November 14, 2024 • 22 mins
People respond to election losses in various ways, from protesting to legal action to considering moving country.
But, what about adopting a vow of celibacy through something called the “4B movement”?
That’s what some young women in the US have promised on social media in protest of Donald Trump winning back the White House.
No dating. No sex, No childbirth. And no marriage.
In a world where: the next US President was found liable for sexual abuse, online vitriol against women is skyrocketing, and the term “your body, my choice” is trending online... how effective could this 4B movement be?
University of Otago PhD candidate Rachel Billington has researched how young people interact with each other online, and joins us now on The Front Page to discuss this growing movement.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
Sound Engineer/Producer: Richard Martin
Producer: Ethan Sills
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Kiyota.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. People respond
to election losses in various ways, from protesting to legal
action to considering moving country. But what about adopting a
vow of celibacy through something called the four B movement.
(00:29):
That's something young women in the US have promised on
social media in protest of Donald Trump winning back the
White House. No dating, no sex, no childbirth, and no
marriage in a world where the next US president was
found liable for sexual abuse. Online vitriol against women as skyrocketing,
(00:51):
and the term your body, My Choice is trending online.
How effective could this four B movement be? University of
Otago PhD candidate Rachel Billington has researched how young people
interact with each other online and joins us Now on
the Front Page to discuss this growing movement. Rachel, can
(01:15):
you explain a little bit about the origins of the
four BE movement? Where did this come from and what
do those four bs represent?
Speaker 1 (01:23):
So the four B movement started in South Korea and
it's really pushing back against kind of very misogynistic and
patriarchal society. The four bees represent four Korean words. They
each begin with bi, meaning no or not to do,
and so the bees each represent four things that women
(01:45):
are choosing not to do, and those are marrying men,
having sex with men, having children with men, and dating men.
So it's really about pushing back against the patriarchal structure,
which it really almost treats women as incubators for the
(02:05):
next generation rather than people in their own right.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I've seen some comments online saying that the four B
movement is something that the West has picked up and
ran with. Basically, do we actually know how popular the
movement is in South Korea?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
No, And to be honest, I can't even really speak
to how popular it is as well, because I'm just
learning about it too. I think what's happened post Trump
election re election is that it's really gained attraction because
a lot of women are actually saying, oh wow, you
know what people are already doing. This taking political reasons
to swear off men is not a new thing. You know,
this happened in the seventies with feminist movements as well.
(02:44):
But really this reinvigoration and noticing how in South Korea
a lot of the problems that women are facing are
about kind of economic struggles, housing struggles, things that they
actually if we're going to have children, if you want
us to have children, maybe work on helping us build
a society and live happier, more flourishing lives in the
(03:05):
first place, and then maybe we'll think about it. But
if that's not happening, then we don't understand your priorities
and we don't agree with them. And I think that
that's starting to resonate with people across the world as well.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
I thought I was going to have a boyfriend by now.
I'd never thought about marriage, but I thought I would
be at least with someone. It's hard for us to
let go of this dream and this fantasy that was
sold to us as women. But it's like men are
not going to save us in this eleventh hour, Like
we are not coming to be saved. We have to
(03:41):
stick together and help each other.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Well, we've seen this idea gain ground in the US
over the last week as one way young women are
responding to Donald Trump's election victory. On the campaign trail,
he came under five for comments about women from everything
around and reproductive rights. To Trump saying he'd protect women
whether they like it or not. And then you had,
of course JD. Vance came at childless cat ladies, which
(04:09):
I know struck a chord with me, and I'm not
even American. Do you think all this has contributed to
the uptick in this four B movement?
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yes, I would say absolutely. You know, I think a
lot of women in the USA are really reeling after
the reelection of Donald Trump, just knowing his history with
sexual abuse allegation since the nineteen seventies sexual assault allegations.
