DV commissioner expressing concern about Youths perpetrating sexual violence

Domestic, family and sexual violence (DFSV) commissioner Micaela Cronin says Australians are not scared enough of “manosphere” content drawing young Australian men into radical, violent and misogynistic views.

As Cronin enters the final 12 months of her five-year term as the first DFSV commissioner, she is particularly concerned by the rate of young people perpetrating sexual violence against one another. She said that while there were a number of factors contributing to the problem, including an increase in violence against children who then go on to replicate the behaviour, the internet is partly to blame.

Young men are routinely being fed male-supremacist content on social media, and it appears to be affecting their behaviour in the real world. Studies from Monash University and the University of Adelaide have described a rise in sustained, sexist behaviour of boys in school, which teachers link to an increased exposure to extreme, anti-women content. Almost a quarter of gen Z men believed the movement for women’s equality should be violently resisted, with researchers finding that content that is misogynistic and endorses violence against women is the most likely influence on extremist attitudes in Australia.

Cronin is urging state and federal governments to take more action to prevent misogynistic influencers online from undermining decades of work to end violence against women and children. One prevention measure the commissioner endorses is the federal government’s digital duty of care, which she said could help subdue some radical anti-women content online. But Cronin said there were still more federal and state governments needed to do, such as implement the hundreds of recommendations from previous reviews, royal commissions and inquiries into violence against women and children; These recommendations include cutting off late-night alcohol deliveries earlier in the evening, funding justice-system navigators to support those going through the courts for sexual-violence matters and investing more in frontline services.