With the manosphere increasingly expanding beyond the corners of the internet it once thrived in, incel discourse around women touting ‘soft men’ they can subjugate is raising impressionable young men into misogynistic adults. A 2013 study by the International Center for Research on Women and the United Nations Population Fund found that around 40% of over 9,000 men in seven northern Indian states held rigid and discriminatory gender views, strongly supporting actions to control women. The highest percentage was seen among men ranging from 18 to 24. Thirteen years later, not much has changed. In its annual report for 2024-25, the Ministry of Home Affairs confirmed a steady rise in crimes against women in India, with the data showing 3,71,503 incidents of crime in 2020, which rose to 428,278 in 2021 and 445,256 in 2022. Clearly, men need better role models, and who better than this Goliath of a man who looks like a big kid playing his favourite sport, knows how to act silly during a sporting event that men get so touchy about and has an ongoing bromance with a former teammate whom he will now face in the quarter-finals.
