Gender is always in motion, but is masculinity in crisis?
Gender is always in motion, but is masculinity in crisis? In this episode, host David Karsten speaks with Dr Ben Rich and Todd Morley about modern masculinity, the challenges men face today, the rise of extremism and the solutions that could benefit us all.
Doctor Ben Rich
Dr Ben Rich is a senior lecturer in the School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry, and co-director of the Curtin Extremism Research Network (CERN), where his research focuses on the factors behind politically extreme views in areas such as gender, race, and public health.
Todd Morley
Todd Morley is a PhD researcher in the School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry. His current research focuses on the radicalisation patterns of lone actor terrorists, and he also works as a preventing/countering violent extremism practitioner and consultant outside of Curtin.
This podcast is brought to you by Curtin University. Curtin is a global university known for its commitment to making positive change happen through high-impact research, strong industry partnerships and practical teaching.
Email thefutureof@curtin.edu.au
Host: David Karsten
Content creator and recordist: Zoe Taylor
Editor: Caitlin Crowley
Producer: Emilia Jolakoska
Executive Producers: Anita Shore and Natasha Weeks
Curtin University acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, the First Peoples of this place we call Australia, and the First Nations peoples connected with our global campuses. We are committed to working in partnership with Custodians and Owners to strengthen and embed First Nations’ voices and perspectives in our decision-making, now and into the future.
Curtin University supports academic freedom of speech. The views expressed in The Future Of podcast may not reflect those of Curtin University.
00:00:00:03 - 00:00:09:07
Sarah Taillier
This is The Future Of, where experts share their vision of the future, and how their work is helping shape it for the better.
00:00:09:09 - 00:00:38:13
David Karsten
What does it mean to be a man in 2025? In many countries around the world, men have greater flexibility than ever to express and practise their masculinity. And yet, research shows that men are struggling across their lives – from education to mental health and employment. The falling-behind stats on Australian men's mental health are particularly alarming, with Beyond Blue finding that 43% of men will experience depression or anxiety at some stage in their lives.
00:00:38:19 - 00:01:03:03
David Karsten
Twenty-six per cent will delay seeing a doctor for help, and seven out of nine people who die every day by suicide are men. Violent extremism is also on the rise, in part magnified by radical influencers like Andrew Tate, who espouse polarising gender rhetoric across social media. Gender is always in motion, but is masculinity in crisis? If so, how did it get here?
00:01:03:04 - 00:01:26:12
David Karsten
More importantly, where to for men from here? With me today to explore this complex topic are Dr Ben Rich and Todd Morley from Curtin University. Ben is a senior lecturer in the School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry and co-director of the Curtin Extremism Research Network. Todd Morley is a PhD researcher, also in the School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry.
00:01:26:18 - 00:01:47:08
David Karsten
He is also an external practitioner and consultant in preventing and countering violent extremism. As always, if you'd like to find out more about this topic, you can visit the links provided in the show notes. Ben, welcome back. And Todd, welcome to the podcast, gentlemen. First of all, let me just say we've got a raft of massive questions to cover today.
00:01:47:10 - 00:02:04:03
David Karsten
What an issue this is. Ben, what's going on with men today? What are some of the challenges they’re dealing with? What are we dealing with as men, and what are the impacts these challenges are having on how we see ourselves?
00:02:04:05 - 00:02:26:17
Dr Ben Rich
Yeah, thanks for having me back. Look, there’s a term that’s becoming quite in vogue in larger portions of the academy – polycrisis. This is the idea that you don’t have a single crisis going on – you have a multitude of crises occurring simultaneously, which have all sorts of interactions and impacts.
00:02:26:17 - 00:02:55:13
Dr Ben Rich
And I think when we look at the status of men, and particularly young men today, we might typify that as one of these manifestations of polycrisis. I think undergirding what we’re seeing today is the fact that men’s roles in society are increasingly uncertain, unmoored. What it is to be considered a successful man is increasingly hard to define.
00:02:55:15 - 00:03:33:14
Dr Ben Rich
People talk about a crisis of masculinity as if this is a modern phenomenon. What we actually know, historically speaking, is that when we see periods of major economic and social transformation, you often see a corresponding manifestation – a crisis of masculinity. If we go back to the 1950s, with the rise of white-collar work and the early emergence of things like deindustrialisation, you see a series of publications and advertisements talking about the increasing feminisation of men.
