Digital Patriarchy and the Perceived Threat of Andrew Tate: Women’s Experiences in the Platformed Risk Society

Abstract

This article examines how digital infrastructures mediate the production and circulation of gendered harm through the cultural prominence of Andrew Tate, a controversial online figure associated with misogynistic rhetoric. Drawing on Ulrich Beck’s theory of the risk society, Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of liquid modernity and feminist critiques of platform governance, the study introduces the concept of the platformed risk society to theorise how digital systems amplify symbolic and epistemic threats to women. Based on qualitative survey data from 110 self-identifying women, the analysis identifies three interrelated themes: symbolic threat, epistemic injustice and feminist resistance. Participants describe Tate as a figure of moral contamination whose visibility destabilises gender norms and undermines women’s credibility in both online and offline discourse. Their responses reveal that misogyny is not only a cultural discourse but a platformed phenomenon: amplified, monetised and at times normalised through algorithmic infrastructures that reward provocation and suppress dissent.

Introduction

In June 2025, Andrew Tate, a self-proclaimed misogynist, influencer and former kickboxer, was fined for driving nearly four times the speed limit in Romania, where he is currently facing charges including rape, human trafficking and forming an organised crime group (Barbu, 2025). Despite the severity of these allegations, Tate continues to attract a vast online audience, with millions of followers engaging with his content across platforms such as TikTok, YouTube and X (Williamson, 2023). Public opinion about Tate appears divided. Some admire him as a symbol of confidence and financial success, while others view him as a troubling figure who represents a renewed form of patriarchal ideology adapted for viral digital culture. His persona, centred on extreme masculinity, conspicuous wealth and anti-feminist rhetoric, has made him one of the most controversial digital personalities of the decade (Smith et al., 2025; Thomas-Parr and Gilroy-Ware, 2024).

Tate’s rise must be understood within the broader digital ecosystem often referred to as the ‘manosphere’, a loosely connected network of online spaces that promote anti-feminist, hypermasculine and frequently misogynistic ideologies (Dickel and Evolvi, 2023). Recent scholarship has begun to map the contours of this environment, highlighting how Tate’s appeal is sustained through affective and symbolic exchanges that encourage group identity and shared resentment towards feminism (Haslop et al., 2024). His messaging combines self-help discourse and entrepreneurial ambition with grievance politics: a rhetorical mode that frames men as victims of social progress and feminism, and positions Tate as a truth-teller reclaiming lost masculine authority (Love et al., 2025). Other studies have examined the algorithmic amplification of his content (Sayogie et al., 2023), the unintended consequences of deplatforming (Smith et al., 2025) and the challenges his popularity poses in educational and youth settings (Wescott et al., 2024). Collectively, this body of work reveals how digital infrastructures, ideological narratives and affective dynamics converge in the construction and circulation of contemporary masculinities.

This article examines how a sample of women interpret Tate not only as a controversial individual but also as a powerful symbol in ongoing cultural conflicts over gender, power and digital influence. Drawing on survey data from 110 self-identifying women, the study explores how participants understand Tate’s impact on masculinity, gender relations and social norms. It highlights the diverse ways in which these interpretations are articulated, including expressions of concern, critique and resistance. Rather than evaluating the veracity of Tate’s claims or analysing the psychology of his followers, the study investigates how his digital presence is encountered, narrated and contested by women navigating a media-saturated environment.

The analysis is guided by three central questions: How do women interpret Andrew Tate as a cultural figure? How do women perceive his influence on boys and men? And how can sociological theories of risk and modernity help explain the narratives that shape these interpretations? To address these questions, the article draws on Ulrich Beck’s theory of the risk society and Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of liquid modernity, alongside feminist research on digital misogyny. The aim is to understand how gendered fear and anxiety are produced and sustained in a digitally mediated world. While grounded in existing theory, the analysis also opens space for conceptual synthesis, considering how digital infrastructures mediate the production and circulation of gendered risk.

Theoretical Framework

To situate women’s interpretations of Tate within a broader sociological context, this article draws on both macro-level theories of modernity and risk and feminist analyses of digital culture. This dual framework allows for a layered understanding of how structural uncertainty and platformed misogyny intersect in shaping gendered experiences. Rather than treating Tate as an isolated figure, the theoretical framework positions him as a node within broader transformations in how masculinity, authority and threat are constructed and circulated in late modernity. This approach allows for a critical interrogation of the social conditions that render his messaging both intelligible and potentially influential.

Ulrich Beck’s theory of the Risk Society (1992) provides a foundational lens through which to interpret the anxieties expressed in relation to Tate’s digital presence. Beck argues that late modern societies are increasingly preoccupied with managing risks that are manufactured by human systems, technological, economic and cultural, rather than arising from natural causes. These risks are often abstract, diffuse and difficult to locate, yet they shape everyday life in profound ways. In this context, risk becomes not only a material condition but a cultural logic, one that governs how individuals perceive and respond to threats. Beck’s concept of reflexive modernisation is particularly relevant here, as it highlights how individuals must constantly interpret and manage risks that are no longer externally imposed but internally generated by the very systems meant to ensure progress and security (Beck et al., 1994). This reflexivity refers to the growing awareness that modernisation itself produces new forms of uncertainty, prompting individuals and institutions to critically reassess the consequences of technological and social development.