This is a man that a lot of women feel
he doesn't respect them, He doesn't respect women, and to
see him put in this position of power with so
(04:41):
much power of a women's lives and reproductive rights, certainly
people are feeling really shocked and really afraid of what
this is going to mean for them, for their rights
and for the progress that has been made for women
by women over the generations.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I know one male white nationalist and Holocaust deniers social
media post where he spouted your body, my choice that
went viral and fuelled some of this four B discussion.
The fact that someone with such a platform and so
many followers can feel comfortable enough going online and sharing
something like that, it feels like a bit of a
(05:21):
backward step.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Pay you know, I do think that social media companies
have a lot to answer for for the way that
these kinds of messages, these narratives travel, and the way
that polarization, ideological polarization along gender lines, and political polarization
are really exacerbated over the last fifteen years. Commentsate that
(05:42):
online are rewarded by the algorithm because they're provocative and
because they're shocking, because people engage with things that make
them feel outraged or shocked. So it's really hardly the
responsibility of the way these social media algorithms are actually
designed to reward provocative content. Saying something like that in
(06:04):
this climate does speak to the way that some people
are really emboldened by these misogynistic ideas. I don't know
that it's a sincere reflection of what he actually believes.
I mean, he's got some very troubling beliefs. Anyway, that
my reading of that post is really just about provoking
(06:24):
people to a sense of rage and to a sense
of anger at each other, which will just stoke more
and more tension and increase the sense of polarization. And
increase this animosity between groups.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
And just another stat that has completely blown my mind.
Posts calling for the repeal of the nineteenth Amendment, which
gives women the right to vote, surged by six hundred
and sixty three percent on x or formerly known as
Twitter in one week. Is this alarming?
Speaker 1 (07:08):
It is alarming. It is alarming, and I don't I
do feel like we've got to be careful not to
stoke a kind of moral panic about these things, because
it is in a lot of ways it is just
about provocateurs doing what they do, provoking tension, provoking polarization.
But it is troubling in the way that it is
(07:29):
normalizing very anti woman discourses and ideas about repealing women's rights,
because I think a lot of the thing about you know,
part of the anger and the anxiety around the reelection
of Donald Trump is that the abortion issue, for example,
is really about rights, women's rights, reproductive rights, autonomy, equality, humanity,
(07:51):
and since this reelection and with the repealing of a
lot of you know, Roe v. Wade for example, and
challenges to women's rights, it's not just about reproductive rights.
It's about women's humanity and these kinds of discourses that
start to travel online, start to normalize these questions about
(08:14):
whether women really do deserve equality, whether they really do
deserve full autonomy, whether they are equal to men. And again,
it is really provocation, and it is really about stoking outrage.
But when you've got people, young men online just sitting
in the space where all this information is coming into them,
(08:36):
it really does skew or give them a skewed perception
of the world potentially, and when they're developing their identities,
their political identities, trying to form relationships, trying to come
to understand themselves, these kinds of discourses can do a
lot of harm.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
I know that Figures from Amnesty International already show that
in New Zealand, around one out of three women surveyed
they had experienced online abuse and harassment. Do you think
the heightening of abuse against women online could get worse
in Altiero as well?
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yes, I think any trend that we see because of
the way that social media operates, you know, we're a
global community now, Little old New Zealand used to be
that it would take a little while for trends happening
overseas to arrive here, but that's not the case anymore.
We're no different. We're in no different situation technologically, so
(09:30):
we certainly may well be affected by these kinds of narratives,
particularly when we know that our young boys in schools
and young men here, like many places across the world,
are seeing content made by misogynistic influences on TikTok, on Instagram,
on x wherever it is. Based on their demographics, they're
(09:51):
seeing this content. Whether they're really choosing to or not,
this content ends up in their social feeds and it
becomes normalized. They just start to absorb these ideas that
are being shared to them. And it's definitely the case
in New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
It was twenty twenty four, what the hell is going
on here with people who sitting there in their arm chair,
operating their keyboard, making comments about people that they do
not know about near they do not know, and they're
just file We has a bit of decency. This is
(10:28):
outrageous behavior and New Zealand is not known for this
and we are better than it, I know.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
At least one American school district is sent a warning
to parents this week. It said, in the days after
the election, we have received reports of some students using
the phrase your body my choice, often directed at female students.
