Strength Doesn’t Need to Humiliate

I watched the new documentary by Louis Theroux about the manosphere. As always, he does what he does best. I thought long and hard before writing this. I questioned what people may think. Due to my past, could I be informed rather than bias? Who might I offend? See the problem? The trauma doesnt just go away. I had to challenge that. I had to step up and hold the hurt part of me tight and say that its ok, write.

So Mr Theroux, He doesn’t storm in arguing.

He doesn’t shout people down.

He sits quietly, asks simple questions, and gives people enough space to talk.

And when people talk long enough… the mask tends to slip.

As a therapist, and also as a woman, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a mother and a friend, watching it stirred up a lot of thoughts for me.

Because while programmes like this can make it look like the behaviour belongs to a loud corner of the internet, the reality I see in the therapy room is often very different.

This attitude doesn’t just live on podcasts and social media clips.

It lives in homes.

In relationships.

In everyday language.

I sit with people, women and men who have experienced the impact of this thinking. Being belittled, dismissed, slowly eroded by the way they are spoken to.

Words like thick.

Stupid.

Useless.

Sometimes framed as jokes. Sometimes said in anger. Sometimes repeated so often they become normalised.

HOWEVER, they are NOT normal.

They are NOT harmless.

And when children grow up hearing those words, watching one parent belittle the other, absorbing the tone and the dynamic, something important happens.

They learn.

Children don’t learn respect from lectures.

They learn it from what they see.

If a father belittles a partner while declaring that the children come first and will have everything they want, those children are still absorbing something powerful:

That this is how men behave.

That this is how women are spoken to.

That power looks like humiliation.

And that becomes the template.

We only really understand boundaries and respect when we experience them being modelled.

Something else that stood out in the documentary was how much of the “alpha male” image felt like performance.

The expensive cars.

The talk of dominance.

The constant references to status and control.

It often looks less like strength and more like theatre designed for an audience, particularly young men who are still trying to work out who they are.

Another theme was the way anger towards women is being packaged as empowerment.

Instead of encouraging responsibility, growth, emotional maturity or partnership, resentment is being sold as wisdom.

Women are framed as the problem.

And underneath all that bravado, what you often sense is insecurity.

The louder the chest beating, the more fragile it sometimes appears.

True confidence does not need to degrade women.

It doesn’t need an audience to validate it.

And it certainly doesn’t need to humiliate someone else in order to feel powerful.

What concerns me most is the impact on the next generation.

Millions of young boys are consuming this content. They’re being told that relationships are battles. That women are opponents. That status and dominance define masculinity.

At the same time, young girls are absorbing messages about what they should tolerate.

Social media has an enormous emotional influence on developing identities.

Which is why what we model at home matters so much.

Children need boundaries.

They need to learn manners.

They need to learn respect for other people’s perspectives.

They need to understand that time, effort and kindness are valuable, not something to take for granted.

They also need to learn how to become independent human beings who contribute to society, not grow up believing they are entitled to everything.

Partners deserve dignity and respect.

Children deserve the safety of being children, learning, making mistakes, observing the adults around them.

They are not our friends.

They are not mini adults.

And they absorb every nuance of how we treat each other.

For the people who have been on the receiving end of this kind of behaviour, the answer is not blame or judgement.

It is compassion.

Time.

Understanding.

And support to rebuild confidence and boundaries that may have been slowly worn down.

We should be empowering vulnerable women.

And we should also be helping men who want to change, grow and build healthier relationships.

Because the truth is, masculinity does not need to be aggressive to be strong.

Strength can look like kindness.

Respect.

Accountability.

Emotional maturity.

And perhaps the quiet brilliance of people like Louis Theroux reminds us of something important.

You don’t need to dominate the room to reveal the truth.

Sometimes you just need to sit calmly and let people show you who they really are.

Stay safe, stay connected & take gentle care

Louise ❤️‍🩹

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