This is embarrassing to write as I share the gender and the age demographic of many who are problematic in our society. What is it with some men? What don’t we ‘get’? Don’t we realise we can’t and shouldn’t treat women the way some of us do?
I am an older, white, Australian male, and I am increasingly dismayed at the attitudes and behaviour of some of us towards women. There seems to be an assumption that women are men’s playthings and they must be permanently sexually available to us. Some of the old archetypes for women were – she could be a virgin, a mother or a whore. These identities were devised by men.
The Issues
When my adult daughter was living at home with us, she refused to watch the commercial news at 6:00 pm. Her comment was – “another day, and another angry man hijacks another car”. She was right. Road rage and carjackings typically head the news. And nearly all of it is perpetrated by men.
I remember my sisters at a private girls’ school reporting that they had to attend boys’ football matches, but that was never reciprocated. None of us boys attended or were expected to attend the girls’ netball matches. This was male privilege on display. The assumption here was that the young males were to be accorded affirmation but not the young women. This indicates a collective socialisation where a whole society colludes in the myth of male superiority and inequality. Indeed, I was part of it and never questioned it at the time.
What is it with some of us men? Many of us (male and female) can cite examples of men taking up lots of space on public transport, talking aggressively, behaving inappropriately, and making derogatory comments about women. Research has also shown that one in three women have been sexually abused at some time in their lives, and that one woman a week is murdered – typically by their ex-partner. During 2020 with the spread of COVID-19 and associated job losses and lockdowns, instances of domestic violence escalated alarmingly in all jurisdictions.
Chanel Contos started a petition that has gone viral with 30 000 signatures and 5 000 testimonials from young women
who have been sexually assaulted by boys from private boys’ schools in Sydney over the last decade or more. Contos laments a “rape culture” among young men. Stories frequently featured interactions at parties with male students taking advantage of female students while drunk. Any wonder there is a call for widespread re-education about consent and that “no” really means “no”.
A woman can’t walk on her own at night in Australia without fearing she will be attacked, raped and possibly murdered. She is fearful of taking a taxi or an Uber.
And in Canberra – ‘big swinging dicks’. Really? This was apparently well-known in Parliament House among certain male politicians. If such a statement were proclaimed as a badge of honour in the public sector, or anywhere in corporate Australia, these men would have been disciplined and possibly dismissed. Labor is not immune from allegations of inappropriate behaviour. Any wonder that the reputation of politicians is lower than that of used car salesmen. As one placard at March4Justice quipped, “Big Swinging Dictatorship”. Male sexual privilege combined with power is a dangerous mix. It must be eradicated from Parliament, the people’s house.
In the UK, 33-year-old, Sarah Everard was recently kidnapped and killed by a police officer. Her killing has sparked national reckoning over violence against women, with an event turning into a rally against gender violence. The Duchess of Cambridge attended in support. The police were apparently heavy-handed in dealing with the protesters over Sarah’s tragic death.
The Solutions
The issues are many and complex, but this is no excuse for not finding lasting, sustainable solutions. For years, generations in fact, women have suffered at the hands of male-dominated institutions and male privilege. I say that with no resentment or bitterness, but sadness that as a society and as a gender, we haven’t learnt much from all these atrocities, or shown more respect towards women.
The solutions are both attitudinal and structural. Attitudinal refers to the antecedents of behaviour – the values and dispositions that privilege males above females. Here, the assumption has been that resources should be allocated to men, that men are the leaders, and that “boys will be boys”.
One doesn’t need to undertake feminist studies to realise that women are woefully underrepresented in positions of authority and that their views and concerns are rarely or poorly addressed.
Yes, the solution is also cultural. “Culture” is often used as an excuse for not doing anything because it is all too hard. Janine Hendry, the organiser of the March4Justice, refused to meet with the Prime Minister ‘behind closed doors’. She perhaps recognised in this token and secret response that the PM’s not addressing the matter seriously and in public is typical of how men in power regard ‘women’s issues’. Let’s hope the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, will help to address the cultural problems at Parliament House.
