We're all from Earth - deal with it! ...Women, men, gender, and peace.

Women and men: Power, rank and privilege

2011-08-06T18:07:00.000-07:00

In this text I seek to deepen our understanding of male privilege. I don’t seek to deny the basic philosophy behind a statement such as “Our society is setup to attribute men greater privilege than women”, but I do seek to broaden our understanding of privilege; it is my hope that next time you speak about male privilege, you won’t use quite the same language.

This dialogue involves the concepts of rank, power, and privilege. The three are interwoven.

Frankly, I think our traditional assessment of rank, power and privilege – and more specifically, who’s got it – is grossly over simplified. For one thing, your rank changes over time, according to the life lessons you accrue, the geographical area you move to, the aging process, and so many other things.

But most importantly, there is no simple singular measurement of your privilege. There are many different types of privilege at play at any one point in time.

The type of privilege we’re most familiar with is what might be called ‘societal’ privilege. It is this one that men are, in many ways, born into. It is closely associated with financial privilege, since they tend to go together; it is societal privilege that will sometimes mean that a man gets a job that a woman was equally suited to, and will perhaps get paid more for (as if the initial insult wasn’t enough).

A second privilege, or rank, is that that occurs in the physical domain; a person who is taller, stronger, and has been socialised to use their body more (through such things as sports and play fighting), has rank over a person who is smaller and weaker or less familiar with how to use their body. Nature seems, on average, to have made our men folk slightly stronger on average, and culturally we have exaggerated this difference through the ways we socialise our women and our men; men are more likely to be encouraged and expected to make use of their physical bodies, whereas it would be “unladylike” for a woman to do many of the same things.

These are two very important ranks, and they’re two that we’re fairly familiar with; much thought has been progressed around how these privileges play out in our culture, and how they have been misused by men for unfair gain over women. To be clear, I think we are a far better society for the work that’s been done in these areas.

But they are only two ranks from a very long list. Rank and privilege, and the power it gives us, is everywhere. If you are healthy and well slept, you have rank over someone who is sick and tired. If you are young, sometimes this will give you rank over those that are older than you, and sometimes not. If you were born into the language that is the main one spoken where you live, you have a lot of power over someone who has arrived to that tongue more recently. If you are detached and a little bit aloof from the goings on around you, then you have a lot of power in relation to someone who tends to get caught up in the moment.

Rank extends to almost everything.

What I would like to shine a light on is the rank, power and privilege that women have in our culture. I am going to do this one-sidedly not because I think it is a more important issue, but because in comparison to the extent to which we have explored male privilege, I believe female privilege is very much an under-explored and undervalued concept.

To work in the realm of gross generalisations, women are encouraged in their skills around socialisation, communication, community, and family. These are the areas we expect women to be strong in; these are the areas that make us smile when young girls show an interest in them (as opposed to wanting to play in the mud, or use toy guns). Women are encouraged to acknowledge their emotional state, and be conversant about their feeling world.

This tends to give women a lot of what might be called psychological privilege; the ability to know a little bit about what’s going on in their inner world, and to be able to talk about same. I don’t believe it’s this simple, but a lot of people would argue that women leave men for dead when it comes to discussing deeper, interpersonal matters; often is the time that heterosexual women complain their male partners can’t keep up, or are apparently not interested in participating in conversations about the interpersonal. (For the record, I don’t think the issue is quite this simple, but I do think a lot of men struggle to talk about relationship issues on women’s terms – but more about that in a future article).

S in short, women have a lot of privilege, rank and power in the realms of relationships, feelings, and communication. And like all privileges, sometimes this can be misused, especially when we’re unaware of our privilege.

How this happens in relationships is a subtle thing. One indicator is that women can tend to assume that they know more about a relationship situation, they will have more entitlement around their perceptions. A woman’s ability to more quickly verbalise what’s right for her gives her an advantage over her male partner, and when misused, gives her the ability to control the conversation more adeptly than him – if he’s not as emotionally fit as her, he might not work out his perspective until well after the conversation is finished. There is a reason why 80% of psychologists are women, and it relates to this emotional fitness, which in turn stems from women’s privilge.

In some ways, the way this privilege plays out in relationships – and the broader political belief systems we have about how men and women relate – can be seen as a parallel of how men misuse their privilege in the business world, namely, of ignoring the input of a women under the mistaken belief that her input is not as valid. As so many of us know now, successful business depends on being able to include diversity in the decision-making process and general business structure; and so to the potential exists for relationships to strengthen , if only we are able to make them less female-dominated spaces, in the same way we seek to make the business world less male dominated.

Another area of female privilege is in the domain of the family. We often bemoan the fact that women are left to take care of the family while the menfolk get to move in the world of business and careers. This statement only actually makes sense if you assume the business world is the more important place; if you place an equal value on family and business, then no-one is better or worse than the other... if you place a higher value on family, relationships, and the interpersonal, then women actually come out of the exchange more favourably.

In the same way that women were (and to a lesser extent still are) kept out of the business world, men are kept out of the family world. It is a collusion that everyone contributes to, but in the same way that men had to change in order to make space for women in business, so too do women need to change to make space for men in the family. Instead of using their impressive (and yes, often hard-won) lobbying power to maintain laws that make it less likely for men to have access, to gain paternity leave, or have access to flexible workplace arrangements, women need to encourage and make it more possible for men to have that access to their kids and families; essentially, we need an equal opportunities movement for men in the same way that we’ve been having one for women for the last fifty years.

