New research could help prevent young men being radicalised by online misogyny
Community Justice Scotland’s Learning, Development and Innovation Lead Gael Cochrane explains her role in research for the report Many Good Men which explores young Scots’ experiences of online misogyny to help prevent extremist views developing
Extreme misogyny is not new, but the digital world has led to an increase in men expressing a hatred for women and girls and seeking to justify violence against them. The internet makes it possible for these misogynistic views to spread and young men can be targeted in attempts to radicalise them into extreme beliefs. This is a growing concern in Scotland so the organisations Civic Digits and Zero Tolerance commissioned research to explore young Scottish men’s and women’s experiences and views of ‘incel culture’. Incel – meaning involuntary celibate – is a term referring to mostly white, heterosexual men who aren’t able to find a partner so blame and denigrate women as a result. The incel community is one part of a wider online network known as the ‘manosphere’.
As well as my current work in learning and development and restorative justice I have a background in working with young people so I was invited to take part in carrying out the research and group work. While colleagues worked with young men, my role was to work with a group of young women to find out about their experience of online misogyny to discover how to support parents, youth workers, teachers and other young people to help prevent young men from being radicalised. This could help keep more women and girls safe by preventing young men from potentially harming women and going into the justice system.
The conclusion of the project (so far) was running a forum theatre show with scripts developed by the young people and featuring actors which was staged at Hearts Football Club in February 2024. This was for young people and professionals from schools and youth groups to raise awareness of the issues. The findings from this work have now been published in the report Many Good Men.
The background to this work has been research showing a change in the way boys talk about women and an increase in sexual offending by boys against girls.
Author and activist Laura Bates has explored sexism in schools and in her book Men Who Hate Women: The Extremism Nobody is Talking About (2020), she described how she’s noticed a change since 2018 in how boys talked about sexism, becoming more angry and resistant. I’ve also noticed how social media appears to have had an impact on how men view women – particularly over the last five years.
Research carried out with young people would suggest that sexual offending is on the rise but is unreported and it is linked with abuse in relationships. The Girl Guides attitudes survey 2018 revealed 30 per cent of girls have experienced – or know someone who has experienced – rape or sexual assault, 27 per cent control or bullying from a partner, 23 per cent violence from a partner and 21 per cent threats of sexual violence.
Data published in September 2015 showed that 5,500 sexual offences were recorded in UK schools over a three-year period, including 600 rapes. A 2010 YouGov poll of 16–18 year olds found 29 per cent of girls experienced unwanted inappropriate touching at school and a further 71% of 16–18-year-olds said they heard sexual name-calling towards girls at school daily or a few times per week. I suspect that this situation is now significantly worse.
Ofsted’s review in June 2020 of sexual harassment in schools revealed how prevalent sexual harassment and online sexual abuse are for children and young people. It is concerning that for some children, incidents are so commonplace that they see no point in reporting them. Almost 90 per cent of girls, and nearly 50 per cent of boys, said being sent explicit pictures or videos of things they did not want to see happens a lot or sometimes to them or their peers. Children and young people said sexual harassment occurs so frequently that it had become ‘commonplace’.
A recent study in England and Wales (January 2024) found that 50 per cent of perpetrators against young people are also young people. Potential offenders were aged under 18 in more than half of all reported child abuse cases, according to analysis.
The work on Many Good Men was about having conversations with young people to understand their experiences and get them thinking and questioning what is going on around them in this country and around the world. And it was to help boys and girls try to understand what the other experiences differently. It is hoped this work will help those working with young people to raise these types of conversations.
From my work in the research I was struck by the differences between girls’ and boys’ perceptions of what is happening around online misogyny. Girls were more aware than the boys of misogynist behaviour. Some of the boys viewed Andrew Tate for instance as a motivational speaker giving advice to men. The girls were much more aware of the darker side of what was happening.
I wasn’t previously fully aware of how some of the algorithms work online if you search for terms such as ‘feminism’ for instance where you can be directed towards anti-women sites.
We know that men are responsible for most violence against women. It’s not all men, but a small amount of men do terrible things and it’s not helpful to pretend this doesn’t happen. This wasn’t about making boys feel shame for being male – it was about working with them to raise awareness and discuss how they can make a difference.
The problems around misogyny have been fuelled by online access through smart phones and also access to online pornography which can include sexual violence and coercion when depicting male and female roles.
The report calls for the regulation of online platforms to reduce the amount of harmful content and prevent algorithms from promoting it. It also calls for a need to tackle gender inequality as this can lie at the root of men’s violence against women and girls.
But there is hope that young men can be supported away from extreme misogyny. There is still hope for change. It’s important to raise these issues with young people and to challenge beliefs and thoughts around misogyny so they think critically about what they see, otherwise these will carry on into unhealthy relationships.