Adam Goodes at the SCG this week. Credit:Reuters/David Gray Sexism and racism are generally portrayed as being problems of perceived superiority: man being superior to woman, white being superior to black. But scratch the surface of these, and the very opposite is actually the case. In the Lindt Cafe tragedy in Sydney, in the killing of Luke Batty by his father, the cinema and school shootings in the United States, or the Port Arthur Massacre in Tasmania, we saw men or boys who were at the end of their tether. In common parlance, they believed they had nothing much to lose. The only release from such a place comes in the form of feeling finally, even fleetingly, better than someone else, in charge, holding the power at last. For a man, the need to escape shame overpowers even the need to survive itself. If we don't understand that, we will never solve either crime or terrorism. Neuroscience tells us that emotion underlies, and frequently determines thought. Sexist and racist acts are not thought through, except in post-justification. Demeaning or hurting someone else makes an insecure, shamed man feel better. For a fleeting moment, he rises higher, in his own mind, than someone else. That's why sexism is not evenly distributed among men. It is no accident that misogynist lyrics overwhelmingly come from black rap and hip hop music. Despite desegregation, young black men are still the most deprived demographic in the US, lacking employment opportunities and often coming from families blitzed by generations of absent fathers. They are reminded every minute of every day that they are the lowest of the pile. But some measure of re-elevation can take place by them portraying as worthless and contemptible the women and girls in their lives.

The lower men feel, the lower they want women to feel. It's a problem that leads to untold suffering across the planet. The hearings of the Royal Commission into Family Violence in Melbourne created a quiet breakthrough in highlighting that not all males are intrinsically misogynist, despite that being a long held belief in some quarters. But being an immigrant, Aboriginal, unemployed, mentally ill, homeless, or having grown up with the terror of violence in one's boyhood are overwhelming risk factors. Rosie Batty has distinguished herself from decades of commentary by showing compassion for males, despite their often terrible actions. Sexism and racism come from essentially the same place. There is very little logic or premeditation involved. Those who jeer Adam Goodes from the grandstand don't really know why they are doing it. It just makes them feel good. Sport plays games around tribalism and symbolic battle, and this is not a bad thing, but in hard times it can easily tip over into problems with real violence and unhealthy attitudes. As an outlet for men who have few other avenues to heroism or meaning, it can be a place where sexism and racism are hard to eradicate. In the wider society thing are worse – fearing and hating minorities gives low-income people a target for their frustrations and the relief of seeing that they are better than someone else. It is not exclusively a male problem, but acting on it usually is.

The problem is partly that we don't properly enrich boyhood with loving and inspiring messages and relationships. But worse, that we have developed a culture that is so unequal, so lacking in meaning or sacredness, and so lacking in healthy engagement, that shamed and alienated males are everywhere. It's a miracle that more of them don't turn into killers. Our economy is a machine for moving wealth from the many to the few – jobs disappear and thousands of young men feel themselves superfluous. As inequality grows, so will the shootings and bombings. The rhetoric of cigar-smoking treasurers and fur-clad speakers of the House are not what we need right now. There is a great deal we can do – as parents, schoolteachers, family and friends of boys and men. And as men ourselves. We can teach honour and respect to boys, treat them well, include them, and direct their energies. We can create specific pathways to a better kind of manhood in our curricula and in our sporting and cultural activities. We can identify at-risk and alienated males and bring them back into the fold. We can increase the warmth and empathy we show to babies and little children, so their brains are calm and their compassion for other develops to the full. But far more urgently than this, since the danger is so immediate and great, we must also work to reconstruct the basis of our society away from earn-and-spend, from entrenched selfishness as the very meaning of our lives. The alternative is hell on earth, the fires of which are already well alight. Steve Biddulph is the author of The New Manhood and Raising Boys.