The Masculinities and Emotions of Men Going Their Own Way: An Ethnographic Study on the MGTOW Reddit Forum

The manosphere consists of numerous anti-feminist websites, blogs, and online forums that are now widely considered misogynistic and male supremacist. Among the heterogeneous manosphere groups is the gender-separatist Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW). This article recounts a four-week digital ethnographic study that investigated the emotional and relational dynamics of the Reddit MGTOW forum. I found that rage and fear toward women are central to MGTOW users, as users worked together to reinterpret their feelings of rage and fear to construct a shared narrative that positions women as perpetrators. This worldview obscures the important role masculine ideology plays in male loneliness and disconnection. Giving advice and emotional support on the forum cultivated a sense of belonging and provided a space for men to navigate feelings of loneliness, frustration, and social displacement. Ultimately, MGTOW users expressed a desire to transcend restrictive gender ideals such as husband and father, yet paradoxically still adhered to a conservative, essentialized, and hierarchical gender order. MGTOW users thus performed hybrid masculinity, as they self-conceptualized as victims of society and simultaneously upheld preexisting gender hierarchies that situate femininity as biologically inferior. This study offers a new insight into the magnetism of anti-feminist groups like MGTOW and the ways digital platforms like Reddit amplify such harmful and antagonistic worldviews. Overall, this article highlights the importance of unpacking the affectionate and positive relationships within extremist groups to help explain the emergence into mainstream discourse of male supremacism and an increase of misogynistic beliefs concerning masculinity, femininity, and feminism.