After decades of aspiration, is women’s increasing presence in influential roles seen by some men not as historical progress, but as threat? And is misogyny among boys and young men on the increase, or is it simply that greater awareness and more visible online behaviour ‘artificially’ amplify the phenomenon?
In September 2025, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres alerted: “A wave of misogyny is rolling across the world. Instead of mainstreaming equal rights, we’re seeing the mainstreaming of misogyny.”
The Resident spoke to Ricardo Soares, a 31-year-old academic with a PhD in Education Sciences from the University of Porto. Soares’ research into different forms of populism has looked at radical far-right social media influencers, and misogynistic discourse and gender stereotyping among young people.
In his view, “misogyny is part of a broader political trend which promotes nationalist and exclusionary ideas, such as the exclusion of ethnic and sexual minorities”.
Soares’ research has found several recurrent misogynistic themes and attitudes that in 2026 may seem surprising. These include: women are worth less than men; a man should control his partner’s social life; a woman’s role is domestic, while a man’s role is to provide for the household; women’s intellectual ability is inferior to that of men.
Portugal’s 2026 UMAR National Study on Dating Violence, involving around 8,000 respondents, revealed that 68% of adolescents did not recognise at least one of the 15 abusive behaviours assessed as a form of violence, with controlling behaviour the most widely legitimized, particularly among boys.
The manosphere and its influencers
The extensive World Health Organization HBSC survey, covering 44 countries, found that over a third of 15-year-old boys reported frequent psychological or physical health complaints in 2022, compared with around 25% in 2014. This included loneliness, feelings of rejection, lack of a girlfriend or even lack of any friends.
This emotional disconnect can provide fertile ground for manosphere influencers, for whom, Soares says, “to be a ‘man’ is to be physically strong, wealthy, own high-vis cars and be seen with attractive women; anyone else is considered a loser”.
Misogyny is easily embedded within this manosphere ethos. “Influencers exert fascination, sometimes even idolization, based on their perceived or actual financial success, lifestyle and social status,” Soares continues. These influencers become a refuge for emotionally disenfranchised young males, speaking directly to boys with often low emotional literacy.
We are all aware of acts of discrimination that transcend political preference. As in other European countries, Portugal’s manosphere propagates through digital influencers with a public face and visible political affiliations, frequently associated with far-right movements such as Reconquista or Chega.
According to exit-poll analysis by political scientists Pedro Magalhães and João Cancela, Chega emerged as the most popular party among younger men without university qualifications in Portugal’s May 2025 general election.
Excluding ‘other’
Soares demonstrates that exclusionary radical right populism, leaning into anti-democratic positions, disseminates social media posts that exclude ‘other’ (for example, ethnic and cultural minorities), seen as a threat to the wellbeing of the in-group.
“In these posts,” Soares affirms, “the sociocultural ‘other’ is often represented as privileged and dangerous through a hierarchy that explicitly positions whiteness, heteronormativity and traditional gender roles as the legitimate and ideal social model. Misogyny does not appear in isolation, it is intertwined with racism, xenophobia and the rejection of LGBT rights.
“Visual content – such as cartoons, memes and emojis – covertly normalises hate speech and stereotyped representations through humour,” he adds. Music videos can equally promote a distorted idea of female body image and, through objectifying women, fuel misogynistic practices.
We know that algorithms prioritise engagement rather than content quality, through comments, likes and shares. Polarising content generates more engagement and consequently is more likely to go viral. “Algorithms do not create hatred; they amplify it and distribute it on a large scale.”
At the same time, whoever has more followers has a louder voice, and is regarded as more credible, regardless of what they say. Soares calls this algorithmic distortion the ‘authority of visibility’.
He talks about the ‘rabbit-hole’ effect, when a young person who may start with relatively innocuous content is progressively directed towards more extreme stuff, amplified by irresistible algorithmic pull. Soares believes it is plausible to connect gradual exposure to increasingly extreme online misogynistic content to today’s more toxic embrace of misogyny.
Recent data and news reports in Portugal indicate a worrying increase in sexual offences committed by adolescents, boys and girls: sharing intimate content without consent, using artificial intelligence to ‘undress’ girls, and an increase in the number of rapes.
The critical role of education
So, in the digital era, what levers does society retain to project positive role models?
Soares considers parents to still have a foundational role in “monitoring, filtering and maintaining an open dialogue about their children’s online consumption”. As any parent of adolescent children knows, however, this positive parental influence is not always a given.
Soares argues that educational institutions can play an active role in fostering critical awareness of online content, as well as of offline environments. “This is not about preventing young people from encountering this content – that is unrealistic – but about giving them the tools to interpret it critically. We need to develop visual and auditory literacy and a critical, responsible form of digital citizenship grounded in ethical and social values.”
In Soares’s opinion, social-media companies have a responsibility they currently do not assume, despite an increase in attempts to call them out in the media and courts. “There is a lack of effective ethical regulation and algorithmic transparency.”
Soares advocates more work with young people (boys and girls) to show that masculinity does not need to be ‘toxic’ and associated with dominance, material wealth or emotional repression. “Masculinity can be based on respect for others, guided by fundamental ethical values such as solidarity, justice and care.”
He concludes on a cautionary note: “I’m particularly concerned by the normalisation, among some young people, of hate speech, misogyny and discrimination on social media. Of course, we cannot assume that these forms of discourse automatically translate into offline behaviours or that they represent all young people. Nevertheless, their presence and visibility need to command the attention and concern of all parents, schools, academics and politicians.”