Four British women who have accused notorious influencer Andrew Tate of rape said on Wednesday they were "concerned" by reports the Trump administration was petitioning Romania to ease his travel restrictions. FRANCE 24's Sharon Gaffney speaks to Dr Stephanie Wescott, a lecturer at Monash University in Australia. She says that Tate is capitalising on rising fascist sentiment in his political aspirations.
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NewsTranscript
00:00This is Apropos.
00:04Four British women who've accused notorious influencer Andrew Tate of rape and coercive
00:09control have expressed concern about reports that the Trump administration has been petitioning
00:15Romania to ease his travel restrictions.
00:18The former kickboxer is under house arrest there on suspicion of rape and trafficking,
00:23which he denies.
00:24Bucharest claims that it has not come under any pressure to lift restrictions on his movements.
00:29James Vazina has the latest.
00:34It's with fear that Romanian authorities may be pressured by the United States that four
00:38women involved in separate cases have raised their concerns.
00:43After hanging up his gloves, former professional kickboxer and self-professed misogynist Andrew
00:48Tate turned to online platforms to encourage men to subscribe to an ultra-patriarchal framework
00:55with the belief that this will lead to a successful life.
00:59Together with his brother, he moved to Romania, growing their online presence and fortune,
01:04while critics have repeatedly warned of the influence that their content is having on
01:07young men.
01:11The British-American pair are currently being charged by Romanian prosecutors for human
01:15trafficking, sexual misconduct, money laundering and with starting an organised crime group.
01:22The brothers say that they're innocent and have recently been released from house arrest,
01:26but are forbidden from leaving the country.
01:29And this is where the Financial Times report comes in.
01:33The paper claims that US officials have reached out to the Romanian government with a request
01:37made to return the brothers' passports.
01:40The spokesperson for Romania's foreign minister has replied that the country's courts are
01:44independent and operate based on the law.
01:50The women who've expressed their concern about reported meddlings are accusing Andrew Tate
01:54of rape.
01:56Having brought a case to the High Court in the UK.
02:00Romania has granted a British request to extradite them once their cases in the country have
02:05concluded.
02:06For more on this story, let's cross live now to Australia, where Dr Stephanie Westcott
02:12is standing by for a special lecture at Monash University Faculty of Education.
02:17Stephanie, thanks so much for waking up so early to be with us this evening in Paris.
02:22Firstly, a British survey suggested just last month that Andrew Tate, we saw him in
02:28the report there, he's viewed positively by almost half of all young men.
02:34For people who may not be too familiar with this particular influencer, how to explain
02:39his appeal?
02:41I mean, it's pretty difficult to explain, honestly, for anyone who's viewed his content.
02:46It's highly offensive towards women.
02:49He's a dangerous individual, as these alleged charges against him suggest, but his appeal
02:56may be found in the way that he is able to speak to existing grievances among young men
03:03in particular.
03:04Some of those grievances are very real around, you know, taking charge of your economic future,
03:09economic security, but some of them play on really dangerous ideas about gender and about
03:15feminism, such as the idea that men need to take their power back, that women belong in
03:20the home, that men need to be in control in romantic relationships.
03:24So there's definitely something latently appealing about these ideas.
03:30But we need to be really careful about how we talk about Andrew Tate and whether or not
03:35we're willing to accept him as an emerging political figure.
03:40And do you think that these young men, they're influenced by his rhetoric or are they
03:45actually being driven towards him and towards other influencers of his ilk because they
03:50are already feeling alienated?
03:54They're actually being driven towards his content by algorithms in the first place.
03:58So there's a few studies now that confirm that a social media account on TikTok or even
04:05a YouTube account that belongs to a male person will be shown Andrew Tate content and other
04:13figures content, whether they choose to search for it or not, it will just appear on their
04:17phone. So they may just be innocently scrolling, looking for interesting content.
04:21All of a sudden they are exposed to these ideas about women, about men and masculinity,
04:28about feminism, about violence.
04:30And so there may be something initially appealing.
04:34There may be initial concerns or grievances among these young men, but they are being
04:37deliberately exploited by the social media companies through their algorithms and, of
04:41course, through these content creators themselves.
04:44And you say that Andrew Tate's success, it's a symptom of a much broader cultural shift.
04:50Can you explain that a little bit more for us?
04:53Yeah, so we've seen some really concerning regressions in ideas and acceptance around
04:58gender equality. It's sort of a bit of a post-MeToo backlash, feminist backlash.
05:03The very fact that Donald Trump has been elected to US presidency is a demonstration that
05:10women's rights and safety are under attack.
