from such a young age like literally from one or two in play groups you will hear parents say things

obviously not with bad intentions but you hear people say you're going to be a heartbreaker

lock up your door first date they're on their first date right oh i think someone has a little

crush you know they're even like last day for the baby and oh he likes blondes because he grabs your hair

and i know it's not badly intentioned but we sexualize these mixed sex friendships to such a degree

that kids start to self-segregate by gender in our society from a really young age

and radicalization is massively aided by that because if boys don't have close friends who are girls

it's much easier for someone on the internet to convince them or women are like this or like that

whereas if they're thinking well hang on a minute like my really good mate such and such

isn't like that you know that's a really good piece of kind of armor for them to have so

encouraging kids of all genders to have really good platonic relationships is actually another

really powerful thing that parents can do i'm john febbro welcome to offline

hey everyone my guest today is Laura Bates founder of the everyday sexism project and author of

men who hate women we've had a lot of good conversations on this show about the internet's role

in fueling all kinds of extremism but there's one thread through all these conversations

that i've wanted to pull on more the people most driven towards online extremism

tend to be men the last decade of the internet has been marked by a notable uptick in online

misogyny be it and rotate and jordan peterson or the in cell movement itself so why is that

what is it about the internet itself that fuels violent misogyny and what can we do if anything

to fight back against it those aren't easy questions to answer but Laura is expertly equipped to

help us try Laura spent the last decade researching and reporting on the rise of what she calls the

manosphere a vast interconnected online network of in cells men's rights activists and others

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