Hateshield

HATESHIELD is a 5-year project (2025 – 2030) funded by the European Research Council. We seek to understand the psychology of the manosphere and how to protect young people from its negative influence.

In the last 10 years, online misogyny has increased at an alarming rate. Social media influencers within the manosphere preach that women are fundamentally inferior to men and ought to be subordinated to them.

Women are derogated as innately illogical, greedy and scheming. These attributions are used to justify harassment, coercive control and discrimination. Teenagers, who get much of their news and entertainment from social media, are bombarded with this content on a daily basis.

Our aims

During the course of our project, we seek to understand:

How many children and young people are engaging with the manosphere.
How the manosphere is influencing the behaviour and experiences of children and young people.
How we can intervene to encourage more egalitarian gender attitudes among children and young people.

If you would like to participate in our research or learn more, please contact harriet.over@york.ac.uk

Resources

Publications

Over, H., Bunce, C., Baggaley, J., & Zendle, D. (2025). Understanding the influence of online misogyny in schools from the perspective of teachers. PLOS ONE, 20(2), e0299339.
Over, H., Bunce, C., Konu, D., & Zendle, D. (2025). What do we need to know about the manosphere and young people’s mental health? Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 30, 272-274.

Team

Among our dedicated team of researchers are:

Professor Harriet Over - Principal investigator

Dr David Zendle

Dr Delali Konu - Postdoctoral research associate

Ms Ellen Lavender - PhD student

Affiliations

We are connected to several high impact partners, including: