Steven Roberts Archives

What schools should do now the manosphere thinks it’s back in charge

The men who helped Trump sweep to victory through inspiring young men to vote, such as billionaire investor Elon Musk and podcaster Joe Rogan, hold a network of power and influence that might further exacerbate the undermining of women and girls’ rights and safety during a second Donald Trump presidency and beyond.

Given the existing reach of far-right, misogynist figures in Australian schools, it’s also important to consider potential implications for Australian education.

Here in Australia, pre-election polling found Australian men were more likely to indicate support for Trump than women. More starkly, while a lower figure than those American young men who voted for Trump, a significant 43% of Australian men under 30 indicated their support for Trump over Harris. While some data indicate Trump’s appeal to young men is based on economic policy and job prospects, it’s impossible to ignore the appeal of strongman politics, misogyny and male supremacy.

This type of misogyny is highly influential. Now no longer restricted to online spaces, it is likely that we will see boys and young men emulating and repeating Trump’s views and attitudes. Taking this alongside the polling data from Australia that indicate broad support for Trumpian politics, policies and persona, there will likely be waves of influence in Australian schools that will require policy, curriculum and leadership-level response.

Urgent need for training in critical thinking about the manosphere

Trump has a history of endorsing conspiracy theories. During his campaign, he affiliated himself with anti-abortion and anti-vaccine activist and conspiracy theorist, RJK Jr, who said Trump had promised him control of public health agencies, ‘because we’ve got to get off of seed oils and we’ve got to get off of pesticide.’

For boys and young men consuming manosphere content and vulnerable to its misinformation, the emboldening effect of Trump’s election will have very real impacts on their understanding of key global issues, as well as girls’ and women’s safety.

This will make curriculum attention to critical thinking an essential and urgent priority. Critical and creative thinking has long been a general capability included in the Australian Curriculum. Now we need to pay specific attention to equipping young people with skills to identify misinformation and resist pervasive conspiracy theories; and increase all students’ critical digital literacy skills to understand how the manosphere exploits and manipulates their feelings and beliefs.

Brazen disregard for truth

Trump’s brazen disregard for truth and fact mirrors other manosphere figures, such as Tate, Trump and Joe Rogan. Both Trump and Rogan have claimed that Invermectin cures COVID and that vaccines alter your genes, among other conspiracies.Trump’s presidency is also a threat to climate action, which significantly regressed under his previous term. Joe Rogan and fellow manosphere figure Jordan Petersen have also faced criticism by scientists for their public climate change denialism. A conversation that took place on X between Trump and Musk was also widely condemned for being seeped in climate misinformation. The outcome of the election has also clearly emboldened white supremacists in the US, and is likely to do the same for such groups in Australia. This is especially concerning given their visibility has been already growing here in recent years..

Trump and manosphere support in Australia

Our research has indicated that figures of the manosphere—a term used to describe online groups, individuals and forums who represent anti-feminist and anti-women ideas—have influenced how boys behave towards women and girls in Australian schools. Andrew Tate is one of the most infamous members of the manosphere, a public misogynist charged with rape and human trafficking.

Once the election results were becoming clear, Tate announced that he is ‘moving back to America’—a clear endorsement of the election result and the permission provided for men like him to thrive in Trump’s America.

Tate later proudly boasted that ‘the men are back in charge’. He was making it clear women’s grievances were irrelevant now a male supremacist president was reinstalled.

These statements align with the comments posted by prominent far-right leader and activist Nick Fuentes, who posted on X ‘Your body, my choice. Forever’. This vile sentiment very quickly became a viral meme, across all the major social media sites. It was even printed on T-shirts and readied for purchase. Australian women have also reported being on the receiving end of the ‘’your body, my choice’ statement as well as experiencing an increase in violent and misogynist messages from men online since Trump’s election win.

In a climate of increasing hostility and endemic levels of violence against women, the affirmation of male supremacist ideas and attitudes by the election of a misogynist to public office presents a very real threat to women’s safety in Australia.

Viral misogyny

Tate’s influence on other manosphere creators and sympathisers and the viral spread of his misogynistic ideas is part of a phenomenon known as ‘networked misogyny’. The endorsement of Trump by high-profile figures such as Rogan and Musk provide an example of how figures of the manosphere work to support each other and provide access to power. For example, Musk used his significant profile on X to ‘amplify right-wing conspiracy theories, spread misinformation and promote the Republican candidate.’

Algorithms presenting manosphere content such as Andrew Tate’s to boys and young men regardless of whether they search for it. There is now a strong body of research documenting the ways that this content shapes how boys and young men treat women. This includes sexist and derogatory comments and behaviour. It also includes a refusal to accept the gender wage gap is real and opposition to gender equity.

Inaccurate beliefs

These beliefs are key parts of grievance politics that were key to Trump’s success, and feed inaccurate beliefs about disadvantage and lack of opportunity. These ideas find homes in the minds of boys and young men, who in return begin to see women and girls as barriers to their success.

It is crucial we increase all students’ critical digital literacy skills to understand the malign influence of the manosphere. With Australia heading into an election year in 2025, this need is more critical than ever.

Stephanie Wescott is a lecturer in Humanities in Social Sciences in the School of Education, Culture and Society, Monash University Faculty of Education. Her research explores socio-political phenomena and their intersections with education policy and practice.