It’s one thing to open out the discussion about privilege as a concept, but at this point in time, chances are you’re still be thinking that male privilege is by far the greater power. This is ironically a further act of sexism against women, because the statement fundamentally assumes that the male areas of privilege are the more important ones; the statement actually devalues women’s traditional realms of power. Not only is this ironic, but I think it’s untrue; the domain of women is awesomely powerful and impressive, but our awareness about it lags behind a little bit...

There’s a simple exercise you can undertake to see what I mean. Either on a piece of paper or in your head, make a list of the things that are most important to you; take ten seconds to do it now, before you read on.

I have been doing this with women, men, and couples for a little over a decade now, and the results are pretty consistent. Most people vary a little in their precise wording, but the general themes are:

- Friends and family

- Health

- Basic needs; food, shelter, water, etc.

- Stable work / income / employment.

- A sense of purpose and / or spirituality.

- Love / relationship/s.

Now have a review of this list from the perspective of which areas generally tend to be within the areas where men have more privilege, and which are more closely related to women’s privilege. With the exception of employment and perhaps basic needs, in all the other areas it is pretty easy to argue that women have either a similar or greater amount of privilege than men.

I don’t profess to know, outright, who’s got it better or worse in the great gender debate. I actually don’t think the concept is a useful one, nor one that can be proved.

But I believe that it is not as simple as saying that “men have the privilege in our culture”. I think all we’re really saying with a statement like that is that we are more familiar with the concepts of male privilege, and how it is misused. Since it is women’s communication privilege, and the assertion that women are the only ones really able to legitimately comment on matters of gender politics, that has defined the debate about gender and privilege, perhaps it is no surprise that the debate has been skewed in one direction. After all, we all tend to misuse our privilege.

I would suggest it is time for us to come together and work jointly on our collective awareness of how power, rank and privilege play out in our society, and to also work on our personal awareness of how we have – or don’t have – various privileges, regardless of our gender. At best, an initially gendered analysis might help us identify broad trends as a starting point, but if we then pursue a gendered response with blinkers, we’re creating as many problems as we solve.

Rape in war: How our reactions don’t solve the problem.

2011-05-25T21:34:00.000-07:00

I was sitting absent-mindedly in an airport listening to the radio when I heard this report about the mass rape of women in Libya under Gaddafi’s orders: http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2011/s3225365.htm.

In short, it now seems to be clear that Gaddafi’s soldiers are systematically either taking women (and girls as young as 16) to a particular hotel and gang-raping them, as well as carrying out the atrocity in the homes of the victims, sometimes in front of their families. Confirmed reports are well into the hundreds of victims, with the real number suspected to be into the thousands.

As I let myself imagine what this must be like – how it plays out, what it feels like when soldiers burst through your door, what a family does while its women are being raped, and what goes through the minds of the women being raped – I couldn’t help sobbing a little. Some people on neighbouring seats noticed me and became decidedly uncomfortable about the lone man with headphones on and tears falling from his face.

Little did they know of my hidden, true reaction; if I had been free, I would have screamed, pummelled the floor, kicked bins over... all of which, in retrospect, is fair enough given what I was listening to. Even if we don’t act it out, surely most us have a reaction something like that.

After my moment passed, I found myself looking towards the sky and asking what happens next. I had to admit that not only was this recent news unbearable, but it was by no stretch of the imagination the first time we’ve heard about such acts, and it won’t be the last; we all know at least a little about the horrific and recurring role of rape in war.

Which got me wondering how, exactly, we could stop the pattern. A counterintuitive truth dawned on me: So long as our compassion and care only extends to what has happened to the women in this story, then we can be sure the act will repeat itself. We need to extend our compassion and care to the men that did it. It is essential.

Only when we do that will we come to question how our men got to this point. All children are born innocent; all people are beautiful and start with nothing but a blank slate and a lot of potential; and in their hearts all men, like all women, desire peace and love and a sense of community with those around them. The mass rape of women is not a fundamental quality of manhood; it is evidence that something has gone awfully wrong over a long period of time.

The men that commit these acts are ruined. They were ruined a long time ago. They have been mistreated and misled, and brought up in an environment that somehow has made right this kind of way of relating to the world. To be absolutely and undeniably sure: these men have been violated, in various different ways, so as to in turn make them into the violators of others as a weapon of war. Their connection with their communities, their love for themselves and others, and their very humanity has been taken.

Men are not stupid, and they are not unethical. With the possible exception of a tiny minority – perhaps best discussed from a mental health perspective – that don’t seem to have a moral compass we understand, all other men know what is right and what is not. Even if his training, conditioning, and life experience has been such that on some level he believes that the rape he commits is the right thing to do, deep down he still knows this is wrong. This disparity, and the knowledge of what he has done, will make sure he is ruined for a long time after the conflict has passed. The purpose of what I’m saying is not to compare the plight of the victim with the plight of the perpetrator; I make no claim that the male role in this story is worse than the female role, and in any case a race to the bottom is a pointless exercise. But I do wish to highlight that, with horrible sadness, I accept that they have something in common, that they are both victims of war.

