Bite Back with Abbey Sharp - The SHOCKING Pipeline to the ”Red Pill” Manosphere from Health & Nutrition Content Online with Dr. Emily Contois

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

In today’s episode of Bite Back with Abbey Sharp, I will be talking to Dr Emily Contois,  an Associate Professor at the University of Tulsa specializing in how identities are formed at the vital intersection of food, the body, and ideas about health. She is the author of “Diners, Dudes, and Diets: How Gender and Power Collide in Food Media and Culture” and co-editor of “Food Instagram: Identity, Influence, and Negotiation”. Today we will be riding on the heels of the popular Netflix show Adolescence, we are exploring the very scary effect of the manosphere, incel and “red pill” subcultures on young boys. Today we’re going to chat about how the patriarchy harms not just women, but men as well. We discuss the dangerous teachings of the manosphere and leading influencers like Andrew Tate. We also talk about the pipeline that young men are finding themselves going down starting with innocuous places (ie. self improvement, dating, fitness, dieting) that lures them into incel culture. We talk in detail about the intersection between diet culture and the manosphere and the lack of body positivity movements for men. We talk about the role of bullying, social isolation, AI, p0rn, types of school, and gender roles modelled at home.  I finish with a list of potential actionable tips to help you start to build emotional resilience, media literacy and tolerance to different expressions of gender to help set the stage to allow your kids to reject these manosphere ideologies. Be sure to check out my first episode with Emily: “Ladies eat salad, men eat steak & burgers”.References:https://www.everyonesinvited.uk/primary/readhttps://aibm.org/research/male-suicide-data/?utm_source=chatgpt.comhttps://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/data.html?utm_source=chatgpt.comhttps://www.bbfc.co.uk/about-us/news/children-see-pornography-as-young-as-seven-new-report-findshttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39907845/https://cyberbullying.org/cyberbullying-continues-to-rise-among-youth-in-the-united-states-2023?utm_source=chatgpt.comhttps://tribune.com.pk/story/2536330/netflix-drama-adolescence-prompts-anti-misogyny-curriculum-shift-in-uk-schoolshttps://unpluggedcanada.com/Check in with today’s amazing guest: Dr Emily Contois, Associate Professor at the University of Tulsa. Follow at @emilycontois Website: www.emilycontois.comBooks:  - Diners Dudes and Diets               - Food InstagramDisclaimer: The content in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is never a substitute for medical advice. If you’re struggling with with your mental or physical health, please work one on one with a health care provider.If you have heard yourself in our discussion today, and are looking for support, contact the free NEDIC helpline at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or go to eatingdisorderhope.com. 🥤 Check out my 2-in-1 Plant Based Probiotic Protein Powder, neue theory at www.neuetheory.com or @neuetheory and use my promo code BITEBACK20 to get 20% off your order! Don’t forget to Please subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review! It really helps us out. ✉️ SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTERS ⤵️Neue Theory newsletterAbbey's Kitchen newsletter 🥞 FREE HUNGER CRUSHING COMBO™ E-BOOK! 💪🏼 FREE PROTEIN 101 E-BOOK! 📱 Follow me! Instagram: @abbeyskitchenTikTok: @abbeyskitchenYouTube: @AbbeysKitchen My blog, Abbey’s Kitchen www.abbeyskitchen.comMy book, The Mindful Glow Cookbook affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3NoHtvf If you liked this podcast, please like, follow, and leave a review with your thoughts and let me know who you want me to discuss next!

So it's this anger at your culture and at women, but also a dissatisfaction and a frustration with yourself. It's a very complex seeking of control in these two different directions, outward and inward. Welcome to another episode of Bite Back with Abbey Sharp, where I dismantle die culture rules, call out the charlatans spitting the pseudoscience, and help you achieve food freedom for good. I am very excited about today's episode as it is absolutely top of mind right now following the release of the critically claimed Netflix series Adolescents.

As a mom of two boys, I didn't just watch the show, I studied it in immense detail. And then of course I went down a rabbit hole of learning about the toxic manosphere and red pill community that the show brought to the forefront. My boys are just 7 and 4 and a half, so it really didn't occur to me that I needed to be thinking about toxic masculinity and misogynistic violence quite this early, but apparently I absolutely do. A recent investigation by Everyone's Invited listed nearly

1,700 primary schools where pupils as young as five submitted anonymous testimonies of rape culture. The report found that almost half of kids under seven were already showing signs of misogynistic behaviour. And as the show Adolescence explicitly calls out, a lot of these teachings are coming from social media influencers like Andrew Tate, Donovan Sharp and Rollo Tomasi, who dominate the so-called Manosphere, which is the umbrella network of male-focused movements characterized by extreme grievances towards

feminism and its perceived threat to quote-unquote natural gender roles. A closely related subculture, quote-unquote Red Pillars, is used to describe a waking up to the supposed lies of society around modern gender dynamics to reclaim patriarchal gender roles. And finally, incels, or men who identify as involuntarily celibate, believe that they are destined to be rejected by women, leading them towards nihilism, depresentment, and even misogynistic violence. When I watched Adolescents, which really highlights the dangers of these cultures, I knew that I absolutely had to speak to Dr. Emily Contois, who you might recall from my episode on gendered food choices.

