Curious Femme

What the emerging evidence tells us about the manosphere, the far right and violent extremism

Misogyny online is often treated as an unpleasant but separate problem from extremism.

A sexist comment is misogyny. Racist propaganda is extremism. Terrorism belongs somewhere else entirely.

The emerging research suggests those boundaries may not be so neat.

Researchers studying the manosphere, far right networks and violent extremism are identifying significant overlaps between hostile attitudes towards women, particular constructions of masculinity, extremist narratives and the online environments through which these ideas circulate.

That does not mean that a teenage boy watching a misogynistic video will become an extremist.

Nor does it mean that misogyny causes terrorism.

The evidence is more complicated, and arguably more important, than either of those claims.

Misogyny can provide ideological common ground

Research funded by the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats, CREST, examined misogyny, gender ideology and far-right extremism in the UK and Australia.

Phelan and colleagues found that gendered narratives can operate across extremist environments. Ideas about masculinity, women’s social roles, feminism, sexuality and LGBTQ+ people can help establish identities, define perceived enemies and reinforce ideological worldviews.

Their work suggests that misogyny should therefore not always be understood as an incidental prejudice sitting alongside extremist ideology.

In some environments, gender itself becomes part of the ideological architecture.

This matters because individuals do not necessarily encounter extremist ideology by deliberately searching for extremist organisations.

They may arrive through other interests, grievances and online communities.

The route can begin somewhere surprisingly ordinary

Consider looking
At its most innocuous, looksmaxxing concerns improving physical appearance. Exercise, skincare, hairstyles and fashion hardly sound like gateways into political extremism.

Researchers at the Centre for Emerging Technology and Security, CETaS, however, analysed 81,513 videos posted by 45,834 users within a large social media network associated with looksmaxxing.

They discovered substantial overlap with more extreme material.

FoForty-fourer cent of the looksmaxxing videos identified in their research also contained blackpill hashtags.

The researchers also identified connections between this material and content glorifying mass shooters, incel ideology and neo Nazi material.

This does not demonstrate that watching a looksmaxxing video causes radicalisation.

It demonstrates something different.

The digital distance between apparently mainstream self-improvement content and extremist material can sometimes be remarkably short.

The black pill changes the conversation

Blackpill ideology presents relationships and sexual attraction through an intensely deterministic framework.

Physical appearance and genetics are portrayed as overwhelmingly determining men’s romantic and sexual success. Rejection can consequently be interpreted not as an ordinary, painful part of human relationships, but as evidence of an immutable social hierarchy.

Within more extreme communities, resentment can then become directed towards women and society.

CETaS researchers found online pathways connecting looksmaxxing communities with blackpill creators, content celebrating mass killers and material containing neo Nazi imagery and language.

Again, caution is essential.

Content adjacency is not causation.

Millions of young men encounter discussions about appearance, masculinity or relationships without becoming misogynists, let alone violent extremists.

But if platforms repeatedly connect vulnerable users experiencing rejection, loneliness o, or dissatisfaction with communities that offer increasingly hostile explanations for those experiences, we should be interested in what happens next.

The Australian findings should make us pay attention

Research published by the University of Melbourne in August 2026 provides another important piece of this puzzle.

Researchers surveyed 1,122 young Australians aged between 13 and 17, 2,307 adults and more than 500 teachers.

Young people in the study were significantly more likely than older respondents to express hostile attitudes towards women.

More strikingly, according to study author Dr Sara Meger, hostile attitudes towards women were the strongest measured predictor of support for violent extremism.

That finding requires careful interpretation.

A predictor is not proof of causation.

It does not mean misogynistic young people inevitably progress towards violence.

It does suggest that attitudes towards women deserve considerably more attention within our understanding of vulnerability to extremism.

Teachers participating in the research also reported seeing these influences entering classrooms.

This makes the issue more than an abstract debate about unpleasant corners of the internet.

Misogyny and the far right

CREST’s work on the UK and Australia similarly identifies relationships between misogyny and far-right narratives.

Ideas about masculinity can construct an idealised male identity around strength, dominance and protection. Gender equality, feminism and changing social norms can subsequently be represented as threats to that identity.

Women can simultaneously be assigned highly restrictive roles within an imagined social order.

These narratives can intersect with nationalism, race, sexuality and demographic anxiety.

This is one reason it would be misleading simply to describe the manosphere and the far right as the same phenomenon.

They are not.

