The concerning rise of misogynistic behaviour among young men has been brought to the fore as school returns in the Yarra Ranges for 2026.
It’s a trend documented by many research studies with female teachers often being targeted by sexist behaviours that range from subtle comments undermining authority, to digital sexual abuse.
The growth of the “manosphere” – an online network promoting toxic and rigid masculinity norms – has been directly linked to the disturbing phenomenon.
Dr Stephanie Wescott, a culture and society lecturer at Monash University, said because of this, positive role models have never been more important.
“The parents of young people might think, ‘They’re not interested in what I have to say, all they care about is whoever is online’,” Dr Wescott said.
“But it’s not true. It’s still important to say those things and to demonstrate in your home what a safe, emotionally expressive and expansive and psychologically healthy adult can look like, because they will be absorbing that.”
Her sentiment was echoed by Heath Pawley, who is the secretary of the Yarra Ranges based men’s group Mountain Men.
He said the male caregivers focus group run by Mountain Men showed men how to lead by example to model positive behaviours, overpowering the influence of the manosphere.
“You can’t just tell them to respect their mother for example, you’ve obviously got to respect their mother as well. It’s something that’s definitely led by example,” Mr Pawley said.
Data from the House, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (Hilda) survey revealed a significant uptick of young men increasingly believing in traditional gender norms in the past few years.
Social media algorithms, optimised for extreme, highly engaging content, are capturing the attention of young boys and luring them into the rabbit hole.
For example, a 2024 study from the University College London and University of Kent found that TikTok accounts modelled on teenage boys detected a four-fold increase of manosphere and anti-feminist content over a five day period.
Recent instances of female teachers and students experiencing heightened sexism and harassment reveals the disturbing real-world consequences of the rise in misogyny.
In 2024 two Yarra Valley Grammar School boys were expelled after a list which ranked girls from “wifeys” to “unrapeable” was discovered.
Multiple horrific reports of sexually explicit images of female students and teachers generated using artificial intelligence have occurred, such as the instance at Bacchus Marsh grammar.
A 2024 University of Melbourne research article found those who hold misogynist and racist beliefs are more likely to agree with extremist ideologies and be accepting of gender-based violence.
The pernicious effects of social media was one of the reasons Mountain Men formed – to get men off social media and out into the world.
“Youth are finding these misogynistic groups or figures online, but the online world in my opinion, it’s not real.
“The actual startup of Mountain Men was really a drive to get people off their phones and off Facebook and back into the real world and connecting people into reality,” Mr Pawley said.
Ms Wescott said in the end, critical thinking and digital literacy needs to be taught from an early age to young people in order to see through the manosphere’s facade of self-improvement.
“The better solution is to do the critical thinking and to do the critical digital literacy as young as possible. So to help people understand that everything they see on social media is persuasive, is intended to be persuasive. It’s not neutral content.
“You have to understand what the motives are of the person who’s made that content and how they want to make you feel or how they want to make you think and how they benefit from that,” Ms Wescott said.
Mr Pawley hopes fathers will take the lead and demonstrate what good, respectful men look like.
“I think one of the key things is having in-person male role models who are positive, being coaches, being teachers, being necessarily family male role models who might be in this person’s life.
“I think it’s really important to seek out support and these positive role models in real life,” he said.
