Trigger warning: Extreme misogyny, queerphobia, and Islamophobia
On September 1, 2024, self-proclaimed incel spicy_since_99* sent me a direct message on X. It was a warning, that if I kept “coping” for The News Minute, Wire, and “other leftist” websites, the “mullah” will come to my door, put a sword to my neck, and tell me to “convert or get [raped].”
If you have read part one of our series on the troubling world of the Indian manosphere and its grip on teenage boys, you may remember spicy_since_99. He first contacted me after I posted on X in 2024, looking for young men who were drawn into the misogynistic online world shaped by influencers like Andrew Tate.
Both via our messages and public posts, he claimed that women make bad decisions because they think with their “lizard brains,” that they should be treated like “spiritual toddlers,” and that their “only real agency is their sexuality.” All this, while insisting that incels like him do not want to subjugate women and only wanted “true love.”
Incels, short for “involuntarily celibate,” are men who blame feminism, women, and modern society for their lack of sexual or romantic success.
The online world spicy_since_99 inhabits is referred to as the manosphere — a loose online ecosystem of influencers, forums, and channels that frames feminism and gender equality as threats to men.
Though we hadn’t spoken since August 2024, he sent that direct message out of the blue — perhaps provoked by one of my posts. This time, the misogyny was combined with religious bigotry.
To some, all of this might sound like fringe internet angst. But the incel ideology has increasingly been linked to acts of real-world extremist violence, including mass shootings and targeted attacks.
Its fragile, yet persistent ideology also connects seemingly contradictory worlds.
spicy_since_99, who once warned me about the so-called “Islamic takeover of Kerala,” is by his own admission a follower of Andrew Tate.
In 2022, a British-American ‘influencer’, Tate had famously converted to Islam, twisting aspects of the religion to push a hypermasculine view of faith and gender.
This is how online misogyny turns dangerous. It’s no longer just angry men venting online. It has become a fast-evolving political project that crosses borders, draws from multiple religions and ideologies, and demands a return to patriarchal order — sometimes by force. In part two of this series, we speak to those who have embraced this world, and those who have been harmed by it.
We examine how digital adaptations of faiths, from evangelical Christianity to Islam to Hindutva, are increasingly becoming battlegrounds where masculinity is equated with dominance, and women’s autonomy is treated as a threat.
Tate and the co-opting of Islam
Tate, one of the biggest names in the manosphere universe, built his brand on a mix of wealth flexes, gym-bro posturing, and overt hate.
He has claimed that women should “bear some responsibility” for being raped, that “virgins are the only acceptable thing to marry,” and that women who do not want children are “miserable, stupid b***hes.” He now faces a string of serious legal proceedings across Europe and the United States, including charges of rape, human trafficking, and leading an organised crime group.
After Tate converted to Islam, he repeatedly called it "the last true religion," praising its strict moral boundaries and adherence to scripture, and even calling upon Christians to convert.
He has also often contrasted it to Christianity and other religions, which he claims have become too watered down. But those who knew him behind the scenes suggest this shift had more to do with optics than belief.
According to a former member of Tate’s marketing team, who worked closely with him, the switch was entirely strategic. “He’s not actually Muslim,” the former employee told The News Movement. “It’s just because he’s in Dubai. He wants to be friends with all the sheikhs and stuff.”
When the employee asked Tate directly if he was a Muslim, Tate allegedly replied, “Well, kind of not really. I'm just doing it because I’m in the UAE and it’s good for public perception.”
This rebrand was largely successful. By aligning himself with Islam, Tate tapped into a massive online audience of traditionalist Muslim boys and men, especially in regions like South Asia and the Gulf, who began to see him as a masculine figurehead pushing back against feminism and Western liberalism.
Zul Qarnain*, a 26-year-old scholar from Chennai, said he saw this radicalisation towards Tate firsthand while tutoring teenage Muslim boys in Tamil Nadu. Many of his students, from relatively privileged, internet-connected households, were quietly becoming fans.
“They were just in 8th and 9th grades,” he recalled.
“Two of my students had a phase, they were really into Tate. But I think just me mocking Tate in class helped break the illusion. At least one of them came out of it.”
