There exists a real men’s movement – founded in the late 1960s to complement the booming women’s liberation movement, and still active today – that encompasses communities truly fighting to tackle the many legitimate problems impacting men’s lives, as well as individual men fighting to defeat issues like relationship violence. I can go on Radio 4 to discuss being abused online, but I can’t actually say out loud what I am facing.

Between the women who die silently, uncounted and unaccounted for, the articles that sympathise with the poor, heartbroken murderers, the stories that claim that wives withholding sex drive good men to rape, and the killers who murder dozens of women as ‘revenge’ against the ones who wouldn’t sleep with them. But, in the time I have spent immersed in these conversations and message boards, it has become apparent that the socio-economic background of members is too diverse wholly to confirm any one of those theories. I realised that ideas that had previously been confined to the murkiest corners of the internet were taking on new life, hiding in plain sight.

The pitiful irony here, as Bates shows, is that “men’s rights” groups splintered from the original, pro-feminist “men’s liberation” movement, which sought to free men themselves from harmful social expectations of masculinity. Ideas are spread from the darkest corners of the internet - via trolls, media and celebrities - to schools, workplaces and the corridors of power, becoming a part of our collective consciousness.

He enters into a relationship with a woman very much as a hungry, demanding infant does, with the unspoken expectation that she will be totally giving and will meet all his needs. For nearly a decade, men have sent me daily messages, often in their hundreds, outlining their hatred of me, fantasising about my brutal rape and murder, detailing which weapons they would use to slice my body open and disembowel me, describing me as a dripping poison, sketching visions of lying in wait outside my home, letting me know which particular serial killers they’d particularly like to emulate as they end my life. Perhaps you think that we all need to calm down and remember that what happens online isn’t real life – sticks and stones might break your bones, and all that. It is also a battle to protect the boys who are lost, who fall through the cracks of our society’s stereotypes and straight into the arms of the communities ready to recruit them, greedy to indoctrinate them with fears of threats to their manhood, their livelihood, their country.She’d run her successful clinic, then walk back home, and start feeling scared and helpless right before getting back home.

The killing of women because we are women is not only the most common crime in the world, it is also the single biggest indicator of whether a nation is violent in its streets and will use violence against another nation. Significantly, that a predisposition towards violence is a psychological trait usually linked with a lack of empathy and this is developed in children's early years (and not necessarily through exposure to misogynistic ideas but more profoundly neglect, violence, bullying etc. Some men are withholding, some are noncommunicative, some are not affectionate, and some are not ready for a relationship and may reject you. Advised that he might as well kill himself, that his life wasn’t worth living, that nothing would ever change.

When Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed for the Supreme Court despite allegations of sexual assault, Donald Trump said he supported “men and justice”, a clear dogwhistle to the misogynist demographic that believe they are victims of a vast feminist conspiracy. If the questions here reveal a familiar pattern, you may be in love with a misogynist -- a man who loves you, yet causes you tremendous pain because he acts as if he hates you. What you hear about them sounds so strange, so extreme, so hard to believe, so laughable even, that it is easy to shrug off. In Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How It Affects Us All, journalist Laura Bates investigates the online communities whose ideology centers around having power and control over women, how these affect society, and what can be done to change it moving forward.

Her self-confidence and self-esteem can be so damaged as to bring about significant changes in the way she feels about herself and how she relates to the rest of the world. When we are children our families take care of our basic survival needs; they are also our first and most important sources of information about the world. När modern är villig att låta sonen etablera sin egen identitet genom att låta honom ta risker på egen hand och låta honom göra sina egna misstag, och ändå finns till hands om han skulle behöva henne, bidrar hon till att skapa en människa som har förtroende för sig själv och sin förmåga.As children, because of our dependency, we experience a sense of being powerless in a world of powerful people. Bates is aware that the publication of this book will again make her a target of derision, vile abuse, rape, and death threats, and that her physical safety could be at risk. He quickly became a member of more and more forums, joining Facebook groups and private chatrooms, watching video after video on YouTube, and learning more and more.