What does it mean when ideas about gender that once seemed to belong to the past begin gaining momentum again?
From the manosphere and looksmaxxing culture to the growing popularity of tradwife content, social media is filled with increasingly rigid ideas about what men and women should look like, how they should behave, and what their relationships and lives should be. But beneath the aesthetics and carefully curated videos are deeper questions about identity, belonging, certainty, power and our psychological wellbeing.
In this episode of The Happier Life Project, Gabby speaks to Anda Solea, a Senior Lecturer in Cybercrime and PhD Candidate at the University of Portsmouth, and a Fellow of the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism. Anda researches how extremist ideologies and online subcultures are disseminated and normalised through social media, specialising in incels, looksmaxxers and manosphere influencers, and the role of short-form content in spreading misinformation, propaganda, online radicalisation and gender-based violence.
Together, Gabby and Anda explore why momentum is building around these ideas, why an idealised version of the past can feel increasingly appealing, and how social media algorithms can take seemingly harmless content and lead people towards increasingly rigid or extreme worldviews.
They look at the psychological pressures created by looksmaxxing and incel culture, including appearance, masculinity, rejection and dehumanisation, as well as the appeal of tradwife culture and its promise of traditional femininity, domesticity and clearly defined gender roles.
But this conversation isn't only about the people who come to believe these ideas. What happens to our mental health when we're repeatedly exposed to them without necessarily buying into them? How can they affect our self-worth, relationships, expectations of other people and understanding of gender?
And as debates around misogyny, gender, power and sexual violence continue to play out both online and in the real world, what can we do to challenge harmful narratives, build healthier communities and protect our psychological wellbeing?
Tune in to explore whether these seemingly opposing movements are responding to some of the same underlying psychological needs, and what their growing popularity reveals about the world we live in.
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For more on Anda and her research: https://www.port.ac.uk/about-us/structure-and-governance/our-people/our-staff/anda-solea
