Do single mothers create 'manosphere' men?

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1:23In the days following the release of Louis Theroux's latest investigation, Inside the Manosphere, there has been a disproportionate amount of discourse on a particular detail from the documentary that the alpha male influencers had absent fathers. So, why has the focus shifted to single mothers? Hi, and welcome back to The Standard Podcast. I'm Tamara Komornik. For the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. Coming up. Do single mothers create manosphere men?

2:11So-called red pill influencers aren't just a fringe concern. A recent study from King's College London found that more than 30 % of Gen Z men agree that a wife should always obey her husband, twice the rate of millennial men. But what happens when there is no husband? In today's episode, I speak to writer Rebecca Cox, who's the author of How to Be a Happy Single Parent, who argues that single mothers are being unfairly labelled as toxic in the debate surrounding Louis Theroux's documentary. Here's my chat with Rebecca.

2:54Hi Rebecca, thanks so much for joining me on The Standard Podcast today. Thanks for having me on. so Rebecca this week you've written a piece for The Standard about whether single mums are more likely to raise toxic sons as a comment on Louis Theroux's latest documentary of course that we're hearing about Inside the Manosphere that he's done for Netflix. Rebecca you have a 10 year old boy and you're a single mum what was your first reaction to the documentary? I think like most people I found it a really challenging watch and you know I think it's incredibly worrying not just the rise of the quote manosphere but the polarization that's happening across society on on multiple topics and I think this kind of men v women that is happening as a result of people being radicalised by things like the influence that are highlighted on the documentary is really concerning.

4:01And, you know, being part of the single parent community, there was obviously follow-up discussion around kind of the choice to highlight the fact that most of the men that are featured on there were raised in homes with single mothers. So, yeah, the media seems to have really clung on to this idea that these men featured maybe didn't have a dad present in the house while they were growing up. And at the same time, do you feel the single mums are being, well, blamed for, you know, the eventuality of their sons becoming these misogynistic influencers? Language is really important. And I know not only from firsthand experience, but in the work that I've done, speaking to single mothers, writing about single mothers, that single mothers carry a lot of internalised shame and stigma around the label of single mother.

5:02So I thought that it was good that Louis Theroux used the language absent father. And I think that that is a very separate issue to being a single mother. And there are specific challenges for children who are raised with an absent parent as opposed to a single parent. But yes, as you say, you know, some following on from the documentary, some people have chosen to pick up that thread and kind of skew it towards toxic relationships between single mothers and sons. There's an article called, you know, the sad problem of the manosphere mums. And it's kind of boring at this point for, you know, specifically single mums, they have been being demonized since the dawn of time.

5:48I've been a single mum for nearly 10 years, and I carry absolutely zero shame around being a single mum at this point. And I am constantly telling people that I'm a single mum, you know, like a badge of honour and something that I expect them to be impressed with, frankly. But a lot of people do not feel that way. And I know that when I first became a single mum, I very much did not feel that way. I carried a lot of shame that I've had to kind of unpick, get to the root of where that came from. And it is through the kind of media portrayal that we've seen in the wake of Louis Theroux's documentary, where it does very much put the emphasis on what mums are doing to raise sons that are making the life choices that they are making once they are fully grown adults.

6:34And in the documentary, one of the alpha male characters, if we call it that, Harrison Sullivan, his TikTok is hstikitoki. There's a scene of him kind of pandering to his mother when she's trying to look after him. She's kind of cleaning up around him and making sure or he's got a drink. And you can see that kind of mother-son dynamic play out. But, you know, Manosphere Mums seem to have a softer place in the hearts of these red pill influencers. And I think that's quite interesting. Why do you think this is? I did find that relationship between HS Tiki Toki and his mother very interesting to see portrayed on screen.

7:24And you can see that it's a really complicated dynamic between the two of them, where obviously she's kind of enabling him and almost kind of apologising for him to some extent and kind of taking his side when clearly she doesn't necessarily agree with the views that he is making money out of. So I found that interesting, but I also don't feel that that was representative of single mothers in general, or kind of a specific relationship between single mothers and their sons. I do think that, you know, for me, what I took from it, watching it, was how important it is to be boundaried with your children and to see them as a reality of a whole person and not just your son.

8:16And I don't think it's indicative of the fact that she was a single mother. I do think it's interesting that some men are able to differentiate so clearly between how they view women in their life that they're related to versus every other woman that they have kind of these abstract views about. But again, I just, I don't buy the fact that he is the way he is because he had a single mum.

8:48the media narrative that has really bothered you about well single mums raising toxic sons really it's a it's a thinly veiled way of saying that boys without a male role model in their house are kind of compromised in some way did you perceive it as that and 10 years ago were you worried were you thinking oh god like is my son gonna have a male role model in the house was this something that yeah really stuck with you yeah I mean you know my son does see his dad really regularly um he's he stays with him three nights a week and you know he is not someone who's growing up without a male role model however the view that that boys need a man at home, I think is, is just one of the kind of go to almost insults that is leveled at single moms.

9:46And I've had it personally leveled at me multiple times in the time that I've been single parenting my son, I have had guys that I went on dates with when I was first a single mom would say to me, you know, like, oh, your son needs a man at home. And suffice to say, I didn't see those men again. But I think it's something that is leveled at single moms to make them feel shame. And at the end of the day, there are multiple ways to ensure that your child has positive adult role models in their life of all genders and from as many walks of life as possible, because I think that children should have a kind of diverse input into what it means to be human because that's how children grow up respecting other people, learning about different cultures, different walks of life and that's how they are able to be respectful adults at the end of the day and I just don't think that who you have under your roof is a complete signifier of who your child will turn into when they are an adult.

