I recently watched Louis Theroux' documentary "Inside the Manosphere", in which he interviewed several members of the online Manosphere, a community of influencers promoting controversial views of women.  And I couldn’t stop thinking about Tudor England, because as I listened to these modern influencers, their ideas about women - what they expect, how they judge, and how they define women’s roles - felt strangely familiar. It connected directly with something I’ve been exploring recently: how women like Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth Woodville have been labelled as the seductress and the witch, and how history is full of women branded as she-wolves, unnatural, or dangerous.   In this video, I explore:

• How Manosphere views on women compare to attitudes in the medieval and Tudor periods
• The historical roots of double standards around sex, power, and control
• Whether these modern ideas are echoes of the past, or something even more extreme

And I ask:

• Are these attitudes really new, or have we heard them all before? 
• And why are some voices trying to turn back the clock?

A big thank you to my Privy Council channel members for their insights during our recent Zoom discussion, some of which helped shape this video.   Sources: 
Louis Theroux: Inside The Manosphere, Netflix
Adultery in the Middle Ages by Jo Geisen - https://sites.up.edu/earlybritishsurvey/adultery-in-the-middle-ages/ 
Women in Early Modern England by Sara Mendelson and Patricia Crawford