New resource to help teachers and parents address online masculinity influencers

By Cate McCurry, PA

A new resource has been created to provide guidance to schools, teachers and parents on how to address the impact of online masculinity influencers on children and young people, particularly teenage boys, across Ireland.

The resource has been made in response to influencers, such as Andrew Tate, who has attracted huge audiences of young men and teenage boys through sexual and discriminatory language.

Teachers and parents in Ireland and the UK have become increasingly concerned about how young people, particularly teenage boys, are engaging with online “masculinity influencers” who post content on social media platforms on issues relating to men and masculinity.

 

The new guide has been created by Dr Darragh McCashin and Dr Catherine Baker from Dublin City University, alongside Dr Fiona O’Rourke.

The guide sets out how some of the content promotes harmful ideologies, attitudes and behaviours, including restrictive and oppressive forms of masculinity that are predicated on sexual and gender-based abuse, harassment and violence.

The resource aims to provide schools, teachers and educators with guidance on how to address the impact of these online masculinity influencers on young people, particularly teenage boys aged 13-18, via educational interventions and initiatives, which include having critical discussions with them about this topic.

It also provides information about online masculinity influencers who promote harmful ideologies, attitudes and behaviours, as well as the impact they have on children and teenage boys.

Some masculinity influencers have gained significant followings on social media, including Tate, who has amassed several million followers on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok, where videos of him have been watched 11.6 billion times.

His social media content ranges from general motivational videos to explicitly harmful content that is misogynistic, homophobic, sexist and conspiratory-led.

Tate, who is currently facing allegations of abuse, rape, and human trafficking of women, which he denies, has been banned from Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube for his misogynistic comments.

Some of his comments include comparing women to dogs, saying women should not be allowed to drive, claiming that men have “authority” over their female partners and that women rape victims should “bear some responsibility” for being raped.

The report says that online masculinity influencers promote other forms of masculinity, which can have an adverse effect on boys and men.

Influencers such as Tate, Myron Gaines and Mike Thurston, promote the idea that young men should manifest specific masculine ideals, such as strength, toughness and physicality, through a muscular physique via fitness and weight-training videos they post online.

 

The guide says this online content “reifies deeply entrenched ideas” about masculine aesthetics, which can have a negative impact on the mental health of boys who are not able to achieve this physical ideal.

Dr Darragh McCashin, assistant professor at the School of Psychology, Dublin City University, said teachers in Irish schools have been “crying out” for guidance on how to tackle the issue.

“There has been a rise in traditional masculinity attitudes in the classroom. There’s been some work in Australia by (academic) Stephanie Wescott and colleagues, as well as work done in the UK NGO sector, that have pointed to an uptick in misogynistic and sexist attitudes and behaviours, particularly from pre-teen boys,” Dr McCashin said.

“Higher levels are being observed, and this chimes with the recent Women’s Aid report on younger men exhibiting much higher levels of traditionalist masculinity than other generations, which is something that hasn’t really been observed before.

“Normally, it’s older generations that endorse kind of very traditional views of masculinity as it relates to attitudes about women, sex, sexuality, the role of men in the home.

“All of that kind of points to the fact that the manosphere online content might be having an adverse impact on boys and men in terms of their progression to very traditionalist notions of what it is to be a man, what masculinity actually means.

“All of this is potentially having a problematic influence on how we’re thinking about the opposite sex, how we’re behaving, how we’re interacting online.

“That’s the overall context to the rise in traditional masculinity, as observed by teachers and parents.”

The 39-page guide provides advice to schools, teachers and parents/guardians on how to address the impact of online masculinity influencers and digital cultures on children and young people, particularly teenage boys, and has been produced in consultation with a number of academics.