How jiujitsu can change things
Starting with misogyny
Have you watched the Louis Theroux Manosphere documentary on Netflix?
For me, I was aware of the red pill stuff beforehand. I’ve always had an interest in subcultures, from obscure music-based lifestyles to survivalists and preppers. The problem with the internet is that you can rabbit hole on this stuff.
The pick up stuff happened in the early part of this century, along with the nonsense on 4chan. These are part of a rise in perspectives and increased vocalisation of views that could be considered as contributing and forming what is now termed “The Manosphere”.
I find it all a bit odd.
The Louis Theroux documentary highlights how misogyny and/or negative views of women are perpetuated through digital channels.
So what can be done about it?
Bizarrely a contact sport where men and women train together may actually provide some answers.
A bit of context
I remember watching the sports reporting on the news one evening. I can’t remember the exact details but the mens national team in some particular sport had just lost again and were on their way home from a tournament.
A woman from Great Britain had just broken an endurance record for a race. It was a mixed gender race.
The reporting spent fifteen minutes or so on the glorious failure of the men. Then about ninety seconds on the woman. My wife pointed out the disparity. It hadn’t even occurred to me. She said something like “It has been like this all of my life. We are always a side note.”
At the time, alongside grappling, I’d been doing some triathlon training. Within that I had been looking at how age affects performance in endurance events. There’s some interesting research on how women close the difference and often outperform men in ultra endurance events. Particularly as women get older. There’s a whole bunch of reasons why. Here’s an easy read that talks it through News article (yes it's the Guardian) and here’s a research paper on it!
What I found when I joined the local tri club is that the men didn’t view the women as lesser athletes. In fact they supported them, and there were no comments like “She’s good, for a woman”. Instead the phrases you’d hear were “She’s good”, “She’s strong” and praise for their performances. In triathlon women are seen as equal, and talked about as athletes, not as female athletes.
Just athletes.
There are a few sports where men and women train together. In triathlon men and women also race together. When the race is over and the rankings are done, then yeah and athletes performance can be categorised, (by age and gender).
I think the training environment makes a difference.
And here’s why
Anecdotally, sports where men and women train with each other appear to positively impact how men view women. By anecdotally, I’m referring to my experience of triathlon and grappling, but I bet it’s also true in Crossfit. AND THERE’S A THEORY THAT SUPPORTS THIS.
Back in the eighties (a great but also shit decade IMO) there was a social psychologist called Serge Moscovici. He came up with something called Conversion theory of minority influence. Don’t worry it’s not that kind of conversion theory.
Within this theory…
1. A consistent, confident minority that challenges majority norms can provoke cognitive conflict.
2. This conflict leads majority members to engage in deeper processing, questioning assumptions rather than simply conforming.
3. Over time, this may result in private, lasting attitude change (”conversion”) rather than compliance.
That’s a bit academic sounding right? Basically in grappling this could be explained as
A bunch of women train jiu jitsu in a mixed environment. They get good at it, and kick peoples arses. The men they train with freak out a bit because they didn’t think women could do stuff like that. This changes how the men view women, (and not just the ones they train with).
I might have over simplified that, partly for comedic effect. But you get what I mean. Seeing women perform and excel first hand in a mixed training environment, and having direct experience of it.
In jiu jitsu this might be getting taken down, or swept or tapped (or all three).
In triathlon, being out run or overtaken on the bike or swimming (or all three).
I’ve had direct experience of all of the above! Did it change my view? Yeah I think it did. It would be easy to describe me as woke, but I will admit in both examples of jiu jitsu and triathlon, when I started I had a different perception of womens performance. Over time that perception was challenged. It happened a lot quicker in triathlon because there were more women (although still a minority). Womens participation in jiu jitsu has grown dramatically in recent years. It’s still nowhere near 50%, I’d guess around 10-20% (I didn’t guess I did a few random searches on the web).
What’s particularly ironic is when people eulogise how effective BJJ is, and how technique beats strength, also talk down womens grappling.
What does this mean?
Well men should support women in sports because it’s absolutely the right thing to do and it has a positive effect on society as a whole (see this from the UN https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/gender-equality)
Gender equality, besides being a fundamental human right, is essential to achieve peaceful societies, with full human potential and sustainable development. Moreover, it has been shown that empowering women spurs productivity and economic growth.
So the long and the short of it is you should support womens jiujitsu because it makes the world a better place.
Plus, training with women will make you a better person, as it will improve how you view and perceive other people.
It’s crazy in many ways as I can’t believe in 2026 I’m actually writing this and having to justify any of it. I’m fifty fucking six this year, why the fuck are people listening to these manosphere influences? and why on earth are men in positions of power able to exploit women (and minors)?
It’s disgusting, but you can do something about it. Support the women who you train with, celebrate the success of women in our sport, and, more importantly, don’t be a misogynistic prick.