The problem of anti-feminist ‘manfluencer’ Andrew Tate in Australian schools: women teachers’ experiences of resurgent male supremacy

Abstract

There is growing visibility of online ‘manfluencers’ who espouse extreme masculine ideals and share them with their audiences of boys and young men. Taking this phenomenon as a launch-pad, we join the tradition of research that exposes sexism in schools and theorizes girls and women’s experiences of working within and against masculine hegemony. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 30 women teachers in Australia, we suggest the sexism identified in early research endures in schools today, resurrected in part by the ubiquity and influence of one specific misogynist ‘manfluencer’, Andrew Tate. Employing Connell’s hegemonic masculinity, we suggest boys’ sexist practices towards their teachers and girl peers forms part of a strategy of gender inequality legitimization, stabilizing and reinvigorating a regressive ‘male supremacy’. These behaviours represent a backlash from boys and men who perceive a loss of gendered power in the post-#metoo era and have implications for girls and women in schools.