Women rightly have had enough
#MeToo highlighted endemic sexism and sexual abuse in the arts and entertainment industry, a protest movement that drew widespread support and recognition. Worldwide protests took up the same refrain.
Recent experience in the UK for Sarah Everard and the mass turnouts for March4Justice across Australia – occurring during COVID-19 days –highlight the same sad fact that gendered violence and sexism is ubiquitous and must end. Now.
Brittany Higgins’ recent allegation of rape in the Defence Minister’s office in Parliament House has brought the issue of sexual abuse to the nation’s attention, and allegations against Attorney-General Christian Porter remain unresolved and un-tested because the PM refuses to conduct an independent inquiry. The impression seems to be that he’s [a male] in a senior role in Government and ‘the rule of law’ is being used as a convenient excuse not to pursue the woman’s rape allegations.
Grace Tame was voted as ‘Australian of the Year’ for 2021 for her courageous efforts as a survivor to change the law to ensure that victims of sexual abuse can legally claim their voices. While it was right that she was honoured, it is still a sad indictment that the law had failed to allow her a voice as a victim of sexual abuse.
Let’s make sure we hear women’s voices once and for all and do something about it. Let’s examine our assumptions, challenge our attitudes, confront our inappropriate behaviour, and educate young men to be more respectful, and that “no means no”.
Greg is a part-time university lecturer, a civil funeral celebrant, and a children’s book author. He was a management consultant for forty years, specialising in leadership, strategy and organisational behaviour. His PhD challenged the view that human beings at work were merely ‘human resources’. He is married and lives on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. He has published previous articles in Pearls and Irritations on leadership, religion, and grief.
Comments
15 responses to “The Trouble with Men: the reason for March4Justice”
What should we all boycott? Money talks. Where can we hit them in the pocket? We know the problem.
What are avenues to solutions and a happier community, where women can smile and bestow relaxtion where they wish? It may even free many men?
Can a university offer a Masters in solutions to such problems?
We need long term change. Misogyny is present in the Freemasons, the membership is rampant among judges, politicians and police.
Time to set up Sororities? Why not?
I normally seek to be critical.
Here I am not.
I am grateful I’ve been able to read this outstanding contribution.
Greg, I think that it is more than that, that many women have had an epistemological leap which caused us to recognise that their outrage, and disadvantage and exploitation is real among all ages, and all women, and that it is quite unacceptable, and will be named. When a school captain in Brisbane tells the world his mother was raped as a girl, her bravery and her time to speak came, this week. What Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins have done is give us voices, and the realisation that Gilead is real.
Thanks Rosemary (and others for your welcome comments). I hope for my wife, daughter, four sisters and many female friends and colleagues that now is a watershed time for women. I hope this is not just epistemological (knowing) but ontological (being) – be yourself, safe and free and not defined or limited by toxic men. Most of us as men feel betrayed and fed up with these BSDs. Enough is enough.
Two points, Greg. 1. Being safe and free and not defined by toxic men has not proved possible even in the most public recent women’s cases 2. Perhaps Marx was right, that by understanding a situation, seeing the contradiction within it to discern a resolution. It’s a much broader issue than the women in Parliament, or high schools in Hobart requiring that resolution. That issue is nation- and women-wide. I pray that there is rapid re-education that makes all women safe and free and unlimited.
