Maya Del Rio Reddan

Thesis: Algorithms and Affects: Proliferating Gender Equality Backlashes amongst Boys and Young Men in Australia.

Biography

Maya Del Rio Reddan is a PhD student with the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre working at the intersection of Gender Studies and Criminology. She graduated with First-Class Honours from a Bachelor’s (Degree with Honours) in Gender Studies from the University of Melbourne in 2022. During this time, Maya was awarded the Gyles Turner Prize (2021) and Dean’s Honours List (2017, 2018, 2021) by the Faculty of Arts for interdisciplinary academic merit.

Maya’s Honours thesis developed a queer phenomenology of recommender algorithms and COVID-19 lockdowns, examining how TikTok’s algorithm and the disruptions of lockdowns queered experiences of time, space and self.
In 2025, she commenced her doctoral research at Monash University, extending her focus on recommender algorithms, digital media and gender to investigate how masculinity influencers, such as Andrew Tate, affect boys and young men’s perceptions of masculinity and gender equality.

Thesis summary

Maya’s PhD examines the mainstreaming of the Manosphere through masculinity influencers and recommender algorithms and explores why this is appealing to boys and young men. Her project emerges in response to the rising popularity of reactionary politics, the growing virality of online gendered disinformation and anti-feminism, and educators’ reports of escalating misogyny in Australian schools. Her research seeks to provide empirical evidence on the affective and emotional draws of problematic masculinity content to contribute to more effective violence prevention strategies.

Supervisors: Dr Naomi Pfitzner, Dr Stephanie Wescott,  Associate Professor Brady Robards.