It is worth noting here that feminist scholars have critiqued Beck’s framework for its limited engagement with gendered power. Skelton (2005), for instance, challenges Beck’s notion of the individualised individual – a concept describing the self as the central planner of their own biography in reflexive modernity – for overlooking micro-political struggles and intra-gender dynamics, particularly within institutional contexts. Her critique highlights how Beck’s model tends to abstract individuals from the social structures and power relations that shape their lived experiences. Similarly, Malenfant (2009) demonstrates that risk is experienced through a complex interplay of scientific rationality and social negotiation, especially in contexts of reproductive labour and economic precarity.

These feminist critiques do not reject Beck’s framework but rather extend it, emphasising that risk is not only a structural condition but also a lived experience, shaped by gendered relations, institutional constraints and socio-economic pressures. This perspective invites a more gender-sensitive and contextually grounded application of Beck’s theory, one that foregrounds how risk is experienced differently across social positions and institutional settings.

Building on this concern with lived uncertainty and the erosion of stable meaning, Zygmunt Bauman’s notion of Liquid Modernity (2000) offers a complementary lens for understanding the cultural appeal of figures like Andrew Tate. While Beck focuses on the systemic production of risk, Bauman emphasises the decline of traditional sources of moral authority such as religion, family and the state, and the rise of moral fluidity in late modernity. In such a context, individuals navigate a world marked by ambiguity and instability, and charismatic figures who promise clarity, control and a return to fixed hierarchies may gain cultural traction. Tate’s perceived popularity, then, can be interpreted as reflecting a broader desire for stability in a world that feels increasingly disoriented.

This reading is supported by previous research that applies Bauman’s framework to gendered experiences in digital life. For example, in Screen Society (Cashmore et al., 2018), Bauman’s concept of liquid modernity is used to explore how online environments destabilise traditional gender roles and romantic norms, particularly through practices such as algorithmic dating, avatar-based self-presentation and the commodification of intimacy. These dynamics illustrate how digital infrastructures not only reflect but intensify the fluidity and uncertainty Bauman describes, thereby shaping how individuals seek meaning, identity and relational order in online spaces.

Extending this analysis of cultural disorientation and gendered response, Belmont and Stroud (2020) introduce the concept of apocalyptic masculinity: a form of gender performance that emerges in response to perceived societal collapse and positions men as heroic survivors in a world of chaos. They also develop the notion of disaster consumerism, which describes how risk is commodified through the marketing of survival gear and self-sufficiency products. These dynamics reinforce neoliberal ideals of masculine autonomy and individual preparedness, offering a seductive narrative of control in an otherwise unstable world. In this light, Tate’s appeal may be understood not only as a response to cultural disorientation, but as part of a broader symbolic economy in which masculinity is marketed as resilience. Yet for those who do not identify with Tate’s vision of order, this appeal may be experienced not as reassuring, but as threatening both to gender equality and to the fragile moral understandings that support social cohesion.

Thus, while Beck and Bauman offer macro-sociological insights into the conditions of late modernity, feminist scholars have provided more targeted analyses of how these dynamics manifest in digital culture. One particularly relevant contribution comes from Banet-Weiser (2018), who introduces the concept of popular misogyny to describe the backlash that accompanies the increased visibility of feminist discourse in mainstream media. She argues that this backlash is often facilitated by the same digital platforms that claim to democratise voice, creating a paradoxical space where feminism and misogyny are co-constituted within economies of visibility. This challenges the notion that social progress is linear or uncontested. Banet-Weiser also highlights the affective dimensions of digital culture: how emotions such as grievance, entitlement and resentment are mobilised to produce political and cultural meaning.

Ging (2019) extends this analysis through her work on the manosphere, a loosely connected network of online communities that promote hypermasculine, anti-feminist ideologies. Ging highlights how these spaces function as affective economies, where emotions such as anger, humiliation and nostalgia are not only expressed but cultivated and commodified. Influencers like Tate, from this perspective, do not merely disseminate ideas; they offer affective scripts that resonate with young men navigating a world of perceived emasculation and social dislocation. This helps explain why Tate’s messaging might be experienced by women not only as offensive, but as emotionally unsettling and socially disorienting.

Massanari’s (2017) concept of toxic technocultures further sharpens the analysis by focusing on the role of platform design and governance in enabling the spread of misogynistic content. Her work on Reddit and GamerGate demonstrates how platform affordances, such as anonymity, upvoting and algorithmic recommendation, can encourage environments where harmful ideologies are not only tolerated but actively rewarded. Crucially, Massanari’s critique highlights how these affordances are not neutral; they reflect underlying values and priorities embedded in platform governance. In this context, platforms are increasingly understood not as passive conduits but as active agents: gatekeepers that shape visibility, legitimacy and cultural resonance through algorithmic design and moderation practices (Cobbe, 2021; Gillespie, 2018).

