Ann Wason Moore: Why powerful male figures are influencing Gold Coast boys

Worried about the frightening attitude towards women shown by boys at some Gold Coast schools? Then we need to understand what’s influencing them, writes Ann Wason Moore.

Let’s hear it for the boys.

And by boys, I mean straight, white men.

I’m not being ironic or even sarcastic, although cheerleading this nation’s most dominant demographic does make me throw up in my mouth a little.

Because don’t straight, white guys have it all?

After all, back in 2018, there were more men named John who run big companies in Australia than there were women. And last year, the number of women CEOs in Australia actually declined.

However, according to federal opposition leader Peter Dutton, the blokes are doing it tough and are ‘fed up’.

“I think a lot of young males feel disenfranchised and feel ostracised,” he told Wizard Home Loans founder Mark Bouris on his podcast called, no joke, Straight Talk.

“They’re pushing back and saying, ‘well, why am I being overlooked at work for a job, you know, three jobs running when I’ve got, you know, a partner at home, and she’s decided to stay at home with three young kids, and I want a promotion at work so that I can help pay the bills at home’ and so I think all of that has morphed.”

Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Wizard Home Loans founder Mark Bouris.

Interestingly, data from the Australian Human Right Commission shows that in 2023-2024, men only made up 21 per cent of all sex discrimination complaints, a decline from previous years, while racial discrimination statistics have barely shifted.

But the fact is that facts don’t matter. Instead, perception is reality.

If men and boys feel like they are being discriminated against, even if they aren’t, then that is how they will act. And vote.

Look at Donald Trump’s election victory (here comes that vomit again), the so-called manosphere, headed by the likes of Joe Rogan and Andrew Tate, played a huge role in his re-election.

And Australia’s own Tim Minchin has a great argument for why statistics show that, politically, boys are going right and girls are going left in America … and it applies here as well.

“If you’re a boy, if you’re a straight white bloke in contemporary America, you are not seeing a lot of positive messages about how great straight white blokes are. There’s not a lot of stuff for you about pride that makes you feel good. There’s a lot of stuff about how terrible you are.

“[So you’re] just going to run into the arms of someone who lets [you] feel pride, like every population on Earth, forever. You take away pride from people – it’s bad … It doesn’t matter whether you agree with me or not about the messaging we’re sending these boys – watch them drift towards Andrew Tate.”

Joe Rogan, President Donald Trump, Kid Rock and Elon Musk pose during a UFC event at Madison Square Garden in New York last November. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)

He’s absolutely correct.

Look at the frightening number of ‘lists’ written by Gen Z boys in Australian schools, including on the Gold Coast, which shows a terrifying attitude towards women.

Not only that, but we’re living at a time where these boys’ parents are minimising their behaviours and seem to have no idea how ‘influencers’ like Nick Fuentes, who promotes white supremacist, misogynistic, and antisemitic views, and Andrew Tate are radicalising their sons.

But rather than slam this gender and generation, let’s try to embrace them.

Toxic masculinity is a real thing, but the truth is there are so many great boys and men out there and they can’t pay the price for the disgusting minority. We can’t keep emphasising the negative. Rather than shaming them, let’s help them find some pride for their many positive attributes.

History teaches us that there’s only so much anyone can take of being told how bad they are.

At the end of World War I in 1919, Germany was made to sign the Treaty of Versailles, which contained a ‘war guilt clause’ that held Germany completely responsible for starting the war and liable for the cost of massive damages.

“The shame of defeat and the 1919 peace settlement played an important role in the rise of Nazism in Germany and the coming of a second ‘world war’ just 20 years later,” states the Holocaust Encyclopaedia.

This is why we need to come back to a place of understanding that promoting equality for women does not mean disadvantaging or disenfranchising men. And remembering that equality works both ways, just as we celebrate women, so we should celebrate men.

Because if we rub a dog’s nose in its mess for long enough, it will bite back.

Originally published as Ann Wason Moore: Why powerful male figures are influencing Gold Coast boys