It’s encouraging to see MPs treating the ‘manosphere’ as a safeguarding issue. For years, too many adults have treated the content pumped out by these grifters as banter, a phase, or something boys will grow out of, when in fact, boys have been growing into it.
Led by Labour MP Alistair Strathern, more than 60 Labour MPs wrote to Ofcom’s chief executive, Dame Melanie Dawes, last week (24 March), urging the regulator to do more to protect boys and men from harmful manosphere content and the risks that come with it.
Bedford and Kempston’s MP Mohammad Yasin (Labour) is one of those backing the call.
In a statement posted on social media, he said he signed because while Ofcom has already issued guidance to tackle the specific harms faced by women and girls online, similar protections for men and boys have not yet been put in place.
While I welcome this direction of travel, it’s a tiny step, and I want us all to be honest about the scale of what is still missing.
Over 60 MPs sounds like a lot (Strathern’s office tells me it’s now 65 who have pledged support for this call to Ofcom), but it’s still only around 15 per cent of Labour MPs and just 10 per cent of MPs overall.
While this letter has been led by Strathern as chair of Labour’s parliamentary group for men and boys, if we are serious about protecting children, this cannot be an issue for one party, one group, or one letter.
More MPs from all parties need to get on board and campaign for genuine work to tackle this issue, and they need to do so quickly and publicly, with vigour and passion.
Same mission
But this also must not be framed as a tug-of-war between the safety of girls and young women and the safety of young men and boys, as if we are only allowed to care about one at a time.
The work being done to recognise male violence against women and girls (MVAWG), and the push for stronger online safety for women and girls, is vital and overdue.
It should be protected, strengthened and enforced. Nothing about focusing on boys should be allowed to dilute that work, or to give cover to anyone still minimising misogyny.
But protecting women and girls properly also means being honest about where some of this harm begins.
If we want fewer men hurting women, we need fewer boys being trained to hate them.
That is not about shifting blame away from perpetrators. It is about stopping the pipeline before it hardens into behaviour.
The goal is shared: safer lives, healthier relationships, and a generation of children, regardless of gender, growing up with respect, empathy and boundaries.
The grifter’s funnel
The MPs’ letter highlights the harms boys and young men are exposed to online, including sextortion, gambling, scams, violent pornography and radicalisation.
That list is important because it shows what the manosphere is for many boys who stumble into it. It is not just a group of angry men shouting into the void. It is a sales funnel to line the pockets of the men exploiting the vulnerable.
These ‘content creators’ have found a way to siphon relatively small amounts of money from individual members of their audience to amass a wealth they then use to ‘prove’ their lies about how easy it is for others to do the same.
It starts with content that normalises contempt for women, then nudges boys towards risk, exploitation, or both. It does not always look like outright hate at first. Instead, it’s dressed up as motivation, truth, or just asking innocent questions.
If Ofcom is going to take this seriously, they can do something very easy to prove it.
Stop pretending a ‘one-size-fits-all’ guidance is enough.
If there is an agreement that specific harmful content targets girls, then the same needs to be said for specific harms that hit boys; guidance and enforcement need to reflect that.
We must not stop focusing on ending MVAWG, but we must also not let it be our sole focus when looking at how we can better support all our children.
Start at home
Punishing perpetrators of violence against women and girls must continue, and sentences should be strong enough to send a clear message that abuse is not a minor lapse, but a serious crime.
But enforcement alone will not solve this. The source problem is what boys absorb long before they become men.
This is where parents, carers and schools have to be honest with themselves.
If we leave boys to learn about relationships, women, sex and manhood from the worst corners of the internet, we should not be surprised by the attitudes that come back out of it. A single chat does not fix this, especially once they are already in deep.
The next step here may make some uncomfortable, but I believe it’s unavoidable.
Parents need clearer tools and the confidence to use them early. Not just in response to a crisis, but as part of ordinary modern parenting, the same way we talk to kids about drugs, alcohol, and contraception.
Internet Matters has produced guidance for parents and teachers on online misogyny and how it shows up around boys. This is the kind of resource that needs to be explored, improved, replicated, used, shared and normalised.
Role models
Boys need decent male role models. Not perfect men, not men who never get it wrong, but men who model responsibility, respect, restraint and basic decency.
The problem is that many boys do not see enough of that in day-to-day life.
In England, only a small minority (14%) of nursery and primary school teachers are male. That is not a criticism of female teachers. It is simply the reality for many children that the adults guiding them through their earliest years are overwhelmingly women.
And when boys do not have enough visible, everyday examples of healthy masculinity, the internet is very happy to offer a substitute. And that rarely comes with care, boundaries, or accountability.
Instead, it comes with clicks, money, and status gained through online clout rather than a positive real-world impact.
So, the next step, and one we should all be willing to say out loud, is that we need more good men in front of boys, in the right way.
That includes teaching, youth work, sport, mentoring, and community organisations. Not as saviours, not as superheroes, just as steady, present adults who show boys what decent men actually look like.
