Strongmen and Weak Governance: The Masculine Fraud Destroying Australia

The Great Masculine Delusion

We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back.

Malala Yousafzai

I look at my mates’ daughters—brilliant young minds full of potential—and wonder what kind of world we’re building for them. What keeps me up at night is seeing these young women growing up in a society that’s simultaneously shouting “girl power” slogans while rewarding aggressive, domineering behavior as “strong leadership.” It’s gaslighting on a global scale, and I don’t think we fully comprehend the future we’re cultivating.

This contradiction is painfully evident as we watch International Women’s Day’s “Accelerate Action” theme crash headlong into a wall of regression. In Australia, we’re not just failing today’s women—we’re actively engineering a future where strength is measured by how effectively you can bully and bluster your way through life. Every time we normalise this behavior, we’re telling young women their worth is measured against a standard that was outdated before they were born.

The global context makes this even more alarming. Trump’s America, with its systematic dismantling of DEI initiatives, provides a disturbing preview of where unchecked masculine posturing leads. It would be darkly comedic if it wasn’t so damaging to real lives and futures.

So let’s examine what’s happening in this political theatre, particularly here in Australia, where we seem increasingly determined to mirror the worst aspects of American political culture rather than forging our own path toward genuine equality and leadership.

The Theatre of Strength

Strength in 2025 politics has all the authenticity of a WWE match—scripted, overproduced, and designed to appeal to our most primitive instincts. We’re watching grown men cosplay as leaders, flexing manufactured muscles while the real heavy lifting of democracy gets outsourced to focus groups and social media algorithms. This circus of self-interested strongman performances has replaced what Australia desperately needs: sensible, evidence-based policy and genuine leadership.

The marketing department of modern masculinity works overtime in Canberra. Every confrontational press conference, every refusal to answer direct questions, every manufactured culture war gets repackaged as “decisive leadership.” Aggression isn’t just normalised; it’s fetishised. We’re told that real leaders don’t compromise—they dominate. This mindset was perfectly captured by Trump’s Pentagon nominee Pete Hegseth when he declared, “You can’t shoot values.”

I mean, what the actual fuck.

The playbook is disturbingly simple: Don’t negotiate—demand. Don’t listen—berate. Don’t collaborate—overpower.

The tragic irony? This machismo mirage reveals profound weakness. These self-proclaimed “strong” leaders demonstrate such fear of authentic strength—the kind requiring emotional intelligence, empathy, and the courage to admit mistakes—that they’ve constructed an alternative reality where bullying behaviour becomes somehow admirable. In Australian politics, we see this particularly in how complex issues like immigration, climate change, and economic inequality get reduced to simplistic strongman solutions that solve nothing while creating the illusion of action.

The strongest people are not those who show strength in front of us, but those who win battles we know nothing about.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

True strength lies in the capacity to navigate complexity, build consensus, and make difficult decisions that might not yield immediate political rewards. Instead, we’re served a sandcastle of superiority that crumbles under the slightest scrutiny.

An Echo Chamber Down Under

Christ, we’re good at copying the worst of American politics, aren’t we? Like a cover band playing Greatest Hits of Toxic Masculinity, our political class has watched Trump’s playbook and thought “fuck yeah, gimme a little bit of that”. Dutton doesn’t just emulate this approach—he perfects it, perpetually hammering the rhetoric of strength while bullying those who dare ask hard questions rather than engaging with what materially matters to Australians.

The real gut-punch is seeing how deeply this poison has seeped into our national conversation. Every time Dutton snarls about weak leadership or strong borders, he’s really saying “this is what power looks like, kids.” Watch his performance during Question Time—it’s a masterclass in aggressive deflection rather than substantive debate. Remember his walkout during the Apology to the Stolen Generations? That wasn’t principled disagreement—it was performative toughness at the expense of genuine reconciliation.

And our media? They’re not just enabling this crap—they’re amplifying it, turning every aggressive outburst into front-page news while actual policy discussion gets buried faster than our climate targets. The Murdoch press particularly feasts on this spectacle, serving up daily doses of manufactured outrage while serious issues like housing affordability, healthcare, and Indigenous recognition struggle for oxygen.