It's actually my most popular episode at By Back to Date, so if you haven't already watched it, be sure to hit that up after this. But Emily is an associate professor at the University of Tulsa specializing in how identities are formed at the vital intersection of food, the body, and ideas about health. She's also the author of Diner's, Dudes, and Diets, How Gender and Power Collide in Food Media and culture. Today we're going to be chatting about how the patriarchy harms young men, the dangerous teachings of the manosphere and how kids are even finding themselves there. We're also going to be going into detail on the intersection of diculture and toxic masculinity, risk factors for our kids' susceptibility to these communities,

and what parents can do now to get ahead of it. Also a quick reminder that I would love if you would write me a little comment on this episode if you like it and leave me a 5 star review on the podcast, it really does help me get the word out. Alright let's get into it. Emily, thank you so much for joining me again. I have been literally so excited about this conversation all week. It is the highlight of my week.

That is so nice of you. I'm so honored to be back and glad you asked me these questions. I think we can have a really important conversation today. Totally. I'm very invested in this because I have two boys, and they're young, and I'm trying to do as much research I can safely off social media. Because I'm just so scared the algorithm's going

to start sending me Andrew Tate videos, which is not what I want to do. So that's why I'm hoping this can be a safe place for people to learn about this without going down that rabbit hole. And we'll talk more about that in a minute. But to set the stage here, I feel like we just have to talk about the patriarchy. Because when people think about the patriarchy, they automatically think about all the ways that, you know, it disadvantages and oppresses women.

But the patriarchy harms all of us, including men. And I'm wondering if you can talk a bit more about that. Absolutely. So there's two pieces to how the patriarchy functions as a social system. One is that it privileges men over women. And so this is what we've been talking about, right? How women are universally oppressed by this system. But it also privileges masculinity over femininity and only particular types of masculinity. So scholars will use you know lots of different terms to talk about that but when you think about how our culture defines a quote-unquote real man right right now in our culture that we're thinking about you know individualism,

strength, assertiveness, maybe even aggressiveness right of going it on your own, taking risks, and these physical characteristics of being tall, being broad-chested, having big muscles, being really fit and active, that these are all ways that a particular kind of masculinity is tied up in these ideas about patriarchy. And so in that way, it's a masculinity that hardly any men truly embody.

Some celebrities do, some actors do, some sports stars do, but the vast majority of men, right, are moving through the world in all different sorts of masculine types. And so that's the ways, right, that men can also feel trapped, right, in who they are, how they feel like they're living up to those expectations, and then where some of that chafing can be, right, where you feel like you're not living up to what it means to be a man. Yes, that's so helpful because I think, you know, I feel like a lot of women may feel that even just like acknowledging men's suffering in the patriarchy is like a betrayal of feminism. But like you're kind of describing here, like two things can be true. And again, we can recognize women's oppression and we can be empathetic to the pressures put on men to be the provider and to be fit and strong and to be emotionally stoic all the time, perform sexually, and all those things that we expect of masculinity.

And when we look at the numbers, men are in trouble too. Men are more likely to drop out of school. They're more likely to be homeless. They're more likely to experience social isolation. They're four times more likely to commit suicide. So acknowledging these struggles doesn't mean that we're siding with the enemy here, right? We're really all on the same team.

And in fact, I think if you were seeing it as us versus them, young men are just going to be more easily lured into these extremist communities like the Manosphere. No, absolutely. I think being able to have these conversations about what true inclusion looks like and how that's a project that involves all of us of all of our different genders, all our different positions of social power, that we all have to be working towards that. So yes, as a feminist, you should absolutely care about men, care about boys.

I think some of the stuff that I found so concerning, as we've had more and more conversations about masculinity, to have broad conversations about toxic masculinity, that has alienated a lot of boys. It's part of what has incited the kinds of backlashes that we see in the Manosphere and in cell communities and all of this. And so part of it is about how we did and didn't engage a broad enough audience in those conversations. I think how does this suppress women,

but how is this also bad for men too? And how can we fight for the same solutions? They're going to benefit all of us. Yeah, yeah, so helpful, so helpful. Now, I briefly introduced some of these concepts off the top. But what are some of the core tenets on problematic teachings of these kind of manosphere communities?

So I see it mapping quite clearly off of patriarchy, of control, power, and authority over women and the expectation that women are sort of meant to be subjugated, but then also this extreme sense of needing to control yourself. And that sometimes through discomfort or even pain, that that is this pathway, right? To becoming this great, powerful man.

And so some of that is in the mind, but a lot of it's also in the body. So that can be sex, that can be fitness, that can be a number of different things. But those are two of the levels that we can definitely talk about how this messaging plays out. Yeah, and when taken to kind of like an extreme level,

how do these misogynistic messages contribute to normalizing violence against women? What does that sound like online? What does that look like in real life? Yeah. I mean, I think foundationally to think that women are less than and should be, that they are less worthy, less smart, less too emotional,

too hormonal, right? Some of them come from sort of halfway science. Some of them are just sexist remarks. That when that's foundationally what you think about women, right, it lays the groundwork to treat them like objects, which we've seen in lots of media, lots of pornography, but also to think that they need to be sort of kept in line. So two examples I could think of that were a little bit

broader that maybe people had heard about was thinking about like online trolling and how that behavior is very different against women. So whether we think of something very coordinated and huge like Gamergate of men in the menosphere who are also part of the gaming community being so upset with women game developers, with more progressive storylines or characters being involved, of then attacking, right, directly these women online,

