Boys and young men are being radicalised en masse by a pandemic of brutal online misogyny. Raising a son in such a world has never been harder, our Writer at Large Neil Mackay argues

There was a moment as I watched Louis Theroux’s documentary about the ‘manosphere’ when a thought which has been coalescing in my mind took shape and moved to the forefront of my consciousness.

I didn’t like the thought. Indeed, I want rid of the thought. The thought is this: ‘I’m glad I didn’t have sons’. I shocked myself with that thought.

I don’t want to rehearse Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere too much. To do so would revisit the nausea I felt watching it. You can guess what happened: a bunch of grotesque, inadequate Andrew Tate imitators revelling like pigs in misogyny and narcissism. Pitiful, sad, thick-headed, dangerous, desperate, money-grubbing, venal little nobodies. That’ll do from me. If you want more, watch it on Netflix. Bring a sick-bag.

I hadn’t actually wanted to watch the show. I really couldn’t face another hour of men shaming themselves as brutes and morons, and in the process disgracing their sex.

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But my daughters know I’ve long been interested in the state of modern masculinity and said I should tune in. So I did. I didn’t learn much new about the manosphere, but I learned something new about myself. I discovered that buried thought: that I’m secretly glad I didn’t have sons.

My wife and I are in our mid-50s, so many of our friends and family........

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