Scrolling Through Sexism
Beatrice Gates, LVI, investigates the detrimental impacts of social media in perpetuating misogyny.
Beatrice Gates
LVI
Photography by Mariella Burns
Art Editor, 2025
Social media is an ever-evolving platform for people to express themselves. Recent years have seen a rise in the online presence of female role-models, using their pages to empower women and girls through the mouthpiece of the internet. However, the increasing supply of this content means that women need to are forced to sexualise themselves in pursuit of more views, more followers, more profit.
We all know that many influencers share their whole lives on social media. However, lots of women now receive an income through online platforms by using their bodies for content. These women share photos on Instagram of their huge houses and expensive sports cars, which sometimes probably aren’t even theirs, creating the idea that these influencers are able to live a dream life by using their bodies and looks. Many young people see the lives these people are living and aspire to have the cars and money they do, and the way to get this seems relatively easy! Influencers like Anna Paul and Bonnie Blue, who are both pornographic actors, have an extremely large following number with many of these followers being under 18 (under the legal age to watch pornographic material). Both these influencers brag about the idealistic lifestyle they live with luxury items and million-pound houses, promoting the way in which selling of their bodies online provided this. These women ruin the strength and power of other women by allowing men to view them as sexual objects and normalising the regressive idea that women are objects for their pleasure. Furthermore, women now feel increasing judged for their physical appearance as unrealistic beauty standards are spread to these content creators’ male followers. These are especially degrading as the looks girls believe they need to aspire to have been acquired through plastic surgery. Therefore, social media stars are singlehandedly regressing the feminist movement and validating misogyny.
Social media’s standards are especially hard for teenagers, as many suffer from skin issues and acne so feel different and ashamed due to the comparisons they draw of themselves against influencers using beauty filters; brainwashing people into believing they have clear skin. Having blemishes on your skin is a normal thing, however creating the idea that your skin needs to be perfectly clear is damaging to many teenagers’ self-esteem. These content creators make natural beauty seem different and unconventional, making many boys believe these surgeries are normal and essential to meet their new criteria of what is ‘attractive’. Consequently, teenage boys make rude comments, expecting their peers to look like the fake influencers they see online and making young girls feel terribly insecure.
However, the rise of dictatorial men on social media who post sexist comments about women is also a massive issue for young boys. Large creators like Andrew Tate have created a toxic online environment not only for young women but for boys who’ve been negatively led astray. He shares misogynistic statements all over his platforms, degrading women and regressing gender stereotypes that degrade girls aspiring for positive attributes in life. He also promotes men as dominating, powerful and aggressive, making young boys believe that to be a ‘man’ one needs to be controlling. This creates unhealthy behaviours in the younger generations. When Andrew Tate shares his beliefs that ‘men are superior to women’ these statements degrade women, increasing the amount of hate towards young girls and brainwashed boys to think these misogynistic comments are ‘cool’ and ‘funny’.
Overall, social media has had a significant effect on the increase of misogyny in the younger generations. These platforms can be used for positive awareness, however the negative sexist comments which dominate these platforms unfortunately overshadow this. These sights need to become more regulated and restrict what content they allow, in order to provide a positive environment for teenagers and end the normalisation of misogynistic comment towards young girls.