That was from the superintendent of Stephens Points School District
in Wisconsin, and that email was then sent to CNN.
(10:58):
Is there a fear that this online harassment against women
could actually spill over to the real world.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Yes, there is that fear. There is that fear, and
it could be you know, in some cases, it could
be the boys and young men and maybe some other girls. Actually,
girls aren't immune from their skills, and women aren't immune
from absorbing these kinds of messages too. And even if
they're bringing it into school or into work, or into
university or wherever, even if it's bringing it as a joke,
(11:26):
jokes do have a way of changing the atmosphere of
a place, making people feel less safe, making other people
feel more emboldened to express potentially more extreme views, and
it normalizes the sense that these are actually find things
to think and find things to express. So there is
(11:49):
a need to really push back against these kinds of
jokes when they come up, whether their jokes or not
to begin with, they have a way of becoming more
insidious the more they are set well.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I've read things about what's called the manisphere, which apparently
sucks in and radicalizes young men online. I've also seen
a lot of post election analysis digging into the fact
that young men seem to have been influenced by podcasters
and men's rights activists. Is that fair to say? What
is the manisphere?
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Yeah? I think it is fair to say so. The
manisphere is kind of a loosely connected network of different
online channels, influences across different platforms. It tends towards well,
it's kind of I feel like there is room to
have quite a nuanced conversation about this, because when I
talked to teenage boys and my research, there was a
(12:43):
sense that a lot of them really did find a
real sense of belonging and affirmation in those kinds of
spaces that they weren't getting anywhere else in their lives.
There was the sense that they helped them to develop
a sense of self acceptance, a sense of self confidence.
They help them overcome kind of addictions to pornography and
(13:07):
help them encourage them to get outside and be more
active and start working on their body. And for a
lot of young men, these are really experienced is very
positive things, and they may well be positive in that sense. However,
the general philosophy that circulates or underpins these spaces is
(13:27):
very anti feminist and quite anti women and misogynistic. There's
this idea that men are suffering because of the winds
of feminism over the generations, and men have less power
now than they deserve ultimately. So the manisphere, while it
(13:51):
can really offer a sense of acceptance and safety and
belonging and affirmation to a lot of boys and young men,
it's really also trading in this ideology which is incredibly
dangerous anti women, which serves to really further alienate men
(14:14):
and young boys from people in their real lives. So
they become captured within this space in a way that
makes it very difficult to get out.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
What else have you seen or heard from young men
and women about how they're interacting with each other online?
Speaker 1 (14:39):
In my own research, there was much interacting with each other,
and I think that's quite interesting, you know, you know,
they see the worlds of other young men and young
women online. I think one of the things that really
struck me, particularly for the young men that they spoke to,
is a lot of their understandings of women, not all
(15:00):
of them, but a few of them. A handful of
them talked about this, and this really struck me. They
don't necessarily have much to do with women in their
offline lives if they go to All Boys' Skills, for example,
and the exposure that they have to women online is
largely through pornography and semi pornographic content. And part of
the problem with this, I mean, we can talk about
there's many problems with this, but a lot of the time,
(15:22):
because of the logics of social media, this content comes
across their feeds, whether they're seeking it out or not.