Taken together, these perspectives provide the conceptual framework through which this study interprets the figure of Andrew Tate and the varied responses he provokes. By integrating macro-sociological theories of risk and modernity with feminist and platform-centred analyses of digital culture, the framework enables a multi-scalar reading of Tate’s visibility and influence. Beck and Bauman illuminate the structural and cultural conditions that render Tate intelligible as a symbol of order amid uncertainty, while feminist scholars and platform theorists offer more granular insights into the emotional, technological and political dynamics that sustain and contest his appeal. This synthesis supports a reflexive and gender-sensitive account of risk, one that recognises how digital infrastructures mediate not only the circulation of misogyny but also the conditions under which it is resisted, negotiated and reinterpreted. To capture this dynamic, we have coined the term platformed risk society. In the context of this article, it refers to a sociotechnical condition in which digital platforms, particularly social media, amplify symbolic and epistemic threats through algorithmic visibility, affective economies and governance structures that shape what becomes culturally resonant and politically consequential.

Methodology

This study forms part of a broader project examining public interpretations of Andrew Tate across gendered lines. While a companion article analysed male responses through the lens of moral panic, this article focuses on women’s experiences of symbolic threat, epistemic injustice and resistance within digital culture. Although the overall research design employed a mixed-methods approach, this article prioritises qualitative and interpretive analysis, drawing on feminist methodologies that centre lived experience, affective insight and reflexive engagement over statistical generalisation (Ahmed, 2017; Fricker, 2007).

Data were collected through an online survey combining closed- and open-ended questions. The closed-ended items provided a descriptive overview of participant attitudes and trends, helping to contextualise the qualitative findings (Hesse-Biber, 2010). Crucially, the open-ended questions elicited detailed narrative responses that offered interpretive depth and emotional nuance. These narratives were essential for understanding how participants made sense of Tate’s influence, their emotional and cognitive reactions to his visibility, and the broader cultural and digital environments in which these experiences unfolded.

The survey was promoted on publicly accessible online forums where the research team had prior experience and established access, and which regularly host discussions on popular culture, digital media and gender-related topics. This purposive yet open-access strategy enabled the recruitment of a self-selecting sample of individuals likely to have encountered Andrew Tate’s content, as suggested by patterns of media circulation and algorithmic recommendation (Nielsen and Ganter, 2018). Our recruitment approach was to post a brief outline of the project that included a direct link to the survey. For those potential contributors interested enough to click on the link, they were provided with a participant information sheet that outlined a more detailed overview of the study and its ethical considerations.

While the survey was open to all genders, this article focuses exclusively on the responses of self-identifying women. This focus is particularly significant given the demographic composition of the recruitment environment. The majority of overall respondents were men (with their responses forming a separate study), reflecting the gendered nature of many online forums, which often centre masculinist cultural norms and disproportionately amplify male voices. Parent et al. (2019) demonstrate that online platforms, especially those with anonymous or semi-anonymous structures, facilitate the expression of masculinity, including dominance, misogyny and antagonistic interaction styles. Research also shows that women tend to be minority contributors in these spaces, often facing barriers to participation, visibility and authority (Phelan et al., 2022). Situating female participants within these environments adds sociological depth to the study, as it highlights how women engage with and respond to gendered discourse in digital spaces that have traditionally marginalised their perspectives. This context informs the analysis of how misogyny is encountered and interpreted within everyday digital life.

The study draws on responses from 110 self-identifying women aged 18 and above. While not statistically representative, the sample is demographically diverse and thematically rich. Participants ranged in age from 18 to over 70 years old, with 18% aged 18–29, 20% aged 30–39, 23% aged 40–49, 13% aged 50–59, and 26% aged 60 and above. Many participants provided extensive, emotionally engaged and intellectually reflective responses, offering a robust corpus for qualitative analysis.

Data Analysis

Qualitative data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, following the approach outlined by Braun and Clarke (2022). This method treats theme development as an active, interpretive process shaped by the researcher’s engagement with the data. Analysis proceeded through a recursive, six-phase process: familiarisation, initial coding, theme generation, theme development and refinement, theme naming, and analytic writing. Coding was conducted manually by the lead author, with regular peer debriefing to enhance reflexivity and interpretive rigour. This approach is consistent with best practices in qualitative research, where peer debriefing is recognised as a strategy to reduce bias, enhance credibility and support reflexive engagement with data (Ahmed, 2024; Cleland et al., 2019; Darawsheh, 2014).