00:03:33:16 - 00:04:00:21
Dr Ben Rich
At the same time, you have the period of second-wave feminism and progressive values and wins starting to emerge for women. But if we look at today, we’re in an environment of increasingly casualised work. Something that has historically been attributed to a strong sense of masculinity and purpose for men – linked to work – has shifted.
00:04:00:21 - 00:04:20:07
Dr Ben Rich
The reality is the job market increasingly facing everyone is one in which you might have anywhere between 10 and 20 jobs across your life. So how do you plan for that? How do you build a sense of achievement out of that?
00:04:20:09 - 00:04:40:11
Dr Ben Rich
There’s some interesting data out there. For example, ABS data from the last year or so showed that 54% of men aged between 16 and 29 are still living at home with their parents. When we compare that with women, it’s 47%.
00:04:40:11 - 00:05:05:14
Dr Ben Rich
So that’s nearly a 10% differentiation between men and women in those same brackets. In education, men are increasingly falling behind. Today, overall university enrolments have basically inverted from the 1970s, when men were outstripping women. Now, overall, men are less represented in university education than women.
00:05:05:16 - 00:05:27:24
Dr Ben Rich
This is not the case universally. Obviously, there are places in tertiary education like engineering which are still heavily represented by men. You see things like suicide rates and deaths of despair – those deaths relating to things like drug overdoses – overwhelmingly affecting men. I think the last data I saw is eight out of ten were men, and that’s particularly acute in young men.
00:05:28:01 - 00:05:52:00
Dr Ben Rich
You also have this phenomenon known as NEET – not in education, employment or training. This is the idea that you’re not working and you’re not taking any steps to engage in work. You’re basically dropping out of the economy. We know this is, again, a phenomenon that affects men significantly more than it affects women.
00:05:52:02 - 00:06:11:19
Dr Ben Rich
So there’s all this data pointing to the prospects of young men diminishing, and in many cases actually falling behind women at the same time. And we have a discourse nationally, and throughout the West, saying men need to be more in touch with their feelings.
00:06:11:19 - 00:06:30:01
Dr Ben Rich
They need to be willing to be more vulnerable. And I think we’re very good at telling men that – but we’re not necessarily good at accommodating it when they do. That’s one of the things I often discuss, particularly as an educator: the continual experience of young men putting themselves out there, trying to do that.
00:06:30:01 - 00:06:47:17
Dr Ben Rich
And then society very coldly pushes them away, makes them feel unsafe, and basically says, “Just pull your socks up.” So there’s this disconnect between how we expect men to behave and the actual realities – the lived experience, if you will – when they hit the ground.
00:06:47:19 - 00:07:16:08
Dr Ben Rich
I think this is pushing them towards more extreme spaces online, where they feel like they can open themselves to other people who are willing to hear their story and validate what they’re experiencing. And the final element I’d add is there has also been, in international relations, a securitisation of masculinity.
00:07:16:08 - 00:07:37:19
Dr Ben Rich
This idea that men somehow represent a latent threat that needs to be dealt with – as if they’re going to go off at any moment – almost like a kind of Catholic guilt for masculinity: you need to apologise for being male. That might feel good for some advocates in particular spaces, but I think it’s heavily alienating, particularly if you’re a young guy trying to make sense of the world.
00:07:37:19 - 00:07:43:06
Dr Ben Rich
But I also think that’s heavily alienating, particularly if you’re a young guy coming up, trying to make sense of the world.
00:07:43:08 - 00:08:15:09
David Karsten
And that’s what you’re hearing. Yeah. Well, generationally though, what this immediately raises for me is these alarming stats and data you’ve put in front of us. Is it generationally so different that the previous generation of men may not be as equipped to advise and mentor this current generation of young men maturing now? Are these circumstances that markedly different?
00:08:15:11 - 00:08:39:06
Dr Ben Rich
Well, you hear that a lot. When you engage online, there’s a feeling that the advice of Gen X to Gen Z doesn’t stack up – in terms of things like dating, in terms of employment. There’s a real divergence between the experience of someone growing up in the 70s and 80s versus what’s being encountered today.
