Like the “good girl” I am, I've been refraining from the MAFS Australia spoilers until it released here in the UK. No easy feat, given the explosive nature of the show — though Channel 4 did soften my impatience slightly by offering screeners ahead of the release.
Of all the entertainment I cover, reality TV is my bread and butter. I can tolerate chaos, manipulation, even the occasional staged meltdown. But within minutes of the first episode, I had the ick.
Not because the contestants were particularly shocking, but because they sounded eerily familiar. The men on MAFS Australia didn’t sound like villains. They sounded like Reddit threads.
In confessional after confessional, grooms outlined the values they prioritise in a wife, the worst thing they could encounter at the altar (apparently a woman who isn’t thin), and what they need in a marriage. But all I heard was Andrew Tate this, incel commenter that, Reform-branded creep rhetoric everywhere.
Contestants don’t just hold sexist beliefs anymore; they now sound like the comment sections that incubate them. And that’s what makes it unsettling. The scariest thing about MAFS Australia isn’t the misogyny. It’s how normal the language now sounds.
Reality TV isn’t inventing misogyny anymore. It’s translating internet radicalisation into dinner-party dialogue.
Look, I know it's been bad for a while. Last summer, I wrote about the manosphere creeping into series 12 of Love Island. A few weeks ago, I watched women doing the patriarchy’s work for them in Love Island: All Stars. And season 10 of Love Is Blind even managed to weaponise Pilates, when a man broke up with a stunning, slim woman because she didn’t work out every single day.
But dare I say it, this season of MAFS Australia feels worse.
Because now the quiet part is being said out loud, without embarrassment. Somehow, there’s no longer any shame attached to parroting manosphere ideology. It’s just… normal.
One groom is introduced by announcing: “Looks are massive for me — it’s not all about personality, surely.” Moments later, he cheerfully adds, “Fat people? No go.”
Sorry? These aren’t just preferences. They’re ideological talking points that have migrated from obscure corners of the internet into prime-time television.
These aren't relationship styles, they're relationship traps
Part of the reason these ideas travel so easily is that the language has been softened. The old misogyny was blunt. Women belong in the kitchen. Don’t get fat. Know your place. The new misogyny comes wrapped in pastel language: feminine energy, traditional values, high-value men.
Same hierarchy. Just better PR. They hired whoever was handling Armie Hammer's return.
Rather than outright declaring that women should be subordinate, the rhetoric now sounds suspiciously like self-help. Men don’t say they want control; they say they want a woman who “respects masculine leadership.”
The Manosphere has learned a valuable branding lesson: misogyny lands better when it sounds like a podcast about self-improvement.
On MAFS Australia, this translation happens constantly.
Contestant, Melissa Akbay, describes herself as “pink” searching for “blue”, referencing a gendered framework she repeats both in her confessional and in her wedding vows. She also leans into the imagery of “Barbie and Ken.”
Look, I loved the Margot Robbie movie as much as the next girlie. But perhaps we shouldn’t be modelling our relationship hierarchies on plastic dolls.
Melissa frames “pink” tasks as cute and feminine. But translated plainly, they mean being submissive, handling the housework, trusting your male partner with the finances, and being dependent on him.
It sounds far less charming when you say it like that.
Women are complicit in their subjugation
Watching men preach their Manospheric worldview is uncomfortable enough. Watching women internalise it might be worse.
Reality TV increasingly features women describing their ideal partner as a “high-value man” – or, as MAFS Australia contestant Gia Fleur put it, an “alpha male.”
Yes, a 35-year-old single mother went on national television to announce she was searching for an “alpha male.” She also explained that she has never been cheated on “because [she’s] a catch.” According to Gia, if you cook, clean, stay thin, provide enough sex and work out daily, you’re exempt from infidelity.
Which is fascinating, because the last time I checked, cheating was a choice, not a performance review.
Somehow, the logic of the manosphere has crept so far into mainstream dating culture that women are now repeating the same framework that once existed primarily in male-dominated internet forums.
The Manosphere’s biggest win wasn’t radicalising men. It was convincing women that the rules were normal.
We see it elsewhere, too. Contestant Alissa describes wanting the “princess treatment”, a dating ideology that has exploded across TikTok in recent years. On the surface, it sounds empowering: women demanding better treatment and refusing to settle. But scratch slightly beneath the surface, and the dynamic often reverts to something far older — women relying on men to open doors, order food, manage finances, and provide stability.
It sometimes feels like the manosphere is gifting feminism a Trojan horse. On the outside: empowerment, standards, princess treatment. Inside: the same old dependence on male approval.
MAFS is the perfect ecosystem for manosphere thinking
Last year, Glamour editor Sophie Donovan wrote about divorcing MAFS entirely. The self-confessed reality TV addict decided the show had finally reached a breaking point.
She still watches Love Island, and Love Is Blind — shows we gleefully debrief together — but Married at First Sight was a step too far.
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It’s easy to see why. The format itself encourages manosphere logic. MAFS is already built around rigid gender expectations, framing relationships as a negotiation between “what men need” and “what women need.” Which makes it the perfect stage for manosphere ideology to perform.
Every season features the same archetypes: the alpha male, the submissive wife, the “difficult feminist.” These aren’t people. They’re internet characters. MAFS doesn’t just cast couples. It casts gender discourse.
Other reality shows are witnessing similar shifts towards male dominance and casual misogyny. But MAFS feels particularly vulnerable because it’s rooted in the patriarchal concept of marriage itself. The power dynamics are baked into the format.
The show isn’t reflecting the manosphere; it’s mainstreaming it
To be clear, MAFS Australia didn’t invent the manosphere. The show is reflecting a broader cultural shift.
That’s both the beauty and horror of reality television. It puts real social dynamics under a microscope, which is partly why I keep watching despite my feminist instincts screaming otherwise.
We cannot wait.
But when these dynamics are packaged as entertainment, something strange happens. They stop looking alarming. They start looking normal.
The manosphere used to live in obscure corners of the internet. Now it airs at 7.30 pm.
Reality TV didn’t invent misogyny. But shows like MAFS Australia might be doing something arguably worse: providing the blueprint to successfully embed misogyny into your own dating app profiles and relationships.
