Netflix’s new documentary “Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere,” released in early March is a timely reminder that online misogyny is no longer fringe. The manosphere is a monetized, online ecosystem of influencers, forums, podcasts, and self-improvement communities, including incels (“involuntary celibate”), men’s rights activists, pickup artists, and adjacent content creators, that turn male grievance into identity, ideology, and often contempt for women. At its most extreme, it glorifies domination, humiliation, and violence. But even seemingly lighter trends like “looksmaxxing” can draw boys into a culture of status obsession, resentment, and misogyny.
For educators, the central issue is not the topic of the documentary itself or even the internet. It is what happens when these scripts and attitudes show up in hallways, classrooms, group chats, and the everyday emotional life of a school.
As my colleagues and I argued in an EdWeek opinion essay on Netflix’s “Adolescence,” a limited series about a 13-year-old boy accused of murdering a classmate, the haunting question is not only what young people are consuming online but whether schools can recognize and respond to cruelty before it hardens into culture. Teachers are already seeing the spillover of the manosphere into schools: boys parroting misogynistic influencers and girls and female staff feeling less safe and facing disrespect.
What begins online does not stay online. A 2025 study of 200 teachers found that roughly three-quarters of secondary school teachers and 60% of primary teachers were extremely concerned about the influence of online misogyny in their schools. Ninety percent of secondary teachers and 68% of primary teachers said their schools would benefit from dedicated teaching materials to address it.
We should be careful not to caricature boys in the process. Most boys don’t represent “the manosphere.” Schools are one of the few places where adults and even student peers can interrupt cruelty before it hardens into culture and teach a different definition of strength—one grounded in self-control, compassion, accountability, and respect.
The manosphere thrives by exploiting the need for boys and young men to belong, a developmental vulnerability schools know well. It offers boys a seductive bargain: “If you feel rejected, ashamed, confused, lonely, or powerless, do not reflect, connect, or ask for help. Instead, dominate and blame women, mock weakness, never apologize, and never need anyone.”
That is not strength. It is emotional illiteracy dressed up as power.
Research helps explain why this message can land. A 2024 review published in the American Journal of Men’s Health found that traditional masculinity norms emphasizing stoicism, self-reliance, and emotional restriction can intensify loneliness and discourage help-seeking. And research from Niobe Way, a professor of developmental psychology at New York University, has shown that many boys in early adolescence want and value close, emotionally intimate friendships. But as boys grow older, many gravitate toward a peer and social media culture where care, tenderness, and vulnerability are considered “girly,” weak, or suspect. What changes is not their humanity; it’s the “boy” culture around them.
That is why school leaders need a response to help shift this culture to one that is educational, relational, and explicit. Here are some basic guidelines:
1. Treat the manosphere as a school climate and safety issue, not just a discipline issue.
When boys demean girls, mock consent, use “gay” as an insult, or repeat scripts about male entitlement, that not only reveals a few bad attitudes but also alters the emotional climate of a classroom and the sense of safety of a school. School administrators must name misogynistic and homophobic behavior clearly, track patterns, and address them as threats to belonging, safety, and learning.
2. Teach students emotional intelligence and digital literacy so they can spot manipulation.
Manosphere influencers like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson are not offering guidance so much as performing outrage for clicks, conflict, and cash. Their content thrives in an attention economy that rewards extremity and exploits emotional vulnerability. Students need explicit instruction in how algorithms shape what they see, how online communities can normalize dehumanization, and how emotions like shame, envy, and humiliation are often being deliberately activated and exploited. This is not just a media literacy issue; it is an emotional development issue.
If schools want to prepare students for life today, they must help them understand both how digital influence and emotional manipulation work. Social-emotional learning and digital literacy should be treated as essential, intertwined capacities for healthy development and civic participation.
Still, schools cannot shoulder this burden by themselves. Educators and families should not be left to counter harms that social media platforms continue to magnify. That requires a serious policy response as well.
3. Explicitly teach students about emotional intelligence and regulation.
Students need more than warnings about bad influencers. They need skills for their emotional well-being: recognizing emotions in themselves and others, naming emotions with precision, calming their minds and bodies without shutting down or retaliating, and repairing harm when they have caused it.
The evidence for this need is strong. Contemporary meta-analyses of universal school-based social-emotional learning show improvements in academic achievement, behavior, social and emotional skills, and students’ perceptions of school climate and safety. For over two decades, I have argued that bullying, emotional dysregulation, and school climate impact learning—and that healthy schools require leaders who prioritize the emotional intelligence of adults and children.
4. Create places where boys can belong without performing dominance.
Schools can offer the kind of belonging the manosphere only imitates: spaces where boys feel seen, challenged, and connected without being humiliated for caring. In schools I work with, classrooms, advisories, and athletics are places where emotional honesty is expected. It means adult men who model reflection, restraint, warmth, and accountability, not just toughness. And it means preparing educators and families with the language and confidence to respond when misogynistic behavior shows up, rather than pretending it is just a joke or a phase.
The manosphere stokes grievance and exploits boys’ longing for respect, certainty, purpose, and connection. Schools cannot cede that ground. They must offer a better definition of strength: the capacity to feel without collapsing, wield power without abuse, disagree without demeaning, and belong without humiliating others.
The answer to the manosphere is not shaming boys but refusing to leave them alone with a culture that equates manhood with dominance and emotional numbness. To make safer, healthier, more humane school communities, leaders must ensure their buildings and the people who work in them foster an environment that equips boys with emotional intelligence and teaches them to respect boundaries, challenge misogyny and entitlement, and build healthy relationships rooted in compassion, accountability, and real connection.