05:13We have argued, myself and my colleague Steve Roberts in our work, that the Manosphere,
05:17which is this network of very powerful men such as Joe Rogan, for example, Elon Musk,
05:23Donald Trump and other content creators online, are working together in a networked way to
05:28accrue political power and to support each other.
05:32And so we really need to be careful about that, especially with the spread of far right
05:37sentiment, the rise of fascism.
05:39And we're concerned about it in Australia, too, with our upcoming election.
05:42And are they deliberately mirroring tactics that we're seeing being used by the likes
05:47of Donald Trump, also Elon Musk?
05:51Absolutely. So we saw that once Donald Trump achieved electoral success in the most recent
05:57election, that Andrew Tate then began to talk about his own political aspirations and
06:02formed his own political party, which he called BRUV, which is actually an acronym,
06:07but is also a play on the British term of endearment.
06:11And he's capitalising on these sort of fascist and far right sentiments that have been
06:16quite successful in the American election and American political discourse.
06:21And he now has his own political aspirations.
06:24But it also makes sense that Donald Trump would want to be forgiving of Andrew Tate's
06:28alleged crimes, as Donald Trump himself has been accused of sexual misconduct and
06:32violence towards women.
06:34So what this is telling us is that women's concerns and women's safety are actually
06:38irrelevant to men's political aspirations.
06:41And why do you think that young men particularly are feeling so politically alienated?
06:46And do you know at all how women are reacting to influencers like Andrew Tate?
06:52It's a really interesting question why these men are appealing to young men in particular,
06:58especially when you can look at their content and easily dismiss it as extremist and
07:03offensive. As I mentioned before, there are some very real social and political and
07:08economic concerns among young people, but they are concerns that are affecting people of
07:13all genders. They're not just affecting young men.
07:17So some of it is actually the influence of deliberate disinformation.
07:21About men's position in society, about unequal advantage that is afforded to women and
07:27people of other genders and sexualities.
07:30So it's very much a victim narrative and an agreed entitled narrative that I think some
07:36people are finding very appealing.
07:38And of course, to young women and all women, actually, this is just blatantly dangerous and
07:42offensive. It's not possible to just say, well, some of Andrew Tate's ideas are actually
07:47good. I ignore the rest of it, because anyone who has a position that women are inherently
07:53inferior to men, we should just be able to broadly dismiss them and not accept some of
07:57their claims as acceptable.
07:58So it's a very dangerous time for women to see these men and their views legitimised in
08:04politics.
08:05And Stephanie, experts such as yourself say that the rise of this kind of misogynistic
08:10culture, it's fuelling a normalisation of harmful attitudes towards women.
08:15How exactly do you even begin to start tackling that?
08:21That is a great question and it's something that we're grappling with in our work.
08:25We think it's really important to begin in education, because this is where we're seeing a
08:30lot of this dangerous rhetoric manifest.
08:32In our research, we found that young men in schools in Australia and there's research
08:36elsewhere demonstrating that young men are starting to parrot some of these ideas and
08:40views. So we think it's actually important to treat this as disinformation and as
08:45the process of radicalisation that we're seeing occur and to combat this through a
08:51process of education and an education campaign, just like you would any other
08:55radicalisation process.
08:57And Stephanie, just finally, what are the specific dangers that beliefs like this are
09:02entering the mainstream, but it's also coming at a time where in a lot of countries
09:06around the world, public trust in democracy and in institutions is failing?
09:12Yeah, so it's co-occurring in this post-truth period where we're seeing increased
09:17scepticism towards known facts and trusted experts and institutions.
09:21And Andrew Tait absolutely plays on that.
09:23He encourages young men to escape what he calls the matrix, which is basically just a
09:29mainstream kind of life, having a job, paying tax, voting.
09:33It's sort of this idea that you can live this alternate lifestyle that's outside of, I guess,
09:38mainstream life and institutions and organisations.
09:42And we're also seeing that, of course, in America with some of the ideas that are being
09:46offered by people within that actual government institution.
09:52So it's very much riding the wave of post-truth and suggesting that we can make up our
09:57own facts and we can make up our own information for you to believe and take what's
10:01appealing to you and convenient and speaks to you emotionally rather than what is
10:05actually known and truthful.
10:08Stephanie, we'll have to leave it there for now.
10:09But thank you so much for being with us on the programme this evening.
10:13That's Dr Stephanie Westcott, a lecturer at Monash University Faculty of Education.
10:20Well, that is it from us.