch many clips ranging from 30 seconds to 20 minutes from multiple
different popular content creators in the “manosphere” space. These content creators include “Whatever
Podcast”, “Bloke Box”, “Wise Thinker”, and “Alpha Male Strategies”. In order to analyze these videos, I
looked at the thumbnail and title as well as watched the videos and did a rhetorical analysis on the main
Results
Conclusion
Works Cited