Something is very wrong with men in Australia. Parliament House masturbators. The “big swinging dicks” pulling strings in the Coalition party room. An allegation of rape in a minister’s office, and another levelled against the former attorney-general (which he strenuously denies).
If you hang around in the footy sheds, pubs and group chats of Australia, none of the stories we’re hearing right now will come as a surprise. For too many men, what Donald Trump once glibly described as “locker room banter” — the casual, scripted misogyny performed when men think women aren’t listening — is a kind of bonding ritual. And the pressure to conform to it can be relentless.
Why men don’t speak out
As a young man, extricating oneself from locker-room masculinity and working out how to condemn misogynistic attitudes can feel like a minefield.
Raf, a 24-year-old university student says that at his all-male private school the boys who said they had the most sex were lionised, and few of his peers had healthy friendships with women.
“My main friend group coming out of high school was just like ‘let’s go hook-up at Scary Canary’. It wasn’t a very satisfying, or very respectful experience.”
Brian*, a 25-year-old consultant recalls the “brand of gross, inane misogyny” pushed by the older blokes in his cricket team.
Both Raf and Brian describe the guilt they feel about their past failures to hold male peers to account. Calling out friends bears the risk of social isolation, of being accused of having “no chill” and “dogging the boys”.
“The groupthink is real,” Raf says.
But both men gradually had the realisation many blokes around Australia are having right now: that everything you’ve been taught about how to be a man is mostly dangerous bullshit.
Different men respond to that realisation in different ways. Some, like Raf and Brian, feel guilt about their past failures to confront people. But it can lead to far darker revelations too. Speaking to triple j’s Hack, men recently described the shame in realising, years later, that they’d committed sexual assault.
And in other cases, that confusion calcifies into a sense of rage and aggrievement. This can harden and animate violent incel behaviour.
Patriarchy offers little to help men change
Clinical psychologist and men’s health expert Zac Seidler says his inbox is flooded with concerned emails from men. These men are worried they’ll be falsely accused of sexual assault and they’re angry that their own struggles are being overlooked.
Part of this fear, Seidler says, stems from men buying into a dominant brand of masculinity which offers men little nuance. When women are reduced to conquests, it creates a sense of entitlement that can blur the line between consensual sex and assault.
“Patriarchy professes the world and offers very little to anyone,” Seidler says.
Men, he said, “are disempowered because they can’t attain an unattainable masculinity that’s been sold to them”.
And when the bubble bursts, and that brand of masculinity is exposed as ugly and undesirable, many men experience this palpable sense of loss and confusion.
What makes that masculinity so potent is the way it’s baked into our culture, passed down through the generations in all-male spaces where so many young men take their social cues.
Fixing masculinity
The upending of locker-room masculinity shouldn’t be a threat. Instead, it’s an opportunity to turn masculinity into something better.
All-male spaces aren’t inherently toxic, Seidler says. These environments can be important places where men feel they’re not going to be shamed, where we can incubate what he terms “flexible masculinity”.
For Seidler, traditionally “masculine” traits like stoicism and competitiveness aren’t necessarily harmful. Its the rigid adherence to them in all situations that can lead men astray.
A “flexible masculinity” is one that embodies these traits when it’s healthy, but also has space for self-reflection, calling out bad behaviour, and treating people with respect.
Sometimes, all it can take is one good role model — a footy coach, a respected school captain — to lay down the gauntlet and make the locker room a healthy place.
If we change the locker room, we’ll go a long way to creating better men.
*Names changed for privacy
For anyone seeking help, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491.
And let’s not forget the way some male NRL team members like to bond: by sharing a couple of sheilas around the team and watching their mates get their rocks off. Just a teeny bit homoerotic? Certainly a bit queer…
Entirely queer. Aren’t the elaborate rules and fetishization of scores and form in (especially contact) sports predominantly a decoy for the shared celebration of flesh? Rugby and AFL are the perfect arena for the heteronormative expression of homoeroticism. Hiding in plain sight.
Not that there is anything wrong with that….
Im keen to hear more from this guy. He could write a whole article on just what guys mean when they are concerned about false accusations.
Thank you Kishor, very good article, much appreciated. ♥
Here’s some food for thought:
Police – people misunderstand the role of police, and how far they have come in progressing their handling of domestic and sexual violence. Most undergo specific training in this area now, and there are specialist units in many police forces to deal with such alleged offences. The main obstacles are (a) evidence; and (b) laws.
Courts – inevitably, the law favours the defendant facing any charge that comes with a custodial sentence. The prosecution must prove the case beyond reasonable doubt. That is not beyond ANY doubt, but it is still a very high test. There is often little or no compelling evidence for a rape charge to stick, other than the complainant’s testimony, especially where the complainant and the defendant know each other – as in most cases. It comes down to consent.
Defence lawyers – these people are incredibly creative at constructing scenarios that cast doubt over the veracity of evidence. It may not be contested that the act in question took place. It may be known that the defendant has a string of past convictions for similar and worse offences (which the jury will not be privy to, and a mistrial declared if any of them are). That is irrelevant to the defence case. It may be that the defendant has previously offended against the victim. That fact cannot be made known.
Date rape. The drug most used in this leaves the victim within six hours – if it doesn’t kill them first. That makes it very difficult to prove, unless someone finds them unconcious and they’re tested for it.
Juries. If you’ve ever been in the jury room for a difficult case, you will be astonished by the intransigence of some people when it comes to considering the evidence presented as is, rather than through the lens of their prejudice or deeply held beliefs. Bizarrely, it can be women who hold the strongest beliefs that side with a male defendant against a female complainant. There are also men that think a male in a relationship is “entitled” to sex with his partner, and can’t accept any advice from a judge that clarifies this.
