Keeping track of the number of sexual partners a woman has (known as body count) to determine her worth or highlighting the physical and social characteristics she must have to be considered "high value" is a sexist and misogynistic trend promoted by groups of adult men on Instagram or TikTok. The idea? To support the return to the ideal of a submissive woman, domestic worker, and economically dependent on her husband. While the "high value" man is linked to concepts such as success and power.
Social networks have become a double-edged sword, a space to share and connect, but also a hostile place in which to spread hatred or disinformation. This reality combines with another more dangerous one: more than half of minors already use the internet regularly from the age of eleven and a third from before the age of ten, according to data from Save the Children, and their unlimited access can change their way of seeing the world, their way of relating and even of self-perceiving.
"If from society and from families we do not give them behavioral references, they are being given them on social networks," advances Cristina Gil, social educator and health psychologist. Ultra messages are reaching minors through social networks at a stage of life in which their identity is still under construction.
The psychologist Cristina Gil carries out in the Canary Islands different talks dedicated to minors to combat the toxic and sexist messages that are promoted on social media. She is also responsible, along with the Gran Canarian Asiria Álvarez, for the Canarian guide for a healthy use of social media, Without filters.
The President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, announced a month ago that he would increase the age of access to social networks for minors, going from fourteen to sixteen years, and that he will require digital platforms to take responsibility for their content. Just a few days ago, Meta and YouTube were ordered to pay six million dollars for their addictive algorithm, especially for the youngest people.
A referent on the other side of the screen
With the arrival of social media, content creators, influencers, and tiktokers have become role models for minors and also a new way to transmit messages, values, and beauty standards.
"Adolescence is a time when you are lost looking for role models and it is very easy for someone to go viral and succeed if the discourse they give resonates with them," she warns. In these circles that promote misogyny, to them (women), they sell beauty and behavior standards, while to them (men), they demand they become leaders, recruiting them through thought groups where they pay to be guided by a mentor. "If you are poor and don't have a yacht, it's because your mindset limits you," Cristina Gil exemplifies.
Despite the fact that adolescent girls realize that the physical profile of content creators is usually similar, it does not mean that the pattern does not affect their own self-perception. "When you are in adolescence, where identity and self-concept are formed, what makes you then see yourself in the mirror is that you don't like your face, your body," warns psychologist Cristina Gil.
The expert in Psychology points out that constant exposure to "perfect" physiques, where no pimples or redness are shown, but "hyper-made-up" and "completely unreal" skins, shapes the way young women perceive themselves. "If all the content you see is a face with certain characteristics or a certain body, there is no variety, it makes you think that is the norm," she adds. However, this aesthetic pressure, which is greater towards women, also exists against men, pushing them to pursue a more muscular and athletic body. "Each time we have approached badly between boys and girls," she points out.
Social media has marked different stages in terms of how content is shared. Currently, the youngest profiles of generation Z (those born between 1997 and 2012) usually choose not to share photos and videos. "There is a part that is not exposing myself so that they don't see me, don't judge me and don't give their opinion," explains the expert.
In the surveys conducted in the educational centers of the archipelago, it reveals that 82% of young women confessed that they did not consider uploading a photograph to social media that did not have a filter or that did not have touch-ups. While that percentage among young men is lower, because the pressure is directed more towards the body and filters are usually aimed at modifying the face. "If every day I see a photo of myself with a filter, when I look in the mirror I don't recognize myself and I don't like myself," she adds.
The high-value woman and the "body count"
The message of the ideal physique, can encourage eating disorders, but it also conditions the thinking of minors beyond the physical. Social media has become a field without fences or gates for ultra messages. Among these messages, promoted by adult men, but aimed at young boys, they are encouraged to count the sexual partners of their female peers (body count). "Basically they teach them that they have to watch their female peers because if a girl has a body count greater than I don't know how much, obviously she's worth nothing", explains the expert.
The risks of networks go beyond the explicit pornography they can find on the internet by passing through some very poor filters, but rather it is based on content that seeks to mold relationships and the way of perceiving women. "There is a lot of affective content that is totally harmful and that has to do with how they relate sexually in the future," she continues.
To the Telegram groups where sexual content of minors is shared, as reported by the National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE), the labels of "high-value woman and man" are also added. That is to say, the physical characteristics that a person must have, depending on their gender, to have greater value.
The viral phenomenon 'tradwife'
Under this concept, phenomena like the viral trend of the traditional wife (tradwife in English) are hidden, where women return to overcome gender roles, such as life centered on the home and on the care of the husband. As if it were an episode of the increasingly less dystopian British series Black Mirror, Gil explains that "there's like a resurgence of women who simulate on social media being housewives, who care for, who clean, who cook for their husband when he comes home from work." Meanwhile, the fictional role of the husband is that of provider, "the one who goes out to work and earn money."
The psychologist explains that the paradoxical thing about this type of trend is that, although this type of profile sells the image of a housewife, focused on satisfying her partner's needs, they are actually scripted content, with a team behind them. "Those women are not there baking bread from 5 in the morning, they have a recording team, cooks, cleaning staff. It's not real. But visually they sell it as if it were," she shows.
Behind these trends, Gil warns that the objective is "to mold thought" towards old frameworks, where the value of women is related to all those roles. "High-value women stay at home, are modest and don't bother," she adds. These trends are usually more applauded by men.
The fear of being a "beta" or a "simp"
Facing the phenomenon of the traditional wife, the concept of "high-value" men who have to be successful, muscular, and earn money is promoted on social media. To address young people, there are other concepts that are used pejoratively, such as beta or simp. The beta concept refers to the man who is not an "alpha male", that is, the one who occupies the high role in society.
Also "they call them simp, which is what was previously known as drink-payer", explains the expert. "Any man on social media who agrees with a woman, who has a more feminist thought and who does not align himself, is crushed", she continues.
Under this umbrella, trends of thought have emerged guided by the mastermind, small groups where money is paid to a guide who teaches you how to obtain "success." "It is a super-materialistic life of success," linked to the ideal of owning luxury cars, money, and living in places like Dubai.
Facing the risk of ultra messages on social media, Cristina Gil advocates for developing critical thinking in young people. "It's about asking ourselves what's happening with youth, why suddenly this content succeeds," she continues.