doxing them, putting their home addresses online. But I can also speak from my own experience, right? Like, I wrote an article once that was covered a lot by the right-wing press, and then a bunch of trolls came at me. And so they reinforce all these really sexist notions, right, that they were telling me to get back in the kitchen, to make them a sandwich, right, that my role, my, you know, approved role as a woman

was just to be in the home and to stay there, but also to use their language, I'm sorry, I said it's profane, but like, that I just needed to be fucked properly, right? And then I wouldn't think these ideas, right, that my husband was milk toast, right? So you see this really caustic language that only imagines women, right,

in these positions of subjugation, not of power, not of intellect, not of authority, and really pushing back against that in really ugly ways, right? Like directly into your inbox, directly into your social media feed. Oh yeah, people are so brave when they are behind that keyboard, are they not? Like it's just, it's outrageous. But it's not just behind a keyboard. I've heard and read articles about young children chanting, your body, my choice, to girls in

the playground, which is not only a mockery of feminine discourse around body autonomy and consent, but basically paints rape as a man's right, again, because of these believed gender expectations of what women are good for and what men are entitled to. Yes, and I think part of it's in the history of the legal precedent of our country. It has not been that long for the law to really acknowledge women as autonomous figures, as people who can own property and get credit cards,

and that rape can occur within a marriage, within a relationship, right? That's relatively recent in how the law understands women and our power within it. So this whole idea of a nostalgic idea of when America was great, a lot of it's based on these similar ideas about what women's place was, as well as queer people, people of color, disabled

people, that all of us should just go back. Oh, god. Yeah. This conversation is quite relevant for various reasons. Sadly, yeah. Okay, so what is the pipeline for young boys, young men in accessing this content? Because I assume most 13-, 14-year-old boys aren't searching how to dominate women or anti-feminism or things like that.

How are they making their way to Andrew Tate? Yeah. So I think there's two things. One is just the broader cultural discourse, right? That it is so disappointing that a distinct anti-feminist backlash is mainstream and kind of everywhere. Right? And even if the news is covering something about Anthony Tate, right? It's not just this obscure social media content that you have to dig to find, like that this

messaging is all over and is even being parroted, right, by politicians in positions of authority and speaking to the media every day. So that's one way, right? It's in the culture. And so of course that trickles down to our young people. They hear it from lots of different places. But the other thing that I found interesting research on is thinking about how things like Instagram and TikTok have brought about a lot of lifestyle beauty concerns for both young men and young women.

So for example, with young women, we see all these trends of really young girls buying anti-aging creams or spending lots and lots of money on beauty products and doing the same makeup videos that have become this whole category of content on these platforms. And then for men, there is this interesting compliment that goes along with this language of looks maxing, of this idea of what exercises can you do to make your jaw look a particular way.

For women, we've heard they have high cheekbones. Like, it's a very similar kind of negative beauty discourse that you're not enough, you don't look good enough, and here are the products that can help you. And it is relatively recent, right, for that kind of language and that sort of product push to go for young men. And so there was a really interesting study

that looked at how men were looking at that kind, young men looking at that kind of content on their social media feeds could very quickly end up in Manasphere type content. So thinking about how the algorithms are constructed, the different ideas of what the content is about, what's the underlying thread, and if you watch one, where do you go in the next, that there was this interesting thread that you could start out somewhere like there that is a little bit more innocuous but so worrisome for us as we think about the self-esteem and understanding of young people but that that can make a jump to this kind of a space. So yeah it's not a Google search term just like directly taking you there but that was one very interesting pathway that it can start from other sort of social media engagement. Yeah it doesn't surprise me at all having you know working full-time in social media. Yeah. You know there's just so many

adjacent communities like in the nutrition and food space specifically who again they're not explicitly talking you know about red pill or any of those kind of you know or incel culture or anything like that but it can be such a huge pipeline and I'm thinking about things like the carnivore diet and it's focused on like eating raw meat like the strong hunter-gatherer ancestors and things like that, or the trad wife trend, which is like advocating for women, like cooking frigging cinnamon toast crunch from scratch

anytime your husband has a craving. Like, so yeah, like maybe you can talk a little bit more about the intersection of the manosphere and diet culture specifically. Yeah, so going back to this idea of like controlling women, but also controlling yourself. And so whether they're directly trying to draw ideas from ancient stoicism, of how to control the mind, to control your destiny, to have this sense of calm and control.

But lots of it is very similar to what we see in the fitness community, of extreme fitness regimens, things that we see coming out of wellness, like cold plunge, right, and really cold showers. We see that again, you know, intersecting and being a part of this idea of how you construct that like powerful great masculinity through suffering. Thinking about like extreme hydration, right, of having the goal of drinking, you know, gallons and gallons of water.