00:08:39:06 - 00:09:11:05
Dr Ben Rich
In my experience, I’m an elder millennial, and I’m really glad I grew up mostly pre-internet. Those formative years of my teens were mostly spent offline. Toward the end it started shifting, but it certainly wasn’t like the environment we see today – particularly when we talk about social media and the self-perception, the lack of confidence, and the values it instils in the people who are consuming it.
00:09:11:07 - 00:09:41:16
David Karsten
Todd, Ben talks about this confluence of factors – technology and the change in the social fabric as a result. We can also stack that up against men’s status having changed over time. Men have historically held positions of power. Should we be viewing today’s challenges as something necessary – that men need to experience in order to understand what marginalised groups have experienced in the past, and still experience today?
00:09:41:18 - 00:10:10:24
Todd Morley
I think that’s a fantastic way to look at it. It’s important to note that one of the best theorists in this space, going back several decades now, Ted Robert Gurr, has this idea of relative deprivation theory. This says that even if you are in a position of power or privilege, as a lot of men have been throughout history, that doesn’t mean that when you lose that relative status it doesn’t hurt just as much.
00:10:11:01 - 00:10:37:03
Todd Morley
A lot of men, particularly in the first world, are still materially quite well off. But the loss of opportunity – and seeing previous generations having had more opportunity – is still very acutely felt by young people, even if they are still on top of the hierarchy. On the perception front as well, it’s important to note that when we talk about the ways we conceptualise gender, women have had a head start in asking these questions.
00:10:37:05 - 00:10:59:14
Todd Morley
If we look back to the most seminal works in gender studies, they are largely around articulating what it means to be a woman in opposition to what it means to be a man. That’s largely been considered the starting point for most inquiry. Now we’re seeing these same questions being asked by men, and non-gender-conforming people have been grappling with them for decades.
00:10:59:16 - 00:11:12:13
Todd Morley
And we don’t have the language. We don’t have the tools to articulate what it means to be a man – what the boundaries of masculinity look like. We’re in a bit of a growing-pains process at the moment, trying to find the language to articulate ourselves in that way.
00:11:12:14 - 00:11:17:14
David Karsten
Even, in some cases, to validate whether the discussion should be had at all.
00:11:17:14 - 00:11:18:24
Todd Morley
Right, absolutely.
00:11:19:01 - 00:11:43:12
David Karsten
Which again is a really interesting and fraught element of this entire discussion. I think, Ben, you alluded to social media and having grown up without being online for the most part of your teenage and formative years. Can you give us a bit of an insight into how social media is affecting perceptions of masculinity?
00:11:43:14 - 00:11:46:05
David Karsten
Todd’s given us a nice springboard into that.
00:11:46:07 - 00:12:15:17
Dr Ben Rich
Yeah. There was a report released by Movember last year – you can find it on the ABC if you do a bit of googling – which suggested that roughly 70% of young men aged 16 to 25 consume some form of masculinity influencer content. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean the manosphere as we know the more extreme aspects of it, but rather something that is advising you how to be a young man, how to be a man, how to be successful as a man.
00:12:15:19 - 00:12:39:15
Dr Ben Rich
I compare that with my own teenage experience. Back then I was riding around the neighbourhood with my friends, playing Nintendo 64, not being confronted with this bombardment. Social media in particular has become a kind of consciousness-raiser – creating an awareness or sense that this is something young men really have to grapple with.
00:12:39:15 - 00:12:58:15
Dr Ben Rich
And going back to the previous point about femininity and its development over the 20th century – it’s important to note that this largely happened in the West against a backdrop of investment in public education, social services, etc.
00:12:58:17 - 00:13:19:15
Dr Ben Rich
What we’re seeing now with questions of masculinity is happening during a time of economic decline. It’s happening while the state is pulling back from social welfare systems. So it comes with a real sense of competition, rather than the “rising tide lifts all boats” mentality.
00:13:19:15 - 00:13:37:10
Dr Ben Rich
So there’s a different kind of malaise surrounding this new consciousness. With a lot of social media content – not all, some masculinity influencers are positive – a big chunk is embedded in this notion of performative status.
