As one of the former 'marginalized young men' all I can say is well done to the author. This solical dymanic does not only happen in the small towns but in the large towns and cities as well. My school was rife with the Hegemonic Masculinity described in this story. "This revolved around boisterous, disruptive, and often highly offensive behaviour in which young women as well as marginalised young men were constantly subjected to denigrating comments", AKA bullying. Purhaps the author can focus his next investigation into the direct link between social values of sports and drinking and how it affects young people and the pandemic of bullying in Australian schools.

Up to about sixty years ago football was not the major focus of social life in country town. Churches had a big social role in many country areas as well as suburbs, catering for all ages and with many all-age functions as well as their own sports teams, youth clubs and mens and womens groups with special interests and links to other organizations like the Country Women's Associations, RSL, mechanics institutes etc. An important social role was for courtship. Learning public speaking and social concern were useful for many. Local events were often sponsored by churches, or churches were involved. Going to church was not essential although it was a popular way to meet the opposite sex.
So football for example, was in a wider social context.

Many things have changed this in both country town and suburbs. Among other things, the number of people willing to organize these things as volunteers is important. Local councils do a lot of organizing community amenities and events, but it can be a big charge on the rates and volunteer commitment can be difficult.

With the advent of increasing problems and emergencies on all sides, communities need better ways of having a common community spirit and bringing in everyone young and old, with more dedication and wider opportunities for everyone than just football. Leadership is a key. The media could give publicity to those local communities, rural and city, which are showing how this can be done in many ways. CFA and other emergency services, and adult-youth hobby-sharing and training would be part of this.
Our whole insurance system of personal liability and fear of being sued needs reforming, as it is preventing far too much of vital community life. It would even prevent ‘community soccer’ which is a great and cost-free way for everyone to play together.

The problem is not just with sport and alcohol but is epidemic in society. Feminist have added greatly to this problem by expecting to be able to act immorally and then be treated with respect. Parents without morals have left many young girls in a no win situation. We are simply reaping what we have sown as a society. Women are portrayed (often happily) as mere sex objects and men as dunces by the media. Many scream for the right for pornography to pervert their view of humanity and then cry over women been seen as sluts. Thank God some have the sense to look to their Creator and Redeemer to raise us above the level of animals.

A very clear and well researched article mirrors my experiences from growing up in the 70's.
Feminists have very little to do with this problem, if anything feminists have been fighting these Patriarchal issues for many years.

And unfortuneatly the churches are also complicit in promoting the a male hegemony.

I had hoped that the success of nerds such as Bill Gates and the work of Germaine Geer would have changed attitudes from my generation but unfortunately no.

Yes Runner we should bring back that old rule if a young single girl is raped we should force her to marry her rapist.

Now for the rest of us, having lot of time in a small town, and not been into sports I can fully agree with the author in the most part. How we fix it is very hard, the community as a whole need to led this sort of cultural change. We all need to be moral police. Maybe we should move to zero tolerance, if some break the code of conduct rules no matter who they are they should be stopped from participating any further. The sharks for ball club should be band from competition until they name all the names. The NRL needs to cleanup its act when it come to fighting as well, you still see regularly things that if an AFL player did would see them out of the games for months if not forever

“but it is nevertheless the yardstick against which all men measure their manliness.”

Would this statement appear discriminatory?
“but it is nevertheless the yardstick against which all women measure their femininity.”

The last statement would probably be shouted down by various feminists as being generalized and discriminatory, but so many of those same feminists take no objection to discriminatory, generalized, sexists and bigoted statements, when such statements are being made about men.

The author will probably get their PhD, as a PhD from an Australian university is now hardly worth the paper it is written on. All someone has to do is make discriminatory, biased and negative statements about the male gender, and any university in Australia will give you a PhD

The Author should have a look through their university, and see what has been built and installed by a male, and have a look at who is mainly paying their wages. If the author or any likeminded academics can’t think of anything good to say about males, then they should drop out of their universities and find a real job.