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Dr. Alice Marwick: The Manosphere, Feminism, Misandry, Misogyny

Release Date: 10/13/2026

Dr. Alice Marwick: The Manosphere, Feminism, Misandry, Misogyny

Critically Speaking

What starts as advice on fitness, dating, or success can lead young men into a world of grievance and reshape how they see women, masculinity, and themselves. Dr. Alice Marwick unpacks how the manosphere works, why it’s growing, and the real-world harm it can cause. In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Alice Marwick examine the manosphere’s origins, business models, influence on young men, and links to misogyny, harassment, and extremist movements. They discuss what the manosphere is, how it appears in different environments, and the social impact of these manosphere influencers....

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Critically Speaking

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Dr. Zaldy Tan: What if it's Dementia?

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Dr. Darren Linvill: Detecting Rampant Disinformation

Critically Speaking

Have you ever wondered how trolls, bots, and paid influencers are quietly manipulating what you see online and why even smart, skeptical people fall for it? Today, disinformation expert Dr. Darren Linvill pulls back the curtain on the tactics that bad actors are using to try and shape our beliefs. In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Darren Linvill discuss the various forms of digital deception and the strategies used by state actors to manipulate global discourse. Dr. Linvill distinguishes between misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation and gives examples of each,...

Timothy Caulfield: The Certainty Illusion

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Drowning in wellness hype, viral “experts,” and five-star opinions that feel more real than facts? In this episode, law and public health scholar Timothy Caulfield exposes the certainty illusion — how “scienceploitation”, predatory journals, and weaponized opinions quietly shape what we believe about our health. Today, Therese Markow and Timothy Caulfield discuss Tim’s latest book, break down the misinformation drivers that are contributing to the delegitimization of scientific expertise, and the three illusions that are being used to distort public perception. From...

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Critically Speaking

The last few decades have seen a continuing rise in really serious and often fatal health problems. The list is long: cancer, heart disease, diabetes, infertility, autoimmune diseases, and autism, just to name a few. While vulnerability to disease often has an underlying genetic predisposition, there have to be environmental triggers to set these diseases in motion. In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Aly Cohen discuss just these topics and what we can look for on a daily basis, as well as the small changes that we can, individually, do to make our lives a little healthier. ...

More Episodes

In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Alice Marwick examine the manosphere’s origins, business models, influence on young men, and links to misogyny, harassment, and extremist movements. They discuss what the manosphere is, how it appears in different environments, and the social impact of these manosphere influencers. As men’s rights movements are often a stepping stone to more extreme movements, this is a topic that should matter to all.

Key Takeaways:

Manosphere is a slang term that describes a loose network of blogs, forums, podcasts, and creators, and is built around men's grievances. Increasingly, they're built around self-improvement and hustle culture, as well as dating strategy, but what unites them is an opposition to modern feminism.
Manosphere influencers are going to places and communities where there are a lot of young men and are actively trying to get audiences from those groups. While some are only there for the fitness or self-improvement, some do get persuaded by the more extreme political arguments.
The self-obsession with how you look on camera has always existed, but was primarily seen around celebrities and public figures; with so much of your life on social media, the standards for what is a “normal” or “attractive” person have skyrocketed.
Gender roles can be upheld by anybody. Within any peer group, you're going to have some sort of person or role where there is a reinforcement of what that person should be doing.

"We are in an economically depressed time period, and we're in a time in America where a lot of people are very exhausted and frustrated and angry. And women and feminism is an explanation and a scapegoat." — Dr. Alice Marwick

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