This wasn’t just in India. Qarnain’s friends in Malaysia, too, had fallen into the same rabbit hole. “Muslim kids from different backgrounds, all saying the same thing: ‘We don’t agree with everything Tate says, but he’s right about some things.’”
When asked what exactly those “right things” were, Qarnain said the answers were often vague. Parents were similarly confused, with some even saying it was “good to hear from all sides.”
Neither, however, had a real sense of the extremity of the content that children were being exposed to.
“Parents see one side — the algorithm shows them the charity work, the pro-Palestine stuff. But what the kids are watching is a completely different vibe. The tone is darker. The message is more aggressive,” said Qarnain.
Tate’s appeal within Muslim communities, Qarnain believes, wasn’t accidental. “He realised that our communities were newer to the internet. The generational divide is much wider.”
Some of the appeal, he said, was also post-colonial. “When someone from the West converts — especially someone from a part of the world long associated with Islamophobic violence — it’s seen as a kind of redemption story. That makes them more powerful in people’s minds.”
But the version of Islam Tate promotes, Qarnain added, is deeply distorted. “It draws heavily from the puritanical Salafi tradition. Ironically, it’s a very Orientalist and conservative interpretation of Islam — one that even many traditional scholars would reject.”
Sania Aziz, a 29-year-old journalist based in Dubai, has extensively researched Tate’s influence in what she calls the “Muslim manosphere.” According to her, he appeals to a specific demographic. “These are ‘trad’ Muslim men, who aren’t particularly religious in their everyday lives,” she told me. “For example, they may not be ones who pray five times a day, or strictly follow the other tenets of the religion.”
Yet Tate’s rhetoric offers them a convenient narrative. “It allows them to skirt their own religious obligations and justify it by placing the burden of religion on women,” she said. In this worldview, female modesty becomes the moral fulcrum of society, while male accountability is quietly ignored.
Even Harsh*, a 23-year-old X user who spends a better part of the day blaming Hindu women for the “downfall of Hinduism,” grudgingly admires Tate. He dismissed the conversion as “just a marketing strategy” but justifies consuming Tate’s content as a way to gain insights into how “women behave” and how “men need to improve.”
“Tate says what most men are afraid to,” he added.
As for Tate’s current influence today, Sania has noted a shift. “This past year, it has somewhat toned down within the Muslim community.”
Court cases aside, what appears to have alienated some of his fanbase was his own racism. “Tate suddenly blamed Muslim immigrants for eroding the culture of Britain.” Many of his supporters, she said, were willing to overlook his misogyny — but turned on him when he attacked Muslim men.
By that point, though, the machine was already running. Other influencers had joined in, including those who had previously made their names through misogynistic content. Some, like Sneako, were prominent manosphere figures who later converted to Islam. Others were already within the faith, but began framing hardline masculinity as divinely mandated.
One example is Gabriel Keresztes Al-Romaani, a Muslim counsellor and preacher, who has built a following by fusing red-pill ideology with Islamic rhetoric. The term “red-pill,” in internet culture, is meant to indicate a wake-up call from the supposed ‘truth’ about how the world really works, especially about men and women.
In 2021, Al-Romaani released a video titled “Killing Muslim Masculinity Mufti,” in which he angrily criticised cleric Mufti Menk for knitting in a video, a skill Menk said he’d learned as a child and hoped to pass on to his children. Al-Romaani denounced the act as emasculating, claiming that Muslim men should instead take up hunting, boxing, and archery, which he said were activities closer to the Sunnah — the way of life and practices of the Prophet Muhammad. He even argued that such “feminine” hobbies lower testosterone and make men less appealing to women.
Though framed as religious commentary, the talking points were unmistakably manosphere. Anything soft is suspect, and masculinity must always be physical, dominant, and hyper-traditional.
Al-Romaani now runs the Muslim Alpha Program, an online platform that promises to help Muslim men attain “peak masculinity based on the Quran and Sunnah.” Its pitch is familiar — self-improvement, control, and patriarchal order — wrapped in the language of piety.
In actuality, it’s not about religion, Qarnain said. “It’s about exploiting whatever community gives you the most leverage.”