Like we definitely see that in fitness communities, in wellness communities, we see it in men and women, but we also see it codified in an interesting way in the Manosphere. And then this is really interesting when we think about sexual health and sexual habits as well. That another sort of digital trend that people worry about, but we've

seen configured in different ways, is thinking about how much pornography is available online in a digital environment. That you could consume it for hours a day, just like you could TikTok content, and worrying how that affects particularly young people. But I think in this Manosphere space, there's two interesting ideas that seem polar

and then are able to intersect. We have these cultural ideas about men's sexual appetites, which map on to what we think about with food appetites, right, of meat and potatoes. And you deserve to have those be satisfied and to eat a lot. And so similarly with men, we have these different social expectations about how many sexual partners you might have, what your appetite for sex would be like on a day-to-day basis

or a week basis, what it's like in marriages between husbands and wives. So we have all those kinds of norms that we hear circulating. But in these manosphere spaces and overlapping a little bit with wellness spaces, there's also this intersection with what people call semen retention or the nofap movement to restrain and not masturbate. And it is the promise, right, of like what that will bring is the most sort of wellness mumbo jumbo kind of magic bullet magic pill kind of stuff that we've taught people you know to be really cognizant of that it promises higher testosterone better mental clarity that you know you're going to be fitter

um you're going to be lucky um just on and on and on right this like never-ending list of potential benefits for which right there no evidence, there's no science, there's nothing backing it up. But we see again how it is. It's the language of wellness, the co-optation of science, these ideas about gender, about masculinity, the influence of our digital lives. It's so many things colliding at once, which I think is what makes this so fascinating but also so difficult to tease apart.

It sounds to me like, you know, so many of the lessons that we've learned from die culture are grounded in this need for control and discipline and willpower. And usually, like, you know, when we're talking about this in the context of women and die culture, we're talking about kind of like eating disorders where controlling the body and food is kind of a central, you know, part of this disorder. But you know, with what it sounds like within this toxic masculinity, within this manosphere, it's like if you can control all of your deep-seated biological needs for sex, for food, for sleep, for comfort, then of course you can control women.

And it's terrifying. And again, you can see how that pipeline is just so easy to go down. From you watching that video of a man doing his 4am morning routine where he's getting up and doing all these different pretty extreme regimens. And again, it's like, hey, if I can get up at 4am and do all this before you even wake up in the morning, then that makes me a real man. Mm-hmm.

["Spring Day"] ["Spring Day"] And I think one thing we skipped over too, that there's like the general menosphere and then also this like sort of niche, right, of like incel, right, of like this involuntary celibate of this belief, right, that like I am a man and so I have a right to women's bodies, right? Women should want to date me, women should want to have sex with me. And so then when that doesn't happen, right, and there's this dissatisfaction,

this partly physical, but we can guess, right, also emotional, right, to feel loved, to feel adored, to have, you know, the specialness that's in a good relationship, like that there's an anger, right, and this big backlash to that not happening. And I think what's interesting is we see, because with women, we often see negative emotions, right, turned internally, right? Some of what we understand about eating disorders is that way. But with this manosphere in cell culture, we often see negative emotions turned internally. Some of what we understand about eating disorders is that way. But with this menosphere in cell culture, we see it both ways, that it's this anger at yourself. They're like, I don't look good enough. I'm not muscular enough.

I'm not the kind of man that my culture holds up so women don't like me. I think you hear the 80-20 rule that 80% of women want 20% of men who appeal more closely to those ideals like that's discourse you'll see in these spaces. So it's this anger right at your culture and at women, but also a dissatisfaction and a frustration with yourself. And so it is it's a very complex seeking of control in these two different directions

outward and inward. Right. And there there's so many subcultures. One that I that I've heard a bit about is this like gym cell subculture. Do you want to kind of talk about that? Yes, this idea that your fitness regimen is uniquely tied to that idea, right? That I'm going to make myself more physically attractive

and fit so to appeal. And they'll use almost like evolutionary language, right, to appeal the mate that I want, right? Like, you know, it's very much going back to the caveman lore that we also talked about with the carnivore diet and some of these other ways of eating, that if we go back to trying to understand how humanity used to be and what's at our basis core

that we should be adhering to, that your fitness regimen becomes understood as a way to reshape yourself so that you can go out like a caveman and get the cavewoman who's supposed to live with you forever and do what you say. Right. And again, talking about these, in many cases, unrealistic standards.

I saw so many. I was reading, doing my research for this episode, I saw so many glossary basically of really scary terms and phrases. And one was this like look smack or rope. You mentioned looks maxing, I guess, it's so hard to say. But again, like this idea of like, you know, doing all these like little things to like make your jaw super chiseled and get you more muscular and X, Y, and Z. But this like look smack or rope is the suggestion that you know

you should improve your looks or basically unalive yourself, which at the very extreme level is, you know, suggests that your appearance is your only measure of worth. Which again speaks to the kind of importance of body positivity for men too, which largely men have kind of been left out of that conversation for the most part. But we have lots of body positive role models for women. But what do men have? Yeah, so I think this operates on two levels, right? Which kind of goes back to the patriarchy thing, right? When it comes to body positivity for men, there hasn't been a movement or something

recognized sort of in the fashion space. Like I often think of that great old Navy commercial with Amy Bryant, right? And there's like all these women in all their different jeans and everyone's a different size. It's just like such a fun, supportive, colorful, like high-energy campaign. But there wasn't one for men, right? And like old Navy has a whole half of the store for men. They sell pants for men, but like there weren't, right? This complimentary sort of messaging. And so I think there's two things. Like one is the fact that to be a man in a body

that doesn't align with the ridiculous ideal, right, of having gigantic arms and six pack and all these muscular things, the sort of social sanctioning against that for men is less than it is for women. And so an example we can point to is like the whole dad bod phenomenon, right? That like, he looks like he still works out,

but he also looks like he eats a whole pizza, right? Totally. You're not chiseled. You're not lean. But that was considered an attractive body, right? Like one that women liked and one that was in the tabloids in a positive way. When mom bod never existed, right?