Themes were constructed through close engagement with participants’ narratives, focusing on patterns of shared meaning underpinned by central organising concepts. The analysis was informed by feminist epistemologies that value emotion, embodiment and positionality as sources of knowledge (Haraway, 1988; Harding, 1991). This reflexive approach enabled a layered interpretation of how participants navigated digital misogyny, articulated affective responses and made sense of symbolic and epistemic harm.

Three overarching themes were identified: symbolic threat, epistemic injustice and feminist resistance. These were not imposed a priori but emerged inductively through close engagement with the data. Attention was paid to both semantic content and latent meanings, with a focus on how participants articulated affective responses, navigated digital hostility and constructed meaning around Tate’s visibility.

Ethical Considerations and Reflexivity

Ethical approval was granted by Teesside University Research Ethics Committee. Informed consent was obtained through a two-stage process embedded in the survey platform, which complied with General Data Protection Regulation and institutional data protection protocols (British Sociological Association, 2017; Franzke et al., 2020). Participants were assured of anonymity and their right to withdraw at any point prior to submission.

This research was conducted by an all-male team studying women’s experiences of fear, misogyny and gender-based violence. We approach this work with humility and a commitment to reflexivity. We do not claim to speak on behalf of women or to define feminist discourse. Instead, we aim to act as interpreters, using sociological methods to better understand how women articulate and navigate threats to their safety, dignity and equality in a digital environment. Our approach is grounded in a feminist ethic of listening and care (Lindemann, 2019; Miele et al., 2024; O’Riordan et al., 2023), understood as an ethical and political commitment to attentiveness, relationality and responsibility in research. It is also informed by sociological traditions that caution against both moral panic and dismissive scepticism. In a time shaped by digital saturation, social division and widespread outrage, our goal is not to intensify fear or minimise harm, but to critically explore how fear and anxiety are generated, shared and understood within social systems.

Discussion

Theme 1: Symbolic Threat and the Affective Politics of Contamination

Across the dataset, women overwhelmingly interpret Andrew Tate not as a marginal provocateur but as a potent cultural symbol, one whose visibility is experienced as a form of ideological contamination. This framing is not merely rhetorical. It reflects a deeper affective logic in which Tate becomes a proxy for broader anxieties about the erosion of gender equality, the fragility of social progress and the perceived mainstreaming of misogyny. While 88% of participants described his views on women as ‘offensive or harmful’, and 90% believed his messaging contributes to real-world violence against women (65% directly, 25% indirectly), the language used to describe him reveals a more complex emotional terrain: one shaped by fear, disgust and moral disorientation.

Participants frequently deployed metaphors of disease, pollution and toxicity to describe Tate’s influence. A 42-year-old participant referred to him as ‘a virus that’s infected our schools, homes, and relationships’ while a 54-year-old described him as ‘a blight on humanity’. These metaphors echo Douglas’s (1966) foundational work on purity and danger, where contamination signals a breach in moral order. But they also resonate with more recent feminist critiques of symbolic violence (Sartini and Adrian, 2023), which show how discriminatory discourses, especially those targeting gender non-conformity, operate not only through overt aggression but through the subtle, everyday reproduction of stigma and exclusion. Within this interpretive frame, Tate may be seen not simply as a promoter of misogynistic views, but as a perceived conduit for cultural degradation, with his ideas circulating through the permeable boundaries of digital life and shaping the moral atmosphere in which people live and relate.

This sense of seepage is central to how participants articulate the risk Tate represents, not as a distant or isolated figure, but as someone whose influence permeates everyday life. A 36-year-old participant noted: ‘He’s not just online. He’s in the way boys talk now, the way they joke, the way they look at girls.’ The perceived threat, then, is not limited to Tate’s explicit content but extends to its mimetic uptake: the way his rhetoric is thought to be absorbed, echoed and normalised in interpersonal interactions. This aligns with Banet-Weiser’s (2018) argument that popular misogyny is not merely a backlash to feminism but a co-produced force within contemporary media systems, emerging alongside feminist discourse rather than simply opposing it. In this view and in the view of our participants, misogynistic content gains traction not in spite of feminist visibility, but through the same digital infrastructures that amplify both. The harm lies not only in what is explicitly said, but in what becomes sayable: what kinds of speech are legitimised, repeated and circulated, and by whom. This dynamic shapes the boundaries of acceptable discourse, subtly reinforcing gendered hierarchies, even in spaces that appear ideologically contested.

In addition to digital platforms, mainstream media also plays a role in amplifying Tate’s visibility and symbolic power. Several participants referenced news outlets such as the Daily Mail and BBC, which frequently feature Tate in ways that oscillate between sensationalism and critique. This media coverage contributes to his cultural saturation, reinforcing his presence across generational and ideological divides and extending the reach of his messaging beyond online subcultures. For participants, this omnipresence, across both digital platforms and mainstream media, intensifies a sense of unpredictability about who might be influenced.

