What Is Femosphere, The Dark, Toxic Online Corner For Women? (image @Pixabay)

After manosphere, the misogynist internet world which was recognised a toxic space where young men are at risk of radicalisation, ‘femosphere’ came up, where researchers say women and girls are being sucked into potentially dangerous online spaces of their own. According to the researchers, a reactionary turn among young women, and how a backlash against mainstream feminism has paved path for this new online space.

In femosphere, instead of “incels”, (male involuntary celibates), there are “femcels”. The space have “dark feminine” influencers who encourage women to find men to support them financially.

Speaking of the research, researcher Dr Jilly Kay said, in the femosphere, as in the manosphere, there’s an overarching belief that life is about survival of the fittest, that men will always hurt women and that will never change, so strategies are needed to conquer the opposite gender, as per the report.

The femosphere introduces a female dating strategy, which started as a Reddit forum, and expanded into social media and a podcast. With forum started with more than 250,000 members. It has a six-point ideology for members to subscribe to, which includes ideas such as: men should always pursue women, women should seek financial contributions from men, and the majority of men have no value, says Kay’s study.

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Kay says that, mainstream feminism in recent decades has been “very consumer-oriented, all about individual empowerment, emphasising things like women being confident, successful, and women having all the things that men can have”. In other words, “girlboss feminism”. However, she said that since about 2018, there has been a growing rejection of that idea.

Kay saw beliefs discussed and shared in online forums and via social media influencers that echoed the logic of the manosphere, especially when it came to dating and relationships. “Ideas like men are the gatekeeper of relationships and women are the gatekeepers of sex”, she said. “So women’s currency in the sexual marketplace resides in her withholding sex from men, and you diminish your value if you have casual sex”.

She says that the idea of femosphere is to counter women’s lesser earning power (the gender pay gap in the UK was 14.3% last year), rather than fighting for pay equality, a man should provide for a woman financially, and women must “embrace feminine energy” to secure a husband.

Looking at the ‘dark feminine’, influencers such as Kanika Batra and Thewizardliz. In recent years, Batra has criticised liberal feminism. In one of her social media post, she explained why she had “left feminism behind” and said: “The manosphere is incredibly loyal to everybody within it”.

“I used to be a feminist before I saw the effects of third wave feminism,” Batra said. “This has forced women into masculine roles where they are pursuing men”.

Kay is not the only who did study on the subject. Prof Emiliano de Cristofaro and Prof Jeremy Blackburn are two of the authors of a data-driven analysis of “toxic” women’s communities online. They had already worked on the manosphere and other “dark corners” of the internet.

The authors noted that some of the same patterns as Kay, and found “sort of analogues of the manosphere”. Some communities even mirrored the manosphere in the advice given to members. “The narratives with respect to dating strategy are very similar – it’s a game and you try to outsmart the other gender and win,” said de Cristofaro.

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Some of the language used is also similar, said the authors. Being “redpilled” is often discussed in the manosphere – the idea, based on the plot of the Matrix film, of suddenly being able to see reality – and “blackpilled” is used by incels to describe the idea that their situation, being, as they believe, undesirable to women, is inescapable. In the femosphere, these have been reframed as the “pink pill”.

Accusations of toxic language and hate speech have led to some female groups, including femcel groups, being banned from Reddit. Just like manosphere groups before them, they then set up independent platforms of their own, reported The Guardian.

Cristofaro and Blackburn also noted that among some femosphere members, “feminism is a key part of their identity”. But this doesn’t necessarily mean they hold progressive views. Some more traditionally feminist groups have aligned with non-feminist groups who share some of the same views – most notably, the union of Christian fundamentalists and far-right figures with some gender-critical feminists, something like Kya has noted.

The exposure to “toxic content has been shown overall to increase radicalisation”, said the authors.

Kay said that it is important for people to understand and recognise what is happening, because at first glance, the idea can seem quite appealing, especially to feminists. “Liberal feminism has been rejected for good reason – it has failed to deliver gender equality, so it makes sense that you’d want to find an alternative. But just because something is the enemy of liberal feminism, does not necessarily mean it’s good for women”, she said.

(With inputs from agencies)