AP - Emboldened ‘manosphere’ accelerates threats and demeaning language toward women after US election



By CHRISTINE FERNANDO
Updated 12:06 AM EST, November 30, 2024

CHICAGO (AP) — In the days after the presidential election, Sadie Perez began carrying pepper spray with her around campus. Her mom also ordered her and her sister a self-defense kit that included keychain spikes, a hidden knife key and a personal alarm.

It’s a response to an emboldened fringe of right-wing “manosphere” influencers who have seized on Republican Donald Trump ’s presidential win to justify and amplify misogynistic derision and threats online. Many have appropriated a 1960s abortion rights rallying cry, declaring “Your body, my choice” at women online and on college campuses.

For many women, the words represent a worrying harbinger of what might lie ahead as some men perceive the election results as a rebuke of reproductive rights and women’s rights.

“The fact that I feel like I have to carry around pepper spray like this is sad,” said Perez, a 19-year-old political science student in Wisconsin. “Women want and deserve to feel safe.”

Isabelle Frances-Wright, director of technology and society at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank focusing on polarization and extremism, said she had seen a “very large uptick in a number of types of misogynistic rhetoric immediately after the election,” including some “extremely violent misogyny.”

“I think many progressive women have been shocked by how quickly and aggressively this rhetoric has gained traction,” she said.

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