If our outrage only extends to women, then we will never notice that the way we treat our men – the way we train them to go against their inherently good nature and then use and discard them as weapons of war – is also an outrage. What is not opposed cannot be stopped, and so rape (along with all the other atrocities of war) will continue to beg for our interventions if we never stand up against what we do to men in the process of turning them into soldiers. Trying to stop broken men acting badly will only ever be temporarily successful; what we need to do is stop breaking them in the first place, so that they stop breaking others in turn.

I am outraged. I am outraged that any woman or person should have her life, body, rights, and sacredness violated, whether in a warzone or otherwise. I am also outraged that any man or person should be brought up in a way that encourages them to use their own bodies as weapons; that their life, body, rights, and sacredness has also been violated.

I am outraged that I haven’t noticed the duality of these crimes until now. I want this to stop, for everyone.

Some Truths About Pornography

2011-04-29T00:08:00.000-07:00

I wish someone had sat down with me when I was in my early teens and had a frank chat about pornography, and sex generally. In the absence of genuine information, pornography became a sort of de-facto educational tool, albeit a subconscious process; I wasn’t exactly viewing porn as a learning experience per se, but I naturally assumed that what I was seeing was true and real. Needless to say, like many teens, this set me up to get about a hundred things wrong in bed in the future.

I’m not anti-porn. Indeed, if we’re talking about sex between consenting adults, I’m decidedly liberal. But I think porn has its dangers and needs to be framed in some kind of context, and it needs to be coupled with real information. Otherwise, like me, our youth are in for an unpleasant series of surprises when they attempt to copy what they see in porn with their own partners – one quickly discovers that things in the real world are far more complicated (and interesting) than what’s on our screens.

Before I divulge some things that I have learned – sometimes the hard way – I need to tackle a pervasive myth: That porn is fundamentally disrespectful regarding women. I used to assume this was true, and it haunted me as I tried to reconcile my desire to be a good man with, shall we say, my more base desires. Eventually I was relieved to discover that despite the presence of porn in my life, I had not become misogynistic. From there I couldn’t help wondering that if the myth wasn’t true for me, then perhaps it wasn’t true at all?

I believe that if one already hates women, one will find porn that will allow that hatred to become sexualised. Or, expressed a little more gently, if on a psychological level you have some unresolved discomfort with women, then chances are you will find yourself viewing material that is at times disrespectful to women. However, if in life you approach women with respect, then like most of us, you will find that nasty porn is not to your liking. Keep looking: Supremely beautiful adult cinematography, that is respectful towards all parties, is out there.

If porn is fundamentally disrespectful of women – either because of the way women are portrayed, or the way they’re used as actors – then surely the same is true of the men in porn, is it not? In both cases, the roles played are stereotyped in ways that are often limiting, and in both cases the actors are exchanging their bodies and sex for money. Given that pornography is now sought and viewed by almost as many women as men, it’s increasingly difficult to maintain that the whole industry is anti-female. While some pornography clearly exists that promotes the mistreatment of women (and men, to be sure), much exists that doesn’t.

So without further ado, here is what I wish someone had told me:

1. No two people are the same, and no two people like the same things in bed. Further, what a person likes will change depending on who they’re with, and even at different times with the same partner. In porn, certain themes emerge, and one could easily be mistaken to assume that those recurrent patterns can be transposed onto all partners. It is perhaps better to start sex from a perspective of curiosity and a willingness to experiment (and watch the feedback), rather than with an arsenal of moves up your sleeve that may or may not have worked for somebody else.

2. The sex and sexual techniques that are portrayed in pornography are selected based on what will look dynamic on screen, rather than what is enjoyable or what the actors themselves might actually like. This means that big, dramatic, and often hard-core sex scenes take up most of the time in porn, however the less grandiose and subtler things get left out simply because they’re not as cinematic – this doesn’t mean they’re not as good though. In reality, sex involves a lot more in the way of finely tuned movements, rather than athletic ability. In extreme cases, you’ll find things shown on screen – complete with moans and groans – that just don’t make any sense in your own bedroom. The best way to find out which is which is to simply try them, and ask for feedback.

3. A lot of heterosexual porn is somewhat stereotyped in terms of gender roles; he will generally be the pursuer, the active one, the one on top, while she will be pursued, more passive, and often be on the bottom. Sticking rigidly to these roles works for some people, but not for most of us. You’re short-changing yourself if you never switch things around and play with the dynamics, even if only for five minutes here and there, to see what you like. At a minimum, this will give you a greater appreciation of what works for the other role, but most people tend to find that they ultimately prefer mixing things around on an ongoing basis.

4. All bodies are beautiful. Pornography (and the fashion and advertising industries, generally), cater almost exclusively to people of a certain shape, and we are led to believe that only these people are sexy. The truth is that the way a person looks has nothing to do with their ability to be a good lover, nor their ability to – shall we say – rub you the right way. Once the initial drunken liaison is out of the way, what you’re going to appreciate is someone who’s personality you like, and who shares your approach to sex. The way they look gives you no information about either of these things.

5. Pubic hair is beautiful. Some people get rid of it, others don’t; both have their advantages. Learn to have fun either way, and love your own body either way. Being comfortable in your own body, however it looks, is perhaps the greatest gift you can offer to yourself and those you choose to share your body with.