Across India, several homegrown platforms are pushing similarly regressive views under the banner of religion.
One notable example is the Malayalam YouTube channel ‘Unmasking Anomalies,’ formerly ‘Unmasking Atheism,’ run by figures like Abdulla Basil CP, a dentist from Kannur, and Suhail Rasheed. The channel is notorious for its homophobic, transphobic, and rigidly conservative Islamic content targeting young Muslims in Kerala.
Part of the channel’s strategy is to appear nuanced, and even accepting, at first glance. For instance, in one video, Basil says, “Homosexual thoughts are fine, but they should not be acted upon,” suggesting a distinction between inclination and action.
He extends this logic to trans identities, framing it as a conflict between the mind and the body. He cites two “solutions,” to either align the mind with the body, or the body with the mind. The second option is, of course, referring to gender-affirming surgery, which he deems “dangerous” and a result of “changing whims.” Islam, he claims, insists that people follow the body, not the mind.
Increasingly, these views aren’t staying online. In 2022, photos showing students of Thrissur Medical College attending a talk by Basil and Rasheed, sparked outrage. Held in a mosque hall near the college, the session showed male and female medical students sitting on opposite sides of a classroom, divided by a large curtain.
Meanwhile, online, these ideas also continue to trickle into everyday spaces, particularly in the comment sections.
Muslim women who stray, especially publicly, from conservative expectations are frequently targeted. A striking example comes from the Kerala-based queer couple Adhila and Noora. Their videos, which document their everyday life together, often attract vile responses. Commenters have called them “prakruthi viruddha vyabhicharikal” (unnatural adulterers) and accused them of “sexual perversion.” The hate isn’t just homophobic. It’s laced with the language of religious and moral policing.
It’s also not limited to grown men. Increasingly, it’s coming from boys barely out of childhood.
In a recent Instagram video of a Muslim woman singing, a guitar in her hand, her hair cut short, a number of men were in the comments, admonishing her for not wearing a hijab. Curious, I clicked through some profiles and reached out to one of them — a boy whose bio said he was born in 2009. I asked why he felt the need to police a woman clearly older than him. Several days later, the 16-year-old replied bluntly, “Hijab is the only thing that keeps women from getting raped.”
Qarnain, however, is cautious not to single out Islam. “Misogyny exists in all communities. And it’s often weaponised against Muslims — used to paint the entire group with one brush.”
In fact, if these Islamist voices are trying to push conservative gender roles from within a marginalised space, Hindutva influencers do it from the centre, backed by political power, cultural dominance, and growing online armies.
The violence of digital Hindutva
On Hindutva-aligned X and Telegram channels, anti-women rhetoric isn’t just common, it’s core to the ideology. What stands out, though, is how much of this hatred is reserved for Hindu women themselves, especially when they fail to toe the line, or worse, show sympathy to minorities, assert autonomy, or claim space.
Take, for example, a widely circulated post by an X user, holyrain*. “Indian women aren’t worthy enough to be part of the Aryan religion,” he writes. “They lack the intellectual capacity to understand it. Only white and non-Indian women really seem to get it.”
He insists that the “Vedic religion” should be made more exclusive, and that Indian women shouldn’t be allowed to do yoga, meditate, get into Vedic astrology, or even celebrate the festivals. “Indian women can just stop visiting sacred spaces. No one wants them,” he adds. “They’ve shown themselves to be rebels.”
In another post, he describes “conservative desi women” as “horny, sex-starved grifters looking to taste what’s forbidden.”
holyrain did not respond to a request for comment. But whether he means it or not, his ragebait reflects a broader trend across Hindutva Twitter. It frames women as liabilities to both faith and nation.
Several young Hindutva supporters I interviewed echoed this resentment. Vikas*, 19, claimed Hindu women believe in dating and degeneracy, commit more crimes than other women, and that “Muslim women get government benefits funded by Hindu men’s taxes.” When asked if he had any data to back his claims, he said he had “read enough reports,” and that “you would too if you were actually interested in the truth.”