We’re not just echoing America’s worst tendencies—we’re adding our own special sauce of casual cruelty and calling it “Aussie straight-talking.” It’s like we’ve taken the worst aspects of our cultural DNA—the larrikin attitude twisted into something mean-spirited—and turned them into political virtues. And the saddest fucking part? We’re not even original about it anymore. We’ve become the political equivalent of that mate who goes to Bali and comes back with a shit tattoo and an even shitter attitude.

No More Bullshit

Let’s call this what it is: a massive fucking con job that’s failing everyone except the frauds at the top. This warped version of masculinity—this peacocking parade of faux strength from these jelly-necked cretins—isn’t just pathetic, it’s actively destroying any chance of actual leadership taking root in Australian politics.

Here’s the real cost: while these wannabe strongmen are busy measuring their metaphorical micro-dicks in parliament, actual problems are piling up like unpaid bills. Climate change? Too soft to tackle—better to mock climate activists while half the country burns and the other half floods. Mental health crisis? Not enough explosions or photo ops in that, mate. Domestic violence? They’re too busy practicing their tough guy faces in the mirror to give a shit about women dying weekly at the hands of partners and ex-partners. Housing crisis? Just save up and by a place by the time you’re 19! Easy as!

The absolute fucking tragedy is watching genuine talent get sidelined because it doesn’t fit this bullshit template. Remember Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech (holy shit if you haven’t watched it you must)? That was real strength—calling out the hypocrisy directly to its face. You know what actual strength looks like?

Real strength? It’s the paramedic who holds a stranger’s life in her hands while keeping her cool under pressure. It’s the community leader who builds consensus instead of demanding compliance. It’s every woman who gets up each morning to face a system designed to break her spirit, yet somehow keeps pushing forward.

I don’t have kids, and by god, I have no intention of reproducing. But I do have many friends with beautiful young children. Minds unsullied and spirits unbroken. I fear for them. Genuinely, for so many reasons. But what I fear most is for the boys who will grow up unable to realise that to feel, cry and love is strength. And for girls who will likely always temper their potential so as not to intimidate or undermine a man—like watching Penny Wong have to modulate her brilliance to avoid triggering fragile male egos across the aisle.

We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, ‘You can have ambition, but not too much.‘

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Real strength? It’s not about who can shout the loudest or threaten the most convincingly. It’s about having the guts to listen, the wisdom to admit when you’re wrong, and the courage to show compassion in a world that mistakes cruelty for power. But try telling that to the chest-thumping brigade currently running this shitshow we call Australian democracy.

Time to Burn Down the Theatre

We’ve watched this toxic circus long enough. We’ve sat through the performative bullshit, the chest-beating theatrics, and the systematic dismantling of everything that actually constitutes real leadership. And for what? So a bunch of mediocre men can keep pretending that being an aggressive dickhead is somehow aspirational?

Every time we nod along to this crap, every time we shrug it off as “just politics,” we’re complicit in poisoning the well our sons and daughters will drink from. We’re telling every young woman and man watching that this is what power looks like—that to succeed, you either become the bully or submit to one. What a legacy we’re leaving.

But here’s the thing: we don’t have to accept this shit anymore. We can call it what it is—weakness masquerading as strength, fear dressed up as courage, insecurity parading as confidence. Real strength? It’s in the leaders who build rather than destroy, who unite rather than divide, who lift others up instead of trampling them down.

The question isn’t who’s going to let me; it’s who’s going to stop me.

Ayn Rand

It’s time to burn down this theatre of toxic masculinity. Time to reject the bullshit binary of strong versus weak. Time to demand leaders who measure their worth by what they build, not what they break. Because if we don’t, if we keep accepting this pathetic parade of peacocking politicians, we’re not just failing ourselves—we’re failing every generation to come.

Our daughters deserve better. Our society deserves better. We all, even the chamber of cacophonous cock-sure cretins, deserve better. And it’s about fucking time we demanded it.

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Model: Flux Ultra v1.1

Prompt: Painting of crumbling and disjointed themes. Abstract political symbols, dramatic storm clouds, artistic composition with strong visual metaphor. Cinematic lighting, muted pastel/water color palette with hints of blue and green. Dystopian and ominous feel.