Privilege is having its political moment. The protection of privilege by those who possess it is currently the driving force of politics in the United States — where inclusion is blamed for everything from climate crisis-induced fires to air disasters — and a core part of the Coalition’s efforts to turn Anthony Albanese into a one-term prime minister here.
“I think a lot of young males feel disenfranchised and feel ostracised,” Peter Dutton says. “I think there’s just a point where people are fed up. They’re pushing back and saying, ‘Well, why am I being overlooked at work for a job, you know, three jobs running when I’ve got, you know, a partner at home, and she’s decided to stay at home with three young kids…”
While one’s heart breaks for the men whose lazy partners won’t work as well as raise three toddlers, why are men being overlooked in this scenario? Because, Dutton says, they are being discriminated against “on the basis of gender or race”. And that’s come from “a lot of universities who have worked on this. I think it’s a movement of the left”.
But the war on diversity and inclusion is only the latest front in a longer war of resentment and anger on the part of white males toward their perceived loss of privilege. Diversity and inclusion are only standing in for the longer-term historical villain: free market economics — a form of economics that Dutton has spent most of his life championing.
Deregulation and free market reforms have inflicted the greatest damage on men in countries like the US and Australia. They have eroded the traditional economic privilege enjoyed by white men in labour markets and in economic policy generally: blue-collar male industries protected for generations by tariffs have been exposed to foreign competition and shrunk to a shadow of their former selves, despite attempts by policymakers to revive them.
The removal of discriminatory labour and educational practices has subjected men to greater competition from women and curbed active discrimination against minorities. Corporations and policymakers have embraced the central tenet of neoliberalism, that the value of any person — of anything — is purely economic, and that individual attributes — gender, race, religion or place of origin — are irrelevant.
This is a world that is far less forgiving and supportive of mediocre white men than 30 years ago. And many of them hate it. To be a white male in a Western country is supposed to be the golden ticket to, if not riches, then a relatively easy and stable life. Suddenly they’re having to compete with women, with minorities, with harder-working, far-lower-paid workers in other countries and those invited here to work as skilled migrants. Their supremacy is no longer assumed, it must be earned.
Moreover, women have less and less choice about entering the workforce: our market economy has made it virtually impossible to live in a major city and own a house without two incomes.
Blaming diversity and inclusion is only a cover for a bitter resentment at an economic and political system that privileges economic and financial power over any other form of power and the cultural beliefs of citizens.
The other thing that has dudded men is our ageing population. That has required massive investment in health and caring services as our need for medical services and aged care has soared. But those are overwhelmingly female occupations, meaning female participation has rocketed while male participation has stagnated (though, interestingly, it rose in 2024, presumably driven by the financial pressure of higher interest rates).
Add in that a modern market economy needs well-trained workers, necessitating massive investment in the female-dominated education sector, and you’ve got all the major modern economic trends lining up against men, even if they remain politically and economically dominant.
But none of that makes the resentment of white males any less real. This resentment persists — even though we’re wealthier than when the economy was closed off from competition, even though economic growth is stronger when we include all sections of the population, and even though we can better afford the health and caring services that have seen our life expectancies — including those of men — increase substantially over the last two decades (indeed, the increase in life expectancy for men, who traditionally die much younger than women, has been greater than that for women since 2000).
The problem is, men’s relative privilege has eroded compared to everyone else, even if they’re doing better than their older brothers or their fathers and grandfathers were. Even a loss of relative privilege breeds resentment and backlash. US politicians discovered this in the 1960s when there was a bipartisan move — resisted only by sections of the Democratic Party — to end blatant discrimination against Black Americans. The focus on civil rights and economic opportunity for Black Americans — particularly when applied on the ground in the form of the politically toxic issue of bussing — angered white Americans; riots in poverty-stricken urban areas became the catalyst for a white backlash that helped propel Richard Nixon to the White House in 1968.
For white Americans, economic opportunity is a finite resource. Sharing it means less for them, whatever the broader economic benefits nationally and globally. It’s the same zero-sum game thinking that drove hostility towards an Indigenous Voice to Parliament here. The opportunity to influence policymaking is a finite resource; giving more to Indigenous people via a formal structure must automatically take something away from white Australians, even if no-one could ever explain exactly what.
The lesson for politicians is: mess with the privilege of white people, and particularly white men, at your peril, even if it makes perfect economic sense. Privilege is not relinquished easily, and not without anger and bitterness. And we’re flooded with that right now.
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