10:59we'll take a quick break. Coming up, I ask Rebecca how she plans to navigate her son's transition to secondary school in today's climate, and whose responsibility it is to pay attention to the harms of the manosphere. We'll be back in just a moment.

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12:39Welcome back. Let's head back to my conversation with Rebecca.

12:46As a single mum to a boy who's on the cusp of teenagehood, what is some of your biggest fears about the influence that the world at large will have on him? I mean, yeah, being a mother is to be worried about your child's future, about what they're encountering from day to day. And yeah, as you said, my child, he's my little boy is is 10 now he's going to be going to secondary school soon. he doesn't have a phone yet and I'm really lucky that's something that me and his dad align on that we want to kind of stop him having a phone for as long as possible but we can't keep that from him forever and parents have always been worried about outside influences on their child and you you've never been able to prevent them kind of hearing things at school meeting people outside of the home especially as they get older that are there are going to be views out there that you do not yourself agree with and you don't want your child aligning themselves with but I think the really worrying thing now is with social media and with kind of algorithms that seem to actively promote this kind of hateful content online I do not want my son having access to those views and you know it's really insidious how this kind of messaging works not everything that is is kind of put out there by these people is hateful.

14:20Some of it is, you know, quite smart and useful. But there will be tiny threads of kind of hope or truth or common sense in there that young boys, particularly boys who are, you know, worried about finding their place in the world, which I think a lot of boys are at the moment, they will hear things on those accounts that pull them in and that make them feel seen and make them feel heard and make them feel supported and then once they're hooked and once they think oh you know this this is a nice guy this is someone that I can relate to that's when that kind of harmful messaging starts getting drip fed in there and then before you know it they're taking on board all of this really dangerous ideology and yeah I think as any parent not just as a single mom I think all parents both mums and dads will will be worried about about their children seeing this online and I mean you're very switched on on this is is having the conversation with your son going to be quite a different conversation yeah I mean it's it's difficult because with parenting and especially when you've got children in that kind of pre-teen bracket you You know, that jump into secondary school is just like a whole new world of independence for them.

15:40And they'll be meeting so many different types of people. And that's wonderful. But there is a real kind of there's such a period of protecting their innocence and and not overloading them with things to worry about, but also kind of pre making sure that they're ready for things that they are going to encounter. and I do have a really open dialogue with my son but I also don't believe that I should be putting the weight of the world's problems on his shoulders to worry about at the end of the day you know he is a child and I think it's a really fine line between giving children the tools they need to stay safe and over kind of adultifying them and making them responsible for making morally choices that they're just not ready to make yet.

16:40Ultimately, third wave feminists have been calling to dismantle the patriarchy for decades. Rebecca, do you think we should really be focusing on dismantling the manosphere? Yeah, I think it's a really good point. I am a feminist. And, you know, as I said earlier, I think that the polarisation that's happening across the board in society at the moment is really worrying. You know, I'm so conscious of not just being in one side of this argument and not just talking to my feminist friends. And I spend a lot of time with queer women and there's almost an absence of men in some circles. And I'm really conscious of just hearing one side of the story and therefore losing sight of how other people are feeling in all of this.

17:26And I think it's really dangerous when it starts to become a narrative of kind of men versus women and women have it harder or men have it harder. And I just don't think that's the way out of it. I think my concern is that it's women that are concerned about this and perhaps men are not concerned enough about this. While when I watched Louis Theroux's documentary, I was perhaps kind of underwhelmed at the progress that that documentary was able to make and the kind of narrative that came through. What I do think is good is that it's the first kind of portrayal of this side of the Internet, aside from adolescence, which was slightly different.

18:11this is the first documentary that was kind of male-coded and had you know Louis Theroux all the men will watch Louis Theroux happily I do think that it's something that we very much need men to be educating themselves around as well and realizing that this is a problem for all of us and I think I don't think there are many dads that would be watching inside the manosphere and thinking like oh you know it's not that bad you know my son can go on and watch those videos and it's not going to be a problem so I do think it's something that really needs to be about ensuring that we are working on things together and not just kind of furthering the divide by saying like this is all men's fault because it's not just all men's fault um but it's certainly not the fault of the single mums that have raised those boys yeah I think that's a very interesting point you raise about people taking notice of this particular project because it is male-led.

19:13I mean, there have been many writers, Laura Bates is the one that comes to my head, who's written a book, I believe it's called Men Who Hate Women. She's written a really comprehensive book on this subject. But while that moved the needle in feminist circles, it didn't really break through the way this has. So, well, hopefully the documentary does start to move the needle. I hope so. I really hope so. Like you said, there's so many great women speaking on this topic. And I just, I hope that men will understand and kind of be open to the fact that actually, if we work together on this, this is something that can really positively impact men as well.

19:58Definitely. well thank you so much Rebecca for sharing your insights with me today thank you so much it's been a great really interesting conversation

20:11and that's the standard for all the latest news head to standard.co.uk if you're new here hit follow and give us a rating if you'd like to get in touch email us at podcasts at standard.co.uk. We'll be back here tomorrow morning. We'll see you then.

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