So part of the problem here is that they are
unintentionally being exposed to pornographic semi pornographic content which they
actually would prefer not to see. So it starts to
skew their perspective of women, and it starts to it
(15:44):
actually also leads them often into these manispher spaces which
are ostensibly quite anti pornography, partly because they see it
as how feminism over years has led to kind of
degeneration of traditional values and pornography is a symptom of that,
and this pornography is a symptom of women's liberation. So
for young men who've struggled with pornography addiction or they're
(16:06):
coming across it and they'd rather not see it. But
then you know, they have the response that they're going
to have, whether they like it or not, and then
they might be feeling shame or feeling anger or feeling
anxiety about that. Then they find a sense of a
sense of support within these manisphere spaces. So often it
(16:27):
is the fact that they don't have real meaningful connections
with people of the opposite sex that they do find
themselves trapped within these spaces which paint women as the enemy.
For example, studies.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
Have shown that members of other online communities do frequently
migrate two channels espousing more extreme views. The twenty twenty
one study found that the overlap between users in the
Manosphere and the old rate is substantial, and it's common
for users who once commented exclusively in the Manosphere to
eventually engaged.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
With alt rate content.
Speaker 5 (17:01):
And it makes sense, as I've said, that a person
who has been radicalized to think women are the enemy
and I am the victim and women should be put
in their place would also be susceptible to further radicalization. Indeed,
reports have shown that alt rate leaders do active recruitment
in the manosphere because of this very premise.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
What about young women. I mean, this four beer movement
does feel a little radical in some ways as well.
I mean I've seen tiktoks with women talking quite positively
about serial killer Eileen Wernos, for example.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
I do it's quite interesting because I do think, you know,
every action is a reaction. So when we think about
the rise of manisphere and the rise of misogynistic anti
feminist ideology, you know, that comes in reaction to the
gains of feminism and the rising status potentially of once
(17:56):
marginalized groups, you know, women for example. But there's the
sense that for many young men, the sense of anxiety
that comes along with that, just a shifting status order
where they're not sure where they fit and where they
do have real struggles with mental health, cost of living, unemployment,
these kinds of things. But then, of course the four
(18:17):
B movement is a reaction to that misogyny as well.
And I think a lot of girls and young women
well feel liberated by this, and well feel that it
is a way to dip into their own autonomy and
their own equality and their own freedom, and actually that
they don't necessarily need men or the approval of men
(18:37):
to be happy. And I think that there is a
way to see it becoming a bit more radical, particularly
in the reaction that is going to come back against it.
And that's what I'm quite concerned about, is the reaction
to the four BE Movement from those manisphere misogynistic spaces.
(18:59):
But I do do you think it's also important to
acknowledge that the real difference between these two kind of
opposing groups, the four BE Movement versus these misogynistic movements,
is that the four BE movement is really about championing equality, autonomy,
(19:19):
and right, whereas these misogynistic movements are not about that
at all. They're more about control. So they're not really
comparable in that sense. They're very different goals.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
How can we prepare our young men and women for
the future and how to navigate this kind of online
environment because these newer generations have grown up in quite
a unique set of circumstances, right, they've grown up online,
They've had access to information but also misinformation disinformation more
than any other generation before them. How do we actually
sit down and give them the tools to try and
(19:54):
navigate it.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I really think the only way through is communication. We
need to have really frank conversations with our young people
about what's going on in the worlds that they are
a part of. Listen to them as well. It is
really important give them, give them the opportunity to talk
about what it is that they're saying and what it
is that they are coming to believe or understand about
(20:17):
the world. I think often, and what I've found in
my own research is given the opportunity to talk through
our ideas, we start to hear the nuance of our ideas,
or we start to hear the ways that we maybe
don't necessarily agree with those perspectives. But often it's only
in the talking that we get to hear that. So
(20:38):
communicating listening to young people is really really important. Also,
I think educating young people being very open about how
these algorithmic technologies work, so that they start to realize
that if they're in these spaces, it's not necessarily because
of their own free will show them, teach them how
(21:01):
these algorithms work, Teach them about what the platforms are
getting out of their engagement, so that they have more
of a sense of whether they actually want to be
engaged or not. And one thing that I have found
which is really heartening is actually a lot of young
people are turning off social media. They get to a
point and they realize that they're not as in charge
(21:23):
of their own lives as they ought to be or
they thought they were, and they're starting to switch off.
