Manosphere Claims About Society’s Foundation Are Factually Incorrect and Offensive

(SeaPRwire) –   In Netflix’s recent documentary Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere, a key figure, Justin Waller, who started a construction firm at 24, gazes at Miami’s skyline and claims men “literally built society.”

The implication is unmistakable: men created the world; women did not.

This assertion isn’t merely offensive. It disregards historical facts. It mistakes recognition for actual contribution. Women have consistently contributed to building society. Their contributions were often legally unrecognized, economically unrewarded, and historically undocumented. They constructed homes and enterprises, educational and religious institutions, communities and organizations. They nurtured children, maintained family stability, supported neighborhoods, launched businesses, spearheaded social movements, and bore the unseen responsibilities that enabled the visible world to function.

Indeed, they also contributed to constructing the tangible world.

Regarding commerce, statistics alone settle the argument: women own 14.2 million U.S. businesses producing approximately $2.8 trillion in revenue. This represents genuine participation, not tokenism. It demonstrates entrepreneurship, risk-taking, wealth generation and development.

Concerning physical structures, the skyline itself exposes the falsehood. Women design structures. Women manage developments. Women are employed in architecture, engineering, construction, finance, urban planning, and municipal systems essential to cities. The Bureau of Labor Statistics documented approximately 1.2 million women in construction in 2020, about 10% of the workforce. While this proportion should be higher, it still represents millions of women actively building the nation. The National Council of Architectural Registration Boards reports women comprise 27% of American architects, with over 40% of new architects being women, indicating their growing influence in the field’s future.

However, the fundamental issue with such statements runs deeper than factual inaccuracy. It reflects a flawed understanding of societal construction. Society encompasses more than steel, concrete, and glass. It extends beyond skylines, cranes, executive suites, and property titles. Society involves trust, discipline, caregiving, education, entrepreneurship, and ethical development. It includes unpaid and undercompensated work that makes compensated labor possible. It comprises those who raise children, maintain households, manage family finances, educate youth, care for seniors, establish small enterprises, and sustain hope amid institutional failures.

Such work doesn’t always earn a lobby plaque. Yet without it, no lobby would exist. This represents the central misdirection of the issue. It questions whose name appears on the building, rather than asking what was truly required to create the conditions for that building’s existence.

The manosphere endures by instructing insecure men that dignity derives from dominance. It promotes the zero-sum belief that women’s advancement necessitates male decline. It portrays collaboration as weakness and complaint as strength. It markets a fragile concept of masculinity to young males and immature men seeking stability in an evolving world.

Genuine men don’t require diminishing women to validate themselves. Authentic masculinity isn’t founded on erasure but on accountability and the self-assurance to acknowledge others’ contributions without feeling threatened. The most capable men I’ve encountered haven’t devoted their lives to proclaiming women’s limitations. America wasn’t constructed by men exclusively. It was created by successive generations of individuals, frequently receiving unequal compensation and recognition, who collectively advanced the nation. Some laid bricks. Some laid railroad tracks. Some established companies. Some created families. Some drafted legislation. Some initiated social movements. Some developed human potential essential for sustaining markets, democracy, and nations.

Therefore, when an individual surveys a skyline and asserts women contributed nothing to it, they aren’t exposing a historical truth. They’re demonstrating their own limited perspective. In a nation already grappling with isolation, bitterness, and uncertainty about masculinity, such obliviousness exceeds offensiveness. It poses a threat.

Reexamining Miami’s skyline proves instructive. One Thousand Museum, among the city’s most prominent towers, was designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. Miami developer Lissette Calderon commenced a high-rise project on the Miami River at 28, with her firm subsequently completing numerous multifamily developments in the city. Miami’s architectural landscape was further influenced by Marion Manley, a trailblazing architect who assisted in designing the University of Miami campus and shaped South Florida’s urban growth for decades. In reality, women literally built it.