Steven Roberts is a professor of Education and Social Justice in the School of Education, Culture and Society at Monash University Faculty of Education. He is a sociologist and has published widely in the areas of Critical Studies of Men and Masculinities and Critical Youth Studies.

Andrew Tate’s toxic trap and how it harms girls and women

In early 2023, the UK media began reporting the presence of Andrew Tate’s ideas and messaging in schools, with a seemingly connected change in behaviour of boy cohorts towards women teachers. Articles were published detailing how British teachers ‘see misogyny every day’, that schools were planning to ‘re-educate’ teenagers brainwashed by Andrew Tate, and that teachers had been advised not to discuss Andrew Tate with their students.

As researchers located in Australia, we observed this reporting on the presence of Andrew Tate’s ideology in UK schools with interest, and wondered in what ways, if any, was Andrew Tate reaching, and possibly changing, boys in Australian schools. While there is a long history of research into sexism in Australian schools, the recent rise in popularity of ‘manfluencer’ figures—internet personalities who share extremist ideas about masculinity and sexist ideas about women—of which Andrew Tate is a particular popular figurehead, calls for renewed investigation into the way these personalities might be informing boys’ views on girls and women.

In our just-published paper on this topic we report on our ongoing project—the first known study on the influence of Andrew Tate’s influence on boys in Australian schools. Drawing on interviews with 30 women from across Australia, who teach in both primary and secondary settings and across the Catholic, government and Independent sectors, we explore accounts of a widespread, discernible shift in boys’ attitudes and behaviours towards women and girls.

This shift was identified by each of our participants, characterised by behaviour overtly informed by Andrew Tate’s ideology, underpinned by a palpable masculinist supremacy, and culminating in accounts of unrelenting sexual harassment and misogyny encountered at participants’ schools. We explore each of our key findings below.

Infiltration of Tate ideology

Teachers unanimously reported during our interviews that changes in boys’ behaviour intersected with the growth of Tate’s popularity online. They shared that many of their students use Andrew Tate’s name to provoke girls and women in the classroom, that boys express freely how much they admire him, that they often share some of Andrew Tate’s beliefs about women (for example, ‘Andrew Tate says women shouldn’t be able to drive because they get into more accidents than men’), and that they have adopted Andrew Tate’s belief that men are victims of women’s increasing power and status in society.

Teachers also reported their students aligning with Andrew Tate’s belief that the charges laid against him are the result of a global conspiracy and that Tate is being unfairly vilified for his views on women. This makes it particularly difficult for teachers to challenge boys on their respect for Tate, when concern can be dismissed as part of the same conspiracy responsible for Tate’s arrest.

One of the key issues with Andrew Tate’s ideology in schools is that superficially, he presents as espousing a type of masculine success—wealthy, athletic and dominant with very clear rules on how to enact masculinity in the world. Disturbingly though, alongside boys’ engagement with Tate’s messaging on wealth, fitness and success, are other narrow and dangerous versions of masculinity that are founded on power, aggression and misogyny.

Male supremacy

Participants in our study described a resurgence of behaviour they described as male supremacy. Women reported increasing expressions of aggression and domination, unreasonable demands made of women teachers, and boys patronising girls and women. These behaviours have been accompanied by the use of Tate’s phrases to belittle and dehumanise women and girls, as well as the use of Tate’s mannerisms and ideas to wield dominant power in classroom interactions.

One of our participants reported that it is common for boys to demand more labour from women teachers, another described experiencing frequent expressions of male superiority, such as boys placing their feet on furniture or surrounding women teachers on yard duty, deliberately derailing lessons and dominating time and discussion, while another described the presence of an overwhelming culture of ‘entitlement and audacity’ from cohorts of boys that her school was unable to counter.

These examples, as well as others provided by women teachers, which include dismissing English texts written by women as not worthy of study, behaviour that constitutes gaslighting, belittling and dehumanisation, profoundly affect women at work. Women reported frequently engaging in combative interactions that challenge and undermine their gender, their political orientations, and their stance on Tate.

This behaviour, which women largely attribute to boys’ consumption of Andrew Tate content, led to one of our participants observing that ‘schools are not a safe place for teachers.’

Sexual harassment and misogyny

Although education research has long documented sexual harassment of teachers and girls, participants reported a wave of renewed and targeted harassment. This behaviour is causing huge disruptions to work and education, and in some cases prompted teachers’ resignations.

In our paper we report an instance of a student spitting in his teacher’s water bottle, objectification of women teachers’ bodies, sexual moaning noises, sexual harassment at school functions and in the classroom, and gendered slurs yelled at girls across the classroom. One of our participants observed that she ‘can see the influence of [Tate] in how my male students talk about girls.’

These examples serve as indications of the denigration of girls and women through sexual harassment, expressions of dominance in the classroom, and strategies that legitimate gender inequality.

Where to next?

In response to these findings, We argue that there is an urgent need to invite conversations in schools about sexism and sexual harassment, and to allow women and girls to be heard. There is a need for open discussion about the impact of misogynist influencers on boys and their behaviour, developing relationships and identities. School-level responses to this issue must be broader, long-term and more comprehensive to have an impact on the kinds of behaviour we have reported on in this article.

We are also interested in furthering the emerging research agenda examining ‘manfluencer’ culture and its consequences for educational settings; in particular, how leadership-level responses and school-wide policy approaches, for example, can tackle systemic and cultural problems in school that perpetuate violence against girls and women.