So my real hope is that more and more young
people will start to switch off.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Thanks for joining us, Rachel.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Thank you, Chelsea. Lovely to be here.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzadherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sells and Richard Martin, who is also
a sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front
(22:00):
Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and
tune in on Monday for another look behind the headlines.
Kiyota.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. People respond
to election losses in various ways, from protesting to legal
action to considering moving country. But what about adopting a
vow of celibacy through something called the four B movement.
(00:29):
That's something young women in the US have promised on
social media in protest of Donald Trump winning back the
White House. No dating, no sex, no childbirth, and no
marriage in a world where the next US president was
found liable for sexual abuse. Online vitriol against women as skyrocketing,
(00:51):
and the term your body, My Choice is trending online.
How effective could this four B movement be? University of
Otago PhD candidate Rachel Billington has researched how young people
interact with each other online and joins us Now on
the Front Page to discuss this growing movement. Rachel, can
(01:15):
you explain a little bit about the origins of the
four BE movement? Where did this come from and what
do those four bs represent?
Speaker 1 (01:23):
So the four B movement started in South Korea and
it's really pushing back against kind of very misogynistic and
patriarchal society. The four bees represent four Korean words. They
each begin with bi, meaning no or not to do,
and so the bees each represent four things that women
(01:45):
are choosing not to do, and those are marrying men,
having sex with men, having children with men, and dating men.
So it's really about pushing back against the patriarchal structure,
which it really almost treats women as incubators for the
(02:05):
next generation rather than people in their own right.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I've seen some comments online saying that the four B
movement is something that the West has picked up and
ran with. Basically, do we actually know how popular the
movement is in South Korea?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
No, And to be honest, I can't even really speak
to how popular it is as well, because I'm just
learning about it too. I think what's happened post Trump
election re election is that it's really gained attraction because
a lot of women are actually saying, oh wow, you
know what people are already doing. This taking political reasons
to swear off men is not a new thing. You know,
this happened in the seventies with feminist movements as well.
(02:44):
But really this reinvigoration and noticing how in South Korea
a lot of the problems that women are facing are
about kind of economic struggles, housing struggles, things that they
actually if we're going to have children, if you want
us to have children, maybe work on helping us build
a society and live happier, more flourishing lives in the
(03:05):
first place, and then maybe we'll think about it. But
if that's not happening, then we don't understand your priorities
and we don't agree with them. And I think that
that's starting to resonate with people across the world as well.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
I thought I was going to have a boyfriend by now.
I'd never thought about marriage, but I thought I would
be at least with someone. It's hard for us to
let go of this dream and this fantasy that was
sold to us as women. But it's like men are
not going to save us in this eleventh hour, Like
we are not coming to be saved. We have to
(03:41):
stick together and help each other.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Well, we've seen this idea gain ground in the US
over the last week as one way young women are
responding to Donald Trump's election victory. On the campaign trail,
he came under five for comments about women from everything
around and reproductive rights. To Trump saying he'd protect women
whether they like it or not. And then you had,
of course JD. Vance came at childless cat ladies, which
(04:09):
I know struck a chord with me, and I'm not
even American. Do you think all this has contributed to
the uptick in this four B movement?
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yes, I would say absolutely. You know, I think a
lot of women in the USA are really reeling after
the reelection of Donald Trump, just knowing his history with
sexual abuse allegation since the nineteen seventies sexual assault allegations.
This is a man that a lot of women feel
he doesn't respect them, He doesn't respect women, and to
see him put in this position of power with so
(04:41):
much power of a women's lives and reproductive rights, certainly
people are feeling really shocked and really afraid of what
this is going to mean for them, for their rights
and for the progress that has been made for women
by women over the generations.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I know one male white nationalist and Holocaust deniers social
media post where he spouted your body, my choice that
went viral and fuelled some of this four B discussion.
