The New Statesman.

Students across the UK have reported a dramatic rise in misogyny in their schools.

The government has described this as being on an epidemic scale.

This is often connected to social media content targeted at young men and boys,

but is there more to it?

I'm Anusha Kellyan and this is the New Statesman

podcast. I'm joined today by James Bloodworth, the author of Lost Boys, a personal journey through

the Manusphere. What is the Manusphere? What is your definition of it? The Manusphere is basically a bunch

of anti-feminist subcultures. Sometimes the word masculinist is used, like male supremacist,

but I think they unite is kind of in an opposition to feminism. And it's offline and online.

So it's sometimes forums, but also they do run programs in the real world as well.

Okay. And what is its general worldview? Because there's all these different terms, aren't there,

80-20, red pill, blue pill, high-status alpha males.

Can you take us through some of their sort of glossary and how they see the world?

Yeah, sure. So, I mean, the basic premise of the manosphere and the red pill in particular, I would say, is that we live in a gynocentric society, which is a society controlled by women.

And essentially the feminist idea that women are oppressed by men is basically a lie and it's really men who languish under the boot of feminism.

That's kind of the central premise that cuts through the entire manosphere.

Some of the groups in the manoeuvre are a bit more political than others.

So the pickup artist, for example, it's much less political.

It's much more concern with just kind of getting laid, just kind of conquests and this kind of thing.

Whereas the red pill is very overtly political and the black pill, which is the in cells,

much more nihilistic, kind of less political, in a practical sense at least. Okay, so the black pill is sort of, we've given up hope that this is, you know, this is just what the world is like for us, kind of. Whereas the red pill is like, as long as you're aware of this supposed situation, then you can try and do something about it. Yeah, so the red pill's got that self-help up by the bootstraps type edge to it.

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