The grift
Gareth Southgate captured the danger in simple terms when he warned about “callous, manipulative and toxic influencers” filling the space where father figures and role models should be.
Read: Southgate is right, and it’s up to men to help our boys reject the Manosphere
And Louis Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere helps for a different reason; it shows the machinery up close.
Watch: Louis Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere
Put them together, and you see the same truth from two angles.
This is not a misunderstood self-help movement that occasionally goes too far. It is a business model, a grift.
I am comfortable with that label. These men, these salesmen, operate like grifters.
Their model sells certainty to boys who feel uncertain, it sells dominance to boys who feel small, it tells them the world is against them, women are the enemy, and money is the only scoreboard that matters.
Then it points them towards whatever pays. Subscriptions, courses, gambling, scams, rage content, endless ‘debates’, violent pornography, status signalling.
And the most revealing thing is how quickly the message changes when it needs to.
They contradict themselves; they switch principles mid-sentence. They perform outrage, then perform victimhood, then perform success, all while insisting they are the only ones telling the truth.
Boys, our sons, deserve better than that.
Watch: Adolescence on Netflix
But also, so do our girls and young women.
Let’s not forget how these grifters treat the women in their circles, and how proud they are to be seen as ‘superior to women’. So much so that they didn’t even try to hide it from Theroux’s cameras; they, in fact, played it up.
And let’s not forget the so-called ‘king of the manosphere’, Andrew Tate.
He and his brother Tristan still face 21 charges, including rape, actual bodily harm and human trafficking.
Read: Bedfordshire Police file leads to CPS charging Tate brothers with rape and trafficking
Both say they “unequivocally deny” the charges.
Stop excusing it
One of the most frustrating defences I still hear is the lazy one: “He can’t be that bad, he tells lads to go to the gym.”
That is not a defence, it is a cowardly dodge.
If someone spreads misogyny, humiliates women, and sells young men a worldview built on contempt, it does not become harmless because it is wrapped in self-improvement language.
Anyone promoting those figures, someone in power, a publication, or a friend, while pretending the rest is irrelevant, is either ignorant of what they are amplifying or part of the problem.
Either way, they should be challenged and rejected and boys should be taught to see through it.
That is the next step, and it applies to every adult.
Stop normalising the people who profit from boys’ insecurity.
Yes, Ofcom has already published guidance to improve online safety for women and girls, including the steps it expects platforms to take.
But, if Ofcom, which exists to ensure we have access to safe communication services, recognises that women and girls face specific, disproportionate harms online, it must recognise that boys and men face specific risks and deserve targeted protection too.
By supporting this call, Mohammad Yasin MP gives this local weight. It is now a matter of local record that someone elected to represent Bedfordians in Parliament agrees that boys are being targeted and that Ofcom should step up.
But while this cannot end with Ofcom, Ofcom must act robustly and with courage.
Platforms need to be forced into ‘safety by design’ for boys, because these are not abstract harms.
Sextortion, scams, gambling exposure and violent pornography are product problems, and platforms have the ability and know-how to reduce exposure when it serves them, so the government and Ofcom must do more to make it in their best interests to do so.
School support
Schools also need to treat misogyny as safeguarding, not banter.
Teachers cannot be left to deal with the fallout without better training, policy and support. This is not about turning classrooms into lecture halls. It is about spotting early warning signs and building resilience before boys get dragged deeper.
And finally, the political point.
That letter is a good step, but it is not enough. More MPs from all parties must put their names to action, not just concern. The safety of children should not depend on whether a politician thinks the issue belongs to the ‘other side’.
And this is the main point.
We do not beat the manosphere by arguing with it online or with each other. We beat it by dismantling their ability to reach their targets.
We beat it by teaching our boys to see through it, by building a culture where decent men take responsibility, and by refusing to let the worst people on the internet become the loudest teachers our sons ever have.
Further reading and support
If any of this feels familiar, or you are concerned about what a child or young person is being exposed to online, the organisations below can provide support, practical advice and routes to report concerns.
- Bedfordshire Violence & Exploitation Prevention Partnership (VEPP)
- Bedfordshire Police – Lost Boys campaign
- MACS (Male Allies Challenging Sexism)
- The Everyday Sexism Project
- DVIP (Domestic Violence Intervention Project)
- Stop Hate UK
- End Violence Against Women
- Everyone’s Gang
Bedfordshire Police also ask anyone with information related to their ongoing investigation into the Tate brothers to contact them via 101 or online, quoting Operation Moonwalk.
As MPs also in the patch covered by the Bedford Independent, I contacted Blake Stephenson MP (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire) and Richard Fuller MP (Conservative, North Bedfordshire).
I asked if they had views on the letter and what they felt was the best way to tackle the manosphere. A representative from Mr Stephenson’s office replied to say they were unable to provide a response in time for publication.
There was no reply to my email from Mr Fuller or his representatives.
