Alpha Males for Government!
The terrifying online movement staking its place in New Zealand politics
Trigger Warning: Brief mentions of rape, human trafficking, and misogyny
Alpha male influencers are swinging New Zealand to the right. And after electing our most conservative coalition Government in years (National, ACT, and NZ First) one has to ask: Has New Zealand just placed three alpha males in charge of our country?
I decided to figure this out for myself by asking Young ACT and Young National members. However, in true alpha male fashion, they ghosted me.
So instead, I travelled back to 2016. The year of Pokémon Go, chokers, and the heightened resurgence of misogyny.
With the beginning of Donald Trump’s Presidency came a reign of alpha male influencers. Popular manfluencers Andrew Tate and Ben Shapiro preached about the crisis of modern masculinity, and idea that the modern man has given into the inner workings of feminism.
Art by Jess Skudder
Ben Shapiro tweeted to his 6.6 million followers about the ‘masculinity crisis’ in 2021: “If you need any proof that American masculinity is under attack, just go see a marriage counsellor and watch how quickly the conversation devolves into a bunch of nonsense regarding the so-called ‘sexual needs’ of your wife.”
Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed “king of toxic masculinity” Andrew Tate famously described women as “intrinsically lazy” and puts the blame on them for being sexually assaulted. Tate is currently in Romania facing charges for rape, human trafficking, and exploiting women. Despite all this, Tate still had 8.9 million followers on X (Twitter).
Manfluencer followings are primarily made up of teenage boys who are seeking role models during this vulnerable and impressionable time in their lives. When manfluencers take this place, these boys adopt terrifying radical views. And with the changes our Government plan to make in sex education curriculum, these boys won’t have the tools to combat misogynist manfluencer teachings.
For our alpha male coalition leaders, our current sex education curriculum is a big no-no. NZ First leader Winston Peters said “woke ideology” in school curriculums shouldn’t be taught to students. While Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said sexuality issues should be taught by parents at home. As a result, our Government is planning to scrap gender, sexuality, and relationship-based education from sex education curriculum.
NZHerald said education officials had been warned about a possible “generation of radicals” being influenced by the views of manfluencers. Parents and teachers are calling for action before more students are indoctrinated.
Holly Bamber, club leader of Greens@VIC, agreed, saying if action isn’t taken, misogynistic “attitudes can only grow and make these boys more and more radicalised”.
Manfluencers aid in creating more radicalised voters. Bamber believed this had contributed to less young people swinging towards the left – as we saw in our last election. Bamber explained Chris Luxon’s businessman persona appeals to radical demographics as it matches the manfluencer ideology of “being as successful in business as you are with women”.
Manfluencers are creating a dangerous world for boys to learn from, girls to grow up in, and women to live in. Taking away necessary topics in our sex-ed curriculum will only make this situation worse. So, what will our Government do when the consequences of manfluencers becomes too pressing to ignore?