Legal professionals have the ability to influence opinion and attitudes towards women and violence, Justice Susan Brown told the recent Legal Profession Breakfast in Brisbane.
Justice Brown was responding to the keynote speech by youth advocate and educator Daniel Principe at the Women’s Legal Service Queensland fundraiser where he revealed some shocking statistics about the negative influence that social media was having on boys and young men.
“All of you are influencers. All of you are role models,” Her Honour said at the 13 November event.
“All of you can go and deliver the message that Daniel spoke about today, to make this world a much better place, a much safer place, and one where we want our children growing up.”
Daniel contrasted the experiences of those in the audience growing up with an old Nokia phone to those now facing “a world of smartphones, algorithms and AI”.
He said “black pill content” was making boys feel bad about themselves and creating destructive stereotypes about relationships.
“For those that don’t know, that’s content that’s designed to demoralise you, to depress you, to make you think that there is no hope for you in your life and in your relationships,” Daniel said.
“And teenage boys especially are being exposed to this content.
“And as I challenge young people, there’s a lot of people out there preying on their insecurities, telling them that they’re not manly or muscly enough, that they’re never going to be masculine enough to achieve a relationship in life.
“And so they’re bombarded with all this and they’re trying to do their best to nab them.”
However Daniel said what he heard from boys “most days is magnificent, it’s beautiful, it’s encouraging”.
“There is much that I love and admire about this next generation,” he said. “But you can say something, but is that actually how you treat people around you?
“And I’m really big on culture, and this is true for our organisations, our workplaces, our homes.
“What do you celebrate and what do you share? That’s going to tell me a lot more about your culture than just what you could write on a piece of paper as the correct answer.”
Daniel put a question to the audience – the same that he proposes to the groups of young men he speaks with – what are you doing about a culture of shame and gender stereotypes.
“All of us play a role in shaping culture. Every single one of us has influence,” he said.
“What is it that we truly value? What is it that our behavior would signal that we truly value as individuals and as a collective?
“And are we signalling that enough to the younger generation who’ll be bombarded with callousness, with suspicion, with superficiality?”
He also challenged audience members to create a culture before a crisis.
“Now, all organisations are interested in culture. Some people define it as like repeatable, observable behaviours,” he said.
“I don’t know about you folks, I never had any opportunities to talk about my values, my boundaries, my relationships, my friendships, the social-emotional skills that I needed to thrive personally and professionally.
“I think we owe it to young people, and to be honest, all of us, to say that we are having these conversations because we actually want good for one another.
“I think we need to have ongoing and very early conversations, which can be hard.
“For those of you that are parents, who care about young people, we need to have conversations here very early on.
“The young people are the sort of young people that you’re going to employ in the future.
“And in a world of AI, I’m sure we should probably all be thinking, what are those human skills that we need to continue to cultivate, to set us up well, to thrive to do?”
His final challenge to the 600-strong crowd was to question what a world with these types of conversations – where respect was a focus – would then look like.
“And you are all very brilliant, influential people. So what would it look like to set the tone for them as to what we would see and what we wouldn’t see?
“I would love us to do this, to normalise it for the next generation that, when they look up to you as their potential employers or colleagues that they admire. That they’re taking their cues, that yes, we want you to be confident in your work.
“Yes, we want you to achieve results, but we want you to be good, decent, kind, loving, courageous humans. So could I ask you all to champion that with me?”
Daniels said he was an “absolute idealist”.
“But I want more than just the absence of violence. I want to see young people and all of us thrive. I want to see healthy relationships and workplaces and communities.”
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