6. Saying “no” is as much a part of sex as saying “yes”. It’s easy to assume, from watching porn, that a good lover will already know a hundred and one tricks to get any partner off. In reality, sex is a constant and creative series of experiments, some of which work, many of which don’t. Asking your partner to do something differently is a sure path to improving sex for the both of you, especially if it’s phrased as a positive request – “can you please try it more like this...?” – rather than simply “that’s not working for me”. Although you wouldn’t want to drown an act of love in an excessively detailed discussion about the weather, it’s nice to have a bit of dialogue in your sex-life. Also, it should go without saying that if you don’t want to have sex, then you are always and unquestionably entitled to say a nice, clear “no” - both men and women suffer pressure to skip this important step.

7. Something that almost never comes across in pornography is the love – or at least the sense of intimacy – that exists between partners. In real life this takes many forms; looking into one another’s eyes, breathing together, kissing, and generally being open to and trusting of one another are all examples of what intimacy looks like in bed. But none of these things make for good screenplay, and nor do the actors on screen actually have these feelings for each other (making it almost impossible to portray). However, in your life, these are the things that will change sex from being a basic but enjoyable physical act, to a deeply moving and gratifying spiritual experience that brings you closer to your partner.

8. Sex starts hours, days, weeks before penetration, not five minutes. When creating pornography, directors aren’t aiming to put together hours of tantalising dialogue and witty flirting, or even the unlimited varieties of foreplay that most folks enjoy; they want to create explicit sex and lots of it, and so this is what is produced. However, in real life, fast-forwarding straight to penetration makes for some of the least enjoyable sex you could hope for. The way you and your partner treat each other throughout the day, and the way sex begins, makes a big difference to your enjoyment of sex.

There’s a lot more to know about sex and pornography, and many good books have been written on these topics. Suffice to say, good sex is both your right and within your reach – treat it like any other skill that might benefit from some focus now and then. Pornography is not always as useful as it could be, but nor is it pure evil; it can play a useful role in your sex life, if only you keep it in context and watch it with awareness. Let your own feedback and the feedback from your partner be your ultimate guide.

Why Investigations into Treatment of Women in the ADF Will Fail.

2011-04-27T21:01:00.000-07:00

It goes without saying that the actions of the young men involved in the Skype-broadcast of one of their female colleagues having otherwise consensual sex is wrong. Naturally, I agree that the treatment of women within the armed forces needs to improve, however an investigation into the treatment of women will not achieve that outcome. Ironically, what is needed is an investigation into how all people within the armed forces – men and women – are treated.

When an incident such as this recent one occurs, it’s easy to draw the conclusion that women are treated unfairly in the ADF; that the army is not a safe place for women, and that changes need to happen to make it otherwise.

However, when the incident is broken down into its component elements – a violation of trust, an element of pack mentality, a desire on the part of the main perpetrator to better their standing amongst their peers (even if at the expense of another), and the resulting shaming of the victim for speaking out – then what is found is that women are being treated more or less the same as men. The army is not always a calm, peaceful place, where people are engaged respectfully and with courtesy; rather, the culture includes bravado, violence, alcohol and drugs, and occasional acts of outright stupidity. (And while that culture is the focus of our current attention, it needs to be acknowledged that many personnel within the armed services are a matured, professional and courageous group of people doing an extraordinary job under highly compromised circumstances. Furthermore, whatever observations we make about our military are mostly just going to be reflections of our broader societal challenges).

Individuals within the army have incredibly colourful – if often distasteful – stories to tell about how the aggressive culture plays itself out. Scratch the surface, even just a little bit, and you will find some shocking personal stories of abuse. I don’t pretend to know which gender has a better or worse time overall; on the one hand, sexual crimes are almost always committed by men against women, and – as been well documented – are a particularly hideous experience for the victim in the short and long term. On the other hand, the old maxim that real men don’t hit women still holds a lot of sway; it seems women are spared a lot of the hazing, nasty practical ‘jokes’, vicious retributions, and so forth, that are dealt out to men.

I don’t seek to compare, merely establish that these awful situations are not isolated events that are only targeted at women; rather, they exist in a far broader culture of violence that is totally indiscriminate in terms of who it plays itself out against. The most we should hope to achieve with the investigations (as currently defined) is a temporarily heightened awareness that women need to be treated better. But this will quickly fall by the wayside; the prevailing culture of violence and harassment will soon spread, again, to include women. It will only be a matter of time before we’re reading another story about the harassment of women within the forces.

It’s interesting that we don’t often read about the harassment of men. For the most part, this is because we tend to tolerate some abuse of men as a natural part of what it is to be a man; it’s not even newsworthy, most of the time. However, what men endure still takes a significant toll; if nothing else, it reinforces the message that violence and power are there to be played with. It also effects the psyche of men a great deal; some men will deal with that productively, others will just play the same patterns of violence out on those around them. Thus, if our aim is to reduce violence against women, we are shooting ourselves in the foot if we’re not also prepared to look into violence against men.

So yes, an enquiry and subsequent organisational change is required. However, it needs to be broad; it needs to be as interested in violence against men as it is in violence against women, and it needs to be willing to look past the inevitable assertion from the male victims of violence that “it was nothing, it didn’t really hurt” if it is to find what lies beneath.

In this case, it’s not a question of striving for equality for women. What we have is – more or less – a form of equality, in that both men and women are often treated badly; what we want is nonviolence for all. But we’re not going to achieve it if we limit our interest to what’s best for women.

