The rules of the manosphere are simple: get rich, get fit, get girls. Just as the rules are simple, so are the theories behind it.

Men: biologically wired for sex and to be the head of the relationship.

Women: born to stay at home and be submissive.

The recent Louis Theroux documentary titled Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere has further exposed these sides of the internet. While what is often referred to as the manosphere is made up of many subcultures such as incels (involuntary celibates), pickup artists, and Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), Theroux focused on four rather unlikeable characters who sell not just a lifestyle of material success, but also misogynistic ideologies.

As the world consumes the Netflix documentary, the response has been one of horror. Google it, and you’ll find the words ‘scared’, ‘chilling’, and ‘disturbing’.

Often, the manosphere is treated as something to watch out for, as though it emerged without a myriad of social factors behind it.

One of the personalities interviewed speaks of one-way monogamy: he can sleep with as many people as he wants, while his girlfriend must remain loyal. In his eyes, it’s simply a reflection of male biology. Hearing him use biological language, I began to wonder if what draws me to science is what draws men to the manosphere: a desire for refuge from a world that lacks guidance.

Generation Z has grown up with little guidance when it comes to dating or sex. A generation plagued by family breakdown, we question why we would listen to our divorced parents give dating advice. Even for the happiest of families, parents may struggle to guide a generation whose partners are found through hours of swiping.

Unlike the manosphere, the rules are unclear.

Should the man pay on the first date, or is that sexist? Can I rely on my underdeveloped social skills to approach that woman, or will I make her uncomfortable?

While we lament the days when you could go up to someone in a bar, even this is quite culturally unusual. Non-Western cultures typically involve the community in the matchmaking process, a tradition that was once practised in the Western world prior to the Industrial Revolution. However, during the 19th Century, industrialisation changed the nature of marriage. Once an economic agreement, there was a cultural shift in which love and romance became the focus. While we value the freedom this brings, it still complicates matters.

Even norms around sex are something we have been left to navigate alone.

Do we need to ask if the person you’re seeing is still sleeping with other people? Is discomfort with someone’s porn addiction a sign of insecurity or a reasonable boundary? The results of such a culture are confusion, dreaded situationships, an obsession with attachment styles, and at the extreme end, the manosphere.

Unlike the modern secular world that often promotes ideas without a clear underlying theory, the manosphere has a wealth of so-called philosophies.

Often, they draw upon the field I specialised in during my postgraduate degree: evolutionary psychology. A field that studies human mating and sex differences, this is a manosphere man’s dream. They frequently specialise in theories that make women look Machiavellian, and their ability to overlook data that challenges their favourite hypotheses is unmatched.

One theory is the ‘shit test’: while a woman’s attractiveness is automatically visible to men, women must ‘test’ a given man to see if they have the qualities it takes to be her mate. Despite their insistence that this is psychologically evolved, it is not based on evidence.

In their paper, A hundred and two just-so stories: exploring the lay evolutionary hypotheses of the manosphere, researchers Macken Murphy, Louis Bachaud, and Sarah Johns describe a Reddit guide to shit testing:

The woman asks: ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’. Translation: Are you a beta? (Can you get laid?). The correct answer is always yes… Women love poaching men from other women.

The sheer lack of social skills reflects what research has observed about extremist ideologies: that they appeal to those who are isolated and socially confused, filling a cultural void of understanding.

Another favourite is hypergamy, the idea that women date up and across in terms of social status and attractiveness.

Rollo Tomassi, author of The Rational Male and a leading figure in the ‘red pill’ movement, is a prominent proponent of hypergamy. He popularised the so-called ‘80/20 rule’ – the idea that 80 per cent of women are attracted to the top 20 per cent of men. In a 2020 analysis of The Red Pill subreddit, researcher Alexandra Krendel quotes a MGTOW user: ‘Love is something a woman will never understand … because of hypergamy.’

While Trivers’ parental investment theory states that women are typically more selective than men, a phenomenon known as assortative mating means people typically end up with others of similar income and attractiveness.