The most astonishing part of the criminal justice system is the foundational belief that all criminals can be rehabilitated. Clearly, some can and are. Some can’t and won’t be. Most crimes are perpetrated by recidivists. Gaols are like university for criminals to learn how to beat prosecutors and police.
Victims. Compared to the tens of billions of dollars spent on incarcerating offenders, there is an astonishing dearth of support infrastructure for protecting and rehabilitating victims of crime. In some cases, they live in perpetual fear of reprisal.
Leaders cast long shadows. When the parliament of the country is a hot-house of sexual harassment, bullying, male privilege, misogyny, and perpetrator protectionism, it is unsurprising that the problem in the community is wide-spread.
The prevalence of religious fervour and private schooling privilege among parliamentarians when compared to the statistics for the wider population must be considered. Democracy is supposed to be a form of “representative”government. Clearly it isn’t in terms of its makeup, but sadly, it is in terms of behaviour.
Hi FoolMeOnceSOMFMTSOY
Wow, thanks for all that. Certainly adds deeper understanding of the criminal legal system. Putting culture aside (just for clarity), what concrete changes do we need to improve the legal system when it comes to SV crimes?
There’s a great article from a criminologist posted the other day. We need more of those articles.
There seems to be no responsibility in any comments attributed to the parents of today.There are many single parents with children to different fathers,children in foster care and not enough suitable foster carers,some no better than the homes children are removed from There are huge number of divorced and /or separated parents and unhappy homes where children are not helped to mature to responsible adults,
None of the journalists can ever miss the line” private school education” when they can do so to stigmatise a person accused of an offence.. Many of us have done without to provide education for our country children.If you neglect your children how can the government change their adult behaviour.?Time for many parents to work harder at parenting skills
I think they are specifically referring to boy only schools, rather than private schools TBH.
I don’t support either boy or girl only schools. It creates these sort of toxic macho problems for boys. Any ladies or teachers want to chime in about the downsides of girls school – i have my theories based on the large number of women i know who went to girls schools.
My own feeling is that girls who go to separate-sex high schools tend to have more rose-tinted views of boys than reality warrants, since they don’t have the daily exposure to the down side of that part of the human race. It’s easier for them to see boys as fantasy things and to judge on external appearances etc, when they see them mostly from afar and then more often than not with the chocolate-side up that people usually present when they meet others superficially. You can’t see each other’s warts unless you’re spending the best part of the day with each other, and are working with each other on a regular basis, and able to observe how other people react in various situations. (I think co-ed is excellent for this.)
I personally went to co-ed for my own schooling, and taught mostly at co-eds, and occasionally at all-girls schools, including an all-girls selective school in Sydney.
I’ve not taught at all-boys schools, but would guess that boys from those would also have a tendency to have their views of girls based more on fantasy than lived experience. A particular concern that I have from just a few impressions is that boys from all-boys schools may have a lower opinion of the competence of girls than boys who actually work with girls and see what they achieve in co-ed (because the old stereotypes are still feeding into popular culture, family dynamics etc). I do think that all-boys’ schools are logically more likely to foster a boys’ club mentality than co-ed schools.
It’s so lovely to have boys and girls in the same classroom actually discussing important things with each other on a regular basis and listening to what the other has to say. To have them working in groups, etc, just as they will as adults. A lot of single-sex schools talk about having less “distraction” when the other sex isn’t present. Apart from that some kids are same-sex attracted anyway, I don’t think the argument is very useful – we all have to learn to get along. Segregating by ethnicity is wrong – it’s called apartheid – but segregating by gender is supposed to be OK? Doesn’t make sense…
I’m not sure why you’re singling out single parents, separated/divorced parents and similar? Men who behave badly are not an exclusive product of broken homes. The frequency of unacceptable behaviour in places like the parliament or in private boy schools doesn’t fit with the picture you present.
I very much hold parents accountable. Just not necessarily the ones you name. I’ve met ‘happy’ families, so-called ‘good families’, well-off people where the attitudes of, sometimes, both parents went a long way to explain the boys’ behaviour. I’ve met men from ‘good families’ who made me sick to my stomach, while men from ‘broken homes’ couldn’t have been more respectful.
In fact, the society as a whole is responsible.
About half of this country’s male population don’t see a problem with what’s been happening in the last couple of months and this government’s apparent lack of concern and action. Each one of these men has a mother, many have wives, sisters, daughters… and yet…?
And then there are the women, about half of whom seem to be fine with the events also…
“About half of this country’s male population don’t see a problem…” Happy to be proven wrong on this but I dont think this is accurate. I think whats happening is those men (and women) are pushing back on a ‘package’ of opinions being presented by the media and MeToo movement in the Brittany and AG situations. You’re either completely with us or against us. Ie who did what, when, were there ANY extenuating circumstances or unknowns, what should now be done etc. Do 50% of men think either of those women deserved to get raped and the alleged perpetrators walk off scot free…i strongly doubt that. And those that do are scum.
You raise a good point though. Why do so many women also in the same boat. Is it for that reasons? I assume it is but would be keen to hear others thoughts.
The toxicity here is in private schools, the families of the very ‘best’ of people. It rules our parliament. Exclusive male privilege.
Trying to blame this mess on single parents is just more toxic blame shifting. The culture is entrenched in PRIVATE ALL BOY SCHOOLS. At the very top of Australian society.