Sexism in the building industry

2009-05-05T01:16:00.000-07:00

I had the privilege of being in on a fabulous conversation the other day. I had been invited to dinner with some folks I didn't really know, one of whom - Jytte - was in the middle of building her house as on 'Owner Builder'.

It sounded all very exciting and she - or at least her house - were the center of the conversation after we'd settled in a little as a group. After a while of holding forth with her fairly impressive knowledge of what she was doing, she began to lament the sexism within the building industry. We asked her more about this, and she ran off a long list of examples, such as: Not being taken seriously, being spoken to like she was an idiot, tradies not bothering to return calls because she was a woman, tradies not listening to her instructions, and retailers seeming to snicker and not have the time for her.

We all concurred that it sounded pretty nasty, although, I had a hunch there might have been another side to the story. I was wondering about that when I noticed that Max, another guest, was being very quiet. I asked him for his thoughts. What he said was fascinating.

First he just sort of folded his arms and muttered that "that's just the industry". We thought he was agreeing - or worse yet, defending - the sexism within the trade. However, on further questioning, he was saying something very different.

He started by saying that he'd been in and out of the building trade for upwards of 25 years, mostly as a carpenter, but also in many other roles including project management.

He said that at first when Jytte spoke he was inclined to agree that it was indeed an industry that wasn't friendly towards women. However, as Jytte went into more detail about exactly what she'd experienced (as listed above), he found himself relating to all, or at least most, of her examples. His point was that the industry wasn't necessarily grumpy towards women; it was grumpy towards everyone.

He went on to tell story after story - perhaps one or too more than were needed to illustrate his point, if I'm being completely honest - of how he had been ignored or patronised by people in the industry; of how he'd left explicit written instructions on a given task that needed to be done a particular way but that was completely ignored, or - his personal favorite - of calls not being returned or tradies just not turning up. He also spoke about being laughed at whenever he was attempting to do something unusual, such as an artistic architectural feature or the use of unique materials. He wanted to know what made Jytte think that these things were directed against her because she was a woman.

At first Jytte was a little confronted, but increasingly gobsmacked that the things that had happened to her could happen to men also. A lively little exchange went back and forth between the two of them where she was trying to think of examples of times she had been treated badly by the industry because she was a women, and Max would counter with similar examples that had happened to him. In the end, the only example that Max couldn't match was when Jytte mentioned that she'd caught tradies looking at her body and not at their tools, which was an example Max couldn't recall having happened to him.

This was all making sense to me from my strategic vantage point of a couple of glasses of red, however the show was only really just beginning. Just as we all thought it was a natural time in the conversation to move on to a new topic, Max said "My turn" and took the floor.

He went on to describe some of the other things he's experienced in the industry that he felt might actually be unique to his experience as a man; sexism against men, if you will. Frankly, his stories shocked me a little.

He spoke about events that either happened to him directly, or to other blokes on sites he was involved with. Examples included the often-present threat of violence should things go wrong; steeling people's tools; being hospitalised when creditors 'come to visit'; and having portable toilets pushed over while someone was inside, to emerge covered in feces and urine.

And then there was the story about one particular trady that blew the whistle on some semi-organised union-related crime on a large worksite. Four big fellas had stripped him naked and held a nail gun to his scrotum, threatening to attach him to the telephone pole they had him pinned against.

If you're like me, you might want to pause a moment at this juncture to try and imagine what that must have been like and mutter a couple of sympathies for the victim of this crime.

It was Max's opinion, that despite some definite examples of sexism against women - mostly consisting of leers, jeers, and a failure to respond to negative feedback - that women in the industry were generally treated a lot better than men. Max felt that the attitude which is most crudely expressed as "real men don't punch girls" actually still filters through and positively influences male behaviour towards women on worksites; women are given, he theorised, more of a helping hand than men.

After hearing his stories, we all agreed - especially Jytte - that there might be some truth in his perspective.

For me the whole dialogue was a personal, frank, and at times disturbing reminder that there is a substantial drawback to viewing the world through 'gendered' glasses. Or, said differently, if you're expecting to see sexism against women, then that is what you'll see. It's not that it's not there, it's just that the story is generally so much more complicated, as I think this story demonstrates.

ABC News sexism defies reality: men and women are equal!

2009-03-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

On March 25th, 2009, ABC News reported that "Women still do majority of housework". The story is based on data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, located here: http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features40March%202009.

If you're like me, I imagine that from this headline (and the first few paragraphs that follow it) that our menfolk are again failing us. They're still not picking up their responsibility around the house, and women - the ultimate victims in our society - are still picking up, literally in this case, after their men.

However, bizarrely, the research shows that when the total contribution to the household is considered (ie. unpaid housework and paid external work) that men and women are exactly equal. Yes, both sexes contribute an aggregate of 50 hours and 10 minutes.

So why on earth the attention grabbing headline? The truth is so much nicer: "Men and Women achieve work parity", or: "Men progressively increasing contribution to housework".

Or, if we use the same logic that the ABC News applied, we could equally conclude: "Men still do majority of work". I wouldn't like that, as I'm sure you don't, since it's not fair. So why is it okay when the boot's on the other foot?

It's not! We have to learn to stop letting stereotypes of gender relations inform our news media, which is in turn informing our stereotypes.

Bettina Arndt, the Sex Diaries, and the backlash.

2009-03-26T03:31:00.000-07:00

Bettina Arndt is a champion of a new way of gender relations that is well informed by feminism, but also compassionate towards men.