The fact that someone with such a platform and so
many followers can feel comfortable enough going online and sharing
something like that, it feels like a bit of a
(05:21):
backward step.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Pay you know, I do think that social media companies
have a lot to answer for for the way that
these kinds of messages, these narratives travel, and the way
that polarization, ideological polarization along gender lines, and political polarization
are really exacerbated over the last fifteen years. Commentsate that
(05:42):
online are rewarded by the algorithm because they're provocative and
because they're shocking, because people engage with things that make
them feel outraged or shocked. So it's really hardly the
responsibility of the way these social media algorithms are actually
designed to reward provocative content. Saying something like that in
(06:04):
this climate does speak to the way that some people
are really emboldened by these misogynistic ideas. I don't know
that it's a sincere reflection of what he actually believes.
I mean, he's got some very troubling beliefs. Anyway, that
my reading of that post is really just about provoking
(06:24):
people to a sense of rage and to a sense
of anger at each other, which will just stoke more
and more tension and increase the sense of polarization. And
increase this animosity between groups.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
And just another stat that has completely blown my mind.
Posts calling for the repeal of the nineteenth Amendment, which
gives women the right to vote, surged by six hundred
and sixty three percent on x or formerly known as
Twitter in one week. Is this alarming?
Speaker 1 (07:08):
It is alarming. It is alarming, and I don't I
do feel like we've got to be careful not to
stoke a kind of moral panic about these things, because
it is in a lot of ways it is just
about provocateurs doing what they do, provoking tension, provoking polarization.
But it is troubling in the way that it is
(07:29):
normalizing very anti woman discourses and ideas about repealing women's rights,
because I think a lot of the thing about you know,
part of the anger and the anxiety around the reelection
of Donald Trump is that the abortion issue, for example,
is really about rights, women's rights, reproductive rights, autonomy, equality, humanity,
(07:51):
and since this reelection and with the repealing of a
lot of you know, Roe v. Wade for example, and
challenges to women's rights, it's not just about reproductive rights.
It's about women's humanity and these kinds of discourses that
start to travel online, start to normalize these questions about
(08:14):
whether women really do deserve equality, whether they really do
deserve full autonomy, whether they are equal to men. And again,
it is really provocation, and it is really about stoking outrage.
But when you've got people, young men online just sitting
in the space where all this information is coming into them,
(08:36):
it really does skew or give them a skewed perception
of the world potentially, and when they're developing their identities,
their political identities, trying to form relationships, trying to come
to understand themselves, these kinds of discourses can do a
lot of harm.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
I know that Figures from Amnesty International already show that
in New Zealand, around one out of three women surveyed
they had experienced online abuse and harassment. Do you think
the heightening of abuse against women online could get worse
in Altiero as well?
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yes, I think any trend that we see because of
the way that social media operates, you know, we're a
global community now, Little old New Zealand used to be
that it would take a little while for trends happening
overseas to arrive here, but that's not the case anymore.
We're no different. We're in no different situation technologically, so
(09:30):
we certainly may well be affected by these kinds of narratives,
particularly when we know that our young boys in schools
and young men here, like many places across the world,
are seeing content made by misogynistic influences on TikTok, on Instagram,
on x wherever it is. Based on their demographics, they're
(09:51):
seeing this content. Whether they're really choosing to or not,
this content ends up in their social feeds and it
becomes normalized. They just start to absorb these ideas that
are being shared to them. And it's definitely the case
in New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
It was twenty twenty four, what the hell is going
on here with people who sitting there in their arm chair,
operating their keyboard, making comments about people that they do
not know about near they do not know, and they're
just file We has a bit of decency. This is
(10:28):
outrageous behavior and New Zealand is not known for this
and we are better than it, I know.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
At least one American school district is sent a warning
to parents this week. It said, in the days after
the election, we have received reports of some students using
the phrase your body my choice, often directed at female students.
