The quiet solace of the girl group chat in the online manosphere

On social media platforms, too public and too volatile for my taste, I function largely as a professional lurker, consuming more than producing. But Sahelis is where my online avatar is most active. Sometimes I wonder why that is, and the answer is almost always the freedom this private space allows me to be myself. It stores my secrets, dumb questions, and random musings about life. I don’t have to worry about being ‘perceived’ or inviting undue attention.

The shrinking online space for women

Internet culture has time and again boxed femininity into clickable labels, dictating what womanhood should look like. In the mid-2010s, we had the ‘girl boss’ — a trend that once celebrated women climbing the career ladder, until it turned into a parody of hustle culture and corporate feminism. By 2023, the internet had rebranded ‘the girl’ itself into a cultural archetype, transforming perceived feminine traits into hashtags. There was ‘girl math’, for the “oh-so-silly” calculations women supposedly make to justify their decisions. ‘Girl dinners’ and ‘hot girl walks’ packaged everyday habits into trends to be participated in. And the ‘clean girl’ look idolised a certain kind of aesthetic. More recently, though, these ‘girl’ trends have taken on toxic undertones. ‘Women ☕’ became a way to criticise, while parodies of the “pick me” girl flooded the internet to shame young girls. Then there’s a sudden rise of “trad wives” content creators, who, rather hypocritically, want women to stick to traditional roles while their husbands earn the bread and butter.

Being a woman is a messy business as it is. There are days when you are not entirely comfortable with your own body; when you second-guess your abilities simply because someone louder insists on theirs; when you measure every word, walking that tightrope between being firm and being “nice”. You learn that compensatory smile that smooths over people’s discomfort, even if it deepens your own. I can’t speak to the male experience, but if you have ever felt smaller in your own skin, then perhaps you know the hellish experience that being a woman can be. And yet, when we talk about it online, it suddenly becomes a battleground of the sexes, one that awakens the most dormant of keyboard warriors. Sometimes, you don’t even have to talk about being a woman; being one is simply enough to invite scrutiny, criticism, threats, and abuse.

Safe online spaces for women are shrinking every day. Consider this: According to a 2024 Indian government report, cybercrimes against women increased more than threefold in just five years between 2017 (4,242 reported crimes) and 2022 (14,409). These include harassment, threats, stalking, online bullying, financial fraud, and revenge porn.

The rise of the ‘manosphere’

At the same time, the ‘manosphere’ has colonised corners of the internet, infecting digital communities (think: podcasters, gamers, relationship gurus) with its brand of misogyny and toxic masculinity. The likes of Andrew Tate and Adin Ross gave rise to incel culture and the Matrix-inspired ‘redpill’ and ‘blackpill’ theories that teach men to resent women. A 2025 study by Movember Institute for Men’s Health found that nearly two-thirds of surveyed young men regularly engaged with men and masculinity influencers, and they were more likely to report “negative and limiting attitudes towards women and their roles in relationships”.

These ideologies hurt not just women but all genders. They breed beyond digital devices and influence how we interact with each other in the ‘real’ world, as the Netflix show Adolescence rightly portrayed. Perhaps that is why I find myself turning to my private refuge — the girl group chat, where criticism and cruelty give way to solidarity and comfort.

And while these micro-communities can act as safe spaces for women to engage and discuss, my only hope is that the future of internet culture doesn’t force us into isolated sanctuaries. Safe spaces are precious, yes, but they shouldn’t be our only option. If anything, they should remind us what digital culture could look like: more inclusive, more thoughtful, more kind. To get there, we need to begin early. As experts point out, children must be taught about inclusivity and mutual respect. Media literacy and digital safety should be essential parts of the school curriculum to help kids navigate the vast expanse of the internet.

Maybe, then, we can move beyond the endless “battle of the sexes” and towards a version of the internet where everyone feels seen and heard.