Despite this, a generation attempting to online date may find some solace in the concept of hypergamy. As psychologist Gregory Matos notes, dating apps are difficult for everyone, with the most attractive members of each sex receiving the most attention. However, this is slightly worse for men. Not only are there fewer women on the apps, they are also more selective.

As researchers such as Tyson et al. (2016) suggest, dating apps could amplify sex differences via a feedback loop: women become more selective as they realise they have more options.

This suggests that parts of manosphere reasoning arise not only from the problems with online dating, but also our collective inability to understand this new world. I am not suggesting that men far into a rabbit hole can be reasoned with, but a more widespread understanding of how dating apps can exaggerate behaviours could help prevent men from engaging with these ideas in the first place.

Despite my disdain for the misogynistic parts of the manosphere, our shared interest in evolution makes me question whether it’s simply a reflection of a world with little moral and social guidance as compared to previous generations.

One could look at the extreme commodification present in the manosphere and assume it’s solely symptomatic of individual moral failing. Yet as someone who has spent hours studying what is often a confronting and reductionistic science, I believe it’s simply an extension of a world we’ve grown up in.

During my studies, I was rarely uncomfortable using terms like ‘mating market’ or ‘low mate value’. Because while I had been told that all people are equal my whole life, there was a lack of a cultural framework to back that thought up.

Unable to turn to theology in a secular world, adults espoused such values within an increasingly superficial society that seemed to say the opposite. How could such egalitarian views be true within a culture in which social media turned the self into a brand?

Just like the manosphere men, I felt little discomfort at analysing why parts of my own body as a woman either lowered or increased my ‘mate value’.

Reducing people to their sex appeal could hardly have been called foreign when I had seen half-naked women printed around the city since childhood. When young people have grown up with unfettered access to porn, it’s hard not to see the outright objectification of women in the manosphere as a mere extension of this culture. Seeing some influencers speak of women in a blatantly sexist manner is at least more straightforward than a society that espouses views of equality while continuing to profit off women’s bodies.

In an attempt to shed the restrictive past, we have incorrectly assumed that the individual is better able to know what’s good for them than collective wisdom does.

Without rules, casual relationships have become increasingly common. As Louise Perry discusses in her book, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, the more restricted nature of typical female sexuality means such a culture often privileges men. Similarly, evolutionary psychology, especially the work of David Buss, suggests that the average difference in willingness to have casual sex can result in conflict between the sexes. While traditional Christian sexual ethics presented a solution to this, the modern world often frames the status quo as empowering while denying the impact it can have on dating culture and female mental health. In a society that treats women like men, it’s no wonder people are keen to learn about female nature from the manosphere.

Norms regarding approaching potential partners are also unclear.

A 2025 study on approach anxiety concluded it was a significant issue for young men, and there has been much online discourse about how rarely young men approach women. The mainstream media offers mixed messages. One day, it’s disrespectful to approach women in person. The next, you should stop being a baby and just try. The manosphere, however, is clear.

In the aforementioned paper by Bachaud, Murphy, and Johns, the influential pickup artist dating guide, The Venusian Arts Handbook is quoted:

‘In a tribal group, there will be some small number of available women of breeding age. When a man approaches one, he risks rejection, and if that happens, all the other women will know, which will diminish his value in their eyes – maybe to the point where none of the women will mate with him. This is called preselection – women look for social validation of their choices. A suitor who is preselected will be more attractive, whereas a man who has been rejected will be less so.’

This theory is not created by a scientist. Still, the idea’s ability to sound credible is rather remarkable. Not only could it provide reasoning to the anxious man, it also fills the role of a missing cultural script about navigating rejection.

Louis Theroux’s documentary is a hard watch. Yet we should be equally uncomfortable with the social conditions that remain behind it: the pervasive objectification of women, the lack of dating guidance, and social isolation. Young people don’t need more freedom. They need mentorship, role models, and clear cultural norms around relationships. If the real world cannot provide this, the manosphere will.

Inga-Britt Pinkstone is a Gen Z writer from Sydney. With a background in psychology, specialising in evolution (human mating), she writes about the intersection of our ancestral past and the modern world. She is particularly interested in gender and relationships. You can follow her on Substack and LinkedIn.