That was from the superintendent of Stephens Points School District
in Wisconsin, and that email was then sent to CNN.
(10:58):
Is there a fear that this online harassment against women
could actually spill over to the real world.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Yes, there is that fear. There is that fear, and
it could be you know, in some cases, it could
be the boys and young men and maybe some other girls. Actually,
girls aren't immune from their skills, and women aren't immune
from absorbing these kinds of messages too. And even if
they're bringing it into school or into work, or into
university or wherever, even if it's bringing it as a joke,
(11:26):
jokes do have a way of changing the atmosphere of
a place, making people feel less safe, making other people
feel more emboldened to express potentially more extreme views, and
it normalizes the sense that these are actually find things
to think and find things to express. So there is
(11:49):
a need to really push back against these kinds of
jokes when they come up, whether their jokes or not
to begin with, they have a way of becoming more
insidious the more they are set well.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I've read things about what's called the manisphere, which apparently
sucks in and radicalizes young men online. I've also seen
a lot of post election analysis digging into the fact
that young men seem to have been influenced by podcasters
and men's rights activists. Is that fair to say? What
is the manisphere?
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Yeah? I think it is fair to say so. The
manisphere is kind of a loosely connected network of different
online channels, influences across different platforms. It tends towards well,
it's kind of I feel like there is room to
have quite a nuanced conversation about this, because when I
talked to teenage boys and my research, there was a
(12:43):
sense that a lot of them really did find a
real sense of belonging and affirmation in those kinds of
spaces that they weren't getting anywhere else in their lives.
There was the sense that they helped them to develop
a sense of self acceptance, a sense of self confidence.
They help them overcome kind of addictions to pornography and
(13:07):
help them encourage them to get outside and be more
active and start working on their body. And for a
lot of young men, these are really experienced is very
positive things, and they may well be positive in that sense. However,
the general philosophy that circulates or underpins these spaces is
(13:27):
very anti feminist and quite anti women and misogynistic. There's
this idea that men are suffering because of the winds
of feminism over the generations, and men have less power
now than they deserve ultimately. So the manisphere, while it
(13:51):
can really offer a sense of acceptance and safety and
belonging and affirmation to a lot of boys and young men,
it's really also trading in this ideology which is incredibly
dangerous anti women, which serves to really further alienate men
(14:14):
and young boys from people in their real lives. So
they become captured within this space in a way that
makes it very difficult to get out.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
What else have you seen or heard from young men
and women about how they're interacting with each other online?
Speaker 1 (14:39):
In my own research, there was much interacting with each other,
and I think that's quite interesting, you know, you know,
they see the worlds of other young men and young
women online. I think one of the things that really
struck me, particularly for the young men that they spoke to,
is a lot of their understandings of women, not all
(15:00):
of them, but a few of them. A handful of
them talked about this, and this really struck me. They
don't necessarily have much to do with women in their
offline lives if they go to All Boys' Skills, for example,
and the exposure that they have to women online is
largely through pornography and semi pornographic content. And part of
the problem with this, I mean, we can talk about
there's many problems with this, but a lot of the time,
(15:22):
because of the logics of social media, this content comes
across their feeds, whether they're seeking it out or not.
So part of the problem here is that they are
unintentionally being exposed to pornographic semi pornographic content which they
actually would prefer not to see. So it starts to
skew their perspective of women, and it starts to it
(15:44):
actually also leads them often into these manispher spaces which
are ostensibly quite anti pornography, partly because they see it
as how feminism over years has led to kind of
degeneration of traditional values and pornography is a symptom of that,
and this pornography is a symptom of women's liberation. So
for young men who've struggled with pornography addiction or they're
(16:06):
coming across it and they'd rather not see it. But
then you know, they have the response that they're going
to have, whether they like it or not, and then
they might be feeling shame or feeling anger or feeling
anxiety about that. Then they find a sense of a
sense of support within these manisphere spaces. So often it
(16:27):
is the fact that they don't have real meaningful connections
with people of the opposite sex that they do find
themselves trapped within these spaces which paint women as the enemy.
