Men are from Mars, women from Venus—but as Australians head to the polls, you’d be forgiven for thinking much of our election coverage was reporting from a different galaxy altogether. This week, breathless headlines were devoted to Teal MP Monique Ryan’s refusal to answer questions at a polling booth, a sideshow framed as high political drama.

It’s emblematic of a media fixation on an election playing out in a narrow slice of inner-city seats—Kooyong, Wentworth, and the like—while the real electoral earthquake is rumbling through Werribee, Ipswich, and the Hunter. In these outer-suburban and regional communities, voters are grappling with soaring living costs, stagnant wages, and the impossible dream of home ownership. They’re not tuning in to Sky News or watching campaign debates. They’re wondering why politics seems so utterly foreign to them. Unless we start listening to what’s being said there, we’ll miss the tectonic shift entirely.

It is here that the long-term battle for the hearts and minds of working-class Australians, especially young men, is being contested in an entirely different language – one of economic anxiety, loss of status, and cultural disconnection. This isn’t just an Australian story. Across the West, social democratic parties like Labor are losing their historical base: the industrial, typically male working class. French economist Thomas Piketty calls it the ‘Brahmin Left’ phenomenon: progressive parties increasingly draw support from educated, inner-city voters and are winning over white-collar women in greater numbers, while conservative parties woo elements of the working class with nationalist, anti-elite and, yes, blokey rhetoric.

To be sure, Australian women, especially urban professionals, moved sharply left at the 2022 election, playing a decisive role in ousting Scott Morrison. Conversely men were more likely to vote for the Coalition than women (38% versus 32%), according to the Australian Election Study. This captures the longer-term reversal of the gender gap in voter behaviour, in tandem with the decline of class-based voting, notwithstanding that self-identified working-class voters are still more likely to vote Labor (38%) than Coalition (33%).

While Labor is most likely to form government after May 3, in electorates once considered rusted-on, the party is facing an identity reckoning. Increasingly, voters without university degrees – the clear majority in this country – are drifting, feeling shunned and unheard. Some are turning to the Coalition – I stress some as Peter Dutton’s desire to make his Liberals the workers’ party has failed spectacularly. Others to minor populist parties. A few disengage entirely. 

As the John Curtin Research Centre’s latest research shows, this alienation is particularly acute among young men in regional and outer-suburban areas. Focus groups of Australians, male and female, aged between 18 and 44 years of age conducted by Redbridge in February revealed profound economic anxiety – a repeated refrain across different cities and states was a sense of “treading water” due to intergenerational inequity. An anti-establishment sentiment was stark: “no one speaks for us,” “never seen a politician I believed in.” We found it in the most progressive and most right-wing participants, and everyone in between. 

Among the most striking findings from the groups was the degree to which young working-class men, particularly those from Queensland, feel like ghosts in our political conversation. As one participant put it bluntly, “It feels like my whole life we’ve been told it’s not okay to be a white man.” That sentiment isn’t born from bigotry or misogyny, but from a zero-sum view of equality in action: gains for women and ethnic minorities are a loss for them. 

These young men aren’t necessarily opposed to equity or women’s advancement. Many back better pay for care workers and greater boardroom diversity and even CEW successes. But they see no equivalent narrative for themselves—no sense that their struggles are being acknowledged, let alone addressed. Politics feels like a party they weren’t invited to.

This isn’t about dismissing women’s advancement—far from it. It’s about recognising that masculinity itself has become a cultural taboo, especially among those for whom traditional male roles – provider and protector – are increasingly inaccessible or frowned upon. Mental distress casts a long shadow. “Men have way more mental pressure about the family, the jobs and being able to support everything,” said one young bloke, noting society’s silence around male mental health. Another offered a blunt reflection: “75% of suicides are male… we have to ask ourselves why.” Yet in a world of gender quotas and corporate diversity and inclusion strategies, these men see their concerns treated not just as secondary but as suspect. 

It is this perception – magnified by algorithmic social media – that leads some to see Donald Trump, ironically, as a truth-teller in a world of scripted spin. Admiration for Trump, voiced openly in these groups, isn’t about policy, but potency. These men aren’t drawn to him as a disruptor alone, but a symbol of masculine agency. “He’s actually making things happen,” one participant said. “If we had a politician like that in Australia, I’d vote for him.” 

To be clear, not all young men share this worldview. In NSW and Victoria, participants expressed solidarity with the struggle for gender equality, support for unions, and hope for climate action. They rejected Trump albeit not anti-establishment politics. “Just because women are becoming more equal doesn’t mean men are penalised,” one observed. These men, often with stronger family and peer networks, viewed politics as a tool for collective progress and not the restoration of rule by older blokes.

Whatever the result on May 3, one thing is clear: don’t ignore the young men of our suburbs and regions. They may not speak the language of mainstream politics, but the future of both Labor and Liberal will be written in their voices. Listen up now or pay the price later.