When online misogyny comes to the office

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Red-pill ideology is back under a more mainstream microscope again following the recent Netflix $NFLX +1.70% documentary release “Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere.”

The manosphere is a network of online influencers — and their many millions of followers (primarily young men, ages 16–30) — that peddle “alpha masculinity,” in the form of video content and online courses for sale, to purportedly help men make money, get fit, and win the affection of women and the respect of other men. The message to men: The deck (particularly as it pertains to institutions and women) is stacked against them, and to reclaim and achieve status, they should adopt a more dominant, self-focused version of masculinity that revolves around money and leverage in relationships.

Critics say these influencers reframe real struggles around loneliness and economic pressures into narratives that blame women for men’s problems, normalizing distrust of, and disrespect toward, women.

The documentary doesn’t explore workplace impact, but culture doesn’t stay online. It infiltrates relationships, families, and work life.

According to a global study of Gen Z men (born between 1997 and 2012) by Ipsos and King’s Business School in London, 31% of these men say that a wife should obey her husband, and 33% say when husbands and wives disagree on important decisions, husbands should have the final say.

Women, who make up half of all workplace managers today, are significantly more likely than men to experience microaggressions that undermine their competence — such as having their judgment questioned or being mistaken for more junior employees, according to McKinsey and LeanIn’s 2024 Women in the Workplace report. These experiences have measurable consequences: Women who face frequent microaggressions are 2.7 times more likely to consider leaving their jobs and 4.2 times more likely to almost always feel burned out.

Sexism predates the manosphere, of course, so there’s no way to know what percentage of these work conditions stem from modern-day influencers.

“What you allow, you encourage,” said Imamu Tomlinson, author and host of Less Than One Percent, and CEO of Vituity, a national healthcare company.

Culture drift happens quietly. Leaders must actively shape behavior — not just react to it, Tomlinson said.

“Leadership can ensure that all voices in the room are encouraged to impact the discussion,” he said. “This includes taking an active role in making sure that cliques don’t form. Making sure that individuals with different strengths and weaknesses are paired together on projects. Don’t give anyone in the room the opportunity to disengage by encouraging them to speak up. One important way this can also happen is to set the rules of engagement — so people are aware of what behaviors are NEVER tolerated.”

When we don’t intentionally design our culture, it defaults to any behaviors that go unchallenged.

‘Death by a thousand paper cuts’

Like a relationship that seems to imperceptibly erode over many moments and years, patterns of workplace deterioration emerge. They are subtle, cumulative, and frighteningly enough, often plausibly deniable.

They are not isolated incidents, and when leaders fail to name and address them early, negative outcomes can emerge.

“The patterns show up in the language people use, the workplace conflicts they describe, and the reasons they give for leaving jobs,” said Maryam House, founder and COO +0.40% of ResumeYourWay, a career consulting firm.

“The clearest signal is in how authority gets challenged,” House said. “I’ve had female clients in management roles tell me they’re leaving positions not because of one big incident but because of a steady accumulation of small ones. A direct report who only takes direction from male colleagues. Meeting contributions that get repeated by a male peer and suddenly get traction. Being described as ‘emotional’ for the same directness that gets a male manager called ‘decisive.’ These aren’t new problems, but clients are telling us they feel the resistance has gotten louder and more deliberate in the last two years.”

The signals may be difficult for some people to understand, said Ruth Young-Loaeza, CEO and inventor at NEET Sheets.

“In 2018, I was selected as one of three finalists on live television for a pitch competition, and I was the only woman,” Young-Loaeza said. “I knew before I opened my mouth that I would need to work twice as hard as the men beside me just to get half the credit. That right there is the signal.”

Male leaders don’t get challenged in the same way women leaders do, she said.

“Documenting incidents, dates, and witnesses will show leadership the bigger picture instead of just isolated incidents,” Young-Loaeza said. “Forming alliances with male allies that speak up with you will help you to change the situation faster than going it alone. Addressing inappropriate behavior when it occurs will stop perpetuation and send a message about what the workplace stands for.”

Riky Hanaumi, the clinical director at Quadrant Health Group, said manosphere and red-pill ideas are now more widespread among younger employees in the organizations she works with.

“I noticed during my coaching of one team that a junior male employee interacted productively with the male leaders, but became sharp-toned, interruptive, and didn’t follow through when interacting with a female manager,” Hanaumi said. “The problem is not really one of behavior as much as it is of psychological safety.”

Another problem, Hanaumi said, are male leaders and coworkers who don’t support these ideas, but fail to speak up when witnessing them in action.

“Explicit cultural framing from leadership helps: naming what respectful behavior looks like, and not merely reacting when problems arise,” she said. “When one executive noticed more negative assumptions about women’s potential than about men’s, she addressed it as a cultural issue to work on.”

“Women display this third pattern more than other groups. It’s painful to watch supercompetent women managers cushion decisions or give excess explanations to avoid being branded ‘mean’ or ‘harsh.’ When organizations accept biased responses, they are inadvertently forcing these women to water down their leadership. The result is not just gender conflict: Both women and men lose trust in their colleagues and make decisions more slowly, and there is less true collaboration.”

The cost of misogyny

Long before any of this is recognized as an HR issue, it’s a performance issue.

Manosphere ideology leads to the loss of measurable output to teams before anyone ever puts a name to it, said attorney Robert Tsigler.

“Most managers miss it at the early stages because initially it doesn’t appear to be a problem,” Tsigler said. “It has the appearance of a personality conflict. A male employee accepts direction from male managers without comment, but continually pushes back when the same direction is received from a woman. The credit gets silently diverted. A woman suggests an idea, a male colleague repeats it 10 minutes later, and the room responds in a more positive way the second time. Nobody flags it. Nobody documents it.

“In the case of a team of 10, losing the full participation of two or three people from this kind of friction would reduce meaningful output by 20-30%. That number compounds. The people taking in the friction don’t publicize their disengagement. They simply don’t bring their full effort to work anymore and you don’t realize it until they hand their resignation in.”

Tsigler echoed House and Young-Loaeza’s experiences of it showing up less as isolated instances, and more as a more subtle pattern.

“That’s the part that most leaders do not get right. They wait for something documentable, something that clears some formal threshold, and the damage by then is structural,” Tsigler said.

Things for leaders to watch for

“Watch for complaint asymmetry,” Tsigler said. “Watch out for meetings where women are interrupted at a rate that their male counterparts do not. Watch for those side conversations that occur after the woman has already given direction and the male team members relitigate the decision before taking action. Two or three of these behaviors appearing together over a six month period of time is a structural problem, and not a personality conflict.”

Male leaders have a tool that no HR policy can replicate and most of them leave it on the table, he said.

“Peer-level modeling is that tool,” he said. “A male manager who openly gives credit to a female colleague, or defers to her expertise in front of the team and addresses any dismissive behaviour from male reports.”

The ask for male leaders is direct, Tsigler said: Don’t wait for HR.

“Don’t wait for a formal complaint. Address it the first time you see the pattern, keep it factual, keep it brief and document it the same day,” he said.

“Female leaders confronted with this need a different response. Specific documentation matters here, dates, behaviors, witnesses, and the business cost of each incident, escalated before the behavior crosses a legally actionable threshold,” he said. “Waiting that long means the work has already been lost and so have the people.”

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