‘I hope women round the world will take Louise’s bravery as a shining beacon for their lives.’ ‘If you feel enough is enough, then it is.’ These are some of the words spoken by John Hunt as the misogynist who killed and raped his daughter Louise, and killed her sister Hannah and her mother Carol, received a whole-life order.
Last July, three women lost their lives to male violence in the most brutal manner. Most reporting at the time failed to acknowledge the misogyny that Kyle Clifford exhibited, instead framing the violence as ‘crossbow killings’ in reference to the weapon he used to commit his crimes. Whether this was for fear of causing contempt of court is unclear but it meant the bigger picture of what fuelled his violence was largely ignored.
This week’s hearings, though, revealed something more: in the day before the murders, Clifford searched for and watched videos of Andrew Tate, the male supremacist influencer charged with rape and human trafficking [he has denied the allegations], who recently landed in the US after Donald Trump’s administration lobbied for him to leave Romania, where he had been detained.
But I believe it’s very clear Clifford’s searches for Tate content reveals something campaigners and experts have been warning about for years: that online misogyny and male supremacist radicalisation fuel real world violence against women, and will continue to do so if we don’t address the problem. Prosecutors on the case said Clifford's actions were fuelled by the ‘violent misogyny promoted’ by Tate.
Yesterday, Tate responded, saying: ‘Anyone with a brain knows it's completely unfair. I'm sure this idiot who did this disgusting act also listened to music. Do you blame the people who he was listening to the songs of? This is f***ing stupid, it's a clown show.’
But in my new book Ctrl, Hate, Delete I explore how male supremacy has moved from the fringes of the Internet into the mainstream, partly through misogynistic ‘influencers’, or rather extremists. While Tate is one of the most extreme and visible examples, hundreds more like him are normalising violence, coercion and abuse.
Technology also fuels growing online and offline violence in other ways: nudifying apps that men use to produce non-consensual pornographic deepfakes, chat rooms where they discuss raping unconscious women, and last year’s revelation that Gisèle Pelicot’s husband used an unmoderated website known for its criminal activities to invite dozens of men to rape her for years in their home, are all reminders that men are using digital technologies, including AI, to abuse women.
As male supremacy has gone mainstream, more men have become exposed to their influencers. Two years ago, I found out that a male friend had gone down the rabbit hole and become a Men’s Rights Activist. I work for a research organisation that studies extremist movements and have spent many years following the so-called ‘manosphere’.
While I thought I was hardened to it, when it hit close to home, I was shocked and confronted with many questions, including: what can we do if the men around us drink the misogynistic Kool-Aid? It’s a question more and more of us are faced with. A recent poll found that a fifth of British men aged 16 to 29 have a ‘favourable’ opinion of Tate, while a 2023 report by gender equality organisation Equimundo showed 40% of men polled in the US said they ‘trust one or more “men’s rights,” anti-feminist, or pro-violence voices from the manosphere’.
While there are no easy answers, I have found confronting my friend’s rhetoric and setting boundaries helpful. Reassessing relationships may be needed, but it is not always an option. The onus should not be on us as women to protect ourselves from misogynistic radicalisation. Our governments need to invest in prevention and hold tech companies to account. Men need to step up and call out manosphere rhetoric for what it is: harmful and dangerous. Talking to trusted friends and relations if you have concerns is unlikely to be a bad idea.
C_trl, Hate, Delete_: The New Anti-Feminist Backlash and How We Fight It by Cecile Simmonds (Bristol University Press) is out 18 March