3 December 2025

This article is the first in a series of policy briefings from Movember and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), bringing together our expertise on men and boys’ health, online misogyny, and innovative responses to the rising tide of online hate, violent extremism and misinformation.

We are joining forces to help bridge the gap between research, policy and action. Our goal is to translate cutting edge evidence into practical recommendations for policy strategies that can shape safer, healthier digital environments for all.

We are starting with a critical issue challenging policymakers today: the links between online misogyny, violence against women and girls (VAWG), and men and boys’ health, and the need to engage men and boys as a part of the solution.

State of play: online misogyny, gender-based violence and men’s health

The Labour Party’s 2024 manifesto rightly placed addressing misogyny at the heart of its mission to halve violence against women and girls within the next decade. But we still see large gaps in joined-up government efforts to address the harmful overlap of VAWG, online harms, and impacts on the health and wellbeing of men and boys.

Some of this is down to an unhelpful tendency to position boys as either purely villains or victims in the online harms space. Other policy efforts have been focused too narrowly on fringe online subcultures like Incels. And most overlook the systemic role played by social media algorithms in normalising misogyny and putting young men’s health at risk. We believe this has led to major shortcomings around social media regulation, positive online interventions and digital citizenship education.

ISD and Movember are calling for a comprehensive public health approach to prevention. That means engaging men and boys early and constructively, not just as potential perpetrators but as partners in preventing harms to all. It requires recognising how trauma, abuse and health vulnerabilities intersect with online harms.

And it means supporting crucial victim-centred work to tackle violence against women and girls. In particular there is a need to recognise the disproportionate harms faced by Black and minoritised communities, as well as those impacted by systemic inequalities across race, ethnicity, religion, disability and sexual orientation – voices too often left out of the conversation.

Our key recommendations

ISD and Movember’s policy recommendations are rooted in years of research, policy analysis and insights from frontline practitioners and expert sectoral partners.

At the core of these recommendations is a conviction that men and boys should not just be framed as the problem: they need to be meaningfully engaged as part of the solution. Strengths-based interventions are crucial. These include promoting positive takes on masculinity, healthy relationships and manhood to challenge misogynistic narratives proliferating online.

While the challenge is complex, we believe the path forward is clear: only by taking a whole of society and public health approach can we begin to curb online misogyny, strengthen men and boys’ health, and contribute to safer, healthier online communities for all.

Coordinating a whole of society effort: Government must play a key role in supporting and championing civil society collaboration and a joined-up approach to gender-based violence. Examples of this include End Violence Against Women’s calls for the establishment of a VAWG commissioner to ensure accountability in the context of a much anticipated upcoming cross-government strategy. There also needs to be greater clarity across government around who holds responsibilities in the blurry space between VAWG, online misogyny and men and boy’s health, as well as the meaningful engagement of a much wider set of policy stakeholders (especially those in health and social care).

Championing a public health approach: Government must drive a proactive prevention agenda aimed at bolstering protective factors and addressing vulnerabilities before harmful behaviour escalates. Interventions focused on the intersection of men’s health and violence against women and girls should particularly look to address the strong connection between violence and experiences of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse and trauma.

Holding tech to account: Ofcom’s newly-released VAWG guidance for tech companies is an important start in holding platforms to account for their role in perpetuating online gender based violence. Compared to the draft guidance, it is encouraging to see more explicit inclusion of men and boys not solely as potential perpetrators but also victims, and partners in prevention. However, upgrading this voluntary advice to a mandatory Code of Practice would ensure more meaningful platform responses to gender-based violence. We are therefore encouraged to see Ofcom commit to making formal recommendations to the government on where the Online Safety Act (OSA) may need to be strengthened if platforms fail to take foundational steps to ensure their systems do not promote misogynistic content.

Educating against misogyny: Schools should be seen as key spaces for inclusive prevention, beyond purely disciplinary approaches. But classrooms are not a panacea for reaching young people. We must look creatively at the full spectrum of educational interventions available to us, spanning from updating sex and relationships curricula, to challenge Manosphere myths without stigmatising boys, to reflecting impact of online misogyny on VAWG and men and boys’ health  as part of a modernised digital citizenship education.

Sustaining the evidence base: Given the ever-evolving threat, we urgently need a robust shared evidence base to inform coordinated prevention and intervention efforts. Sustainable government funding is needed to support long-term research into online misogyny: this includes mapping the constant evolution online threats and measuring the societal impacts of online gendered abuse. Policymaking needs to be informed by the best available evidence to ensure interventions are effective and sustainable.

What’s next?

ISD and Movember will collaborate with sectoral partners to strategically engage with policymakers from across government around these recommendations over the coming months.

If you would like to partner with us on policy engagement or to read the full paper underpinning these recommendations, we would be delighted to hear from you.

Do also keep an eye out for upcoming updates on ISD’s website as well as Movember’s Substack, where we will be providing a deep dive into the role of public health, education and digital policy approaches in tackling online harms impacting men and boys.