It’s been over five years since we published The Man Box: A study on being a young man in Australia (The Men’s Project and Flood, 2018). This was the first Australian study to explore the association between attitudes to masculine stereotypes and the behaviours of men aged 18 to 30. The Man Box study was followed by the Unpacking the Man Box report, released in 2020, which drew on the same data to complete more detailed analyses of the impact of “Man Box” rules, controlling for demographic variables such as level of education, occupation, where men live, and sexuality.
The Man Box 2024 study sets out to update and expand on the findings of the 2018 and 2020 studies, and see how the results have changed over time. In line with these previous studies, it considers whether Australian men perceive social messages that a “real man” thinks and acts a certain way, whether men personally agree with these messages, and also explores whether men’s attitudes predict a range of behaviours and life outcomes.