UK: The manosphere and online misogyny should be treated as public health issues, experts say

Article here. Excerpt:

'The manosphere and online misogyny should be treated as a public health issue by the government, in the same way as smoking and ultra-processed foods, a new report says.

Authors of a paper in The Lancet argue that misogynistic influencers are a public health threat, driving rising mental distress, violence against women and girls and male isolation. The solution, the experts say, is for governments, schools, health services and social media companies to work together to address the harms they cause.

“Progress on women’s rights is facing substantial obstacles in many settings,” the paper says. “In the current era of democratic backsliding, along with a coordinated rise in anti-gender and anti-rights movements and deliberate obstruction of the implementation of gender equality policies in a quarter of countries worldwide, misogynistic prejudices are widespread: almost nine in 10 people hold at least one fundamental bias against women.”

It argues that the manosphere – accelerated by social media algorithms that reward extreme content and allow influencers to make money from advertising revenue – has “normalised and amplified” misogyny, contributing to increased male violence against women and girls.

The paper, titled Reframing The Manosphere: A Public Health Response To A Commercial Ecosystem, was written by Professors Sarah Hawkes and Kent Buse, co-founders of the gender justice think tank Global 50/50 in Cambridge.'