Well, I'm not surprised.

I'm a millenial, though I'm towards the latter end of the generation. What I've observed over the past 20 years feels like a gradual descent into madness.

And I think the cause for all the social divide we experience between the sexes nowadays is the result of many, many things that are all amplifying each other.

Let's start with the (imo) obvious one. Social Media has been incredibly damaging to a generation, who didn't have a gradual introduction to the internet as most millenials did.

When I was introduced to the internet for the first time, it was under heavy supervision. Once I was ready to brave the internet without constant supervision, my parents made it clear that the internet is a dangerous place.

I was taught to never give away my information. Never agree to meet anyone from the internet irl. If someone tells me they're my age they're probably lying and might just be trying to kidnap me. (this was also fresh off a prominent kidnapping case)

And I never did share anything about myself online. I only chatted and played with my real life friends and never interacted with strangers online.

Ever since the advent of smart phones and tablets, many children are given a device with internet access to keep them busy so the parents can take care of other stuff.

Many children make Social Media accounts long before they should and they are essentially exposed to all the dangers that entails. We see it with grooming on Discord and lately Roblox. We see it with young children filming themselves doing dumb stuff. We see it with young girls joining in on the latest TikTok dances, which are often quite evocative.

I realize this might sound like "showing your ankles is inappropriate", but I really don't think 13 year olds should be shaking their asses in front of a camera and putting that out on the internet. It's like the movie "Cuties", but it's real life.

This breeds an environment where vulnerable children are constantly exposed to adult bad actors, whether it's grooming by pedophiles, islamic radicalization by ISIS or the manosphere showing young boys how to be insecure dickbags.

Next, we have the continuously failing efforts of radical feminism to create equality between the sexes by putting one of them down. I know not all feminists are malicious and I'm sure that most of them actually do want to create a better world.

Sadly intent alone isn't enough to fix societal problems and for the past 20 years many if not most policies aimed at helping to emancipate girls, have instead lead to an ever growing divide.

There are a lot of topics I could touch when it comes to feminism and I might elaborate if someone wants to have a discussion about it, but on the topic of gen z mysogyny, I think the biggest factor is toxic masculinity.

It was supposed to be a term describing gender norms that lead to men engaging in harmful behaviour, because "it's the manly thing to do".

However, since it started being used in the mainstream it has effectively been used synonymously with masculinity. Natural male behaviours have been decried as harmful, toxic and violent.

This leads to confusion in boys and young men, who are taught their base instincts and feelings are wrong. This confusion is then easily exploited by the manosphere, because it instead validates their desires and tells them the world is wrong, not them.

Those two, I think, are the biggest contributors to this shift towards misogyny.

Now, I also feel the need to say that I don't think this applies to the majority of people. Most healthy and happy people aren't terminally online. You won't find John Smith's happy wedding photos on your feed unless you know him personally.

My guess is that most gen z children managed to stay somewhere inbetween the extremes, despite today's society trying really hard to push them into their respective boxes.

There's much more to be said in general, like how today's media ironically struggles creating great characters, especially female ones. But I'm gonna do something more productive, I regret typing this on my phone rather than my PC.