Former Socceroo Craig Foster has urged Australian men to take responsibility for gender-based violence, dismissing the familiar response that “it’s not all men” as a distraction from the fact that perpetrators are overwhelmingly male.
Speaking at the Women’s Agenda Women’s Health and Wellbeing Summit in Sydney on Tuesday 2 September 2025, Foster said Australia was failing to treat violence against women with the seriousness it demanded.
“We see women being killed by gender-based violence so regularly in Australia, and it’s something we’re struggling to take seriously,” he said.
“When that’s spoken about, you get this mass pushback from men saying ‘well it’s not all men’, but it is men.”
Foster, now a prominent human rights and gender equality advocate, said many boys were growing up without constructive male role models, leaving them vulnerable to online influencers who exploit resentment and insecurity for profit.
He called for a collective effort to offer young people a healthier and more inclusive vision of masculinity.
“How do Australian men come together to say that we want to push against this and we want to provide a different vision of what an Australian male is about?” he asked.
“If every women’s organisation in Australia was united here with men’s organisations and prominent males in the country, I’m pretty sure it would be very difficult to stop.”
Manosphere influence reaches classrooms
Monash University professor Steven Roberts, who researches masculinity and online “manosphere” communities, said misogyny was deeply embedded in Australian culture and was being revived through social media and youth culture.
He warned that online spaces focused on dating, fitness and football could act as entry points to anti-feminist material, with boys gradually exposed to content that promotes hostility towards women and rejects equality.
“They’re met with this content that teaches them how to hate women, and that it is necessary to hate women to find your place in the world,” Professor Roberts said.
He said attitudes linked to the manosphere could begin taking shape long before boys reached adulthood, through expectations about their toys, clothes and behaviour.
“Those commitments to rigid, narrow versions of what a boy can be is the building block for the violence that we’re talking about now,” he said.
Professor Roberts said the answer was not to suggest that boys could only be guided by men, arguing that children needed to see positive role models across all genders.
“Consolidating the myth that boys need male role models plays into the hands of the manosphere,” he said.
He also called for governments and policymakers to hold social media companies accountable for the material being promoted to young users.
“We need legislation as well, we need government, policymakers, and legislators to be brave and hold the social media companies to account,” he said.
Professor Roberts said the problem was already visible in Australian schools. His recent research found that 78 per cent of teachers had observed or experienced sexism or misogyny in the classroom or wider school environment.
He said preventing violence required both credible male figures and the normalisation of diverse role models, rather than allowing online personalities to define what it meant to be a man.
Foster’s comments followed his involvement in the NSW Multi-Sport Coalition, launched in June 2025 to bring sporting organisations, professional clubs and government together to prevent domestic, family and sexual violence.
The NSW Government has committed more than $500,000 over three years to the coalition, which is chaired by the state’s Women’s Safety Commissioner and includes more than 25 sporting organisations and professional clubs.
The initiative aims to use sport’s influence over community attitudes and behaviour to promote gender equality, respectful relationships and violence prevention.
Foster said he had initially been encouraged by the diversity of Australia’s younger generation, but feared that progress was being undermined by the spread of misogynistic online content.
“I had great hope. I thought that the new generation … they’ve come through in the most diverse Australian society that we’ve ever had. That’s starting to be broken down now,” he said.