She has recently written a new book, "The Sex Diaries", where she takes some radical perspectives on where men and women are at in bed. I make the following post regarding same on her website, http://www.bettinaarndt.com.au/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=45:

--- begin ---

For around forty years, we have been critical of men's sexuality. It has often been difficult to hear, as criticism so often is, however the vast majority of it has been useful and positive for everyone concerned.
We have made huge strides in clearing up confusion around what "no" means; we have mainstreamed the G-spot, the clitoris, and the female orgasm(s); we have opened up to women as adventurers in sex (not just recipients of the missionary) and we have probably extended foreplay by at least a few minutes, which is a few minutes in the right direction.
Although there is always further work to be done, much has been achieved, and much of it has been through the criticism of men and their role in sex.
Now Bettina, through the Sex Diaries, and through other previous work I've followed, has dared to buck the trend and criticise the role played by women (while also pointing the finger at men in, in my opinion, similar measure). This has drawn a huge amount of criticism, which I suspect mostly comes down to this: It's uncomfortable being criticised, is it not? Especially when you're used to holding the high-ground.

I would hasten to highlight that from what I've read, it's not like Bettina has exclusively gone into bat for men; she's very specific that there's a difference between opening up to more sex, and rape, and that rape is never okay. Further, she's not suggesting to "do it as often as men want", but to pick a middle ground between the one that wants less and the one that wants more; how is that favouring one over the other?

There's a final point I'd like to add: The unfortunate side effect of forty years of criticism of male sexuality is that we're overly familiar with the negative aspects of it, and out of touch with the great things men bring through sex. I suspect both men and women bring the same dreams and hopes of being together in relationship - of being loved, loving, known, intimate, connected, and safe. Whether it's through conditioning or biology doesn't concern me, but it seems women are perhaps more likely to bring these qualities through less-sexual activities and dialogue. Men are perhaps more likely to bring it through sex. As a feminist, I am a believer in equality and valuing what all people bring to a relationship. So I love to bear witness to the way men are developing, and I also find myself agreeing with Bettina that there is also development potential here for women.
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Go well in whatever it is you're doing.

Violence Against Men

2009-01-18T01:48:00.000-08:00

My attention was recently caught by an article in Melbourne's "Age" newspaper, "Savage road-rage attack on woman, 66".

Like you, I assumed a 66-year old woman had fallen victim to a nasty road-rage incident.

Actually, reading the story, her son was the one attacked, and she was not touched. But reporting on violence against men just doesn't sell as much copy, does it?

There is so much violence against men, it is so commonplace, and in most cases we don't even acknowledge that there's anything wrong with it, that it's not even worth reporting most of the time. Also, we simply don't care as much - we're far more concerned with violence against women.

Analysing statistics about who are the victims of crime (both reported and unreported) and comparing them with our perceptions of who is most likely to be the victims of crime is a worthwhile exercise. Looking at the most recent data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, most crime is committed against men. This is backed up by victim surveys (which catch unreported crimes) and hospital entry statistics, the latter showing that some 80% of crime that results in injuries needing hospitalisation is against men.

However, in terms of how people perceive crime - ie. who we believe is most likely to be the victims of crime - most of us identify women and the elderly. News reports generally support this distorted perspective; as is the case with the article mentioned at the beginning of this blog, violence against women is far more likely to be reported than violence against men, contributing to our misunderstanding of real trends. To a degree, our opinions are influenced by the information we are exposed to. And since we have, as a culture, amassed so much more information on violence against women, we can't help as consumers of this information but to have our perspectives on who is effected by violence distorted.

The effect of failing to acknowledge how common violence against men is is that we've normalised it. In doing so, we're sending a message to men that says that the violence being committed against them is okay; are we really all that surprised when some men then repeat that violence against those around them? I will never excuse or condone violence, however I also don't think we'll ever stop it unless we acknowledge what's going on in the background.

Television and movies don't help the situation (or perhaps it's just that they illuminate where our thinking is at). Take the cult classic Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Hailed by some as an example of women re-empowering themselves, the show features a lot of violence. Generally, when the threat of violence is against the women in the show, the tone (as defined by the music, the body language of the characters, the set, etc.) is deadly serious and dark. In contrast, when the violence is directed at male characters, there's often a sense of light-heartedness and humour accompanying the portrayal. It's an interesting message.

In other films, violence against men - up to and including death - often caries a light-hearted or even comedic undertone. Violence against women, in contrast, is generally portrayed far more seriously.

Next time you're watching television or a film, keep an eye on the tone that's used, and spend some time reflecting on how that influences your perceptions of violence and victimhood.

It's for these reasons that I can't really support the campaign to "Stop Violence Against Women". Of course I agree with the concept on one level, but we simply have to stop violence against everyone. To only attempt to stop violence against women is to say, by omission, that violence against men is not something that bothers us.

And so another generation of men is brought up with violence as a normal part of their lives, to be later played out on those around them. It is a sad cycle, and so long as we are not able to recognise and stop violence against men, we will never stop violence against women.

Personally, I don't value either gender more highly than the other. No-one deserves to be the recipient of any form of violence.

