If We Want To Tackle Misogyny, We Must Not Demonise Boys

The phrase ‘protect our girls’ is increasingly prominent in debates about young people, social media and misogyny.

There are legitimate reasons for concern. Misogynistic content is widespread online and growing, raising important questions about how our 24/7 social media world is shaping our young people and what we do about it.

Recent cases of young men’s violence against girls – such as the sentencing of a 14-year-old boy in Gloucestershire who stabbed a girl after she refused to date him – illustrates how online and offline harm can intersect.

This comes at a time when Netflix’s Adolescence touched a nerve among the nation, prompting wider discussion among parents, schools and policymakers about boys, online harms, misogyny and masculinity.

On top of this, we’re seeing a new deeply concerning craze sweep through social media, in which gangs promote online ‘scoreboards’ and league tables on violence towards other gangs, turning criminal acts into a source of status or competition. Violence has become a way to “score points”.

Against this backdrop, many parents are asking what can we do to support our children? And what should government and tech be doing, too?

The government’s new taskforce to tackle the rise in misogyny is welcome, as a direct recognition that we have a problem. But it is so important that the response addresses the underlying causes and does not frame boys themselves as the problem.

That’s not to say that there aren’t boys who desperately need our support and intervention. But a sole focus on individual attitudes, behaviours and gender norms overlooks the wider environment in which those attitudes and actions develop: families, schools, communities, the mental health crisis, digital algorithms, and current youth unemployment.

Almost three-quarters of Gen Z social media young male users report seeing misogynistic content, with around half encountering it every week. In fact, Laura Bates, founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, tested this for her recent book. When researchers set up a TikTok account posing as a teenage boy, they found it took less than 30 minutes on average for extreme misogynistic content to be promoted to the timeline. 

Boys do not have to go looking for this material. It is proactively finding many of them. Harmful ideas can be embedded within mainstream content they already consume about fitness, gaming, relationships and self-improvement, before being repeatedly recommended and amplified by algorithms. If we assume that it’s all about boys seeking this out, we miss an important part of the problem. 

But policing or removing harmful content alone will not be enough.

My work and research on this topic for decades has convinced me that we need a roadmap that addresses the different influences and environments shaping boys’ lives. This is what Men and Policy’s new report, Reconnecting Boys and Young Men, does. Otherwise, we will forever be chasing our tails.

What needs to change?

Addressing this challenge means strengthening relationships, improved sex and health education at schools, and giving parents better support to talk to their children about their relationships, pornography, online harms and masculinity.

It also means investing in training for teachers, youth workers, coaches and other trusted adults who can provide boys with positive support and guidance.

We need to demand greater accountability from technology companies, which need to: take action to prevent algorithms amplifying and monetising misogynistic material; make Ofcom’s violence against women and girls guidance mandatory; and add meaningful controls that allow users to reset, curate or opt out of recommended content. 

At the same time, we need to give boys something positive to move towards, not simply tell them what to avoid. That means improving local safe, prosocial spaces such as youth centres, sports, mentoring and community programmes.

Whilst harmful, online communities can bring a sense of belonging, identity and often hope for young men, we need to create alternative places that provide connection, purpose and recognition without reinforcing sexism or restrictive ideas about masculinity.

This must be combined with specifically targeted interventions to address the number of young men out of education, employment or training (NEETs).

Mental health is a huge problem too. Investment in early mental health support for young people is crucial. Too many young men and boys are dying by suicide, and we need to intervene in meaningful and preventable ways.

When we come together as a community to reach boys and address the underlying causes of misogyny, then we can start to turn the tide on it.

It requires coordinated action across families, schools, technology companies, mental health services, communities and employment support. It requires not just understanding the harms to women and girls, but also the challenges facing young men and boys.

But we can’t do this by halves; we have to support boys and not demonise them, and we need to do this now. 

Dr Tim Shand is a global health and gender equality advocate from Men and Policy, and author of The Reconnecting Boys and Young Men report.