On 8 March, Asier Arizkorreta talked about the male sphere organized by Txantrea Feministak. He begins his speech with a question: “How many do you know what the manosphere is?” A few raise their hands. The human sphere consists of Internet forums with misoogenous and antifeminist ideology. “I think in this case it should be stressed that they are anti-feminists because they directly attack feminism,” said Arizkorreta. It's a stream from the United States that came to Euskal Herria in 2010.

The community consists of several groups, in which, besides men, there are homosexual women and men. For Arizkorreta this “strengthens” his discourse. They're organized in groups and they all have creative content. They spread the message through platforms like Youtube, Foroautos, Intagram, 4chan and Tiktok, which spread lies, are based on pseudoscience, pseudohistory or sasipsychology, show partial research, devalue violence, blame women and victimize men.

These misogynistic and antiphemist messages are contrary to the achievements of feminism: “Every time feminism achieves social change there is a crisis of masculinity and the male sphere responds”.

Movement for the Rights of Men

To better understand these forums, Arizkorreta has gone back in time: “If we look at genealogy, men have occupied all the spaces of power.” XIX. He speaks of the groups of men of the century, of the crews and of the gastronomic societies, and of the power of men in them: “It was not necessary to occupy another space”.

He has placed the creation of the male sphere in the 1970s, when the Men’s Rights Movement (MRA, Mens right actrivism) emerged against the second feminist wave: “Men who said they have problems when they were making changes to the Law, but did not relate them to patriarchy.” Subsequently, the movement was divided into two, on the one hand men who blame the State and the institutions, and on the other those who blame the most feminists: “The latter have been the ones who have taken power.”

They created books related to self-help and, for example, began to disseminate messages related to stoicism: “Stoic paternity, for example, has acquired great strength and has opened speeches that have to say that pain must be recognized and that emotions are not the same”. Many of the messages derived from it are currently in the audiovisual media.

The messages collected are, among others, “how to make rich by strengthening the body” or “I am sick, and instead of throwing, I give wood to the body”. Even though some take jokes, many believe in those messages: “Sometimes we are unconscious, but they have thousands of followers, and that’s worrying.” Besides many followers, they have a lot of legitimacy. Because some at first covered their faces, but now they're not afraid to prove who they are.

Groups

The human sphere is very broad and consists of different groups. They have also created words to name each other. On the one hand there are the Red Pill, which refers to a Matrix metaphor: “Those who take the blue pill stay in the feminist, progressive, environmentalist, antiracist system… and those who take the red wake up from the lie and oppose the “system”. Hence they have also created other names, Mangina to refer to feminist men or Soy boy for those who supposedly consume female foods like tofu or soy.

On the other hand, the Black Pill. They have a nihilistic look at life and relationships, and they think there's nothing to do to change things: "They think the only thing they can do is change their bodies and get strong muscles."

They are also the Pickup Artists. This community was founded in the 1990s and gained strength in 2000. The videos show “bonding techniques”: “The goal is to achieve a sentimental or sexual relationship using manipulation, lack of honesty and coercion.”

There are men who don't want to relate to women, Men Going Their Own Way. They are “critical” to the partner or marriage and believe that institutions support women: “They say that if they separate, institutions risk taking care of children.”

Involuntaru Celibates (Unwanted singles): “It is a community of men with great difficulties to have a sexual or romantic partner.” Some of them attack and murder massively to express revenge on women.

What men?

Arizkorreta stressed that Gizonsphere is a “serious” problem with “big” consequences: “Men have a great responsibility to deal with this.” That is why he has given time to talk about strategies to address the situation: “I have no answer, but I want to know what they think. What can men do?”

Arizkorreta’s question has sparked debate among the public and pointed out that it is “difficult” to denounce and “rare” this type of attitude in groups of men, especially in the crew. That’s why Arizkorreta said it can be an opportunity to create alliances: “You may not be able to join the whole group, but take a specific person and say yes.” Another person joins the debate: “It is not time to keep quiet, we have to face it.”

The talk has been attended by many educators and teachers who have shown their concern for young people. Because some say they've identified these kinds of attitudes in class, but they didn't know what the origin was. Some conclusions have been drawn: that knowing that the manosphere exists is an "important" tool; that it can be deconstructed with adolescents by producing videos from that community; or that other discourses and contents should be created.