00:13:37:10 - 00:13:59:23
Dr Ben Rich
You see this with Andrew Tate types – kind of the patient zero of this. You’ve got to perform your masculinity, you’ve got to perform success. You’ve got to have the cars, the beautiful women hanging around you constantly, the six-pack abs. You have to speak in this very authoritative, aggressive way, asserting yourself.
00:14:00:00 - 00:14:25:02
Dr Ben Rich
That’s very appealing to a lot of young men dealing with uncertainty in their lives – to have this drill-sergeant-like figure with clear symbols of success, telling you how to be just like them. It seems to wash away all those uncertainties in life – uncertainties that are increasingly present and that you’re more and more aware of when you consume social media every day.
00:14:25:02 - 00:14:26:16
Dr Ben Rich
But all of those things concern me.
00:14:26:17 - 00:14:49:20
David Karsten
Well, it’s such a visual thing, isn’t it? When it’s populated with such appealing images, it’s hard to look away. In amongst all of that, Ben, is the notion of extremist beliefs or extremism. Is that the logical progression when you go down a social media rabbit hole? Can that be the net result? And what… well, let’s start with what extremism actually is as a definition.
00:14:53:11 - 00:15:14:14
Dr Ben Rich
It’s a great question. Being the director of the Curtin Extremism Research Network, I probably should be more certain about this! Extremism is one of those slippery terms. In the social sciences we talk about it as being essentially contested – meaning no two people are ever going to agree 100% on what extremism means.
00:15:14:16 - 00:15:39:03
Dr Ben Rich
One thing we do know is that it’s often used pejoratively. In many ways it has taken the place of “terrorism” and “terrorist” in the global war on terror period. Back then, if someone said something you didn’t like, you could call them a terrorist, write them off, and not have to think about the quality of their argument. Today “extremist” often plays that role.
00:15:39:04 - 00:16:01:16
Dr Ben Rich
Fundamentally, extremism is a belief in an anti-liberal democratic worldview. It’s the idea that you want to dismantle the open, progressive structures of our society. That’s different from radicalism. A good example is Pauline Hanson – I would consider her a radical right actor.
00:16:01:20 - 00:16:20:01
Dr Ben Rich
But at the end of the day, as far as I know, Pauline Hanson is not calling for the downfall of the liberal democratic nature of the Australian state. An extremist, by contrast, would see democracy itself as an impediment to their idealised political vision. It’s also important to say extremism is not always violent in nature.
00:16:20:02 - 00:16:44:14
Dr Ben Rich
There are people who are fundamentally against democracy but feel this needs to be pursued through non-violent means. A classic example in the Australian and UK contexts is the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which explicitly calls for a caliphate but has mostly stepped away from encouraging activities linked to jihadism.
00:16:44:16 - 00:17:10:00
Dr Ben Rich
That being said, extremist worldviews can easily lead to viewing violence as a legitimate means of redress. But it’s important to note that this is not always the case. We have to be careful when we classify people in these categories – really understanding the nature of their beliefs, their views on violence, and so on.
00:17:10:00 - 00:17:40:15
Dr Ben Rich
Unfortunately, in a liberal democratic society, sometimes you have to accept that extremists are part of the social fabric. This is probably something Todd can talk about with his background. As long as they are not moving to the step of using violence, one of the things we’re trying to do in current discussions around masculinity is avoid dropping the “extremist” label on people who are simply in and around spaces like the manosphere.
00:17:40:17 - 00:17:59:03
Dr Ben Rich
There’s often a tendency to look at these subcultures and say, “This is an extremist group.” A good example is the generally held belief that incels – involuntary celibates, a part of the manosphere – are extremist by nature.
00:17:59:03 - 00:18:21:02
Dr Ben Rich
This hasn’t been helped by the release of Incels, a very popular Netflix show a few months ago. But if you look at a recent paper – a study of around 500 incels – the majority self-reported their worldviews as centrist or left-of-centre. Not even far right.
00:18:21:02 - 00:18:39:12
Dr Ben Rich
So it’s really important that we understand the nature of these groups and their beliefs, rather than just throwing them away because they have one particular worldview.
