Is Social Media Making Young Women Hate Men? (Your Radical Questions with Dr Jilly Kay)

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1:03Visit discoversouthcarolina.com. Hello and welcome to Your Radical Questions, where I put your questions to one of our radical guests. My name is Eliza Philby, standing in for a mole this week. I'm an author and historian who specialises in generational change. This is your chance to engage directly with the super smart and interesting people we have on this podcast and ask them about their ideas for the future. This week, I'm joined by Dr. Jilly Kay, who's an expert in feminist media and cultural studies at Loughborough University. We've just been talking about the polarisation of young women and the rise of what's called the Femisphere.

1:41And if you haven't already heard the main podcast, where we talk about that in more detail, I do recommend you go and listen. Our first question is from Sally in Scarborough. She says, men and women are polarising. Women are deciding that relationships with men are just too difficult. Therefore, my question is, due to patriarchal systems which serve to punish women with unfair levels of disadvantage when it comes to domestic, career, reproductive and emotional labour, what can be done to get men to rebalance the situation? This is a biggie. That's a great question. That's a really big, yeah, great question.

2:18And can I, let's begin by just asking you, do you think Sally's right? Yes, absolutely. I mean, I think there's definitely been some changes in the kind of the allocation of labour. But, you know, women are overwhelmingly kind of taking on, you know, sometimes what's called like the double burden or the triple burden of waged work, care work, care for elderly parents as well as children and so on. So, yes, absolutely. I mean, I suppose in some ways it's sort of simple just to kind of keep making this really clear that there is this divide and that if we do want to have a balanced and democratic society where men and women are participating and feeling rewarded and valued, then some of that labour has to be fairly divided.

3:00And how can we do that apart from ask men to do that? More workplaces have to give better paternity leave, recognise men caring for the elderly. What would you suggest? Yeah, absolutely. And I think, yeah, so more actual like resource put into it in terms of paternity leave and so on. But I think also like at a wider kind of social economic level, for example, I mean, this goes into questions about social care and care for the elderly and about how poorly resourced that is, you know, you know, how unless you've got a lot of money to pay for that, then then that becomes very, very difficult to do.

3:29So I think, you know, having, you know, the state, the welfare state providing, helping out with like shouldering some of this burden. I mean, that would help men and women, but particularly women. But I think it's probably should be part of education, personal social education at school about the importance of care work, how important that, you know, how important that is to the functioning of households, how that allows people to then go out and work in the world and be in the public sphere. Really valuing that from a really young age. And many would say it's down to parents as well. You know, get your son to load the dishwasher as much as your daughter.

4:02Absolutely. Right. OK, thank you, Sally. The next question is from Julie, who says, Dr. K's observation of an online movement against men is important as fires are being fanned by big tech companies using algorithms to promote videos with negative sentiment to anyone who might be interested. Her question is, how do we get through to both sexes addicted to these platforms and de-radicalise them. And I know we've talked a bit about this, but I think it's important to just reflect on if there were any representatives from big tech sat in your seat, they would push back against Julie and say that the algorithm perhaps is not working in the way that she describes.

4:43What do you make of Julie's question? I think it's a really important and really good question. Again, I think we have to go to the kind of what I would see as the root of the problem, which is the economic logics of the big tech platforms, which is to keep people online, to keep engagement going, no matter what that engagement looks like. So on the one hand, it goes back to the idea that, you know, there are certain things that individuals can do, you know, really try to, and then some people give advice to like, do things like game your algorithm, actively seek out content which is not toxic, which is not harmful.

5:15So whatever that might be, keep fluffy animals or, you know, a hobby that you have and, you know, and train your algorithm so that you're seeing more and more of that stuff and less and less of the other stuff. That is really difficult to do. And what do you think? I mean, I'm just going to add to Julie's question here. Because, you know, there has been recent data that's suggesting that actually younger people are on social media less. Right. And actually it's older people that are on social media more. And actually the real danger is not social media influence any longer. It's AI. And I just wonder what you think the evolution of the manosphere and the femisphere will be in the age of AI.

