By Bernadette Johnston
Misogyny and problematic attitudes towards women are not new phenomena. What is new however is the speed and scale at which misogynistic ideas and related behaviours now circulate – particularly online.
Problematic ‘nudification apps,’ whose sole purpose is to underdress and sexually transform photos of women online without their consent, have existed for quite some time. They have fuelled troubling stories about their use among schoolchildren including widely reported events in 2024 from Australia and 2023 in Spain.
However, it was the rollout of an update to AI chat tool GROK in late December 2025 that has brought the issue to the general public and global media. The app update on X (formerly Twitter) reproduces sexualised and degrading images of women (and children) at the click of a button and for free, and it has been reported that over 3 million explicit images were created in the first 11 days of the roll out.
This widespread proliferation from users on a mainstream social media platform, coupled with the continued popularity of manosphere influencers and male-grievance content online highlights how misogyny is increasingly embedded in digital cultures that reward entitlement, outrage and hostility.
Here in Ireland, home to the European headquarters of X (formerly Twitter), the Irish government’s Online Safety Act and parallel EU initiatives seek to address an increasing volume of online harms directed at women and children in particular. As such, an empirical understanding of the psychosocial drivers of misogynistic extremism has become an urgent concern.
Misogyny as an extremist belief system
Misogynistic extremism refers to belief systems that position women as inferior, manipulative, or untrustworthy, and which justify male dominance, exclusion, or punishment. These beliefs include not only overt hatred, but also entitlement to women’s bodies and narratives framing gender equality as primarily an attack on men.
Online, these ideas are most visibly clustered within the manosphere, a loose network of digital communities including forums, groups, and grievance-focused influencers. Research shows that engagement with these spaces can also act as a pathway to further radicalisation, often intersecting with far-right ideology, racism and homophobia.
This overlap is documented in multiple policy-focused reports, including the Center for Countering Digital Hate’s investigation into the incelosphere, which outlines how misogynistic communities normalise harassment, sexual entitlement and admiration for real-world attackers.
What does the evidence show?
Last November, I presented a systematic review and analysis of existing literature on misogynistic extremism at the 2025 Vox Pol Conference held in Charles University in Prague. This work, as part of a now completed MSc Psychology programme in Dublin City University, synthesised nineteen eligible studies and is currently undergoing peer review. Despite substantial variation in methods and measurement, a consistent pattern emerged with risk and motivating factors clustered around four key pillars.
1. Individual psychological vulnerabilities
Men who score higher on misogynistic attitudes are more likely to report depression, anxiety, loneliness, insecure attachment styles, and rigid thinking styles. Of course, these vulnerabilities do not cause misogyny on their own. However, they can increase susceptibility to grievance-based explanations that externalise blame and offer simple narratives of victimhood.
This aligns with broader extremism research emphasising the role of identity threat and emotional distress. Online environments optimised for engagement rather than wellbeing may intensify these dynamics by validating resentment rather than challenging it.
2. Entitlement and perceived rejection
One of the strongest findings across the literature relates to entitlement, particularly sexual and relational entitlement. Men who believe they are owed intimacy, attention or status are more likely to endorse hostile attitudes towards women when those expectations are unmet.
Experiences of romantic or sexual rejection are frequently reframed within manosphere narratives as collective injustice rather than individual circumstance and this framing is central to Incel ideology.
3. Masculine nostalgia and feminist “injustice”
Another recurring theme is resentment towards social change. Many men who endorse misogynistic beliefs perceive feminism as having gone “too far,” resulting in the cultural emasculation of men. This sense of loss, often described as masculine gender nostalgia, is strongly associated with hostile sexism and acceptance of violence against women.
These narratives closely mirror those found in far-right and authoritarian movements. The European Parliament’s briefing on gender and radicalisation notes that anti-feminism increasingly functions as a gateway ideology, normalising extremist worldviews through appeals to tradition, hierarchy and male authority.
4. In-group affiliation and identity fusion
More than half of the studies reviewed highlighted the importance of group belonging. Misogynistic communities provide validation, identity, and shared grievance, reinforcing hostility towards women and, in some cases, endorsement of harassment or violence.
Some studies point to identity fusion, where personal identity becomes tightly bound to group identity. In these contexts, defending misogynistic beliefs feels synonymous with defending the self. This is a mechanism also observed in other extremist movements and highlighted in Prevent and counter-terrorism guidance across the EU.
Why this matters now
These findings have clear contemporary relevance. If we want to address problematic behaviours, to work towards developing interventions and perhaps, even better…prevention, then we need to understand the factors underpinning them.
Digital platforms continue to increasingly blur the boundaries between mainstream and fringe content, while AI-generated tools can reproduce and scale misogynistic tropes at unprecedented speed and become more mainstream by the day. Yet misogynistic extremism is only now being treated as a distinct form of radicalisation within counter-extremism policy, indicating the need for further and focused empirical study.
Misogynistic extremism thrives where grievance is validated, complexity is rejected and belonging is conditional on blame. Addressing it requires much more than moderation alone. It demands sustained attention to the psychological, social, and digital conditions that allow these belief systems to take root and to spread.
Bernadette Johnston is a research assistant at Dublin City University, Ireland and holds an MSc and BA in Psychology, alongside a previous career background in journalism and broadcast media in Ireland. She has a focused interest in researching the psychological underpinnings of cognitive warfare, online extremist communities, and the development of empirically framed interventions to address them.
Image Credit: Zulfugar Karimov on Unsplash