But distinct communities can share narratives.

Those narratives can provide bridges through which individuals encounter other ideological material.

The Global Network on Extremism and Technology, GNET, has documented these intersections across an extensive research programme examining gender and online violent extremism. Its work includes research concerning incels, racialised misogyny, white supremacy, gendered propaganda and the monetisation of incendiary misogynistic content.

And then there are the algorithms

There is another actor in this story that we should not ignore.

The platform.

Extremist recruitment once involved images of somebody deliberately approaching a potential recruit.

Contemporary radicalisation can be considerably less linear.

Recommendation systems learn what retains attention.

Someone watches one video.

Then another.

The material becomes gradually more provocative.

A new vocabulary appears.

New creators are recommended.

Communities form around shared grievances.

None of this means that an algorithm mechanically transforms someone into an extremist.

Human agency remains important.

But recommendation systems determine which ideas people repeatedly encounter, and researchers are increasingly interested in the role that these technological environments play in facilitating exposure to increasingly extreme material.

The CETaS research is particularly important here because the researchers identified connections between looksmaxxing, blackpill and extremist content within the same social media ecosystem.

They also found users employing slight alterations to prohibited terminology to circumvent moderation.

Blocking one word is of limited value when communities rapidly develop another.

We also need to talk about violence against women

There is a danger in discussing misogyny primarily when it becomes relevant to terrorism.

Women should not have to wait until misogyny becomes a national security problem before society considers it serious.

Online misogyny exists within the wider context of violence against women and girls.

Threats, harassment, sexualised abuse and dehumanising representations of women matter independently of whether the perpetrator subsequently adopts an extremist ideology.

Yet examining the relationship with extremism exposes something important.

Ideas society sometimes dismisses as teenage edginess, trolling or offensive humour can participate in much larger ideological ecosystems.

That does not justify labelling every boy who repeats a misogynistic meme an extremist.

Quite the opposite.

Effective prevention requires understanding why the material appeals to him in the first place.

Loneliness matters.

Belonging matters.

Rejection matters.

Identity matters.

Masculinity matters.

Social status matters.

And algorithms capable of supplying endless simplistic explanations for complicated emotional experiences matter too.

Simply telling young men that they are terrible people is unlikely to provide an effective intervention.

Neither is pretending that extreme misogyny is harmless.

This is not an argument against men

That distinction is essential.

Men and boys can themselves be harmed by online cultures that tell them their worth depends upon dominance, sexual success, physical appearance or their position within an imagined hierarchy of masculinity.

A boy convinced that his genetics have permanently condemned him to rejection is not being liberated.

A young man encouraged to interpret women as responsible for his loneliness is not being helped to develop relationships.

And somebody being directed towards increasingly extreme communities promising belonging in exchange for hostility towards an outgroup may be experiencing precisely the vulnerability that prevention should address.

We can challenge misogyny while retaining compassion for young people being drawn towards it.

Those positions are not contradictory.

What should we be asking?

Perhaps the important question is no longer simply:

“Why are young men seeing misogynistic material online?”

We also need to ask:

What comes next?

What does the platform recommend?

Which communities welcome them?

What explanation are they given for their frustrations?

Who is identified as responsible?

And at what point does an online grievance become an ideological worldview?

The research does not yet give us all those answers.

Researchers themselves repeatedly call for further investigation.

But there is now enough evidence to reject two equally simplistic positions.

Misogyny does not automatically create extremists.

But extreme misogyny should not automatically be dismissed as merely offensive speech either.

Somewhere between those two statements lies a much more difficult conversation about masculinity, technology, violence and radicalisation.

It is a conversation we need to have before the most extreme consequences force us to have it.

References

Centre for Emerging Technology and Security (2025) From Looksmaxxing to Mass Shootings: Radicalisation and Online Misogyny. CETaS, The Alan Turing Institute.

Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET) (2022 to 2025) Gender and Online Violent Extremism. GNET.

Meger, S. (2026) ‘Hostile attitudes toward women are driving extremism in young Australians’, Pursuit, University of Melbourne, 16 August.

Phelan, A., White, J., Wallner, C. and Paterson, J. (2023) Misogyny, Hostile Beliefs and the Transmission of Extremism: A Comparison of the Far Right in the UK and Australia. CREST.

Phelan, A., White, J., Wallner, C. and Paterson, J. (2023) Introductory Guide to Understanding Misogyny and the Far Right. CREST.