00:18:39:15 - 00:19:09:07
David Karsten
So to clarify, Ben – are we talking about extremism through the lens of masculinity, as in extremism being the nth degree to which a certain brand of masculinity is restored, resembling a masculinity from a different era? Or are we talking about extremism in the sense that political groups, as part of their agenda or belief system, foster a notion that men have a certain place in the world and the social order – and that this provides an avenue of belonging for disaffected men?
00:19:26:07 - 00:20:01:22
Dr Ben Rich
I would say it’s both. This is part of the challenge of dealing with extremism today – there’s such cross-pollination and so many unique rabbit holes people go down because of targeted algorithms. You have groups on the alt-right and their descendants today – some of whom had representation in the Trump administration – who espouse a very extreme restorative masculinity with an idealised past: the wife in the kitchen raising children, with no political representation.
00:20:01:22 - 00:20:22:12
Dr Ben Rich
Almost going back to the imagery of the founding fathers about who was allowed to partake politically and who wasn’t. You also have specific subgroups in online masculine communities. This is their one issue – the thing they focus on.
00:20:22:14 - 00:20:43:07
Dr Ben Rich
Sometimes, looking at their profiles, you’ll see people start in one group and then migrate to another. One of the root challenges we face epistemically is: how do we classify these things coherently? The more you go into it, the less confident you are that you can create a neat, spreadsheet-style model.
00:20:44:04 - 00:20:57:17
David Karsten
Well, Todd, we’ve alluded to how some forms of extremism can manifest – but can you expand on that? How do these beliefs manifest in your research?
00:20:57:21 - 00:21:19:19
Todd Morley
It’s a very tricky question. When we talk about behavioural indicators of extremism, they have to be looked at holistically with the rest of the person’s circumstances. Typical warning-sign behaviours can seem relatively innocuous on their face, but context matters entirely.
00:21:19:19 - 00:21:49:12
Todd Morley
A lot of our research, and what we hear from people in education spaces, is that young men in classrooms might disregard or actively resist female teachers. Perhaps they visit violence upon other students. But often indicators look innocuous – for example, withdrawing into online spaces away from typical social engagement.
00:21:49:14 - 00:22:10:17
Todd Morley
They might hoard extremist material – not just consuming it, but doing so at a rate and intensity that overpowers the rest of their worldview. The sort of person who, no matter what conversation you have with them, always turns it back to that specific interest.
00:22:10:17 - 00:22:34:19
Todd Morley
Again, these behavioural indicators depend on who is observing them. Teachers, parents or others who know the individual well are usually the first to notice novel shifts away from previous behaviour. But typically, physical violence is not what you see early on.
00:22:35:00 - 00:22:58:08
Todd Morley
A lot of the time it’s that behavioural shift towards women in their lives – mothers and female teachers in particular. Disregard, active hostility, maybe fighting them more regularly and using nasty language. You don’t often see physical violence until they’re much further down that rabbit hole and much more isolated.
00:22:58:08 - 00:23:01:15
Todd Morley
And a lot of other factors have contributed to isolating them that way.
00:23:01:17 - 00:23:25:11
David Karsten
The internet has been such a wonderful tool for all of us to research. But in the case of masculinity and searching for answers, what role is the internet playing? Especially in terms of it being a bit of an echo chamber at times. Is this the fuel and foundation that’s adding momentum to some of the issues we’re looking at today?
00:23:25:13 - 00:23:51:22
Todd Morley
I think momentum is the right word. It’s important to note when we’re talking about the internet’s role that it’s often invoked as something we should legislate our way out of. But I think that misses the point. In the radicalisation process, the internet is better described as an accelerant. These narratives are usually finding people already in vulnerable positions.
00:23:51:22 - 00:24:16:06
Todd Morley
The access and sheer volume of content the internet provides really accelerates belief formation and behavioural shifts. But it’s not the root cause. I don’t think we can legislate our way out of the problem. Limiting internet access, particularly for young people, might help in some cases.
00:24:16:06 - 00:24:35:22
Todd Morley
We know research shows consistent online engagement from a young age can radically shape development. But to say a social media ban for young people would immediately fix the underlying concerns that drive them into these spaces is unrealistic.