For women who've actually made life and grown it in their bodies and gained a little weight. And we never look at that body and think it's good, right? It's immediately a body that's supposed to bounce back, change, yeah, go back to this ridiculous ideal. Totally. But at the same time, as I was trying to theorize, in my first book with Diners, Dudes, and Diets

of marketing weight loss to men, fat comes to be sort of understood as feminized. Fat is soft. It's weak compared to muscle being hard and masculine. And so I think like to talk about body positivity for men directly is to sort of, again, have to engage in that negotiation of like, what is masculinity and what do we consider masculine? And so in a to layer over, right, the general fat bias and fat stigma of our society, that then for men, it does operate in that different way, right?

Yeah. That you've lost some of your masculinity and your masculine prowess, which again maps onto these ideas about sexual ability as well, right? Like I remember one of the ads that I analyzed for Weight Watchers was, you know, for every pound you lose, you gain half an inch of length, right? Oh God. And ideas about sexual performance, right? Like that gets tied in with weight loss, you know, protein cuts, like all this stuff.

I think one of the, you know, one of my friends pointed out that one of the big Netflix documentaries about, you know, following a vegan diet and having non-animal based protein, like one of the talking points had to be that like your sexual performance will be just as good. Right? Or even, you know,

I was on another podcast talking about, you know, Super Size Me, you know, this really popular documentary like when we were in college. And this idea that as he ate all this McDonald's and gained weight and changed his biometric factors, also, right, he had these sexual performance issues. They weren't having sex as much,

he wasn't getting as hard, all this stuff. And so the idea that like, fatness, fitness, what you eat, also mapping onto these ideas about sexual performance, of being able to have a partner. And we haven't even talked about the heterosexual frame, how heteronormative all this understanding is, too, of how these ideas about masculinity are always tracking really strongly,

on maintaining this heteronormative boundary, that we don't talk about queerness or any other sexual identities in there. Oh, for sure. And you touched on porn a moment ago, but how does the porn that young people are viewing today shape their view of what a relationship with a woman should look like?

So I think the first thing we want to do is to not demonize pornography as a field. Of course. Right? Like it could be a fantastic part of lots of people's sex lives. But I think for young people, there's like two things. One when you haven't sort of figured out your own sexual desires or you haven't been in

a sexual relationship yet, that porn when it's so accessible can have this normalizing effect that like this is what sex should be like. And that goes back to the power structures that have shaped much of the pornographic content coming out of this industry that was made by men and imagining an audience of mostly or only heterosexual men. So when we talk about the film studies language, like the male gaze, and all of these ideas

about being able to control a woman, being able to have the woman please you, thinking about the kinds of positions and acts that pornography features that may or not be awesome for all people to actually do. So as we think about how it sets expectations for what sex will be like, for what relationships will be like, that that can be dangerous for young people, particularly for young boys. But also to think about the structures of power within that industry, of how these films get made, how power is shared. And we see that changing in some companies,

like there's definitely porn made for women for different kinds of desires, that has different kinds of storylines, like all of that. But when we think about what's broadly available on the internet to young men, it would be worrisome, right, to consume lots of that and to think that that's what sex is gonna to be like. And the only other thing I wanted to bring up there that I thought was kind of interesting,

there's this fascinating sociological study that I think was particularly looking at like evangelical men, but any, you know, strict religious community would probably be like this, where there's so much, right? Abstinence-based focused education, and so much about sex is that like this is bad, this is tempting, you need to not give in to these desires, right? That as a young boy you totally feel, right? That your body physiologically acts out like that's there and it is characterized right solely, right? As something that's bad and evil and something that you need to resist but then when you get married

there's this expectation that you'll have sex and that it's this gift from God and that you'll know what to do and you'll enjoy it. And this book was so fascinating in finding that these young men had a really hard time making that transition, that like sex had been so demonized, they'd been trying to sort of fight these urges they felt within themselves. So then their sex lives as adults were really constrained and affected by not being in situations where you could talk about desire, to think about pleasure, that it was only bad.

So I think that's worth talking about too, when we think about all the discourses circulating online. Oh, for sure. Yeah, I am all for porn, so I don't want to sound like a prude. But it is terrifying to me as a parent how easy it is for young people to access it. A recent report out of the UK found

that over half of 11 to 13-year-olds had already seen porn, and some kids were being exposed as early as seven. And it's also the type of violent porn that they also may be more exposed to. So there was another study that found that over half of young adults had either choked or been choked by a sexual partner.

And again, I'm not kink shaming, you know, if it's consensual and you're an adult, I love that for you, do your thing. But again, young kids may see this and believe that all women just inherently want to be controlled or dominated or even hurt in some way. And that can be dangerous. Yeah, exactly. And thinking about what sex ed looks like in most of this country, right? Where you have no information, you're just told not to have sex and maybe you know what

condoms are. If that's all the information you have and maybe you're not in a family that's going to talk about it. And I mean, most kids, right? Like maybe our parents isn't where we want to have these conversations. And so it's a complicated sort of point, right? Of like, where do you get the quality information? Where do you figure out what your body wants?