Harsh* was of the opinion that Hindu women have “emasculated” Hindu men. “More and more married Hindu men are committing suicide. That’s the main reason for Hindu population drastically shrinking.” He added that Hindu families are getting destroyed mainly due to women making “false 498A” (IPC section for domestic violence) and “false 376” (rape) accusations.
One viral post even called Hindu marriage a “suicide pact for men,” demanding celibacy before marriage, punishment for adultery, and an end to alimony and marital rape laws, which it dismissed as “Western trash.”
These posts often frame Hindu men as victims of both feminism and the legal system.
But what stands out here isn’t just the hate. It’s how it echoes the tone of the Western manosphere — confident, data-sounding, but ultimately baseless.
This worldview, which judges women against a narrow standard, also turns every act of self-expression into grounds for public shaming. Even joy becomes dangerous.
Mundane and lighthearted expressions of fun, such as videos of women dancing, are routinely policed by strangers online. The backlash weaponises cultural codes to shame women for occupying public spaces with confidence or pleasure.
In one viral instance, a woman dancing in an off-shoulder crop top and pants at a public venue was accused of indecency, especially because she dared to do so in view of “an old woman, an elderly man, and an innocent child.” Her dance was described as “ang pradarshan,” a vulgar display of flesh.
In another widely shared clip, a user derided a woman’s dance as “just meat shaking,” seemingly lamenting the “Westernisation of our culture.”
But the scrutiny doesn’t stop at joy. Even grief and compassion become targets.
Consider the case of Himanshi Narwal, wife of Lieutenant Vinay Narwal, who was killed in the 2024 Pahalgam terror attack. An image of Himanshi — draped in the red bangles of a new bride, stoic and visibly shattered beside the body of her husband — had become a powerful symbol of national mourning. Her photograph was quickly framed as the suffering of a Hindu woman at the hands of Muslim attackers, but not for long.
When Himanshi later called for peace, urging people not to blame Muslims or Kashmiris for the violence, the tide turned viciously. The same right-wing media, which had earlier embraced her, suddenly turned against her. She was trolled, harassed, and vilified.
Much of the outrage centred around her personal associations. That she studied at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), a university long known as a bastion of leftist thought, had “Muslim friends” and “Muslim followers” online, were all held up as ‘damning evidence.’
Trollers dug up her Google reviews, pulling out praise for restaurants or establishments with Muslim names to brand her “pro-Pak” or an “Islamist apologist.” Her social media photos with friends, her interactions, and even her follower list were mined to smear her, and to strip her of dignity and agency.
In a chilling escalation, Haryana Police arrested two Muslim men for creating and circulating an obscene AI-generated video of Himanshi.
Historian Ruchika Sharma, who has long been targeted online for her vocal criticism of the Hindutva ideology, said the harassment turned especially vicious after she publicly talked about her allegedly abusive interfaith relationship. Since then, her mentions have been flooded with disturbing and violent messages any time she criticises the Hindu right.
“Now, whenever I post, someone will reply with things like, ‘Your Muslim ex should have finished the job,’ basically suggesting he should have killed me. Or they’ll say, ‘You were pumped and dumped by a Muslim, and you still haven’t learned your lesson.’”
She added that even before she publicly spoke about the relationship, there were trolls who speculated that a “Chad Hindu guy” must have dumped her, which caused her to be bitter about Hinduism.
‘Chad’ is a slang term used to refer to conventionally attractive, confident, and ‘dominant’ men.
This language — “pumped and dumped,” “Chad guy” — shows a direct borrowing from the Western manosphere.
“There was this whole debate on the right about why Hindu Brahmin girls are falling for Muslim men,” she recalled. “The comments were very revealing. They suggested that Muslim men are somehow more sexually experienced, and that women like me are just sex-crazed.”
Ruchika believes these ideas are rooted in a dangerous imagination that links masculinity with conquest. “There’s this assumption that because Muslims are stereotyped as ‘invaders,’ and invasion is seen as masculine, Muslim men must be more sexually powerful — so naturally, Hindu women fall for them.”
This same fantasy is often projected backwards into history. “I recently said in an interview that Akbar had married a Rajput princess who gave birth to Jahangir. Right after that article came out, people messaged me saying, ‘Why don’t you talk about all the Muslim wives of Hindu kings?’”