Responses to physical violence & the Men's Referral Service

2008-04-01T15:49:00.000-07:00

A funny thing happened this week, and by 'funny', I mean of course that there was no humor in it at all.
A person within our circle of friends was physically violent toward their partner. As usual, it sent us all into the usual turmoil around whether to intervene; actually, not so much whether to intervene but when, and how.
The flummoxing thing about this situation was that in the context of a heterosexual relationship, it was the woman that was physically violent. She kicked and punched her male partner for some five minutes, leaving him bruised and without the use of a leg.

I like to think that I move in reasonably well educated, thinking communities. I like knowing that "folks like us" have an implied (and occasionally explicit) agreement that we won't settle for physical violence within our ranks, that we'll come together and intervene if and when called on.
To date, I guess I've taken some kind of role in intervening in domestic violence half a dozen times, ranging from gentle background support for both parties to work through and / or move on, through to middle-of-the-night style raids to snatch up a person's belongings and get them somewhere safe.
Personally, I wouldn't do it this way, but some friends once organised two of the burliest blokes they could get hold of to go in and pin the (male) perpetrator of some fairly chronic physical domestic violence against a wall and threaten to kill him if the pattern continued. (I'm not sure how that one wound up - I imagine it was effective on some level, but on another level could have only forced things further underground. The technical term for fighting violence with violence is, after all, 'war', from which nobody wins).

For better or worse, I've now got a case sample of about three times when the woman in a heterosexual relationship was the perp', and maybe three or four times when it was the man.
On the one hand I am proud of my community for its proactivity in stepping in, but on the other hand I am increasingly stunned at our one-sidedness.
When the woman is the victim, the response is clear, rapid, passionate and unstoppable. Word gets passed around the station within a couple of hours of the first "third party" finding anything out, and before the day's out, a strategy is in place and some kind of response is organised.
In fact, I don't remember a time when the community intervention hasn't actually been completed within 24 hours. For a bunch of lay-folk with no apparent funding or resources, everything from bedding to food and vehicles is manifested - it honestly just seems to materialise in front of your eyes. In the meanwhile, the male perpetrator is generally spoken to, and directed to a referral service, or something like that. Sometimes, the police are brought in, just so that they're in the loop and a message is sent saying "this is serious and we're not standing for it".
You can see why I'm proud - this is an amazing community to be a part of.

However, when the physically violence partner is the woman, things are much more confused.
A great deal of time is spent analysing and trying to understand what has happened. It doesn't fit with our "educated and thinking" understanding of the world, and so tends to send us into a grey zone that we have to work out for ourselves. From the outside, it generally looks like inaction; indeed, of the three cases I can think of, no intervention as such has ever taken place. Some conversations have eventuated, often weeks or months later, but that's been about it.
During the time after the incident when people are struggling with their responses, someone will invariably wonder if in fact it wasn't his fault after all. "Wow, he really must have got out of line for her to have to act like that".
In feminism, we call this blaming the victim. But that only applies if the victim is female.

On one of these occasions when the man was the victim, acting out of my usual half-hearted desire to intervene in the situation (for my own programming around this stuff is just as strong as everyone else's), I did some research around support services that I could refer the violent woman to, so that she could work on her poor behaviour and whatever else was going on.
Interestingly, there is no such service for women. All the services that do exist - and there are a lot of them; some 20 community organisations that dedicate their services to women exist for every one that dedicates its services to men - assume that she is the victim and needs help. There is seemingly no concept of 'behaviour change' for women, only 'victim'.
This contrasts to the services for men; of the few that do exist, many assume that the bloke is the problem and needs fixing. This background assumption - that men are essentially the problem in society; "Oh yes, everyone plays a part, but it's with men that the violence starts" - is obvious in their communications with the public; have a look at the website for the Men's Referral Service - http://home.vicnet.net.au/~mrs/ - and see if you can spot a certain tone in the language. If it's not immediately obvious, try imagining the same service (and wording) targeted at women.
It simply wouldn't exist, because it's downright offensive.

There are mitigating factors here. Perhaps most importantly, in the context of a heterosexual monogamous relationship, men generally have physical rank. A punch from a man is more scary and threatening than a punch from a woman. To that end, apples and oranges can't be compared.
Against this, in my opinion, is that on occasions when this rank difference has been equalised by circumstances - I'm thinking about some situations I've heard or read about, whereby slight men have been physically abused by substantial women - the perception amongst our community doesn't seem any different. There is still the usual tendency to underestimate the significance of the situation, and invariably debate just what he must have done to deserve such a response, even though, to our credit, we wouldn't outright say we support the violence.

Something I like about the service put up by the Men's Referral Service is the descriptions of the various forms of violence men can commit. It feels like it's been written by a person with a lot of passion for their subject material. I like that the examples are clear and thorough, and I like the inflexibility of the position taken: Violence is not okay.
I also like (in an ironic kind of way) that almost all of the forms of violence mentioned are equally available to be carried out by women. (The exception is physical violence, generally more accessible to men behaving badly than women behaving badly).
Indeed, going a step further, and based on the patterns of violence - all violence, not just physical - that I see around me, in the same way that men misuse their privileges against their women-folk (such as physical and financial privilege), so too are women better at using their privileges (such as emotional and communication) against their men-folk.
A woman I know once summed it up best: "In a physical fight against a man, I'm not convinced I'd come off all that well. But in a debate, in an argument, in a non-physical fight, I haven't met a man yet that has any hope against me".
Yet, perhaps a little bizarrely, there are no services to help women when they misuse their privilege.
The tragedy of all of this, of all these examples, is that both parties are, to a degree, responsible for the violence that happens in their relationship. Violence begets violence, and any one act is rarely isolated; generally, it's merely a bit part in a broader pattern. Most therapists that do relationships work will pretty readily tell you that what presents as a problem belonging to one partner almost invariably winds up being far more equally spread; yet, this therapeutic wisdom rarely makes it to the mainstream, to the social services, or to policy makers.

