Youth advocate and educator Daniel Principe on healthy masculinity

He's tackling toxic masculinity 

The 2025 NSW Australian of the Year nominee on healthy masculinity and his mission to shape the next generation.

You’ve spent almost a decade on the frontline encouraging young men to battle toxicity. How did you become so passionate about working with guys to help them rethink the topics of masculinity, sex and relationships?

I have a health professional background and a post-grad in media and PR. I’m fascinated with how the media we consume shapes our social norms, how we act, how we behave in relationships and our ideas about sex, intimacy and love. I then began to encourage young people – boys especially – to examine social media and think critically about the content and potentially harmful messages that they’re being sold. That work then expanded as I became an ambassador for the Australian Government’s Consent Can’t Wait campaign, addressing issues like rape culture, violence and pornography in the media, encouraging conversations that adults should be having with young people to change the current culture.

As someone working in this space, what do you see as the biggest challenges facing young men today?

The world for men has changed and, as a result, we’ve got two sides of the ditch, where we’re seeing some boys check out, becoming passive, immature and failing to take on responsibility. And then you see the opposite, which is fuelled by some influencers online who encourage men to dominate and pursue power, money and status. The algorithm can take them down a very dark path, just by virtue of them being teenage boys. We’ve neglected to tell better stories, to give boys healthier heroes and to teach them that there’s a whole other way of being. We’ve let the internet take charge instead.

What advice do you give to young men about living healthy, purposeful lives and how to identify positive values that they can align with?

Log off and touch grass. Go and do things that are meaningful to you, whether that’s singing, creating, running, lifting, cooking or fixing. Whatever that looks like, go out and do things that make you feel a sense of self-mastery, accomplishment and that are going to cultivate healthy self-esteem. I also tell them to choose their friends and heroes wisely. You don’t want to make it harder than it needs to be for you to be the best version of yourself. If friends are tearing you down, if they don’t like you being respectful and considerate and courageous, then you may have to just steadily minimise how much time you’re spending with those sorts of influences.

You regularly have heavy discussions in the course of your work. What does self-care look like for you?

I’m a 99 per cent extrovert, but I’ve learnt to enjoy some downtime on the weekend where I cook for friends, read and enjoy being out in nature. I also love exercise and do different grounding practices throughout the day, whether that’s moving my body, getting into sunlight or simply being aware of the thoughts and feelings in my mind and body. However, even though these are big topics and it can be hard, the reason I’m always enthusiastic and optimistic about what’s possible is that I get to see young people at their best, and I get to work with schools and communities who are committed to that. Every day I get to be part of nurturing the kind of society and culture we’re looking to create, and that helps my overall wellbeing.

How can we work to change the habits, attitudes and values of young men for the better?

We've got to model it. They can't be what they can't see. At home we need to recognise what we celebrate. Are we celebrating how men treat others, or that they're loving and kind? The role parents have is to set their own culture based on these questions, giving young people opportunities and teachable moments to think about relationships and consent when they're young. Young men have never had access to these conversations or received the appropriate encouragement to be good, decent, kind, loving men. Once we give them that opportunity, the things that young men have to say are just so beautiful and so profound. If we could continue to nurture that as they go through adolescence and get older, nurturing that care and that kindness and that decency, my goodness, I think male culture and our world would look drastically different.

Originally published as Youth advocate and educator Daniel Principe on healthy masculinity