5:53well i think that's such an interesting question and i think yeah that that shift towards um yes that more kind of parasocial engagement with ai chatbots could be you know signal a kind of shift but i mean that's also premised on a kind of logic of kind of addiction and keeping people keeping people on a platform and because these chatbots are going to be giving advice which is based on like you say all the information that already exists which is problematic and has this kind of very problematic gender logic running through it again i would say mind or ethical design of ai wherever possible so that it avoids reproducing bio-essentialist ideas about gender and this idea that men and women are sort of fundamentally different and there's always going to be this eternal war of the sexes is important so if it would be possible to train the ai to emphasize interdependence solidarity shared experiences empathy then that would be one thing the other solution would be to really be mindful of your engagement with with that content to be mindful of its its seductions and its power and to disengage with it as much as you can because i suppose what we should be doing well i think what and the whole logic of ai like as you say is to reproduce what we already know what's what's what's already been collected that really forecloses any possibility where we'd have a future where we could have like new ideas and new new ways of seeing gender relations so like i think really getting out of those imaginaries that we've created around gender probably means disengaging from ai too thank you julie right here's a question from ellen she says how much are these manosphere femisphere social issues actually reflective of the rise of capitalism that is an agenda of individual versus community and deeply struggling economies with rising poverty which are causing young people to feel insecure uncertain and disconnected so the i think the role of capitalism is such an important point and i think you can kind of see what's going on in terms of these gender communities as almost like the kind of the logic of capitalism playing out through logics of individualism competitiveness self interest trying to maximize one's place in the market so those kind of ideas about often in the manosphere and hemisphere people are talking about the sexual marketplace and what is your sexual market value and so therefore just the next sort of follow-on point then in your view is the crisis of relations between the sexes actually a crisis of capitalism yes i think so absolutely i think you know it's not that not that misogyny and other problematic gender relations have never existed before capitalism but they take on that they've taken on a particular shape under capitalism which yeah is is this phase of capital this particular phase of capitalism and so it kind goes back to you know that to really to have any kind of meaningful solution to this will be like a much more fundamental rethinking of the economy about who it works for i think what's really the the way that capitalism plays a role here is that and the phase of capitalism that we're in is that it's producing this a pervasive sense of resentment or ressentiment but then many would many would say that you know women have benefited extraordinarily well from from capitalism particularly in the last 30 years in terms of education in terms of employment in terms of wage in terms of you know social standing access to mortgages i mean i could go on i mean i think there's you can't deny that there have been absolute advantages that have come i would say not just not from capitalism but from feminist struggle within a capitalist context um but i mean but but then women are also subject to the same conditions as men so even if you're you know certain women are doing slightly better within within that system overall that system is producing burnout, overwork, mental health crises.

9:36I mean women are not immune from these things. I think this is what we often forget when we talk about this gender divide is that men are somehow the ones who are uniquely left behind and where women are racing ahead. But really you know we're all living in the same world, we're living under the same capitalism. It's not surprising that women are going to be subjected to the same kinds of resentments, grievances, sense of even like a grieved entitlement you know this this kind of idea that I was promised social mobility I was promised I was promised social power I'm not experiencing that it's not surprising to me that women then are also going to feel a sense of grievance absolutely and actually just following on I think what Ellen's really getting at as well with her question is you know she says an agenda of individual versus community many would perhaps from older generations maybe reflecting on this conversation say you know i met my friends i i socialized with people of a different gender at work in the church in the community in the broader associational culture isn't a bigger problem here yeah that we are atomized yes but there is this sort of declining arenas in which the genders are mixing yes socializing exactly and that goes back to the question yet about capitalism and economics the privatization of public space less and less access to these spaces where you might meet somebody or you know you might have a connection that you weren't expecting to have with somebody those things are just those conditions are not in place for that to be able to happen in the same way so i think it is like fundamentally about the design of public space it's about access to these communities it's about you know even things like youth clubs and youth centres and like publicly funded activities for boys and girls to take part in.

11:24Even asking someone for the directions. Yeah, we don't even do that anymore. Blame headphones. Right. OK, next question we have from Felicity. She says, in my opinion, there is currently a war on women in politics. Why would I date a man who aligns his politics with those who see women as less than men? It is no longer enough for men to be passively feminist. They need to be actively anti-sexist in their behaviour and in their politics. The women I know have no desire to spend time with someone who is at best apathetic about politics. And I think what I think that beautifully sort of crystallises is actually in the data.

12:02It was quite revealing that these sort of new gen feminists wouldn't even consider dating men who did not share their politics. Yeah. Just what's your reflections on Felicity's thoughts there? I really sympathise with what Felicity's saying there and that echoes like a lot of what I hear from like students of mine and I totally understand that and you know and if I was in that situation I might really feel the same way. I suppose what I think is that collectively if we're going to find a way out of this then we do have to and again there's there's all sorts of qualifications around this and nuances but ultimately we have to like not give up on one another and even if somebody it's really difficult because if somebody for example is voting for a political party which fundamentally believes that you are a lesser human than a white man for example that's really it's a really difficult ask to say to somebody but you know can you open your heart to this person can you try and you know see things from their point of view I get that completely but I think we have to see this as not again it's not something which is innate and essential and can never be changed like so through democratic engagement through deliberation through social contact people can change all right and we have to I think just hold on to that possibility.

13:14And has the algorithm do you think made it you know more likely now that people will not marry out or not even date outside of their political philosophy or even silo? I think it's absolutely possible because it does have that kind of... Is it the algorithm or is it actually politics become more polarising? Because, you know, you could argue both. Yes. There are all sorts of things going on. And obviously politics is becoming much more influenced by... Algorithmic logics are becoming part of politics too in the kind of age of like the soundbite, which is... Eating the other. Yeah, exactly. So it's also fundamentally intertwined.

13:49I think it is sedimenting this idea that this is who I am this is who I am as a person this is my identity I will not compromise in some ways that's really admirable particularly I think if you're taking a kind of feminist position but politics society relationships is all about relationality interdependence being open to the possibility of change and so that does make it much more difficult if we're kind of living in these algorithmically entrenched silos i do remember i mean i married someone and in fact our wedding happened not too soon after the brexit referendum and you know normally as you go into the church you say you know bride or groom we had to ask basically or remain so um yeah it all makes for it all makes for interesting family dinner parties anyway right so jilly thank you so much for for answering the questions and for you at home thank Thank you for all your questions.

14:44There will be another episode of Radical on Thursday. Talk soon. Thanks for listening.