“The fact is, it’s a strange time to be a man.”
Jon Ronson knows that might seem like a strange thing to say in a society when so many men hold the most powerful roles and so many women face systemic disadvantage.
But the best-selling British journalist and author, who’s devoted his recent professional life to studying the human psyche in its most radical forms, believes the current lot of men needs attention.
Especially as Donald Trump prepares to move back into the White House.
“A lot of the things that men, both privileged and unprivileged, have relied on all these years, certainties have crumbled,” Mr Ronson told the ABC’s Q+A on Monday.
“You look at working class men, factory work … those Rust Belt towns are crumbling.”
Mr Ronson, who embedded with Trump supporters during his first run for president in 2016, believes those “disenfranchised” communities have powered his MAGA movement.
This year, exit polls show around 54 per cent of male votes backed Trump in the presidential election, compared to just 44 per cent for Democratic challenger Kamala Harris.
Recent Australian polling shows a similar gender split in young men here: 43 per cent said they supported Trump’s run for office, while 34 per cent backed Harris.
Podcasts shifting the culture
Mr Ronson, who’s now made the United States his home, says cultural signals exacerbate disaffection.
“Men in adverts are basically all portrayed as, like, doofuses who can’t get anything right and have to be bailed out by their more capable wives. That’s basically how men are treated,” he said.
“These young boys are all gravitating towards the likes of Andrew Tate and these kind of awful manosphere people.”
Claire Lehmann, a journalist and columnist, goes further.
“We have demonised maleness,” she told Q+A.
“We have demonised traditional masculinity … And so when there is a vacuum, you get these people like Andrew Tate coming in and filling it.”
According to one Victorian high school teacher, Dylan Peters, the messages are quickly spread.
“What I’m beginning to see in my classroom is sort of the regurgitation of those statements without much forethought or knowledge, by young men in particular,” Mr Peters told Q+A.
Podcasts are particularly pervasive, Mr Peters believes, because they’re unscripted, casual in tone and therefore more relatable.
High school teacher Dylan Peters told Q+A there’s a “regurgitation” of messages from popular male podcasts by children at school.
Trump gave a three-hour interview to podcaster Joe Rogan in the lead-up to election day, with the episode drawing an audience of 50 million people on YouTube alone.
“In the same way that Trump courted Alex Jones in 2016, which seemed like a very counterintuitive and frankly terrible idea, it worked out well for him,” Mr Ronson said.
“And Trump’s done it again, courting people like Joe Rogan.”
Mortlock: ‘Women have become superior’
Charlotte Mortlock, a broadcaster and founder of a group to champion women in the Liberal Party, notes the disconnect.
“Women still aren’t earning the same, we’re still not represented in parliament in the same numbers,” the executive director of the Hilma’s Network said.
“What we are seeing, though, is that culturally, women have become superior. And I do think that we see that in pop culture in a lot of different places.
“As a woman who is very vocal on women’s issues … it weighs heavily on me that you can be pro-women without being anti-men. And we do not need to demonise men.”
In fact, Ms Mortlock told Q+A the Liberal Party “needs to treat women who are already among its ranks a bit better”.
Claire Lehmann pointed to Moira Deeming, who sits in Victoria’s upper house as an independent after being suspended by the Liberal Party last year for attending and helping organise an anti-trans rally.
“She’s been treated absolutely horribly by the Victorian Liberal Party,” Lehmann said.
Ms Deeming is now suing state Liberal leader John Pesutto for defamation over allegations he wrongly linked her with neo-Nazis.
But from the Q+A audience, Ms Deeming said Liberal members had been “fantastic” at welcoming women.
“There are lots of people inside that have been fantastic,” she said.
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