How it fits into a relationship? How it's a healthy thing? When to know it's bleeding into something else? That when you're in a vacuum of useful education, but within a digital environment of so much information and so much content and not being able to, you know, it goes back to a kind of literacy, right? We don't teach sex ed, sex literacy in this country in most places. Yeah, it's really terrifying. And if our kids are getting that education, so to speak, online, well, we can, you know, we're talking about where that information and education

might be coming from and it's dangerous. Yeah. But speaking of online, I want to talk about the role of online bullying because spoiler alert for anyone who's listening, if you haven't watched Adolescents, like this is one of the key themes in adolescence that made it so real for people, right? That there was an online bullying aspect to it. And you briefly mentioned that earlier as well. But there was a 2023 study that found

that about 30% of high school students had been cyberbullied within just the last 30 days. It's rampant, right? And we see those numbers jumping every single year. How do you think that the bullying and the kind of online discourse between children, not just through social media, like viewing content, but how could that play a role in young boys' susceptibility

to these kind of manosphere communities? Well, absolutely. I think one of the things is how these platforms were designed to function for all of us, right? And how that affects a young person who's developing in their young brain. Of the idea that in our old days, when there was no phones, sure, you could get bullied at school,

but you could go home and you were able to escape it. And so the idea that all of that caustic feeling comes home with you on your phone, if you can't get yourself to not check it. All of us, many of us who use these platforms, the way the notifications are built in, the infinite scrolling feed, they've been specifically designed to call us in,

for us to get those little dopamine hits as we're engaging with the content. And so I think that's one thing, that even to protect yourself from the cyberbullying can be difficult because of the actual structures of social media itself and how it's been specifically engineered, right, to have our attention and our eyes. But I think what we see in adolescence is a program

of thinking about how this language, these specific insults, these ideas coming out of the Manosphere or in-cell culture, being directed from one young person to another, to think that you're ugly and that you're always going to look that way or that no girls are ever going to want you. That I think when you are in a bullying situation like that, it could make you susceptible to believing those kinds of ideas. That women believe particular ways

and only like particular men, and that you have a right to be very angry and to act out against that. But no, when I talk with my students, cyber bullying is something that I was, just like having to live through live shooter drills, like a very different gun violence experience as young people. Those are two things we didn't have to deal with. Yeah. That I think this is very real and very important. But maybe one thing can

come back to sort of our social media smartphone hygiene. Yeah. If we're able to have good guardrails and good habits around how we engage, it can also free us right from checking, constantly checking. It would only be exacerbated, you know, in the instance of being cyberbullied. Totally. All right, well, we have covered a lot and I'm freaked the fuck out. It's good though, it's good. I'm a knowledge is power kind of woman and mom, so it's what I need, what I want. But of course, these are very scary things for parents.

Are there any other major social risk factors that may be associated with falling into this incel, red pill community? Yeah, I think paying attention to our children, right, for everyone else who has children, when your child's socially isolated, of when they're only playing video games or they're spending lots of time online. Or I think another, to bring another concerning thread

of thinking about the rise of AI and different AI personas and seeing adults, but also young people form these pretty strong attachments with a being that doesn't exist, that is just a large language model that can predict when we have a conversation with you. That thinking about, of keeping track of that social isolation and trying to understand, right, like what media children are spending time with.

And it can be hard to keep up, right? Like technology is constantly changing, these digital spaces are constantly changing, but they are things to keep as much of an eye on as we can. And as long as children will hang out with their parents, right, to do things together and to have as much of an eye on as we can. And as long as children will hang out with their parents, to do things together and to have as much of that in real life sort of time that we're spending together. Now, of course, there's so much of parenting

we can't control or so much what our kids absorb or take in or learn, we can't control. My kid will come home with a new bad word and I'm like, I didn't even say that one. Like I say a lot of bad words, but he didn't get that one from me. So there's only so much you can do. I think one thing too though, it's like,

it's impossible, right? Like even for me to keep up with like what my students are doing online, right? Or their slang or their meme culture, right? That I think one of the things is, you know, keeping those lines of communication open as much as possible to ask questions, right? Of, you know, what does this mean to you?

Why do you think this is interesting? Why do you think your friends are following along with this? How do you think this, you know, what does this mean to you? Why do you think this is interesting? Why do you think your friends are following along with this? How do you think this, you know, is similar or different to the values we've talked about in our family? Right? I think sometimes we come in full of anxiety and panic and we want to just tell children things. And so when they're at an age that we can acknowledge their agency and to ask those,

you know, how, what, why questions that if you can get that word in your mouth first, and then get into a question instead of a statement or a lecture, that that might be another way that we can keep those lines of conversation open. Yeah, so, so important. And any any thoughts on like school choices, school types? Is there any sense of whether or not like all boys schools or like religious type schools are more susceptible to these kind of extreme anti-feminism ideologies compared to coed or secular. Yeah, so once we have single gender, single sex schooling,

we do have sociological research for both all-boys and all-boys all-girl schools that you'll see a hypermasculinity cultivated among the boys, but also a kind of exaggerated hyperfemininity among young women all going to school together. And so when we think about the structures of patriarchy, when you think about how it's already in this position of social power that reproduces itself, that there do appear to be some risks

to be in what we call these homosocial spaces, where it's all men. So it's not to say every experience is like that, or that there'd be a big risk, but it's something to make sure we're aware of and to have conversations about. That's a great, great tip. I did read that in response to the rise in gendered violence in young people and also the conversations brought up by adolescents.

The UK prime minister is actually working to change the school curriculum to include anti-misogyny lessons for boys. So I think that's great. And I think if you're a parent listening, it's worth asking your kids' schools how they plan to get ahead of this, you know, not just when they're already teenagers and experiencing this, but also thinking, you know, in those younger years as well and the ways that schools are able to kind of like foster more inclusive communities. But back to the home for a moment, because fathers are often the most important role model or one of the most important role models in young boys' lives.

