The Nurture Gap: why boys are falling behind and women are paying the price

By Phil Bird & Rachel Samson

Two clinical pyschologists explain why preventing violence against women starts in childhood and the way parents, caregivers, and educators are socialised to raise boys in our culture.

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Australia is trying to send a clear message of saying ‘no’ to domestic violence. The question is: do the men who need to hear it actually hear it?

We run campaigns. We fund respectful relationships education. We measure “attitudes.” We repeat the message that gender inequality and disrespect towards women are major drivers of violence. And governments have invested heavily in that premise for decades.

Yet the headlines keep coming. In January of this year, six women were murdered by men in Australia. Six women.

In 2023–24, one woman was killed every eight days by an intimate partner in Australia, and the intimate partner homicide victimisation rate increased for the second consecutive year (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare [AIHW], 2025). In the same period, national attitude data suggests the “hearts and minds” approach is hitting a ceiling. There was no significant improvement in rejection of violence against women between 2017 and 2021 in the National Community Attitudes Towards Violence Against Women Survey (Coumarelos et al., 2023a).

It is clear that gender equality messaging is not enough. We need to go deeper and start earlier in life than we have been willing to acknowledge, let alone address as a nation. We argue that preventing violence against women starts in childhood and in how parents, caregivers, and educators are socialised to raise boys in our culture.

Why do so many men struggle to regulate their emotions?

Australia’s boys and men are struggling. The data shows:

• Surging rates of depression, anxiety and suicide: In 2024, 76.5% of suicide deaths were male (2,529 of 3,307) (Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS], 2025), the biggest killer of men under 50 is suicide;

• Substance and alcohol misuse: In 2022-23, men were almost twice as likely as women to exceed the lifetime alcohol risk guidelines, and have higher rates of illicit drug use and drug-related hospitalisation (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare [AIHW], 2024);

• School disengagement and gendered achievement gaps: National testing continues to show persistent gender differences in literacy, with girls outperforming boys across key literacy domains in Australia (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA], 2024).

The common underlying factor behind all of these struggles is emotional dysregulation. Emotion regulation - the process by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they express them (Gross, 1998) - is not something we are born with. The development of emotion regulation is ‘experience-dependent’: it develops through repeated experiences of caregivers providing soothing, comfort, help to name emotions, and healthy modelling of emotional expression (Sroufe, 1996; Schore, 2012).

Over time, these relational experiences become internal capacities. Difficulties identifying, tolerating, and modulating emotion are a feature of virtually all forms of psychopathology (Aldao et al., 2010). They are also strongly associated with aggression and intimate partner violence perpetration. Deficits in emotion regulation - particularly poor impulse control under stress and difficulty managing anger - significantly predict violent behaviour (Roberton et al., 2012; Shorey et al., 2011). Emotion dysregulation does not always cause violence, but it increases risk.

And we cannot ignore the socialised gender roles and gender binaries boys are growing up with. The most recent Australian “Man Box” research shows that a sizeable minority of men are still shaped by rigid masculinity norms. Norms that reinforce their underlying challenges with emotion regulation and emotional literacy (Horton et.al., 2026). The “Man Box” refers to a set of rigid, socially constructed norms that define what it means to be a “real man”. These norms emphasise dominance, emotional restriction, toughness, self-reliance, heterosexuality prowess, and control over women.

• A national survey of 3,519 Australian men aged 18 to 45 found 36% felt social pressure to conform to Man Box rules, and 24% personally endorsed them (The Men’s Project & Respect Victoria, 2024).

• Men who most strongly agreed with these norms were more likely to report psychological distress, violence-supportive attitudes, and violent pornography consumption (The Men’s Project & Respect Victoria, 2024).

Boys are not born to be a danger to themselves or others. They are being shaped inside gender roles and social experiences that create and perpetuate an inability to regulate.

Research tells us which men are more likely to commit acts of violence against women

What is missing in how we understand gendered violence?

In Losing It, leading journalist and gendered violence expert, Jess Hill argues Australia’s prevention architecture has become too narrow, overweighting attitude change and underweighting other causal pathways, including child maltreatment and trauma, as well as reinforcing drivers such as alcohol and pornography (Hill, 2025).

If the primary metric is “attitudes,” and the primary lever is “education,” we may be over-investing in what is easiest to measure, not what is most causally powerful.

