Examples like these are especially important now that the manosphere is casting nets on young men not just online, but also in real life.
A new study has identified what researchers call the “M factor,” a syndrome categorized as a cluster of attitudes linked to misogyny, male supremacy, violence, and opposition to gender equality.
“The M factor reflects an attitude that sees ‘true masculinity’ as under threat. It is associated with notions of male supremacy, a propensity for violence, misogyny, contempt for sexual minorities, and opposition to gender equality,” said study leader Denis Ribeaud, a criminologist and sociologist at the Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development at UZH.
Researchers from the University of Zurich worked in collaboration with Mencare, the umbrella organization of Swiss men’s and fathers’ groups, to survey more than 6,000 people ages 16 to 64 about masculinity, gender roles, sexuality, family life, relationships, and experiences with violence.
They wanted to examine how ideas about masculinity are evolving as the manosphere — a network of influencers, online communities, and social media channels promoting forms of extreme masculinity and male dominance — continues to grow.
“Our data show that all these views are closely linked and can be traced back to a common underlying attitude,” Ribeaud added.
According to the results, 20% of men and 7% of women surveyed fell into the group with high M factor scores.
These people are more likely to exhibit problematic or violent behavior. The factor is widespread in the youngest age group: almost 1 in 3 men ages 18 to 24 (31%) belong to the group with the highest scores.
M-factor scores were also higher in suburban and rural areas than in cities.
Men with a low level of education, low professional status, and low income were overrepresented in the group with high M-factor scores
Among men ages 18 to 24 with an apprenticeship qualification, almost one in two falls into this group (47%). The reverse is also true: the higher a person’s level of education and the better their prospects in life, the lower their M-factor score.
According to the authors of the study, men whose fathers were born in countries that are characterized by more patriarchal social structures have higher M-factor scores.
Such structures are particularly common in places where rule-of-law institutions are less firmly established, they said. Men from such backgrounds may be less familiar with, or more skeptical of, Western norms of equality. If they also experience exclusion and limited social participation, this can trigger a counterreaction in which a restrictive and dominance-based concept of masculinity becomes a seemingly reliable anchor for their self-esteem.
High M-factor scores are linked to a greater likelihood of following “traditional” divisions of labor within families and relationships, in which women are more likely to perform the majority of care work, while men are much more likely to be the sole breadwinners.
Such men are also more likely to view the roles of fathers and mothers as fundamentally different, and to believe that boys and girls need to be raised in very different ways.
Additionally, these men think authoritarian behavior and violence are justified in raising kids.
High M-factor scores were also associated with an increased likelihood of violence in romantic relationships.
“The M factor is a consistent risk factor for intimate partner violence—in terms of perpetrating and experiencing it, and across both sexes: men and women with high M-factor scores are more likely to report having committed but also experienced violence in their relationships,” Ribeaud explained.
“This is not contradictory. Those who see male supremacy, contempt for women and controlling behavior as normal are at greater risk of being on both sides of this dynamic.”