00:24:36:02 - 00:24:42:16
Todd Morley
So really, I’d say it’s an accelerant more than anything – but it’s just one element of a much more holistic problem.
00:24:42:18 - 00:25:12:09
David Karsten
As you’ve both explained, there are so many circumstances and contributing factors to why we find ourselves here. You’ve pointed out behaviours and indicators you’ve highlighted in your research. What sort of work have you done with organisations outside Curtin to disengage some of the young men who’ve gone down the rabbit hole, so to speak?
00:25:12:11 - 00:25:32:22
Todd Morley
In my previous professional experience I worked with the WAIS program – a government-funded intervention program targeted at people vulnerable or at risk of violent radicalisation. It’s important to note the language here: that program is a disengagement program, not a deradicalisation program.
00:25:32:22 - 00:25:54:09
Todd Morley
It might sound like a small difference, but it matters. Deradicalisation refers to changes in attitudes and beliefs – a process research shows is very hard to measure and can take many years.
00:25:54:11 - 00:26:18:19
Todd Morley
Disengagement programs, by contrast, are consensual therapeutic engagements focused on moderating behaviour. The aim isn’t to change people’s minds but to ensure there are no behavioural manifestations that could result in violence. Achieving that involves addressing root causes.
00:26:18:19 - 00:26:43:18
Todd Morley
So you look to the specific needs and vulnerabilities making that young person or adult at risk, and you create holistic, wraparound care to redress those in a pro-social way. The intent is that by addressing root causes, the person will naturally move away from those beliefs as their life improves.
00:26:43:20 - 00:26:59:06
David Karsten
Well, Ben, what about positive change? What can men do to regain some agency and autonomy in making better choices that will benefit them in the long run?
00:26:59:08 - 00:27:20:07
Dr Ben Rich
I think it’s more of a broader social question. I’d be careful with the bootstraps implication of “what can men do?” I think there needs to be a whole-of-society response. There are small, localised things. For example, I’m heavily critical of the modern existence of single-gender schools.
00:27:20:07 - 00:27:40:21
Dr Ben Rich
I think those are a thing of the past. Part of the success of many masculinity influencers – especially those driving a wedge between men and women – relies on the fact that a lot of young men don’t have much day-to-day experience of young women.
00:27:40:21 - 00:28:06:03
Dr Ben Rich
So they’re mystified. I think those schools should be put in the past. In education itself, particularly in primary and secondary schools, we need teaching plans that focus on group work explicitly pairing boys and girls together.
00:28:06:03 - 00:28:40:16
Dr Ben Rich
That way they get used to being around each other, understanding each other’s views and experiences. Education should create spaces to talk about how different genders experience events in the world. Because what we see with influencers like Andrew Tate is the opposite – they promote the idea of the unknowable woman, an almost non-human entity.
00:28:40:16 - 00:29:18:09
Dr Ben Rich
Finding commonalities is really important. Building respect and empathy. At a middle level, I think education should also teach young men about the tactics influencers use to recruit them. A couple of years ago, we published a paper – worth putting in the show notes – showing how influencers like Andrew Tate trap young men, create a sense of crisis, and bind them to these communities.
00:29:18:15 - 00:29:25:24
Dr Ben Rich
They keep looking to the influencer as a figure of authority, becoming more and more indoctrinated into those worldviews.
00:29:26:02 - 00:29:27:23
David Karsten
It’s incredibly strategic, isn’t it?
00:29:28:00 - 00:29:46:11
Dr Ben Rich
Absolutely. Much like strategies shown to be successful in breaking people out of cults – showing them how the sausage is made. Not telling them they’re wrong, but showing them how the processes work, and helping them see where they are in that process.
00:29:46:11 - 00:30:07:17
Dr Ben Rich
Often that alone will shift them. But a lot of this is band-aids on moral wounds. If we don’t address broader issues – things like public spending, making sure young people can buy houses at the age their parents did, and creating opportunities for them – we’ll keep seeing problems.
00:30:07:17 - 00:30:28:13
Dr Ben Rich
I take a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats approach. Unfortunately, if we continue with these conditions of deprivation, we’ll see more spin-off groups forming increasingly extreme worldviews based on particular identity structures.
