One in four Australian boys believe feminism should be resisted with violence and one in three say gender equality has gone too far, a new survey has revealed.
In a first-of-its-kind study, the Misogyny, Online Radicalisation and Youth Extremism in Australia report surveyed 1122 young people aged 13 to 17 and 2307 adults, to compare attitudes on women and gender equality.
It found about one in three teen boys expressed misogynistic attitudes, mistrust of women, and a belief in traditional gender roles.
About the same number of boys believed men have more of a right to a job than women when work was scarce, according to the University of Melbourne research.
Three-quarters of those surveyed identified as white, followed by 13 per cent Asian and eight per cent Aboriginal.
Young people, including girls, were significantly more likely than older generations to hold hostile attitudes to women.
Generation Z girls were twice as likely as millennial women to believe marriage entitled a husband to sex even if his wife did not want to.
More than 500 school teachers were also quizzed and reported students quoting male influencers and repeating "manosphere" language in class to female staff.
This behaviour was witnessed by educators in children as young as six.
The study found misogynistic attitudes were strongly associated with online engagement in manosphere content, pornography and online dating.
''This study shows that the problems with misogyny are structural, not individual,'' report author Sara Meger said.
The report recommended five changes to policy, including investing in primary prevention from the age of six and recognising misogyny as a form of violent extremism in national counter-extremism frameworks.
The federal government should consider platform regulation targeted at algorithms, as "manfluencer engagement" was one of the strongest online predictors of hostile gender attitudes, it said.
Man Cave chief executive Ben Vasiliou said the challenge was to recognise toxic masculinity as both "structural and insidious".
"Boys and men's feelings, of control and dominance and aggression, and the fact that they feel like they have the power to dehumanise women, is a structural problem," he told AAP.
"We need prevention programs to be explicit in understanding men's accountability - it can't be soft touch, it has to be direct."
The preventative mental health and emotional intelligence charity delivers workshops to boys and men aged 12 to 18.
Mr Vasiliou has found boys were still more likely to listen to real-life role models, parents and teachers than online influencers.
"Parents have been reaching out to us in inordinate numbers in the last six months, to the point where we're actually rolling out a whole new program series for parents," he said.
Mr Vasiliou said national attention must turn to parents having conversations with their kids about women, sex, power and boundaries.
The eSafety Commission also runs webinars for parents and has resources for those concerned about their children's behaviour online.
Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 (for people aged 5 to 25)
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
