Teachers are reporting instances of boys claiming the pay gap doesn’t exist, says sociologist Samantha Schulz. They are encountering boys claiming women lie about rape, who say that men are superior, and increasingly say things such as “make me a sandwich”, a modern take on the trope that a woman’s place is in the kitchen.
Schulz, an associate professor at the University of Adelaide, has studied the increasingly abusive behaviour of male school and university students towards their teachers.
This week, new data confirmed Australia’s gen Z men hold progressively sexist ideas, adding to existing research showing rising levels of misogyny amid a generation heavily influenced by the “manosphere”.
Erin Clarke, a research economist at the e61 Institute, crunched data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (Hilda) survey to show a clear trend of young men increasingly believing in traditional gender roles.
Gen Z men were born between 1997 and 2012 and are now aged between 13 and 28. Clarke’s work reveals those aged 15 to 24 showed the most noticeable uptick in belief in traditional gender norms.
– It is better for everyone involved if the man earns the money and the woman takes care of the home and children.
– Children do just as well if the mother earns the money and the father cares for the home and the children.
– A father should be as heavily involved in the care of his children as the mother.
– Mothers who don’t really need the money shouldn’t work.
– If both partners in a couple work, they should share equally in the housework and care of children.
– It is not good for a relationship if the woman earns more than the man.
– On the whole, men make better political leaders than women do.
– A working mother can establish just as good a relationship with her children as a mother who does not work for pay.
Clarke charted attitudes on gender norms from 2001 to 2023, ranking responses on a scale of one to seven based on people’s agreement with statements such as: “It is better for everyone involved if the man earns the money and the woman takes care of the home and children.” Seven represents “strong agreement”.
Other statements included: “On the whole, men make better political leaders than women do”, and “Mothers who don’t really need the money shouldn’t work”.
Clarke found that while young women are continuing to move away from traditional gender ideas, gen Z men are more likely to believe them compared with millennial and gen X men.
“There’s a general trend downwards … the average belief in traditional gender roles has been declining for the last 20 years,” Clarke says.
“But this group of gen Z men seems to be the exception to this trend.”
Until 2018, data showed gen Z men broadly held similar views to others a bit older that them, but that has changed even when factors including education, whether they’re partnered, and whether they live in a city or a rural area are accounted for.
“There is something going on,” she says.
She notes that existing preliminary data doesn’t pinpoint an obvious cause. But experts link the “manosphere” – a network of websites, blogs, influencers and chatrooms promoting extremist views about male supremacy – to reports of young men intimidating, harassing and threatening teachers, falsely claiming that the gender pay gap doesn’t exist, and falsely claiming that women routinely lie about rape.
Schulz agrees such behaviour has intensified and “is reflective of manosphere messaging”.
She has found university staff are also reporting an increase in disrespectful behaviour, adding women are reaching out to her because of the backlash from gen Z men in response to women teaching diversity-related content, or teaching in non-traditional areas, such as business.
Schulz refers to the work of Steven Roberts and Stephanie Wescott from Monash University, whose research has found a rise in sexism, sexual harassment and misogyny in Australian schools. Social media algorithms bring young boys and men into contact with the manosphere, which in turn feeds them misogyny.
That content can radicalise some boys, which can in turn perpetuate the gender inequality that underpins violence against women. Wescott has likened the process to radicalisation into far-right extremism.
Alleged rapist and human trafficker Andrew Tate is often singled out as one of the leading figures of the manosphere because of his large following on social media, but it also incorporates men’s rights activists, incels, men going their own way, and others.
In March, a United Nations Women’s report on gender equality found that the manosphere was responsible for moving misogyny into the mainstream.
UN Women researcher Laura Turquet said it was “organised resistance to gains that have been made on gender equality”, and included the targeting of women’s rights defenders, women in politics and others “who dare put their heads above the parapet and speak out on gender equality”.
A global study by Ipsos for International Women’s Day found about half of Australian men thought “things have gone far enough” when it comes to giving women equal rights with men, and that most Australian men think men are being expected to do too much to support equality.
Across the 31 countries surveyed, gen Z and millennials were more likely to think that a man who stays home to look after his children is less of a man than gen X and baby boomers do.
Schulz accuses some commentators of trying to downplay the shift by blaming women for how they manage young men, and ignoring the very real change in the current generation’s deep-seated beliefs and behaviours.
That’s “gaslighting bullshit”, she says. “You’re just not acknowledging the scale and magnitude.”