How can dads who are listening play a role in raising young men who are actively trying to reject the pressures of the patriarchy? Yes. Well, we know one thing. If they're listening to Abby Sharp, they're always doing something right, right? Like, we'd love to have dads listening to this. Yes, we do. So a couple of ideas I had is one, to think about how in our society, right, man, woman, husband, wife, dad, mom aren't always understood as being completely equal.

But in your house, your family, you can make sure that's the understanding. Right. Yeah. I think the other thing that can be hard for some of us who grew up in these sort of more gender divided lives, right, of like boy toys and girl toys or you know what we're supposed to wear, that aiming to treat your children regardless of their gender the same, right, of the kind of play we expect them to engage in, how they should do in school and pay attention in school, how they should eat, how they should move, what colors they should wear, all those things of modeling that and honoring that in your family. Typically, we encourage our girls to be in touch with their emotions and to express them,

but this is really important when we have boys too, that part of this stoic, controlled ideal of masculinity means you're supposed to not have emotions or to only express anger for example. Modeling for boys and acknowledging for your son and sons that emotions are good, you should feel them and work through them. Another thing of thinking about the home specifically that we have so much data that even in the most progressive houses, men and dads very rarely do that full half of the domestic labor. Correct.

So being real about that with your partner to make sure you're doing your half. And if you're not, to acknowledge it. Some of what we see is we kind of expect moms to be the ones who cook and clean and do the laundry and get everybody out the door and all this stuff. And we need to know that that's not just assumed, right? That this is extra, that we say thank you. We appreciate it, right? That can be another way that if you can't get it equal,

we can at least acknowledge that it's not assumed and it shouldn't just be naturalized that way. Yeah, I love that. I think my last one was to do a self-check with yourself. How do you interact with other men? Oh, yeah. And especially when you're talking about women to other men.

In front of kids, especially, yeah. Especially in front of your children. But imagine your son there every time you do. Yeah. I think it's pretty shocking how most men will speak about women in objectified terms, or you're frustrated in traffic and say something about bad women drivers. Think about all these different examples

where these stereotypes seep through. And know that this isn't what we want to model. So thinking about if you had a son and a daughter in those spaces, how are we acting? And how are we constructing for them what gender is and the gendered world that they'll live in? That's so helpful. What great tips.

And then finally, outside of the family and outside of school, I'm thinking again, influencers, celebrities, what should young boys be looking for in a healthy role model? What are the kind of people that we, as parents, for example, should maybe try to nudge them towards to get them away from the Andrew Tates of the world? So I think one thing is what to be wary of.

So if it's extremes, absolutes, or magic pills, magic bullets, we know none of those things work. And they can also be really clear red flags. So those are easy things to watch for. And then the other one is listening. Is their message overall about inclusion, of including more people and treating them well? Or is it about excluding particular people, particular including more people and treating them well,

or is about excluding, right, particular people, particular groups, right, and saying lots of nasty things about them. That's another really easy test, is you think about when you're listening. It can also be about how does listening or, you know, engaging with their content make you feel, right? Does it make you feel bad about yourself? Does it make you feel negative emotions towards someone else or some other group? That could be another sort of internal gut check, you know, as you're consuming stuff. And then the same stuff we teach with diet literacy, with media literacy, right? If they're marshaling evidence, what is it?

Where did it come from? Is it trustworthy? You know, what can we understand about the context? And then how much of what they're giving you is just persona and artifice, right? The stuff on the outside. Like, is there substance here? Is being able to tell the difference is one of the things we can help youngifice, right? The stuff on the outside. Like is there substance here? Being able to tell the difference is one of the things we can help young people learn and practice.

Yeah and obviously a lot of those things are very nuanced and even difficult for a lot of adults to be able to, you know, when I speak to adults all the time about meta literacy and what they see online and not trusting what they see online, it's hard for for for adults even for professionals sometimes. So you know it is an overwhelming task and something we have to work at every single day. And I think you're right the the open dialogue is so important to you know be monitoring what your kids are watching and to talk to them about it. And you know why do you find this engaging? Why is this interesting to you? What are you getting out of this? What do you think they're trying to suggest here or recommend or say here?

I think just keeping conversations open is the really critical piece. So very, very helpful. Thank you so much, Emily, again. I am so grateful to have you to chat about this. And I know it's something that is on top of mind for so many people right now. So again I'm gonna be leaving links in the show notes to where people can find you and your amazing book Diners, Dudes and Diets. So thank you again. Thank you. Thank

you so much for having me and I hope it helps people see right like why a food and diet and health podcast we'd be talking about the Manosphere right that there are so many different intersection points. So I hope it's an insightful conversation thinking about why this is relevant for all of us. Amazing. Thank you, Cam. You're welcome. Okay, I am so glad we had this conversation

because as a mom of boys, I have felt very much overwhelmed with anxiety over the responsibility that I feel to raise good men and just protect them from these toxic masculinity communities online. And I think an obvious part of the equation for parents of teens who already do have access to social media is to create boundaries for its use