We need a model of understanding violence that includes gender role socialisation and gender binaries, media messaging, child development, attitudes and attachment styles, and a deeper understanding of the biological drivers and needs of the nervous system.

The driving forces of violence and control

Only relatively recently has childhood trauma and abuse been discussed as a central driver in mainstream prevention debates, despite robust evidence that exposure to violence in childhood is associated with increased risk of later perpetration (Stith et al., 2004). As psychologists working with families in clinical and family court contexts, we see this every week.

Coercive control and explosive rage are often the adult language of an early life organised around fear, shame, and emotional abandonment. It is the absence of conditions of nurture and emotion regulation that leads to the presence of control in relationships (Donahue et.al 2014).

But we think we have to go a step earlier again. Because even without overt abuse, many boys are raised in emotional deprivation, not maliciously, but culturally.

Boys need the same nurture as girls. They just do not get it. That is the line we keep refusing to say out loud.

Research has shown that gender stereotypes begin astonishingly early. Research shows that once parents learn the sex of a fetus, they begin relating differently to boys and girls. Parents describe males in utero as active and females as temperamental. In a seminal study (Rubin et al. ,1974), parents of newborns rated daughters as soft, fine-featured, awkward, and weak, while sons were rated as firm, big, well-coordinated and strong, despite no actual differences between sexes in weight, length, or Apgar scores.

In a study by Burnham & Harriss (1992) pregnant women perceived boy babies as stronger and more of a problem, whereas girls were perceived to be more sensitive. In infancy and toddlerhood, parents talk more to females than males which may explain language differences observed in boys and girls in the early years of life (e.g., Gurgand, Peyre, & Ramus, 2025)..

Gendered expectations reliably seep into interactions between adults and children even before birth, and small differences can compound over development (Leaper et al., 1998).

These early gendered perceptions cascade. Boys are more likely to be nudged toward toughness and independence. Girls toward emotional language and relational skill. Boys are more likely to be corrected for emotional expression. Girls are more likely to be comforted for it (Leaper et al., 1998).

This is the nurture gap.

The need for nurture is the same, what differs is how we teach boys to express their nurture needs and how we respond as a society. We often see the needs of boys as behaviours to be managed, rather than needs to be seen, understood and responded to. Niobe Way’s longitudinal work shows that many young boys begin life expressing deep needs for intimacy and emotional connection, only to abandon these needs in adolescence as vulnerability becomes socially dangerous (Way, 2011).

What is left is a population of boys with unmet needs who grow into men expressing those needs through control, rage and violence. And we leave women and children living downstream of male dysregulation.

The consequences of the nurture gap are devastating. This is the developmental engine beneath the cultural story.

What would it mean to close the gap?

Over 70 years of developmental science show that a child’s capacity to regulate emotion is built from within relationships, through repeated experiences of sensitive responsiveness from caregivers: being seen, soothed, understood, regulated, and safe (Bowlby, 1980; Sroufe, 2005). Parents are the primary architects of a child’s stress and regulation systems, especially in the first years of life (Schore 1994, 2001). This is where our investment must begin.

But it cannot be the responsibility of parents alone. We need an integrated societal investment that includes:

• parental leave that protects early bonding;

• trauma informed early childhood and school systems;

• accessible parent education grounded in developmental science;

• serious prevention of child maltreatment;

• and regulation of reinforcing drivers, including alcohol and violent pornography, consistent with the broadened prevention debate now on the table (Hill, 2025)

But we also need a cultural correction inside homes and more widely:

• We must stop confusing emotional suppression with strength.

• We must stop training boys to fear vulnerability.

• We must stop treating emotional expression and nurture as something reserved for girls.

If we want men to stop killing women - and themselves - we must, as a nation, stop raising boys who learn that the only way to feel safe is to feel in control.

We must prioritise relational safety and connection in vulnerable young boys. It is only through emotional connection that we can truly promote gender equality and respect to create meaningful change.

References

Aldao, A., Nolen-Hoeksema, S., & Schweizer, S. (2010). Emotion-regulation strategies across psychopathology: A meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 30(2), 217–237. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2009.11.004

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2025). Causes of death, Australia, 2024 (Cat. No. 3303.0). https://www.abs.gov.au

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2024). National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy: National report for 2024. https://www.nap.edu.au

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2025). Family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia: Continuing the national story (Cat. No. FDV 4). https://www.aihw.gov.au

Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and loss: Vol. 3. Loss, sadness and depression. Basic Books.