In Hindutva circles, Ruchika said, there’s a persistent need to mirror the trope of Muslims violating Hindu women, especially by imagining Hindu kings also “conquering” Muslim women.
This desire to create historical symmetry also fuels present-day violence. “Last December, when I posted a regular photo on my social media, a Hindu man replied saying, ‘You have a rapeable body. Now I understand why so many Mughals raped Hindu women.’”
This hyper-sexualisation of Muslim men, Ruchika said, exists alongside a parallel effort to reinvent Hindu masculinity through idealised, aggressive imagery. “Just look at how Hindutva portrays historical heroes — always with six-pack abs, bulging biceps, and permanently angry expressions,” she said.
But these portrayals are historically inaccurate. “If you look at Mughal paintings and other artwork from that era, rulers often had slight paunches. It was a status symbol,” she explained. “The obsession with ripped bodies actually comes from a Western ideal — Greco-Roman and colonial influences. It wasn’t part of Indian visual culture before British rule.”
Even Brahmins, she pointed out, are now shown as heavily muscled in Hindutva iconography. “Look at the ‘Angry Hanuman’ art. It’s the same idea. To be male is to be angry, ripped, and violent,” Ruchika said. “It’s all about projecting this hyper-aggressive masculine identity that never historically existed in that form. There’s this underlying belief that masculinity equals violence — and that violence equals power.”
This ecosystem doesn’t just thrive on anonymous accounts and Telegram rants. It is actively propped up by influencers with massive platforms.
Elvish Yadav, a YouTuber and reality TV star with millions of followers, regularly peddles misogyny under the guise of satire. His video titled ‘Elvish Yadav roasting fake feminists’ has over 44 lakh views, mocking women’s looks and branding independent women as morally bankrupt. The comments call him brave for “speaking the truth.”
What makes his influence more insidious is how seamlessly it blends into a majoritarian political framework. Elvish often echoes Hindutva talking points, lamenting how “Hindus aren’t safe anymore,” and presenting this as youthful, patriotic pride.
Lakshay Chaudhary is another mega-YouTuber who punches down at feminists, minorities, and progressive voices, while also championing a version of masculinity rooted in nationalism and cultural purity.
There are also figures like Rahul Easwar, a high-profile right-wing commentator in Kerala, who repeatedly defends men accused of harassment, casts doubt on rape survivors, and calls for a Men’s Commission to address the supposed epidemic of false cases.
The digital witch-hunts
Actor Rhea Chakraborty’s vilification after Sushant Singh Rajput’s death is a stark example of how online Hindutva ecosystems mobilise hate. Online groups like “Justice for Sushant Singh Rajput,” with over a lakh followers, flooded social media with misogynistic content, portraying Chakraborty as manipulative and dangerous, even likening her to a virus.
Administrators of these groups, some affiliated with right-wing organisations like the Karni Sena, openly called for her execution, drawing parallels with convicted terrorists. The Karni Sena, a Rajput caste group, is infamous for violently protesting the film Padmaavat (2018) and threatening to mutilate actor Deepika Padukone over perceived insults to Rajput honour.
Mainstream media amplified the hysteria. TV anchors ran frenzied segments accusing Chakraborty of “black magic” and demanding her arrest, despite a lack of evidence.
These incidents weren’t an anomaly. In fact, it fits seamlessly into the broader pattern of Hindutva’s digital hate. In their study ‘Women Under Hindutva,’ researchers Rishiraj Sen and Shweta Jha have examined how online abuse is used to silence women, especially those from marginalised communities or those with political opinions that challenge Hindutva ideology.
One of the key examples they highlight is that of Safoora Zargar, a Muslim student activist from Jamia Millia Islamia. She was arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) during the 2020 Delhi riots, while three months pregnant. Once the news of her pregnancy came out, she was relentlessly slut-shamed online. Trolls circulated false claims that she was pregnant outside marriage, using her body to undermine her politics and portray her as immoral.