For example, studies.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
Have shown that members of other online communities do frequently
migrate two channels espousing more extreme views. The twenty twenty
one study found that the overlap between users in the
Manosphere and the old rate is substantial, and it's common
for users who once commented exclusively in the Manosphere to
eventually engaged.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
With alt rate content.
Speaker 5 (17:01):
And it makes sense, as I've said, that a person
who has been radicalized to think women are the enemy
and I am the victim and women should be put
in their place would also be susceptible to further radicalization. Indeed,
reports have shown that alt rate leaders do active recruitment
in the manosphere because of this very premise.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
What about young women. I mean, this four beer movement
does feel a little radical in some ways as well.
I mean I've seen tiktoks with women talking quite positively
about serial killer Eileen Wernos, for example.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
I do it's quite interesting because I do think, you know,
every action is a reaction. So when we think about
the rise of manisphere and the rise of misogynistic anti
feminist ideology, you know, that comes in reaction to the
gains of feminism and the rising status potentially of once
(17:56):
marginalized groups, you know, women for example. But there's the
sense that for many young men, the sense of anxiety
that comes along with that, just a shifting status order
where they're not sure where they fit and where they
do have real struggles with mental health, cost of living, unemployment,
these kinds of things. But then, of course the four
(18:17):
B movement is a reaction to that misogyny as well.
And I think a lot of girls and young women
well feel liberated by this, and well feel that it
is a way to dip into their own autonomy and
their own equality and their own freedom, and actually that
they don't necessarily need men or the approval of men
(18:37):
to be happy. And I think that there is a
way to see it becoming a bit more radical, particularly
in the reaction that is going to come back against it.
And that's what I'm quite concerned about, is the reaction
to the four BE Movement from those manisphere misogynistic spaces.
(18:59):
But I do do you think it's also important to
acknowledge that the real difference between these two kind of
opposing groups, the four BE Movement versus these misogynistic movements,
is that the four BE movement is really about championing equality, autonomy,
(19:19):
and right, whereas these misogynistic movements are not about that
at all. They're more about control. So they're not really
comparable in that sense. They're very different goals.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
How can we prepare our young men and women for
the future and how to navigate this kind of online
environment because these newer generations have grown up in quite
a unique set of circumstances, right, they've grown up online,
They've had access to information but also misinformation disinformation more
than any other generation before them. How do we actually
sit down and give them the tools to try and
(19:54):
navigate it.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I really think the only way through is communication. We
need to have really frank conversations with our young people
about what's going on in the worlds that they are
a part of. Listen to them as well. It is
really important give them, give them the opportunity to talk
about what it is that they're saying and what it
is that they are coming to believe or understand about
(20:17):
the world. I think often, and what I've found in
my own research is given the opportunity to talk through
our ideas, we start to hear the nuance of our ideas,
or we start to hear the ways that we maybe
don't necessarily agree with those perspectives. But often it's only
in the talking that we get to hear that. So
(20:38):
communicating listening to young people is really really important. Also,
I think educating young people being very open about how
these algorithmic technologies work, so that they start to realize
that if they're in these spaces, it's not necessarily because
of their own free will show them, teach them how
(21:01):
these algorithms work, Teach them about what the platforms are
getting out of their engagement, so that they have more
of a sense of whether they actually want to be
engaged or not. And one thing that I have found
which is really heartening is actually a lot of young
people are turning off social media. They get to a
point and they realize that they're not as in charge
(21:23):
of their own lives as they ought to be or
they thought they were, and they're starting to switch off.
So my real hope is that more and more young
people will start to switch off.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Thanks for joining us, Rachel.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Thank you, Chelsea. Lovely to be here.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzadherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sells and Richard Martin, who is also
a sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front
(22:00):
Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and
tune in on Monday for another look behind the headlines.
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