Burnham, R., & Harris, L. (1992). Effects of gender stereotypes on prenatal expectations and perceptions of infants. Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, 10(3), 191–200. https://doi.org/10.1080/02646839208403860

Coumarelos, C., Allen, J., Clark, S., Dowling, C., Harris, A., & Bricknell, S. (2023a). National Community Attitudes towards Violence against Women Survey (NCAS): Findings from the 2021 survey. Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS). https://www.anrows.org.au

Donahue, J. J., Goranson, A. C., McClure, K. S., & Van Male, L. M. (2014). Emotion dysregulation, negative affect, and aggression: A moderated mediation model. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 42(5), 733–744. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-013-9818-9

Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 271–299. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.271

Gurgand, L., Peyre, H., & Ramus, F. (2025). Gender disparities in parental linguistic engagement and in children’s language development. Learning and Individual Differences, 120, 102679. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2025.102679

Hill, J. (2025). Losing it: Can we stop violence against women and children? Black Inc.

Horton, P., McDonald, P., & The Men’s Project. (2026). The Australian Man Box: Masculinity, attitudes and behaviours(5th ed.). Jesuit Social Services.

Leaper, C., Anderson, K. J., & Sanders, P. (1998). Moderators of gender effects on parents’ talk to their children: A meta-analysis. Developmental Psychology, 34(1), 3–27. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.34.1.3

Roberton, T., Daffern, M., & Bucks, R. S. (2012). Emotion regulation and aggression. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 17(1), 72–82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2011.09.006

Rubin, J. Z., Provenzano, F. J., & Luria, Z. (1974). The eye of the beholder: Parents’ views on sex of newborns. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 44(4), 512–519. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-0025.1974.tb00871.x

Schore, A. N. (1994). Affect regulation and the origin of the self. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Schore, A. N. (2001). Effects of a secure attachment relationship on right brain development, affect regulation, and infant mental health. Infant Mental Health Journal, 22(1–2), 7–66. https://doi.org/10.1002/1097-0355

Schore, A. N. (2012). The science of the art of psychotherapy. Norton.

Shorey, R. C., Brasfield, H., Febres, J., & Stuart, G. L. (2011). The association between emotion regulation deficits and intimate partner violence perpetration. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 26(16), 3179–3194. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260510390957

Sroufe, L. A. (1996). Emotional development: The organization of emotional life in the early years. Cambridge University Press.

Sroufe, L. A. (2005). Attachment and development: A prospective, longitudinal study from birth to adulthood. Attachment & Human Development, 7(4), 349–367. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616730500365928

Stith, S. M., Rosen, K. H., Middleton, K. A., Busch, A. L., Lundeberg, K., & Carlton, R. P. (2004). The intergenerational transmission of spouse abuse: A meta-analysis. Journal of Marriage and Family, 62(3), 640–654. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2000.00640.x

The Men’s Project, & Respect Victoria. (2024). The Man Box 2024: Re-examining what it means to be a man in Australia. Jesuit Social Services. https://themensproject.org

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About the authors

Phil Bird

Phil Bird is Principal Psychologist and Director of Nest Health Hub in Newcastle, NSW. He is an advocate for the prevention and healing of childhood trauma, supporting children, families, and the professionals who care for them. Alongside his clinical practice, Phil delivers training for parents, clinicians, and educators, supporting them to understand and respond to the needs of the nervous system. He has developed several trauma-informed programs including the NeuroSensory Therapeutic (NEST) Program for children and families and the Building New Pathways series, providing practical, neuroscience-informed education for allied health professional, foster care organisations, early childhood and education settings across Australia.

Rachel Samson

Rachel is a Clinical Psychologist, Director of the Australian Association of Psychologists (AAPi), and Panel Family Consultant for the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, working at the intersection of developmental psychology and family law. She is recognised as a leading expert on relationships, parent-child attachment, and child development. Rachel regularly appears in Australian and international media and is the co-author of Beyond Difficult: An Attachment-Based Guide to Dealing with Challenging People.