MANTRaP examines discourse found in radical online forums dedicated to issues relating to men and masculinity (the 'manosphere'), including communities related to men's separatism, 'Men's Rights Activism' (MRA), ‘Men Going Their Own Way’ (MGTOW), 'involuntary celibacy' (incel), and 'pick-up artistry' (PUA). Consistent across many of these forums is the legitimation of misogyny through discussion of 'red pill philosophy', which seeks to counteract Feminism and disavows gender equality. 


Language used in the manosphere is becoming more mainstream and discussion of the manosphere in the media is becoming increasingly common but little is known about how communities in the manosphere operate or the potentially negative effects discourse in these communities might have on wider gender relations. 


The popularisation and normalisation of misogynistic discourse especially online may have profound social effects on beliefs, values and social behaviours and such harmful online discourse can catalyse offline violence. In 2014, Elliot Rodger killed six people in Isla Vista, California having frequented misogynistic online forums. As such, it is possible that "accepting and normalizing the degradation of women meets equally severe consequences as sexual violence." (DOI: 10.1016/j.wsif.2017.05.001).

Aims

MANTRaP – a collaborative research project examining misogynistic discourse online – has two broad aims:

To realise these aims, the project team will:

Impacts

The Women and Equalities Committee in UK Parliament recently opened a call for evidence on the escalation of violence against women and girls. 


MANTRaP's evidence, which draws on linguistic methods (specifically Corpus Linguistics and Discourse Analysis) to examine language used within and across different groups in the manosphere, has been accepted and published by the Committee. You can view the evidence here.

Incels and the 'manosphere' safeguarding CPD

The National Grid for Learning | 09/2021

Research

2024-

2023

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2022

[DOI] [Preprint]

2021

[Link]

[Video]

2020

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[Abstract] [Slides] [Video]

2019

Project team

Veronika Koller

Lancaster University@VeronikaKoller

Mark McGlashan

Birmingham City University@Mark_McGlashan

Alexandra Krendal

Lancaster University@ALexiconArtist

Jess Aiston

Lancaster University@jess_aiston