By: Olivia Visser, Opinions Editor
Content warning: mentions of sexism and sexual assault.
Over the last year, our social media feeds have been regretfully subjected to content about Andrew Tate. The former kickboxer-turned-influencer, who is currently detained in Romania under suspicion of human trafficking and sexual assault, rose to fame for controversial statements that encourage violence against women. He galvanizes social media users who harbour existing resentment towards women, contributing to online echo chambers of misogyny and toxic masculinity. This rhetoric isn’t unique to Tate, though. Over the last decade, people have grown more comfortable with putting their hatred on digital display. Tate has accelerated this process, but he’s only one piece of a widespread problem.
Tate’s content attracts young men who feel like social outcasts. To appeal to his audience, he frequently brings down women and blames them for social inequalities, under the guise of evolutionism. Tate isn’t a scientist, nor does he appear well-researched in evolutionary psychology. That doesn’t stop him from making claims about the nature of attraction and relationships. “I’ve never had trouble with a woman obeying me. She just wants to — it’s natural,” he said in a podcast. He followed this comment by telling men that if “their” “woman” doesn’t submit to them, she doesn’t respect them. These comments are tame compared to others he’s made, but that isn’t my point. We all know Tate is sexist — he’s said so himself. So why do so many men look up to him?
Many of Tate’s followers fall prey to ridiculous “alpha male” and “red pill” ideologies. Self-proclaimed alpha males believe men should display physical strength and emotional callousness, while “hustling” to pursue monetary success. The term “red pill” is a nod to the 1999 film The Matrix; the protagonist is offered a choice of swallowing the red pill to reveal humanity’s artificial structure, or the blue pill, which allows him to live in ignorance. Right-wingers have since adopted this scene as an analogy for a supposedly feminist-run society. The Guardian explained that the red pill subreddit allows men to “revel in their loathing” for women. The page has since been banned from Reddit, but reports indicate most posts were a slew of anti-women complaints, pick-up-artist techniques, and even sexual assault denial. These types of posts circulated the internet well before Tate’s rise to fame, although he’s definitely contributed to the increasing normalization of misogynistic rhetoric.
Internet misogyny is a fitting example of how confirmation bias creates echo chambers. Confirmation bias refers to people’s “tendency to process information by looking for, or interpreting, information that is consistent with their existing beliefs.” It’s a factor in all kinds of prejudiced attitudes. If someone largely consumes media revolving around how awful women supposedly are, they’re more likely to develop false and problematic ideas about women as a whole. This is how characters like Tate influence and hold onto followers. Their success depends upon an audience with equally degrading views about women — and it works. Many schools have reported large numbers of boys as young as 10 looking up to Tate and repeating his talking points. This is why it’s so important to shut sexism down whenever it appears. Men should especially take a more active role in combating this harmful rhetoric.
The comment sections of Tate’s videos are also ripe with sexist viewpoints and praise for the influencer. “The biggest mistake men do is listening to women . . . end of story,” someone commented. It’s easy for some to feel sympathetic towards men who get caught up in alpha male or red pill discourse. Many see them as lonely, socially awkward, and simply misguided. There may be a small ounce of truth to this, but the reality is no one should use their loneliness as a justification for hatred. What these men miss is that few women are interested in dating someone who spends their time spewing misogyny online. Maybe women don’t like you not because they’re selfish or stuck-up, but because you don’t respect or understand them. These ideologies don’t benefit troubled men — they further isolate them from society.
Tate isn’t responsible for online misogyny as a whole, but he encourages and validates those who blame women for their own shortcomings. It only harms men to tell them women work against them, or that their value is rooted in whether they can dominate others. Instead of perpetuating this dangerous rhetoric, men can benefit from listening and understanding the issues women face every day. Understanding each other’s struggles puts our views through a different perspective, one in which respecting and valuing each other as individuals is commonplace over outdated notions of dominance and control. A “high value man” is one who respects women, and rejects BS dichotomies about masculinity and femininity.
