The internet and technology did not create misogyny, gender stereotypes, or anti-feminist ideas, but they amplify them, make them more visible, bring them to our screens and homes.

The words “Send something on her” and an attached photo of a woman, a 2025 article reported –  is what opens the Pandora’s box in hidden Telegram chats, filled with pornographic videos and images of women and girls and their personal data – phone numbers, addresses, social media profiles. Access to these chats is “by invitation only”, their membership can be up to 10,000-15,000 users, and they are very hard to investigate and take down – as soon as one group gets shut down, another quickly appears in its place.

Many researchers, journalists, and activists connect such social media channels and groups – essentially a conduit of gender-based hate speech and abuse – to the existence of what is known as the manosphere. It is a loose, often sinister, global network of digital communities where anti-feminism, hegemonic masculinity, and extreme misogyny thrive and multiply. The ideologies, the narratives, the discourses, and the behaviours associated with the manosphere and the multiple communities adjacent to it, such as the “incels” (the involuntary celibates), the “pick-up artists”, the “red pill” and the “black pill” communities, have been extensively studied by scholars – Prof. Debbie Ging, Prof. Lisa Sugiura, Prof. Olga Jurasz, Prof. Sarah Banet-Weiser to name just a few. However, the haste with which the manosphere grows, accelerated by technology, often outpaces scholarship – not least because those studying it lack access to such secretive forums, chats, and groups.

Data on the manosphere are alarming. Accumulating the results of several studies, a report by UN Women shows that “40 per cent of adult U.S. men surveyed, and half of younger men, say they trust one or more “men’s rights,” anti-feminist, or pro-violence voices from the manosphere” and that globally, “58 per cent of girls and young women have experienced some form of online harassment”, while “some of the men who enter manosphere forums feel alienated by mainstream society”. A Movember study, cited by UN Women, found that “young men who actively engage with masculinity influencers: 1) reported higher levels of worthlessness and nervousness; 2) were more likely to take performance-enhancing supplements and workout despite an injury; 3) were less likely to prioritize their mental health; 4) placed more value on wealth and popularity compared to their male friends.” The dangerous impact of the manosphere’s ideas has made its way to popular culture as well. Netflix’s limited drama series Adolescence tells the harrowing story of a teenage boy who stabs a female classmate after being drawn into incel ideology. In the 2026 documentary “Inside the Manosphere”, Louis Theroux investigates the hold, which male influencers on the fringe of the manosphere have taken over the minds of young boys.

The growth and spread of extreme misogynistic views have been accelerated by the rise of feminist ideas about gender justice, equality, and women empowerment. But recently, researchers have uncovered a striking development on the female side of this equation. Jilly Boyce Kay introduced the term femosphere to describe a network of female-centric online communities, which embrace the fatalistic, gender-essentialist logic of the manosphere itself. The femosphere conversations often revolve around the idea that men and women are fundamentally different and cannot coexist. The femosphere narratives are infiltrated with a deep cynicism about women’s place in society. The implications for gender equality and the dismantling of stereotypes are surely troubling and cannot be disregarded.

In an article for the Guardian, Kay talks about her research of Female Dating Strategy, “which started as a Reddit forum (with more than 250,000 members) and expanded into social media and a podcast. It has a six-point ideology for members to subscribe to, which includes ideas such as: men should always pursue women, women should seek financial contributions from men, and the majority of men have no value.” Kay also looks at “dark feminine” influencers such as Kanika Batra and Thewizardliz. Batra has criticised liberal feminism saying that it “forced women into masculine roles where they are pursuing men”, which is not natural and should be reverted. Thewizardliz created videos titled “How to become more beautiful”, “How to become rich”, “How to become extremely seductive” and encourages women to secure allowance from men.  

It is not hard to assume that these seemingly opposing, yet close, views, these coexisting universes, which lurk just around the corner, staring back at us from our screens feed off each other and deepen sentiments of alienation, mistrust, and polarisation.

Studying the manosphere and the femosphere is not an easy task. Their constituent communities are often closed, anonymous or filled with coded jargon that obstruct content and discourse analysis. The privacy policies of social media platforms, channels, and discussion aggregation websites restrict researchers, activists, and journalists from accessing, analysing, using, and citing textual and visual content found there. Researchers, particularly women, also face serious risks like doxxing, rape and death threats, and hate speech. It is also emotionally and psychologically challenging to get immersed into these digital worlds. This difficulty is even more acute in languages other than English, which are not as widely studied.

As part of the project Women, Tech & Civic Space: Change and Empowerment through Coalition-Building, implemented by the Counterintuitive Institute (CI) with the support of the Netherlands Helsinki Committee, the CI team spoke with Mina Kirkova, a Bulgarian journalist who has covered such communities, about the specific obstacles she faces in her every day work.

Kirkova shares that the main difficulties with studying manosphere-related content stems from the fact that these communities are closed and restrictive – even more so when it comes to women attempting to enter them. With respect to Telegram groups where users distribute sexualised content without women’s knowledge, access is extremely difficult – “you are required to provide “proof” that you are a genuine member of the group, meaning you must submit content that has not been previously uploaded”. Kirkova has not encountered serious issues when joining communities of women, who have become victims of or try to counter violence against women – people who work on these issues are generally responsive. There is some distrust around sharing personal and traumatic stories with a journalist, which is understandable, Kirkova contends. Fortunately, over recent years, she has been actively covering this topic, which has gained her the trust of many people from these circles, for which she is grateful.

In terms of active Bulgarian groups, which spread ideas reminiscent of the manosphere, Kirkova is most familiar with the Telegram channels, specifically BG AMATEURS, which has now several offshoots, as it had been shut down before. Recently, it was closed again, although its members have a backup channel where a message is (currently) circulating asking members to wait to re-enter – and, in their words, “continue to be the nightmare of whores.” Another active group goes by the name HIGHLIFE (ХАЙЛАЙФ).

When asked about what would help her the most in her work on manosphere communities, Kirkova highlights the building an effective network with representatives of like-minded organisations – a kind of rapid-response connection for when something needs to be done urgently or identify cases that deserve attention more quickly. A comprehensive mapping of manosphere communities in Bulgaria would be very valuable and Kirkova is more than eager to contribute to creating it. The journalist believes that good practices from other countries where the context shares similarities with the Bulgarian one would also be very useful.

Ultimately, violence against women and cyber harassment is not a “technology” problem – it is a societal one and can only be resolved through political will, social engagement, honesty, and without looking away. Understanding it is not only an academic exercise; it is the necessary first step toward tackling it. Therefore, those who dedicate themselves to studying these communities must be given the tools, the freedom, the access, and the emotional support to do so.