A 60-year-old participant wrote: ‘It’s made me more wary of men. We don’t know who listens to him. Who agrees. Who hides it.’ This uncertainty reflects what Beck (1992) describes as the individualisation of risk in late modernity, where threats are no longer external or easily identifiable but must be constantly assessed in interpersonal relationships. In this context, Tate becomes a symbolic marker of distrust, a figure through which this sample of women recalibrate their expectations of safety, intimacy and solidarity. This mirrors the findings of English and Brown (2023), who argue that neoliberal pressures have intensified a climate of ambient anxiety and hyper-vigilance in domestic life.

Yet this symbolic construction of Tate as a contaminant also raises important analytical questions. While the intensity of the women’s responses is sociologically meaningful, it also risks obscuring the structural and systemic conditions that enable his visibility. As one 48-year-old participant observed: ‘He’s not the problem. He’s the symptom. The culture that platforms him is the real issue.’ This recognition invites a more reflexive reading of the data, one that treats women’s interpretations not as transparent reflections of reality but as affective responses to a broader cultural moment marked by moral ambiguity and institutional failure. As Issar and Aneesh (2021) argue in their analysis of algorithmic governance, figures like Tate thrive in environments where social processes are rendered less negotiable, where opaque systems of amplification and recommendation displace deliberation and accountability.

Indeed, the near-unanimous condemnation of Tate in this sample may itself be read as a form of affective boundary work; that is, a way of reasserting moral clarity in a world where traditional sources of authority have lost their stabilising influence. Bauman’s (2006) notion of Liquid Fear is useful here. This concept refers to the pervasive, free-floating anxieties characteristic of late modernity, where threats are no longer clearly defined or easily contained, but instead feel omnipresent and difficult to manage. In such a context, where dangers are diffuse, identities unstable and norms contested, figures like Tate can function as condensation symbols – embodying a wide array of social fears that extend beyond the individual. The participant’s responses, then, may not be solely about Tate himself, but about the broader conditions that render him visible, influential and unsettling.

This theme thus reveals a paradox. On one hand, women articulate a real and pressing sense of vulnerability in the face of what they perceive as a resurgent misogyny. On the other, their responses construct Tate as a kind of moral pollutant: an affective shorthand for a host of social ills that are harder to name or confront directly. This dual function of expressing fear and performing moral clarity emphasises the need for a sociological reading that takes seriously both the emotional truth of these narratives and their symbolic function within a wider cultural field.

While condemnation and concern dominated the discourse, the narrative was not entirely uniform. A small number of participants offered ambivalent or dissenting perspectives. One described Tate as ‘misunderstood’, another asserted, ‘He is 100% correct in his views’, and a third acknowledged that ‘he has some good points and arguments which reel people in’, despite rejecting his stance on women. These minority views complicate the overall picture and suggest that Tate’s symbolic significance is not interpreted in a singular way. They serve as a reminder that interpretive diversity exists even within samples composed entirely of women, and that symbolic authority in digital culture remains contested, unstable and subject to negotiation. Attending to these voices is not only a matter of inclusivity but also essential for capturing the full complexity of how controversial figures are understood and debated.

Theme 2: Epistemic Authority and the Gendered Politics of Credibility

A recurring thread across the dataset is the perception that Andrew Tate’s influence is not merely ideological but epistemological; that is, it reshapes who is seen as a credible knower in public discourse. Participants frequently describe a sense of being ‘talked over’, ‘disbelieved’ or ‘dismissed’ in conversations with men and boys who invoke Tate’s rhetoric. These interactions are not typically experienced as isolated disagreements, but rather as part of a wider contest over epistemic authority – over whose knowledge is recognised, whose experiences are taken seriously and whose voices are routinely marginalised.

This struggle over credibility is not new. Feminist scholars have long documented how women’s voices have been systematically devalued in public discourse, from science and medicine to politics and education (Haraway, 1988; Jones et al., 2022; Rosser, 1987). What emerges in the digital context is not a rupture but a reconfiguration: platform logics and algorithmic amplification intensify historical patterns of epistemic marginalisation, embedding them within the everyday architecture of online life. Recent feminist critiques of digital infrastructures have shown that algorithmic systems reproduce and obscure gendered hierarchies of credibility, not through overt exclusion but through opaque processes of classification, recommendation and moderation that disproportionately silence marginalised voices (Golunova, 2025; West, 2020). These systems do not merely reflect bias – they operationalise it – shaping who is heard, what is seen and whose knowledge is legitimised. As Huang et al. (2022) argue, addressing algorithmic bias requires not just technical fixes but epistemic justice: the inclusion of diverse interpretive communities in shaping digital infrastructures. In this light, Tate’s influence may be understood not only in terms of content, but also in terms of how it reconfigures the dynamics of credibility and legitimacy along gendered lines.

