Braiding a Ladder: Three Writers on Modern-Day Misogyny & How to Climb Out of It
by Mikaela Brewer & Gillian Smith-Clark for The 44 North, Senior Editor & Editor-in-Chief
This introductory essay is the opening to a three-part project on modern-day misogyny. You can read three essays by Jeff Perera, Cole Martin, and Asante Haughton in our October-November 2026 issue, or follow our newsletter to receive them directly in your inbox.
CNN’s reporting, its precedent, and its aftermath
In March 2026, CNN reported findings after a months-long investigation into a website and chat space that instructed men on how to drug and secretly sexually assault their wives and partners (Fact Check, Yahoo News, and MSN). It quickly became dubbed the “online rape academy.” Since then, the internet has erupted in backlash, outrage, and defensiveness regarding the exact number of men involved—thousands, regardless of debate. “The risk of sensationalization” as an argument has saturated online responses to the investigation, evading the pervasive truth in CNN’s reporting: The scale and seriousness of a culture that normalizes, rehearses, and facilitates violence against women.
Here in Canada, this news eerily echoes the Hockey Canada sexual assault scandal, where 5 players were acquitted. And although much of CNN’s investigation occurred outside of Canada, its genesis is an international conversation. The rape of a spouse has not long been illegal here, first criminalized in Canada in 1983 following a long-time exemption for ‘marital rape’ and strict definitions in Canada’s 1892 criminal code (it has since been removed and replaced with a tiered ‘sexual assault’ framework). Rape remains legal in several countries where cultural norms differ around consent and the ‘ownership’ of women. In the same vein, language(s) matter beyond national borders and news reporting. Arguably, it matters more on the ground.
On the language we use and why we need multiple voices to reframe
When The 44 North team was deciding how to write on this topic, one of the first ideas that surfaced was: We need men’s voices. Rather than responding narrowly or singularly to one story or trend, we were interested in a broader project that flipped the topsoil of misogyny.
Many men don’t see themselves as “having the capacity for violence,” and in that belief, it’s easy to dismiss accountability with: “It’s not all men, and I’m not part of the problem.”
As a team, we spoke about how frequently phrases like “kill count” are ignored at the bar when wives and partners aren’t around. We discussed the way many men are taught to feel like a “less masculine failure” if they don’t “get the girl” by the end of the night, breeding the brand of vulnerability that catalyzes violence. Then, there’s the labelling and normalization of sexual assault as past-tense, only proliferated in “old” R&B and rock music. Ultimately, we talked about how what might seem nostalgic or harmless at first—“boys will be boys”—can become the building block for something much more sinister.
The reality is, women can’t simply “tell” who the “good guy” is, nor who to trust. Men can’t claim to be feminists the same way white folks can’t claim to be anti-racist. These are earned not only by shifting internal feeling or belief (which no one else can see), but in action, community, and conflict.
Erotics of Liberation says this brilliantly in their post, Conflict is the smallest unit of abolition:
“I have seen this over and over, conflict is where we practice our values, instead of just talking about them. [...] I know it in every cell in my body: every difficult conversation is rehearsal for the world we’re trying to build.”
So, how can men approach other men in their lives?
We know that certain behaviours are internalized. But what if we focused less on what men are doing, and expanded the conversation: What have we come to expect and encourage men to do? This varies across age groups, language, and cultural backgrounds; different approaches to illumination rather than vilification will be needed. In other words, if our language matters most, we must ground it in reality, canvassing the spectrum of violence and allyship. This way, we can prioritize consent, lead with communication, and shift which people men aspire to be. Imagine a world where men change their role models, shattering narratives that centre the acquisition of worth, wealth, and status at the expense of women.
The succeeding essays do this vital work of re-imagination, foraying deeper into several topics. Jeff Perera writes on the root of assumed familiarity and entitlement, offering extensive examples and anecdotes. Cole Martin loops in the philosophical and artistic roots of humanity’s tendency toward both violence and kindness, discussing how to hold what coexists within us—by choice or not. To close, Asante Haughton directs our gaze to something vital and oft-missed in CNN’s coverage: How can we ‘expose’ something happening in plain sight, on websites that aren’t regulated by laws crafted to protect women from exploitation on the internet with the same fervour that we enact for children? In other words, as Haughton says, “Why, as a society, weren’t we looking?”
This series is an invitation to move beyond outrage alone and focus on systems, responsibility, and possible solutions. It explores how violence against women has so often been treated as unfortunate but inevitable, rather than as a serious governance and public-safety issue. It addresses why violence against women isn’t just a series of scandals, and how platform design, recommendation systems, anonymity, moderation failures, and profit incentives contribute to the spread and normalization of misogynistic harm. Regulatory, legal, and policy responses can make a difference, which we discuss alongside how governments have been slow to respond, revealing whose safety is treated as urgent. Ultimately, this series shows how men can lift not only the burden of awareness in community, but the emotional labour women are so often asked to do and carry in media and advocacy.
These essays are thoughtful, rigorous, and grounded. They connect cultural analysis with the practical questions of accountability and change. Importantly, this project isn’t a summary of recent headlines; we’re offering a deeper argument about systems, power, and what meaningful intervention looks like. Together, these essays offer a tapestry for one of the core aches of our world. They’re not an answer or even a map. But they are an invitation to think critically, which our team hopes you’ll accept with us.
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