Abstract

This chapter reconceptualises GBV by exploring the ideological grooming of young men and boys within the manosphere. While dominant narratives focus on women and girls as victims, this analysis positions boys and young men as vulnerable to coercive control that exploits emotional and developmental fragility. Using Stark’s (Coercive control: How men entrap women in personal life. Oxford University Press, 2007) theory of coercive control, the chapter examines how online subcultures, particularly incel communities, groom young men through fatalistic ideologies, aggrieved entitlement, and gendered distrust. Drawing on the mini-series Adolescence (Herbert et al., 2025), it links these dynamics to social, educational, and psychological contexts. The chapter argues that young men and boys are not solely perpetrators but are themselves ideologically groomed in the absence of institutional intervention, and it calls for a dual recognition of their vulnerability and accountability.