This dynamic is perhaps best captured by a 29-year-old participant who said: ‘It’s like suddenly, my lived experience as a woman is up for debate. I say something about sexism, and I get told I’m being dramatic or emotional. And then they quote Tate like he’s some kind of expert.’ Her account reflects what Fricker (2007) terms testimonial injustice: a credibility deficit rooted in identity prejudice. But it also resonates with Bhattacharyya and Mishra’s (2025) comparative study of breast cancer memoirs, which shows how male and female patients experience different forms of epistemic marginalisation in health care. Just as male breast cancer patients are often disbelieved because their condition is seen as anomalous, women in this study describe being discredited in conversations about misogyny because their perspectives are framed as subjective, emotional or biased.

This gendered asymmetry in credibility appears to extend beyond interpersonal interactions and into the algorithmic infrastructures that shape public discourse. Several participants observed that Tate’s content seems to be ‘everywhere’, while feminist voices are often ‘shadowbanned’, ‘mocked’ or ‘ignored’. As one 33-year-old participant put it: ‘You can’t scroll for five minutes without seeing his face. But when women speak up, it’s like we’re invisible.’ Again, Issar and Aneesh’s (2021) analysis of algorithmic governance is useful here, as it emphasises how systems of content curation can amplify dominant narratives while diminishing the visibility of dissenting or marginalised perspectives. From this viewpoint it is reasonable to suggest that the epistemic landscape may not simply be uneven, it may be subtly structured in ways that reinforce existing hierarchies of voice and visibility.

While some participants described this asymmetry as subtle, others emphasised its systemic nature. Echoing Tarleton Gillespie’s analysis in Custodians of the Internet (2018), they argued that platform cultures are far from neutral. Instead, they are shaped by hidden decisions that govern what becomes visible and legitimate. In the words of a 27-year-old participant: ‘algorithms decide who gets heard’. This comment encapsulates a broader concern within the dataset: that digital infrastructures do not simply reflect existing social hierarchies but actively reproduce and intensify them. If this perception is correct, then Tate’s prominence is not incidental but algorithmically sustained, while feminist voices are frequently suppressed or sidelined.

The consequences of this asymmetry appear to be not only cognitive but also affective. A 40-year-old participant described feeling ‘gaslit by the internet’, explaining: ‘You start to doubt yourself. You wonder if maybe you are overreacting. Because everyone else seems to think he’s just “controversial” or “misunderstood”.’ The term gaslighting originates from the 1938 stage play Gas Light, in which a manipulative husband attempts to drive his wife insane by convincing her she is imagining the dimming of gas lamps, a deception designed to cover up his criminal activities (Graves and Samp, 2021). In contemporary usage, the term captures a psychological dynamic in which one’s perception of reality is systematically undermined (Sweet, 2019).

This sense of affective disorientation resonates with what Freeman and Stewart (2019) describe as epistemic microaggressions: subtle, cumulative forms of invalidation that can gradually erode one’s confidence as a knower. In their study of clinical encounters, they show how patients’ testimonies are often dismissed or reframed as irrational, particularly when they challenge dominant norms. The women in this study describe a comparable experience: their accounts of sexism are not only questioned but sometimes reinterpreted as overreactions or emotional excess. This suggests that the struggle for epistemic credibility is also a struggle over emotional legitimacy.

This dynamic appears to be especially pronounced in educational settings, where several participants described feeling outnumbered or out-argued by male peers who cite Tate as a source of authority. A 22-year-old university student shared: ‘In seminars, it’s like you’re not debating ideas, you’re defending your right to speak. They quote him like scripture, and if you push back, you’re accused of censorship or being anti-free speech.’ Her account reflects a perceived shift in the dynamics of epistemic legitimacy, where figures like Tate are sometimes positioned as rational truth-tellers, while feminist perspectives may be more readily framed as ideological or censorious. This perception points to a contested space in which credibility, authority and the right to speak are experienced as unevenly distributed along gendered lines, at least by members of our sample.

What emerges, then, is a complex politics of credibility, one in which Tate is perceived by many participants not only as a cultural symbol but also as an epistemic authority. His appeal, they suggest, lies not merely in the substance of his messaging but in its delivery: marked by confidence, certainty and the rhetorical posture of expertise. This performance of authority becomes especially persuasive in a media environment that rewards provocation over nuance and certainty over ambiguity. In this context, the participants’ observations resonate with Kidd and Carel’s (2017) argument that epistemic injustice is not solely the product of individual prejudice, but a structural phenomenon, sustained through institutional norms, communicative conventions and technological infrastructures. The credibility attributed to figures like Tate, then, may reflect broader dynamics that govern who is heard, believed and legitimised in public discourse.

The women in this study demonstrate a clear awareness of these dynamics. Their responses are not only expressions of frustration but may also be read as acts of epistemic resistance: efforts to reclaim authority over their own experiences and to affirm the legitimacy of feminist knowledge. As one 38-year-old participant put it: ‘We’re not just fighting misogyny. We’re fighting to be believed.’ For several participants, this struggle is not simply symbolic; it is experienced as central to the possibility of meaningful democratic discourse, where all voices are meant to count. Viewed in this light, the epistemic politics surrounding Tate’s influence are not solely about him as an individual. They point to broader concerns about the conditions under which knowledge is produced, circulated, and contested. At stake are deeper questions about who gets to define reality, and who is told they are imagining things.

