A new Lancet report has called for the manosphere to be treated as a public-health concern, warning that online communities built around male grievance can deepen health inequalities and cause harm well beyond the internet.
The term refers to a loose collection of online groups that present themselves as addressing men’s difficulties, but frequently attribute those difficulties to women and feminism. The report says these communities can attract boys and young men who feel ignored, misunderstood or excluded, offering them an identity and an explanation for problems in their lives.
“We need to offer boys something better, not just tell them what to avoid,”
Sarah Hawkes, co-founder of the think tank Global 50/50 and a co-author of the report, said the appeal of the manosphere partly comes from the sense of connection it provides. Its communities, she said, can offer “belonging, identity and an explanation for why life feels hard”.
Health consequences extend beyond online content
According to the report, the potential harms include social isolation, a reluctance among men and boys to seek mental-health care, and gender-based violence. It also identifies consequences for women and girls and for society more broadly.
The report places the issue within wider problems affecting boys and men. It says boys are increasingly disengaging from education, while men are over-represented in suicide statistics and in rates of incarceration. Men and boys, particularly those facing marginalisation or structural disadvantage, are also described as having substantial unmet needs in health and social care.
Its central argument is that reducing the risks associated with the manosphere will require more than removing individual posts or restricting access to particular material. The report says content moderation alone cannot address the social and economic conditions that make simple, grievance-based explanations attractive in the first place.
Report urges action on underlying conditions
The proposed response includes measures aimed at the circumstances surrounding boys’ and young men’s lives. These include:
- reducing economic insecurity through employment and social-protection policies;
- helping boys re-engage with education;
- improving access to mental-health support and other essential services; and
- examining the commercial structures and social norms that help sustain the manosphere’s appeal.
That approach treats online activity as part of a wider health and social environment rather than as an isolated technology problem. It also suggests that prevention should include credible alternatives: accessible support, opportunities for education and work, and services that respond to boys’ and young men’s needs before online communities become their main source of belonging.
The report’s conclusions do not mean that every person who encounters manosphere content will experience harm, nor that online material alone explains suicide, isolation or violence. The source material does not provide details of the report’s methods or quantify the proportion of people affected. The findings instead describe a set of risks and social conditions that may reinforce one another, underlining the need to distinguish association from direct causation.
For policymakers, the message is that efforts to limit harmful content should sit alongside broader public-health and social measures. Without addressing insecurity, disengagement from education and gaps in mental-health and social care, the report warns, removing content may leave the unmet needs that helped make those communities attractive unresolved.