Anyone that resorts to physical violence is not getting pardon from me - what they've done is unacceptable and they should immediately seek help for themselves and for their relationship, and for their partner.
However, part of this process should be unfolding what the hell happened to lead them down the path. My community is, to a degree, right in wondering "what did he do to force her to hit him?". But to ask that, you've also got to ask "what did she do to force him to hit her?" when it's the other way around. Our educated thinking is all getting a little less comfortable now, isn't it?

I had the dubious fortune of living within intimate distance of domestic violence a few years back. I lived in a flat, and right on the other side of the party wall was a horrible pattern of violence that lasted the 6months of my lease. We shared a stair-well, a balcony, an acoustic space, so I got a front row seat on a play about violence in relationship.
What struck me was that it was always at the point of his physical violence that I was pushed over my tolerance boundary, eventually to the stage of adopting a "zero tolerance" policy and calling the police, which did sort of seem to ultimately help the problem. But, at least to begin with, I would always ignore the inevitable lead-up. She would use every artful act of violence she could muster to pin him down, to box him into a corner with her words, and he would eventually punch his way out.
They would both settle back for a week or so, then start cranking up the machine again.
I never once intervened when she was on the front-foot, which was most of the time. Even if I'd wanted to, what could I have done? We don't really have a lot of language for the types of violence she was committing. We can't readily describe it over the phone, and the police just won't come if you say "she's misusing her emotional privilege and forcing him into uncomfortable territory", unlike when you say "he just hit her", in which case they'll be there in five minutes.
If I'd wanted to gently refer her to a support service, all she'd find was a whole bunch of references helping her to help him; never would it come up that she played a role that was worth looking at.

Men are violent. Women are violent.
And we're also not; we're beautiful amazing people living in a pretty weird, violent world, playing things out as best we can. No one's really got the upper hand here.
We need to get better at recognising violence in all its forms, and get better at intervening. We need to broaden our gendered analysis from simply being that he's bad and she's the victim, which will lead us closer to some kind of genuine compassion for both parties. This has to be better than scorn and retribution for him, and patronising pats on the head followed by rage against the machine for her.
It'll also give us a shot at actually getting closer to the causes of violence and intervening at that point, rather than letting it escalate to the point where folks are punching one another.

RTA 'pinky' campaign: Effective and offensive.

2008-01-28T23:22:00.000-08:00

The RTA - Road Transport Authority in NSW, Australia - currently has a campaign running targeting young male drivers that speed. Known as the 'Pinky' campaign, it features women holding up their little finger and the quote, "Speeding: No-one thinks big of you". The ad is both effective and offensive.
You may view the ad here, or drive anywhere around NSW and look at the roadside ads.

Yes, target young male drivers that hoon, with a view to changing their ways. They don't deserve to die or get maimed any more than anyone else.
But using the easy attention-grabber regarding the size of a man's penis is not okay. Doing so contributes to body image issues for men by making all men feel insecure about the size of their penis, sexual performance, and so forth.
Feminism has taught us a lot about the negative effects of the perpetuating this sort of myth - as a culture we have learned a lot about stating that a woman's body should be any particular way - thin, fat, hairy, shaven, large breasted, small breasted, etc.
All of this awareness transfers easily to male body image issues, except of course that that's not a topic we spend a lot of time on. So, to illustrate the point, let's have a look at what a similar campaign to the 'Pinky' one might look like if it was targeted at women...
Imagine, if you will, a poster hanging on the wall at a workplace. It is set in a kitchen; in the background are two women, obviously gossiping about someone or something. In the foreground is a man, holding up an ice-cube to the camera. The poster carries the caption, "Gossip: No-one thinks you're hot for it."
Does this make it any easy to see why the 'Pinky' campaign is inappropriate? This sort of approach is offensive to the entire gender of the people they target. As a community we'd never allow the example about gossiping women, and we shouldn't allow the Pinky campaign either.

I'll even go you one better, and suggest how same audience, using the same angle, could be done in a positive way. I'm not saying this is going to win advertising awards, but it does demonstrate that positive targeting can be achieved with a difficult demographic:
(Older male voice): "As a young bloke, you've probably been given the impression that you're more of a man if you drive hard and fast, preferably in a serious set of wheels. Most of us have. You know, muscly car, muscly bloke.
"Unfortunately, we've been lied to. What our friends, family, and mates prefer is a bloke that's still alive. Someone that hasn't acquired a brain injury, or lost a limb through being a bit stupid one night. And in fact, a lot of that loud and hard behaviour we're given the impression is impressive, actually just annoys people; nine times out of ten, your mates are going to think you're a better bloke if they can trust you to drive them home safely at the end of a big night, than if if you can do it in under ten seconds.
"You want to be a real man? Good. Get out there and do the stuff you're good at and that's good for the people around you. And while you're at it, chill out behind the wheel."

If it's shock value that the RTA are aiming for, nothing will achieve it like treating young men like they're worthy of respect. The Pinky campaign just gives our fellas another reason to not listen to sensible advice.