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A review by amyvl93
Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Murder
Moderate: Domestic abuse and Mass/school shootings
This book has been on my to buy list since it was first announced, and it was perhaps not my smartest idea to read it on the cusp of the American Election. Men Who Hate Women is Laura Bates' deep dive into the 'manosphere', online spaces dedicated to spreading misogyny at best and violence against women at worst. Published in 2020, my overwhelming feeling when I was reading this is slight disbelief as to how it could have gotten...worse?
Bates dips into a broad range of online spaces - from Reddit and 4Chan - to more specific forums associated with different movements, be that incels or 'men who go their own way'. She explores the key leaders of each group, and the ways in which many of their ideas have become normalised via media who seeks to 'understand both sides', click-bait chasers like Piers Morgan and, depressingly timely, Donald Trump. She also highlights the way in which many acts of mass violence are often linked to men with a history of hatred of women - be that in online spaces or in direct domestic abuse against the women closest to them. It's not all gloom, as Bates also highlights the male-led organisations which are seeking to challenge this masculinity, and to genuinely make a difference on the issues that disproportionally impact men (i.e. suicide) rather than using them as a smoke screen to share misogyny.
My challenge with the book is that this is one that contains a lot of important ideas which are slightly lost in a repetitive and often slow writing style. I found that it dragged at times, and I can imagine those less interested in the topic would end up putting the book down. As mentioned in my introduction, it also feels a little out of date in some of the references - which is a depressing indictment of where we are now, with people like Andrew Tate having no mention here and now being ubiquitous. I also feel that people are now talking about this, so Bates claims that this is not an issue discussed also feels a bit behind the times.
This is a useful entry point to this conversation, but it may be worth seeking out more contemporary writing.