Figures that lay bare the shocking scale of toxic influencer Andrew Tate's reach among young men |
Imagine if an important man in your life liked Andrew Tate. To humanise the scenario - let's say your son, dad, boyfriend, or male friend hungrily lapped up the misogynistic influencer's content. After all, when you bear in mind the burgeoning popularity of Tate, there are presumably a fair few women in the UK currently coming to terms with the fact that, whether they like it or not, their loved one is a Tate fan. Moreover, if a story I wrote last week is anything to go by, many parents of teenagers in the UK are currently in the aforementioned situation. A highly troubling new poll, exclusively shared with me, found more young men in the UK have seen material from Tate than have heard of Rishi Sunak. The research, carried out by leading anti-fascism charity Hope not hate, found that eight in 10 boys aged between 16 and 17 had either read, listened to or watched content from the misogynistic "success coach". Meanwhile, around six in 10 boys had heard of the PM and roughly four in 10 knew who London mayor Sadiq Khan was, just slightly more than around a third of boys who had heard of the Labour leader Keir Starmer. The survey found boys aged between 16 and 17 were 21 per cent more likely to have consumed Tate's material than had heard of Sunak. Researchers, who polled over 1,200 people in the UK aged between 16 to 24, discovered that 45 per cent of men have a positive view of Tate, while only 26 held a negative opinion of the influencer. When probed about why they like Tate, most said they thought Tate "wants men to be real men" or that "he gives good advice". "Tate's misogynist, homophobic and racist content is seen online by millions of young people," Rosie Carter, director of policy at Hope not hate, told me. "His confidence, his money and his lifestyle are all carefully crafted to make his brand of hateful content seem aspirational. Tate's violent misogyny is harmful and he goes far beyond 'women belong in the kitchen' jokes. The shocking disparity in how teenage girls and boys feel about him suggests that Tate's targeting of young men has had a direct negative impact on young women as his ideas are carried by young men both on and offline." In case anyone needs reminding of who Tate is, or somehow has the good fortune of not knowing who he is, he is a former kickboxing world champion who once referred to married women as "property" that their husbands own. I previously reported on research by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) which unearthed 47 videos of Tate pushing what it describes as "extreme misogyny". The report uncovered adverts on videos where Tate discusses fighting women, saying "grip her up by the neck" in a video, which has been viewed 1.6 million times, as well as referring to putting his "imprint" on 18-19-year-old girls in footage which has accrued 8.4 million views. |
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Police in Nicola Bulley case accused of stereotyping women as 'crazy' after revealing menopause struggles |
I don't think it would take an MI5 agent to decode what I was talking about if I told you I was "on my reds", or it was "that time of the month, or "it's my lady business". This is because period euphemisms remain ubiquitous - arguably being a direct symptom of the shame, stigma and taboo which has long cloaked women's health, bodies and therefore their periods. A story of mine, published last week, explored this in the context of the Nicola Bulley case - with the article revealing police investigating the disappearance of Bulley have been accused of perpetuating the stereotype that women are "crazy" and "hormonal" after they revealed she had alcohol issues brought on by menopause. It came after Lancashire Police sparked outrage last week when they revealed the personal details of the mother-of-two's struggles, with a former police watchdog questioning how the information was "even vaguely relevant". Mandu Reid, leader of the Women's Equality Party, told me it was "inexcusable" the police have "weaponised" the fact Bulley was menopausal to "justify" her disappearance. "I can't see what the police, or anybody, or perhaps most importantly her, is hoping to do by bringing that narrative into it," Reid told me. "It is perpetuating the stereotype that women are crazy and hormonal. Most women will experience their hormones being used against them to pathologise them as crazy or unreasonable. There is an undertone of misogyny there. I can't imagine a scenario where a man's low sperm count or something to do with his reproductive health is brought into the equation." Meanwhile, Kate Osborne, a Labour MP who sits on the women and equalities committee, told me: "It verges on victim blaming, adds to the stigma millions of women face during the menopause and is a serious invasion of her privacy." |
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"If I am what I have and if I lose what I have who then am I?" |
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Brianna Ghey's death was a tragedy waiting to happen |
Rest in peace Brianna Ghay. The 16-year-old trans girl, who was stabbed to death in a park in Warrington, was described as "strong, fearless, one of a kind" by her family. Robin Moira White, the first barrister to transition in practice at the discrimination bar, has written a powerful piece about her death. "The stabbing of teenager Brianna Ghey in Warrington is a terrible tragedy for her family and my heart goes out to them," Moira White, joint author of the leading text on transgender law, begins the story. "Two 15-year-olds have now been charged with her murder. It is not clear whether the fact that she was trans was a factor in the events in Linear Park, Warrington, but shock at her death has rippled through the LGBT+ community." When Moira White argues that she "cannot help but feel this kind of tragedy was waiting to happen", I know exactly what she means. "Anyone who followed the Conservative leadership contest will have seen the candidates vying with each other to stoke "debate" over trans people's lives; and such sentiment is something I, as Britain's only trans discrimination barrister, have to cope with every day," she adds. |
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Women who are domestic abuse victims are three times more likely to try to kill themselves |
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Why do men kill their families? |
I can't help but feel deeply despondent when I consider between two and three women are murdered each week by their partners or ex-partners in England and Wales, while one in four women will suffer domestic abuse at some point during their lives. These grizzly statistics show male violence, whether the physical or the psychological kind, is not only pervasive but can also be deadly. Eloise Hendy has explored these issues, and more, in a story which asks the complex but vital question of why men kill their families? A previous interview I did with two sons who have direct personal experience of this issue springs to mind. Online networks where misogynistic hate is routinely shared spurred on a domestic abuser to murder his wife and daughter with a sawn-off shotgun, his two sons told me. Lance Hart, 57, killed his 50-year-old wife and 19-year-old daughter before turning the weapon on himself in a swimming pool car park in Spalding in Lincolnshire in 2016. Hart, who was described as a "cold, calculated, scheming man" by a coroner but as a "nice guy" who was "always caring" and "good at DIY" by the media after the murders, subjected his wife to a campaign of domestic abuse and coercive control for 27 years before carrying out the killing. In her story, which for the record doesn't go into the case of Lance Hart, Hendy writes: "Cases of familicide – a type of murder or murder-suicide in which one kills multiple members of one's own family – are rare, but tend to tear through the public consciousness. It is a crime so extreme it seems unspeakable. Unthinkable. Senseless. And yet, each time news breaks that this kind of horrific violence has occurred once again, the same questions inevitably start. How could this happen? Why did he do it? While women can of course be violent offenders, and there have been a handful of cases of familicide committed by women, the plain, devastating truth is that this is, overwhelmingly, a crime committed by men, against the women and children they are supposed to care for." |
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