Book Review: Men Who Hate Women - The Extremism Nobody is Talking About

Let’s just preface this review by acknowledging as a man, I don’t have any grounds to comment on the struggles that women face day in and day out throughout the modern world. I have my own struggles but they don’t take priority or diminish the struggles other people go through, especially women. I have seen as the years have gone by how much the Manosphere has taken a stranglehold over the online world and the dangerous influence it has on young men and their perception and treatment of women. Even with my understanding of it however, it’s clear after reading this book how little I truly understood of the immensity of the problem women face in a modern world in which men are being trained to perceive them as the problem.

Men Who Hate Women: The Extremism Nobody is Talking About is a non-fiction book by Laura Bates which seeks to breakdown the fundamental problems women face in the modern age as a result of men who hate them. This hatred can take many different forms and stems from many different branches of society. Whether it’s cultural, political, psychological or physical, hatred for women exists in so many different plains of our society and it’s a problem that isn’t being taken seriously enough. Bates dedicates the majority of the book exploring every layer of hatred that stems from these areas and identifying the root cause behind them.

The core content behind this book was insightful to say the least. As I noted initially, I presumed I had a thorough understanding of this subject but that presumption was easily called into question when I began to read the books preliminary content. Bates willingness to dive head-on into the world of incels and the Manosphere to learn the ideology behind these hateful people deserves true credit. It’s through her dedication to analyse the problems that she’s so easily spotlights these feral people for what they are. She doesn’t only call them out either, her willingness to explore that ideology and understand how these ideas are so easily capitalized on, especially in younger people helps the reader get a proper insight into these areas. It’s definitely not an easy read based on the sensitivity of the content but it’s an important one none the less, the stuff being discussed in this book is truly important and more men should be reading this book to hopefully be able to stop themselves falling down the same rabbit holes.

As a reading experience, the only gripe I could generate from my time reading the book was its formatting and structure. This sadly reads more as an academic essay than it does a book with the way Bates writes and references each section. I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with that as that’s the format which allows Bates to fully explore this important topic. I just felt from a personal reading perspective, it did make working through the book more difficult as a result.

On the whole though, I implore anyone and everyone to pick this book up. Incel ideology and the Manosphere as a whole is not going away, in fact I feel it’s becoming more and more prevalent as time goes on. Young men are being taught to perceive women as lesser from such a young age, it’s truly sickening how warped their mindsets are becoming because of this issue. Laura Bates rightfully calls out not just the problem but the enablement from society and politics which doesn’t take this problem seriously enough to stop it from growing.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