While most participants described Tate’s influence as undermining their epistemic authority, a minority offered contrasting views. One 25-year-old remarked, ‘Men have been weakened and vilified for decades . . . Instead of cancelling him, perhaps start asking questions as to why so many men follow him’, suggesting that Tate’s appeal may reflect broader frustrations with perceived gendered power shifts. Another participant proposed Jordan Peterson as a preferable male role model, noting that ‘he still promotes masculinity . . . but shows how masculine values can be channelled for good’. Peterson, a Canadian psychologist and author, rose to prominence through critiques of political correctness and gender identity legislation, and has since become a polarising figure in debates about masculinity, identity and free speech (Lynskey, 2018). These responses indicate that epistemic resistance to Tate may coexist with critiques of feminist discourse or alternative visions of masculinity, complicating the binary of feminist versus misogynist knowledge claims. While these views were rare, their presence underscores the interpretive diversity within the sample and highlights the need for a reflexive approach to epistemic politics.

Theme 3: Resistance, Reclamation and the Politics of Refusal

While much of the data reflect feelings of exhaustion, fear and epistemic disorientation in response to Andrew Tate’s influence, a parallel thread also emerges. This thread is one marked by resistance, refusal and feminist counter-practice. Participants in this study do not present themselves solely as passive recipients of misogynistic discourse; many describe engaging in everyday acts of critique, boundary-setting and political reclamation. These forms of resistance are often small in scale, emotionally demanding and deeply situated within personal and social contexts, but they are also experienced as meaningful. They reflect what Ahmed (2017) describes as feminist survival: the everyday labour of pushing back against structures that were never designed to accommodate you.

A 32-year-old participant described how she ‘called out a colleague for quoting Tate in a meeting’, adding: ‘It didn’t go down well, but I couldn’t let it slide. Silence felt like complicity.’ Her account illustrates what Kidd and Carel (2019) refer to as epistemic courage: the willingness to speak from a marginalised position, even when doing so carries social risk. In this instance, the act of refusal is not only political but also epistemological, it affirms the right to name harm, to challenge dominant narratives and to assert one’s perspective in spaces where it may otherwise be dismissed.

Other participants described more subtle forms of resistance. A 26-year-old woman shared: ‘I’ve started curating my feed more carefully. Blocking, muting, reporting. It’s not much, but it helps me breathe.’ These micro-practices of digital hygiene may appear mundane, but they reflect a broader politics of care and self-preservation. Some women in this study describe not only resisting Tate’s ideology but also working to reclaim their digital environments as spaces of relative safety, autonomy and emotional clarity. ‘Sometimes I feel like I’m on the last line of defence’, wrote a 53-year-old participant, ‘but we have to make digital spaces free from the rhetoric of moron’s like Tate’.

This labour of resistance is particularly pronounced in caregiving contexts. Several participants, especially mothers and educators, spoke of the emotional toll of trying to shield young people from what they perceive as a pervasive digital culture of misogyny. A 44-year-old mother shared: ‘I hear my son repeating his phrases. I try to talk to him, but he just says I’m being sensitive. It’s like I’m losing him to the internet.’ These accounts highlight how resistance often unfolds in private, emotionally charged spaces, where the stakes are intimate and the support structures limited. In such contexts, feminist refusal becomes not only a political act but also a form of care, an attempt to protect, to educate and to reclaim space in environments that feel increasingly unwelcoming.

Yet these acts of resistance are not without cost. Several participants described the emotional toll of ‘always being the one to speak up’, of ‘having to explain the obvious’ or of ‘feeling like a killjoy’. These reflections resonate with the concept of affective labour as theorised by Federici (2019) and expanded by social reproduction theorists, who argue that the work of care, emotional regulation and resistance is often feminised, rendered invisible and undervalued. In this context, feminist refusal is not only a political stance but also a form of labour, one that, according to participants, is unevenly distributed and frequently unsupported.

Some participants expressed a desire to collectivise this labour. A 37-year-old participant remarked: ‘I’m tired of doing this alone. We need spaces to talk, to organise, to push back together.’ A 23-year-old echoed this sentiment, stating: ‘It’s exhausting trying to challenge this stuff on your own . . . Single voices only go so far.’ While these comments are not representative of the entire sample, they gesture towards a broader desire for solidarity and shared responsibility that may resonate with wider feminist organising. For instance, the ethos of the ‘My Mum is on Strike’ movement – a feminist initiative that emerged in the UK as part of the Women’s Strike Assembly (The World Transformed, n.d.) – offers a useful lens through which to interpret such sentiments. Rather than staging a traditional walkout, the movement organises political ‘stay and play’ events that provide collective childcare while creating space for mothers and carers to reflect on the politics of care. It reframes reproductive labour not as a private burden but as a shared, political act: one that demands recognition, rest and resistance. In this spirit, the refusal to accept misogyny as ambient or inevitable can be understood as a catalyst for feminist world-making: a way of imagining and enacting alternative futures grounded in care, connection and collective resistance.