or monitor the types of content that they're viewing. And again, as we just talked about, encourage that open dialogue to talk about the problematic things that they do encounter online. But it got me thinking about the years before our kids have social media. Because as we've seen, these messages are taking hold incredibly young. So this might have been a personal parenting project more than anything, but I did do a we've seen, these messages are taking hold incredibly young. So this might have been a personal parenting project more than anything, but I did do a

deep dive into the psychology and parenting stacks to get some tips to help parents like me of young kids lay the groundwork before our kids get phones. So tip number one, model emotional openness. The manosphere promotes a version of masculinity rooted in dominance, stoicism, model emotional openness. The manosphere promotes a version of masculinity rooted in dominance, stoicism, and emotional suppression. So rather than telling our boys to man up because boys don't cry, we should try to openly share and normalize our own vulnerable emotions

like sadness, fear, and disappointment. Bonus points if we can narrate our emotional regulation process to them as well. So for example, if I'm feeling like a little bit weepy or teary-eyed about something that happened at work, I might try to tell my boys, guys, I'm feeling a little bit disappointed and sad today, but I'm gonna try taking some deep breaths

to help me calm my body. In my experience as a mom, not only does this help my boys see that expressing their difficult emotions is not something to be ashamed of, but it also creates moments for them to practice empathy and kindness. Often when my boys see me sad, they will go in for a hug or they'll ask me, Mom, how can they make you feel better? And honestly, that alone feels like a huge win. Number two, expose our kids to diverse stories,

shows and movies about gender. In my house, I do try to choose stories where the protagonist is rejecting stereotypical gender roles as often as I can. So for example, we love Ada Twist Scientist and the Paper bag princess for rejecting traditional feminine stereotypes, and the boy with big feelings and tough guys have feelings too for celebrating and normalizing the emotions of boys. Tip number three is to teach our kids to critically evaluate the gender stereotypes that they do see. So when watching a show or reading a book that plays up a traditional gender norm, maybe

try asking open-ended questions like, hmm, can the villain ever be a girl? Do you think all girls need saving? Why do you think the little boy was acting out or so frustrated? Remember, they don't need to have a good answer to get them to start to question and think. Tip number four, try not to punish problematic sexist statements or questions. I want my kids to feel like they can ask or say anything and not be judged or get in trouble. That way, when they do see something problematic online, they will know that they can talk

to me about it without getting in hot water. So if I were to ever hear my son say something derogatory like, that's so gay, which hasn't happened yet, but of course it might one day, I might try to respond with a neutral, open-ended question like, hmm, what do you think that means? And then help them understand the hurtful impact of using a word like gay as an insult while offering a better word for what they're trying to communicate. Support over shame is really key to building trust. Tip number five, compliment them on their emotional intelligence. Positive reinforcement has been so much more

effective with my kids than punishment. So whenever I see one of my sons offering a friend or family member empathy, kindness, and apology, asking if they can help, admitting they're wrong, standing up for others, etc. I praised the hell out of it and remind them that true strength is demonstrated through kindness, not control. Tip number six is to build resilience to failure. them that true strength is demonstrated through kindness, not control. Tip number six is to build resilience to failure. The Red Pill community preys on young boys who are terrified of not living up to what's expected of them—in dating, in fitness, in school, in work, etc.

So we want to normalize mistakes and shift our praise from perfectionism to effort or strategy. One of the great ways to foster this is through what Jonathan Haidt calls risky play, which is basically any kind of unstructured activity like climbing trees, building forts, exploring unsupervised, etc. Risky play can teach kids how to manage uncertainty and failure in real life where the stakes are relatively low. So if my son's stick fort falls down or breaks, he might get upset at first, which of course I'll try to validate, but he will also learn that the world doesn't end when you mess up.

You don't need a strict system to quote-unquote win at life as the Manosphere suggests. You just need adaptability and self-acceptance. And finally, number seven, teach media literacy skills early. I actually started to do this at home because my kids finally figured out that I'm a YouTuber. So I kind of talk to them as someone quote-unquote on the inside now. But if they're watching like Mr. Beast or another kid-coded show, I'll try to ask them things like, hmm, what do you think he's trying to get you to do there? Do you think he's trying to get you to buy this toy or

teach you about something or just make you laugh? We can also ask questions that encourage our kids to acknowledge how media differs from real life. So asking things like, hmm, why do you think this game has such bright colours? Do you think people in real life move that fast or make that loud noise? Again, they're probably not going to have any profound insights at this stage or age, but just getting kids to even start to think about and recognize that what they see on screens isn't real life and is uniquely designed to capture their attention away

from the physical world may help prepare them to question the authenticity of what they see on social media. As I try to plant these early seeds of nurturing values, media literacy, and emotional resilience, I have personally made the decision to hold off on giving my kids access to social media as long as I possibly can. At my boy's school, I'm involved in an initiative called Unplugged, which encourages the parents in your kid's grade to pledge not to give their child a smartphone until at least 14 years old.

We know that delaying the use of social media for our kids becomes far more difficult when their peers have access. So the idea is to get as many families in your cohort on board. No phones, no FOMO. I will leave a link in the show notes if you're interested in getting your school on board, but I personally feel at least somewhat relieved knowing that I've got a built-in support network of like-minded parents in my circle. And that is all that I have for you guys today. I hope this was as insightful and helpful for you as it was for me. And again, a big thank you to Emily Contois for joining me today.

And if you haven't already, definitely check out our previous episodes on gendered food choices. Signing off with Science and Sass, I'm Abbey Sharp. Thanks for watching!