“I do not dream of utopia, but I do dare to dream of something better than this world we are currently living in.” – Roxane Gay, ‘Dear Men: It’s You Too’

In her essay, ‘Dear Men: It’s You Too’, Roxane Gay discusses what men can do in response to the #MeToo movement and revelations about sexual violence from powerful men in various industries.

The following essay, commissioned to celebrate the release of Opinions: A Decade of Opinions, Arguments and Minding Other People’s Business by Roxane Gay, discusses what we as a community should be doing about young Black boys and misogyny.

It started pretty innocuous enough. I came across a TikTok Live in which a Black British male bodybuilder was talking about mental health and offering advice and one-on-one sessions for any men watching who might be struggling with where they were in life. Intrigued, I watched for a minute or two, feeling like I was eavesdropping on a conversation, then I swiped away.

But within a few minutes, TikTok was suggesting more Lives to me: other Black British men streaming at that moment from their workplace lunchrooms and parked cars, opining about women, relationships, life, the system and their ambitions. The video that made me close the TikTok app completely was one man, in his late twenties or early thirties, using the greenscreen feature to project a cartoon behind him.

The illustration showed a doe-eyed, slim, light-skinned Black woman being approached by a Black man, but she was being aggressively pulled away by her darker, fatter, angrier friend. “So, ladies!” the man said. “I ask again, why do you let your so-called friends do this to you? Why do you lot do this to your friends?” An angry finger jabbed at the woman pulling her friend away.

Maybe I would have forgotten about this man, but less than a week later, news broke that 15-year-old Elianne Andam was murdered at 8.30am in the morning on her way to school. Reports said that she was attacked after she came to the defence of a friend who was being harassed by a 17-year-old ex-boyfriend, and I can’t stop thinking about her.

I also can’t stop thinking about that dickhead on TikTok Live, and all the other random, non-famous men spewing misogyny day after day after day to an audience of tens, hundreds or even thousands. (TikTok’s algorithm still shows them to me.) I don’t want to think about them, but I’m wondering where the hell they come from.

When I became aware of Andrew Tate and his misogyny, I went on Instagram and was shocked to see that we had mutual followers. Men I knew in real life actually followed him. Speaking to one of them, I was told, “He’s getting famous now for the 5% outrageous shit he says, but most men follow him because he has good advice on other stuff.” The other stuff being: working on yourself, staying healthy, keeping your mind engaged, and resisting ‘the system’, apparently.

When I became aware of Kevin Samuels during the height of lockdown, I went as far as watching his videos, trying to understand his appeal to ordinary men. Between Tate and Samuels, I noticed patterns – obvious wealth, themes of self-improvement and discipline woven in with casual misogyny and condescension towards women. I remember thinking, ‘Are men so starved for positive role models that this is where they need to turn?’

I saw a Tweet (yes, I will still call them Tweets) a while ago that said the reason why people believe that boys are “easier to raise” than girls is because boys aren’t raised, they are left to their own devices (“boys will be boys”) while girls are believed to need endless policing and correction. As girls grow into women, many of us recognise this and course-correct for ourselves – because who else is going to do it?

As far as I’m concerned, I have no interest in going toe-to-toe with random TikTok or Twitter/X misogynists. A long time ago, I decided that if the man in question is not “f*cking me, feeding me or financing me” their thoughts and opinions were irrelevant. But now I find myself paying attention – not to educate them, but to try and understand where things went wrong.

These men were once boys – small children socialised into the society that would mould them. What were the messages they absorbed, the opportunities missed and the gaps in their social education that now has them online as adults, embarrassing their ancestors with bitter rants about women? These men are not created in a vacuum – or perhaps they are! So without the constant vigilance and fear that characterises the childhood of many Black girls, what is the Wild West of forces that bear down on young, impressionable, boy minds?

Of course, I say this as a mother with heavily vested interests, but sometimes I feel like the contempt that has us disengaged from misogynistic men can trickle down to an indifference for young boys. Even those of us who are parents can think, “that will never be my child!”, tut and shake our heads at ‘someone else’s problem’.

But it is in the interests of all of us – especially young Black girls – that all Black boys are raised well, and not left to be dragged up by the hodge-podge mix of music artists, social media influencers, random “olders” on ends suffering from their own PTSD and childhood trauma, or other grown men who do not have the emotional capacity to be nurturing.

I also write this aware that some may feel that I am putting a burden on Black women, because really and truly this should be a thing for Black men to be getting busy with – and yes, it most certainly is. But we live in communities, and when communities work well, it is when they recognise that we are each other’s responsibility.

Saying all this, I will be the first to admit that I don’t have any answers that I feel confident flogging wholesale. But what I do know is that first of all, at the very least, we need to fight the disengaged cynicism that we can wear like armour, and pay attention. Because if my TikTok For You Page is any indication, the space left by Andrew Tate and Kevin Samuels is being filled with countless others peddling their lucrative brand of motivational misogyny.

Opinions: A Decade of Opinions, Arguments and Minding Other People’s Business by Roxane Gay is published by Corsair and available to buy now.

Header image by Shan Patel