But while the majority of participants framed their responses through the lens of feminist resistance, it is important to note that this was not a universal perspective. For example, a 20-year-old participant stated: ‘I’m not a feminist. Feminists just compound the problem . . . some people hide behind feminism but I just tell it how it is and take people on if they challenge my ethical stance on anything.’ Others expressed scepticism towards the framing of Tate as uniquely harmful, with one noting: ‘There are far more dangerous men in the world than Andrew Tate’. These responses suggest that resistance may take multiple forms, including ethical individualism, critique of feminist discourse or broader concerns about systemic violence. Such perspectives complicate the narrative of unified feminist refusal and, once more, they underscore the interpretive diversity within the sample. They remind us that symbolic authority in digital culture is not only contested and unstable, but also subject to ongoing negotiation across differing political and ethical commitments.

Conclusion: Interpreting Misogyny in a Platformed Risk Society

This study has explored how a sample of women interpret Andrew Tate’s cultural prominence, not merely as a controversial media figure, but as a condensation symbol for broader anxieties about gender, authority and digital governance. Through three interrelated themes – symbolic threat, epistemic injustice and feminist resistance – the analysis has traced how Tate’s visibility is experienced not only as offensive, but as emotionally disorienting, socially destabilising and politically consequential.

The first theme, Symbolic Threat and the Affective Politics of Contamination, revealed how Tate is constructed as a figure of moral pollution. Participants’ metaphors, such as ‘virus’ and ‘blight’, reflect a deeper affective logic in which misogyny is not only expressed but felt as ambient and invasive. This aligns with Bauman’s (2000) concept of Liquid Modernity, where moral ambiguity and institutional erosion create conditions in which figures like Tate gain traction. Beck’s (1992) notion of reflexive risk further illuminates how participants navigate this threat not as external, but as embedded in everyday life.

The second theme, Epistemic Authority and the Gendered Politics of Credibility, examined how Tate’s rhetorical posture as a truth-teller complicates women’s epistemic standing. Participants described being dismissed or disbelieved when challenging his views: experiences that resonate with Fricker’s (2007) concept of testimonial injustice. These dynamics are not only interpersonal but infrastructural, shaped by algorithmic systems that amplify dominant voices while marginalising dissent. As Gillespie (2018) and Massanari (2017) argue, platform cultures are not neutral – they are structured by hidden decisions that reproduce power asymmetries and shape what becomes visible, credible and culturally resonant.

The third theme, Resistance, Reclamation and the Politics of Refusal, captured how participants engage in acts of epistemic and affective resistance. From challenging misogyny in professional settings to curating safer digital spaces, these practices reflect what Ahmed (2017) calls feminist survival: small-scale but deeply political acts of care, boundary-setting and world-building. These responses also demonstrate epistemic courage (Kidd and Carel, 2019), as participants assert their right to name harm and reclaim authority over their lived experiences.

Taken together, these themes offer a layered account of how misogyny is felt, interpreted and resisted in what we have termed a platformed risk society. This concept extends Beck’s theory by foregrounding the role of digital infrastructures in shaping the production, perception and circulation of gendered harm. In this context, misogyny is not only a cultural discourse but a platformed phenomenon: amplified, monetised and at times normalised through algorithmic infrastructures that reward provocation and suppress dissent (Cobbe, 2021; Ging and Siapera, 2018; Janhonen et al., 2025). Social media platforms do not merely reflect social risks, they configure and amplify them, embedding misogyny into everyday digital practices through algorithmic recommendation, content moderation and economies of visibility.

Importantly, this analysis avoids a totalising narrative. While participants express deep concern about Tate’s influence, many also reflect on the broader structural conditions that render such messaging resonant for some. This reflexivity complicates simplistic readings and invites a more nuanced understanding of how misogyny is made meaningful in a cultural landscape shaped by risk, fluidity and affective economies.

In this sense, the women’s responses are not only diagnostic but generative. They reveal the interpretive and emotional labour involved in recognising misogyny in its contemporary forms and offer insight into the everyday practices through which gendered harm is resisted. These practices may not always be coherent or coordinated, but they are deeply sociological, rooted in a lived awareness of how gender, power and technology intersect in the digital age.

Ultimately, this article affirms the value of a reflexive, multi-scalar approach to studying digital misogyny, one that takes seriously both the emotional truth of women’s experiences and the structural conditions that shape them. By foregrounding the role of digital infrastructures in mediating gendered harm, the concept of the platformed risk society offers a framework for understanding misogyny not as the product of individual actors, but as a systemic condition embedded in sociotechnical systems. Recognising this dynamic is essential not only for developing more accountable digital cultures, but also for advancing feminist critiques that centre visibility, credibility and resistance in the digital age.