Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How it Affects Us All

The #MeToo movement was an online movement created to spread awareness of sexual harassment and rape. It was originally founded in 2006 as a grassroots effort by American activist Tarana J. Burke to support survivors of sexual violence, and it gained popularity in 2017, in the wake of allegations of sexual abuse and rape against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Actress Alyssa Milano encouraged survivors to share their experiences on social media using the hashtag #MeToo, and the movement went viral. Across social media platforms, millions of people (predominantly women) from around the world shared their experiences of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape in workplaces, schools, and personal relationships. 

One of the defining features of the #MeToo movement was its use of survivor testimony to expose perpetrators and promote empowerment and solidarity for survivors of sexual assault. In this, it was similar to earlier projects that used digital platforms to connect survivors and promote feminist activism. Laura Bates’s Everyday Sexism Project was one of the most prominent of these: Like #MeToo, it used real survivors’ stories to enact societal change. The website was launched in 2012 and encouraged people from all over the world to share their experiences with gender discrimination and violence in order to expose the pervasiveness of misogyny. 

While the #MeToo movement sparked conversations around consent and sexual misconduct, it has also been the subject of intense backlash, particularly from men’s rights groups and the manosphere. They claim it has led to an increase in false harassment allegations that unfairly target men and threaten their psychological wellbeing, social status, and careers. Similarly, Bates’s Everyday Sexism Project, too, faced intense backlash from these groups. She details instances of this in Men Who Hate Women, discussing how she was the victim of trolls who threatened violence and even murder. 

Bates goes on to link the manosphere’s vitriol toward both the #MeToo movement and the Everyday Sexism Project. She investigates its causes and pushes back on the men’s rights movement’s idea that #MeToo was a “witch hunt” against men. In Men Who Hate Women, she responds to these accusations not only with data but by arguing that the anger toward #MeToo and the Everyday Sexism Project is an indicator of society’s deeply ingrained misogyny. Further, she says that the manosphere aims at discrediting survivors to reassert patriarchal norms and radicalize vulnerable men. 

Bates’s work is thus a response to the backlash provoked not only by the #MeToo movement but also to the Everyday Sexism Project. Her arguments are informed by direct, personal experience: She draws upon her own experiences with online harassment as the frequent target of abuse by manosphere communities, arguing that they need to be taken seriously as a threat. Thus, Men Who Hate Women builds on the power of narrative and personal testimony that was the impetus of both the #MeToo movement and the Everyday Sexism Project.