Thanks. It’s far better to see men talking about the “Male Problem”, correctly said this way. Howard aimed to smash feminism, ably helped by Hanson. Women had to get behind picket fences, with ooodles of dough for staying at home. Basically the “Men’s Rights” movement has caused the rot, with Abbott leading a filthy charge against Gillard. Refuges are shut down, and legal aid. Ged Kearney also remarked she had a terrible time when she first stood for Parliament. So it’s not just that Liberal person complaining about her very tight election. Virtually no MSM have recalled the women-hating outcry of Brad Hazzard (to our health) in NSW Parliament against Jodi McKay. Berejijiklian sat primly behind Brad, as Julie Bishop did when Gillard was attacked. With the right-wing extremism disallowed (term), what’s forgotten is these Nazi waving guys are also deep misogynists. If NSW Police Commissioner is happy to show he knows zero about violence and is possibly culpable in Men’s Rights with his crazed App “consent” thought bubble, we are in deep trouble. Morrison and his cabinet are all behind Mens’ Rights. The private boys schools and Sydney University’s male colleges – the finishing schools for blokes – remain untouched save by whiffle waffle. As someone rightly said, “consent” is simply the lowest of low bars. She recommended “enthusiasm” and I add “mutuality and reciprocity”. Disrespect is not the point, there is an awful wave of denigration of women being any other than chattels.
I dislike much of the framing in this piece, and others like it. The characteristics Greg Latemore describes as masculine, I would describe as ‘human’. And I would further argue that these characteristics are always present in whatever group is dominant in any given society. They are not the sole provenance of men.
In the world we presently inhabit, white males are regarded as a major source of ‘bad’ behaviour. And it’s a fair enough assessment. But it is a mistake to think that this would be different if we got rid of the white males, and replaced them with white females or brown males.
The behaviours Greg refers to, are not gender based; they are a product of entitlement. Yes, we should address the present troubles, but not make the mistake of leaping from the frying pan into the fire.
Agree. This issue can be sheeted home to the male entitlement (however developed culturally) in a world still run mostly by males and supported by a legal system that upholds that male entitlement – not least by allowing hired-gun barristers to destroy the composure of a rape victim, by hook or by crook, so as to create the “reasonable doubt” for the jury to acquit the rapist. The is is so well laid out in Louise Milligan’s book, Witness. Thus the conviction rate is so low. 1%, 3% or 6%, take your pick.
Malcolm, You say “But it is a mistake to think that this would be different if we got rid of the white males, and replaced them with white females or brown males.”
You don’t have to absolutely replace one group with another. How about replacing SOME of the white males with white/black/brown/yellow females AND males? (Which may also mean personally that I get a shot at being a Senator in the Australian Parliament!)
Lots of evidence out there that DIVERSITY is a winner. Whether it is flora, fauna, or human! You can’t argue otherwise- but do please try!
O, I fully agree, Man Lee. The whole point I was making was that any group that sees itself as superior or entitled will always behave badly, that this is not something exclusive to white males. I’m all in favour of diversity. And clearly, that is the way the world is headed. All we have to do is persuade the Anglo-Saxons to lay down their arms. And it’s not all of them that are the problem. It’s just the ones at the top. But you already know that.
Malcolm: yes, they are a product, not so much of ‘entitlement’ but rather a ‘sense of entitlement’. We’re talking of ‘external referenting’.
Further, the gender of those personalities most deeply enmeshed in this self-destructive behaviour is – overwhelmingly – male.
From your or my perspective it might look like a ‘sense’ of entitlement, but from their perspective its real. And of course, you are correct, they are overwhelmingly male, as I think I have already acknowledged. However, I have to say that none of this was ever in contention. The point I have been making is that cultivating a sense of entitlement in any group leads to bad behaviour. It seems that the growing consensus is that this comes more from the private schools than the public schools, where this sense of entitlement is reinforced.
Yes, I think that ‘sense of entitlement’ (subjective as I agree it is – to holders of it, it feels and seems real) is fuelled and reinforced by private schools and possibly also by selective State schools also.
Some 1% of the male population are ‘Dark Triadists’ (narcissism + psychopathy + machiavellianism); some 3% of CEOs are also. I am keeping on joining the dots and I urge other readers to also.
Send this essay to the BS Dictatorship principals – I read somewhere that Scottie and Greggie were allegedly two of the number – so send it to the LNP Front Bench – the men of course but there are women clearly in that number of BSDs who require some educating on the issue – Marise and Michaelia and the woman Ruston (?)…it’s hard to keep up with who is on third – the continual switching of ministriesI