Following conversations over coffee around modern dating and the male loneliness epidemic, I unwittingly stumbled upon "The Manosphere". For those blissfully unaware, the term describes a loose network of assorted online
communities, blogs, podcasts, forums and so forth, discussing men's issues.
From this overview alone one might hope for a space where young men could safely find guidance on how to be a good and/or happy man in the modern world. Instead, The Manosphere bears an abundance of heavily biased "red pill" content
spouting unsubstantiated statements and presenting them as "the truth" for a susceptible audience to consume and live by. Unfounded statements and arbirary "rules" based on them on how to be a man and interact with others,
which inevitably serve to create a greater divide in the gender war with modern women, and widen the gap between lost men and boys and the rest of society, thus continuing to feed the grift of said content creators.
Yet people buy into it, just take a glance at any comments section. There is a documentary named Why Andrew Tate & The Red Pill Seem Irresistible to So Many Men exploring why, "in service of making a new more, healthy manosphere".
The Manosphere is far from the only entity delivering unfounded and potentially damaging declarations to an imperceptible or impressionable audience. Once upon a time free speech of extremist views was mostly confined to being preached from street corners, however, in the modern world anyone and their dog have access to a microphone and social media, and many spread their often unqualified ideas globally without evidence beyond personal anecdotes or hearsay.
I myself consider anything presented as "truth" or "fact", particularly on social media, as biased at best, unless supported by substantial data. All is subject to correction if provided with overwhelming evidence to either support it, expose it or evidence of more nuance.
debunked is an ongoing information design project created as a measured response to the many unsubstantiated statements online, or in the public conciousness, via the means of data visualisation. The intention being that if data on a relative subject is available in an easily digestible visual, it may encourage critical thinking of the statement.
Logic dictates, if women didn't want to vote, they wouldn't. To this day. So, are women voting?
Recent election voter turnout by gender across 31 countries
Sources:
1. Stockemer, D., & Sundstrom, A. (2021). The gender gap in voter turnout: An artefact of men’s over-reporting in survey research? The British Journal of Politics and International Relations. https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481211056850
2. O'Neill, A. (2022) ‘Voter turnout rates* among male and female voters in U.S. presidential elections from 1964 to 2020, Jun 21st [Chart]. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1096291/voter-turnout-presidential-elections-by-gender-historical/
3. The Electoral Commission (2006) The Electoral Commission: Gender and political participation. Available at: https://aceproject.org/ero-en/topics/electoral-participation/turnout/uk-electoral-commission-gender-findings.pdf,
pp. 1.
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in this series.
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Contribution
Research, data visualisation, social media design