On Louis Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere documentary, and why emotions are logical

Few things can light up a rainy Thursday night like a good documentary (tell me you’re in your 30s without telling me you’re in your 30s…), and this week, it’s Louis Theroux’s journey into the ‘manosphere’ that’s basking in the glow of the zeitgeist. The documentary followed what is sadly now a familiar sight: several built, belligerent men espousing generic hate (mostly against women, queer and Jewish people – a classic trifecta), all while rocking facial hair that would make Beppe di Marco extremely proud (if you know, you know). We also saw the followers of these men, and how impacted they are by the content creators: not only are they ideologically and logistically investing into the ‘lifestyle’ that is being portrayed, they are also investing financially – all of which comes at significant cost.

While the extent of the toxicity (both in extremity and reach) is new, a lot of the tropes carted out by the ‘manosphere’ are well-worn and familiar. An old classic that underpins a lot of their thinking is this: emotions are inferior to logic (with the implicit side-dish of emotions = female; logic = male). Emotions are seen as neither useful nor desirable, rather they’re something to squash in order to become the sort of ‘real man’ that would score in the thousands on an arcade punching machine. Although these men talk about the widespread hurt they believe men as a whole have suffered through society’s machinations, they don’t speak about their personal emotions, even when describing very emotional history (featuring absent fathers, abusive parents, and bereavement of loved ones). These things are to be pushed down, ignored, denied – as if that constitutes ‘triumphing over them’, somehow. Because, lest we forget, emotions aren’t for men.

There are, of course, many ways in which this is an illogical belief.

As children, we receive plenty of messages that paint emotions as highly political things. Some emotions (e.g. gratitude) are generally seen as good. Some emotions (e.g. jealousy) are seen as always bad. Some emotions are OK for some people, but not others (e.g. people socialised female are often allowed to express many emotions except anger, while people socialised male are permitted few emotions but anger). Emotions are not seen as neutral, or universal. They are often heavily policed, in order to conform to particular standards – especially around gender. This leaves us in a curious position: over many millennia, evolution has retained our emotions – and yet, here we are, still trying to erase them.

Why has evolution kept our emotions? Because – surprise! – they’re useful. Emotions provide us with data that reflect our experience of the world, to aid our decision-making. For example, anger: we feel anger when something is unfair, uncomfortable, or ‘wrong’; the emotion alerts us to an issue, and seeks to propel us into action that will change the situation, getting us out of a bad place and into a better one. So, useful.

While nobody is suggesting that we voice and act on every emotion we feel, refusing to harvest that data to inform our choices doesn’t make sense: we’re preventing ourselves from seeing the full picture of our life, making it much harder to know how to best shape it. Ignoring emotions also makes it hard to take good care of yourself – in denying that you’re sad, for example, you give yourself little opportunity to make the changes you need in order to feel better. It’s the opposite of the ‘logical’ premise: switching off emotions means we make less well-informed decisions, not better ones.

Pretending we don’t have emotions isn’t something we tend to do well. Sometimes, we might think that as long as we don’t actually say we’re feeling something, that means we aren’t feeling it, and that nobody around us will spot that something is up. This mythical thinking is very evident in the ‘manosphere’ – Harrison Sullivan saying that he is definitely fine about growing up without his dad convinces nobody. When we avoid directly communicating an emotion, we still communicate it indirectly – maybe we come home from work quiet, then start banging pans around the kitchen; maybe we avoid responding to messages, or start sending shorter ones (perhaps even adding full stops, if things are really dramatic); maybe we start avoiding making eye contact. In all these ways, we are telegraphing loud and clear to others that we are feeling something. The issue is being experienced by everyone, and yet because the person feeling it isn’t talking about it, it can’t be resolved. This position also tends to make things build even further – the person suppressing the emotions feels isolated and uncared for, and the people around them are left to guess what might be going on, often imagining something wildly off-base and maybe even more distressing than what’s actually happening. Logic goes out the window, and everyone starts walking on eggshells.

The final piece of my emotions-are-logical puzzle is this: emotions help us connect with other people, and to form community. Relationships are essential to all humans, and constitute our highest priority. Deep friendships form through mutual vulnerability. Sharing emotion brings us support from others, and enables us to support people in turn when they share their own. If we are cutting off emotions, we are also cutting off relationships, and for a social species that relies on groups in order to survive, that is the most illogical thing that we can do.

The idea that men should suppress emotion to be more ‘logical’ is both pervasive and incredibly damaging. It’s something that starts young – even boys barely a year old are told not to cry, and aren’t held or soothed in response to upset. The policing around boys’ emotions extends to other sorts of creativity and self-expression – young boys dancing, wanting to play with toy kitchens, or choosing clothes for themselves that might be pink and sparkly are told they’re not allowed, that they’ve done something wrong. This is, of course, the ongoing influence of patriarchy, and it’s something that men (and everyone else) have every right to be furious about – it’s not fair that they are told these things as kids, and that their internal life isn’t enabled to flourish in the way it often is for others. It is important that we advocate for boys’ emotions, and give them the tools they need to be able to use them wisely. Simply telling boys they don’t have feelings doesn’t stop them being there, and not teaching boys how to engage with emotions leaves them vulnerable and ill-equipped to navigate life.

The ‘manosphere’ posits that it offers men enlightenment, happiness, fulfilment, and wealth of all varieties. It is able to speak to so many men because so many men are struggling to find these things on their own. Sure, maybe the answer to unhappiness is to stuff it deep down, and spend endless nights walking up and down the Marbella strip with a bodyguard who couldn’t roll his eyes any harder at you. But maybe fulfilment lies in finding a way to open that terrifying ‘feelings’ door, and seeing what’s inside. The ‘manosphere’ offers a pretty classic Faustian pact – sell your soul, and everything will get better. It’s quite striking that so many men in this space don’t seem to believe their soul is worth holding onto.