00:30:28:15 - 00:30:50:21
Dr Ben Rich
That’s the natural outcome of wider social breakdown. So yes, there are things we can do locally – but ultimately this is a whole-of-society response. Addressing deeper issues in society will diminish many of these local manifestations without necessarily tackling them directly.
00:30:50:23 - 00:31:10:16
David Karsten
Well, given what you’ve presented today, gentlemen, it’s looking pretty bleak. What does the modern man actually look like to each of you? Let’s start with you, Todd. Is there a model we should aspire to, or is it entirely individual?
00:31:10:18 - 00:31:31:14
Todd Morley
Jeez, how much time do we have? I think the question is probably more important than the answer. The fact we’re asking it matters. Even a decade ago, in my teens, when we were just starting to have these discussions, the conversation was far behind where it is today.
00:31:31:16 - 00:32:03:21
Todd Morley
It’s only getting better. But I don’t think there’s a clear answer – and the ambiguity is part of the point. It’s the rigidity of masculinity that has been so undermining, leading to toxic outcomes. Being able to articulate what masculinity means, individually and collectively, will be a long process – much like the feminist movement in the 20th century.
00:32:03:23 - 00:32:21:10
Todd Morley
It can be done personally and collectively, and it doesn’t need one answer. If we create another rigid archetype of what it means to be a man, it will only clash with material reality.
00:32:21:12 - 00:32:33:00
Todd Morley
That’s probably the best answer we have for the moment. I don’t think I’ve got a satisfying one for anyone, unfortunately.
00:32:33:02 - 00:32:39:03
David Karsten
And Ben, how about you? What’s your view on what the modern man is and the shape he takes?
00:32:39:05 - 00:33:01:15
Dr Ben Rich
I’m not comfortable with the notion of a universal modern man. I think the modern man is one who deals with constant ambiguity about what that means. Some are comfortable with that. Others are unsettled, searching for certainty in an environment defined by ambiguity and uncertainty.
00:33:01:17 - 00:33:27:09
Dr Ben Rich
One of the things we’re working on is how to counter-message those who bring out the worst aspects of masculinity. How do we find organic actors – not government campaigns, which are often seen as inauthentic – who can speak to insecurities and grievances while offering a positive vision of self-actualisation and community?
00:33:27:09 - 00:33:55:21
Dr Ben Rich
The modern environment is defined by alienation and individualisation. Economic structures push people to compete and feel insecure. As a union organiser, I see the need for collective approaches. A paper we’re working on looks at Hasan Piker – a left-leaning influencer who presents as a “bro” but addresses these issues without framing them as us-versus-them gender wars.
00:34:16:01 - 00:34:32:01
Dr Ben Rich
That kind of approach may be one of the only ways to counteract these messages and bring people together. Maybe it will work, maybe it won’t. But I don’t think government-led plans are the answer. For example, there was a podcast put out by the Australian Government called The Man Shed, which fell flat – it was inauthentic and alienating.
00:34:55:08 - 00:34:58:05
David Karsten
That sounds like a plot line out of Utopia.
00:34:58:05 - 00:34:59:10
Dr Ben Rich
Yeah, absolutely.
00:34:59:12 - 00:35:12:10
David Karsten
So in essence, are you describing the ongoing work of the Extremism Research Network – these questions and strategies – as the work you’ll continue to do?
00:35:12:12 - 00:35:34:00
Dr Ben Rich
Yes. That’s fundamentally what CERN is about. Our raison d’être is to understand why the world feels more extreme – in gender, race, economics, and other areas – and to consider what strategies can be effective in pushing back. This is absolutely part of what we’re working on.
00:35:36:19 - 00:35:59:13
David Karsten
This has been fascinating – and it’s a conversation that needs to be revisited in the next couple of years at the very latest. As you’ve both said, it’s a constantly changing space, and men need to constantly adapt. We really appreciate you both taking the time to chat with us today. Thank you.
00:35:59:14 - 00:35:59:22
Dr Ben Rich
Thank you.
00:35:59:23 - 00:36:00:17
Todd Morley
Thank you.
00:36:00:19 - 00:36:14:03
Sarah Taillier
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