Hindi film actor Swara Bhasker, and journalists Arfa Khanum Sherwani and Rana Ayyub, have all been targets of online campaigns that use sexualised slurs, doctored images, and personal attacks to silence dissent. These attacks often blend misogyny with communal hatred, particularly against Muslim women.
A lot of these attacks, which frame sexual autonomy and pleasure as signs of moral decay, draw from two ideological wells — Hindutva’s conservative disdain for non-marital sexuality, and the manosphere’s belief that female agency threatens male power.
More dangerously, this ecosystem has produced platforms like ‘Sulli Deals’ and ‘Bulli Bai’, where Muslim women were "auctioned" online using photos stolen by Hindu men. Deepfake porn, rape threats, and abuse directed at the families of dissenters are all part of this machinery.
Journalist Ismat Ara, who was one of the women named in this fake "auction," sees these attacks as “a deliberate form of digital terror” — efforts designed to punish confident Muslim women who refuse to be silenced
“The attackers don’t just hate our religion or our social media posts,” she told me. “They hate the fact that we are women with agency.”
These attacks, she said, are designed to break women down through shame. “It’s both a warning and a spectacle: ‘This is what happens when Muslim women speak.’”
While women from privileged communities often face abuse that is primarily sexualised, such as rape threats or slut-shaming, the violence directed at Dalit, Adivasi, Muslim, and other marginalised women is far more intersectional and vicious.
As advocate and anti-caste activist Kiruba Munusamy notes, the abuse becomes identity-based, aiming to humiliate and delegitimise them — labeling Dalit women, for instance, as "too ugly to rape" or casting sexualised slurs as hereditary, tied to their "untouchable" caste status. Kiruba herself has been at the receiving end of such vile online harassment, especially after she accused then Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) leader R Vikraman of abusing her.
The roots in hardline Christianity
Long before the manosphere spread to Hindutva circles or gained traction in Muslim communities, its earliest and strongest roots were deeply tied to Christian online spaces in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Many of the first men’s advocacy and anti-feminist forums, in fact, grew out of Christian websites and discussion boards.
These Christian men’s groups often talked about “godly masculinity” or “biblical manhood,” promoting a return to traditional gender roles. Christian websites and forums hosted early discussions where men shared grievances about women, divorce, custody, and perceived feminist overreach.
These forums can be considered the early breeding ground for what would become the manosphere, and the political activism of the Christian right — focused on issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, and education — went hand in hand with its rise.
The anonymity of the internet, of course, amplified these voices, allowing more radical perspectives to develop unchecked.
One of the clearest examples of this is the Reddit community Red-Pilled Christians (RPCs), studied in depth by Elyse Willemsen for the Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET).
For RPCs, this ‘truth’ is anchored in scripture. A 2021 Reddit post cited in Willemsen’s analysis lays out the group’s vision: “husbands to be leaders and wives to be helpers,” referencing Genesis 2:18 and 3:16.
According to the RPCs, masculinity is not just spiritual, but explicitly physical. Men are encouraged to lift weights to assert sexual dominance. One user even claimed that strength training improves one’s ability to “pick her up, pin her down, and have sex in advanced positions.”
This doctrine of control extends to women’s sexuality as well.
RPCs obsess over virginity, declaring that only women without past sexual experience are fit for marriage. As Willemsen notes, premarital sex is seen not only as sin, but as irreversible moral decay, rendering women who’ve had it “damaged goods.” In one 2022 Reddit post, a user even endorsed stoning for adultery, citing biblical law.
Such communities have essentially collapsed faith into fundamentalism. In this worldview, feminism isn’t just misguided, but is a threat to ‘god’s order’. Controlling women becomes a cultural as well as religious duty.
These ideas have also proven remarkably portable. Jordan Peterson, a Canadian psychologist and one of the most prominent voices in the Christian manosphere, has built a global audience with messages about order, hierarchy, and male responsibility. In his YouTube channel with over 87 lakh subscribers, he has repeatedly insisted that many women actually desire traditional roles as housewives and prioritise children over careers, though he claims they won’t admit this publicly.
In a New York Times profile of him, Peterson is quoted as dismissing critiques of traditional marriage as complaints from privileged women.
