Carson Burch ’27 is considering a government major. He likes reading about historical and current events, as well as dinosaurs. Contact him at ceburch@wm.edu.
The views expressed in the article are the author’s own.
This article discusses sexual assault.
Every now and again, I find myself going to Google to ask the same question: “Is Andrew Tate in prison yet?”
For those who have yet to have the misfortune of knowing who Tate is, he’s a manosphere influencer who is currently facing legal challenges and investigations in Romania, the United Kingdom and the United States for accusations of rape and human trafficking. Despite his wrongdoing, he retains a vocal fanbase which supports him in his criminality.
This view of aggressively macho masculinity is one which he is not alone in promoting; an entire ecosystem of influencers called the ‘manosphere’ have emerged to endorse it. However, the idea of manhood they promote is not just wrong but dangerous, and the consequences are disastrous for society.
The worldview of the manosphere is, at its core, built around hostility towards women. A UN webpage on this phenomenon notes that incels, pick-up artists and Men Going Their Own Way have their own unique set of beliefs which all go back to claims that modern society is rigged against men and that the assertion of masculinity is essential to reclaiming man’s rightful place in the world. This easily turns into a support of unrestrained masculinity and entitlement toward sex, which itself leads to the kind of criminality that Tate embodies.
To justify this worldview, manosphere supporters often mobilize a particular vision of masculinity which they claim was once dominant: hegemonic, powerful, “high-testosterone” and notably devoid of accountability or responsibility. Tate talks often about how women are “given to the man and belong to the man” and was even once banned from Twitter for saying that they “bear responsibility” for being sexually assaulted, but to my knowledge, has never once said that men have any obligations toward women or to do anything for anyone that may impede their own personal desires.
This vision of masculinity stands in marked contrast with how such constructs were perceived even in patriarchal societies. The historian Bret Devereaux notes that, in many ways, the Romans perceived masculinity as being quite the opposite: ambition, courage and drive were all extolled in Roman culture, but only so long as they were constrained through the cultivation of proper virtues and individual discipline. Other societies emphasized similar ideas: In our own country, older generations of men were taught the importance of opening doors for women and generally conducting themselves as gentlemen (values my own parents instilled in me).
While I don’t want to praise patriarchy and the social norms that uphold it, I do think this ideology stands in marked contrast with that of Tate and his ideological cousins. One value set was undeniably regressive, but it at least emphasized individual responsibility and good personal conduct that men today could learn from (although, they must understand the failings of the societies which espoused them), while today’s manosphere emphasizes the “glory” to come from throwing away such norms and embracing individual satisfaction at the expense of all decency.
A society built on manosphere masculinity has never and could never exist because the underlying values are simply toxic and destructive. The inevitable consequence is to destroy the social bonds between men and women, leaving both isolated and alone. We can see this playing out in the present: Following the 2024 election, the neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes and his fanbase harassed many women with the slogan “your body, my choice.” In response, online interest grew in the South Korean “4B” movement, which holds that women should avoid as many intimate interactions with men as possible. While an understandable response to such nastiness, it only plays further into the ‘loneliness epidemic’ plaguing our society and dissolves essential social bonds.
The only way to combat this is through adopting a new value set. So, to all the guys my age reading this, I would like to give my own two cents countering what may be told on social media (and unlike Tate, I give my advice for free rather than selling it for a $50-a-month pyramid scheme):
“No” means “no.” Getting rejected sucks (I speak from a wealth of personal experience), but it will happen, and being able to accept it is the mark of a real man. If you really feel anything toward a woman, other than animalistic lust, you’ll be able to respect her agency and her decisions. Also, while I’m not an expert in dating, I advise that you don’t emulate clowns like Tate and engage in asinine behavior, as it seems to me that will make you less attractive rather than more so. If you post “your body, my choice” all over the internet, you can expect to remain a statistic in the male loneliness epidemic and have only your own decisions to blame.
There are many problems faced by men today, but con-men don’t hold the answer. The cultivation of real virtues, however, does.
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