Not surprisingly, Peterson’s ideas have found an audience well beyond Western Christian circles, resonating strongly with right-wing Hindu groups in India as well. In turn, he has also strengthened this appeal by engaging with topics that resonate culturally.
In an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience (JRE) — one of the world’s most popular podcasts, where references to Ayurveda, yoga, and meditation are common — Peterson praised Kundalini Yoga, describing how it can “make everything into the equivalent of a psychedelic experience” through the “alignment of levels” or “chakras,” which he called “part of the manifestation of the truth.”
His talk of “restoring order” fits well with a growing Hindutva narrative.
Religion, in these cases, functions as both a justification and a vessel. The manosphere, meanwhile, acts as a shapeshifting concept, constantly finding new expressions within Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and other religious frameworks alike.
Ruchika said she has seen this convergence play out in real time. Sometimes, Hindu men even invoke Muslim women as moral examples. “They’ll say, ‘Look at Muslim women who defend their religion with dignity, why can’t you be like them?’ It’s this odd moral alliance that only emerges when it’s about putting women in their place.”
This cross-religious alignment in online misogyny — a kind of brotherhood forged in shared contempt for women’s autonomy — underscores how the manosphere transcends theology. For many of its adherents, faith is simply a vessel to enforce patriarchal control and shame women into silence.
Resistance and the way out
Many, like spicy_since_99, start young. He was just 15 or 16 when he began browsing 4chan, the infamous message board known for its role in incubating hate speech and extremist movements. He says he was “blackpilled” before most people even knew what the term meant.
For the uninitiated, the ‘blackpill’ is a nihilistic belief among incels that men who aren’t perceived to be attractive are doomed to lifelong loneliness. Studies have linked blackpill ideology to higher risks of suicidal ideation among young men.
Now in his twenties, spicy_since_99 describes Elliot Rodger — who killed six people in California in 2014 before taking his own life — as a “real incel.” Rodger’s manifesto blamed women and society for his isolation, and his name has since become a rallying cry in extremist corners of the internet.
But his story is not an anomaly. For many boys who stumble into these online spaces while grappling with loneliness or rejection, misogyny becomes the entry point and religious extremism is where they may end up.
A leaked UK counter-terrorism report published by The Guardian earlier this year supports this trajectory. It identified misogyny, particularly in digital spaces, as a “gateway” to broader forms of violent extremism, noting that gender-based hate increasingly intersects with white supremacy, religious fundamentalism, and nationalist movements across the world.
To understand how young people are encountering and resisting this content today, my editor Dhanya Rajendran and I had spoken to two teenagers, who shared firsthand how manosphere content is showing up in their classrooms, friendships, and feeds — and how they’re pushing back.
Watch the full video here:
But according to Qarnain, misogyny is not the only issue. It’s the system and its failings that push young boys into these deep wells of distrust and hate.
That is why content moderation alone won’t cut it. “In Australia, some schools have started using materials to counter figures like Tate. They teach students how to recognise toxic masculinity, how to push back. But in India? That’s a lot harder.”
What’s really needed is comprehensive structural change, Qarnain said, and especially proper sex education. As Sania pointed out, if the effects of the manosphere are spilling over in real life, “then the pushback should also happen in real life.”
According to Ismat Ara, one of the scariest consequences is the slow numbing to cruelty, which renders these attacks to be seen as “inevitable” or dismissed as “online drama.” “That normalisation chips away at women's sense of safety and worth,” she said. “Many promising young women, especially from minority communities, start to self-censor, withdraw, or abandon public life altogether.”
But despite all this, it gives her hope to see how many women are refusing to be silenced.
Like Qarnain, she too argued that resistance needs to be layered — legal, institutional, social, and communal. “Socially, we need visible public solidarity, especially from men, against this kind of hate. Informally, peer-to-peer support networks are vital.”
In the end, this is not just about bad men, but broken systems and how quickly hate can take root when left unchecked. To dismantle it, the response must start early, include everyone, and be rooted in empathy as much as accountability. Hope lives not only in the women who refuse to disappear, but also in the boys who are still reachable.
* Some names and usernames have been changed to protect privacy.