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How did we get here – and what happens now?
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E #TM #M O #M # E T ET T#OM #ME #ME TOOTOO # #M ET TO E TO # OO OOOO O # E M T OO # OE ET TOOTOO # #ME OM ET M O#M # E MEET ET # M TO ET OO # MO OOE METOO #METOO ETO OOO # OO ME #M #M T #M M ET O O # M # #M #M #M #M TO #MET OO T O OOO ET O # O M ET M OEO ETO METOO #METOOT O#MO ET ME #M ET ET OTOO TO #M OO O ME #M ET OO # ET T TO OOO ##ME O #ME OO # # O O#MO ME #MME E # #M T E O M EO O # ET TOO #METO TO METO O #MO # O #E TO M E OO T O #EM O #MME #ME ME OO TO O E TO TO O ET TO # OO #M T #OMO TOO # OO #METOOET #OMO O # M E#M ET TOE O # #M O O M # ET # OOET ET #MEETTOO #METOO #M ETOEOT O O # E T#M #M O # M E O # ET ME OO UST OVER five weeks ago, Oprah “I want all the girls watching here and now M M # OO TOO #M #METO OO OO OO M ET TO #M ME O T E # M ME#ME TOO ME OO ET ET #M ET OO O ET T O OO Winfrey, arguably the world’s most to know that a new day is on the horizon,” she # TO ET # TOO # #ME O # # M#M #M E OO # #M O OO #M O OO OO M #EMTEOOT O#MOE T#OMOETOO #M TO O ETO TO # M E O # E adored African-American woman, deliv- told her star-studded audience, most of whom M T # #M ETOO #MEETOO TO TO OO O # ME ET T #M M TO E E ME #METOO OO #M #EME ME #M M TO O OO E ET O #MTO TOO #MET O #MET O OT #O E ET O O # # T O ered a speech for the ages at the 2018 were dressed in black to support the Time’s Up O TOO # OOOO #M #EMTOETOO #M ETO TO O # TO OO #M M M OO O M #EM MET #MET OE #MTOO # ME ME O # #M E ET ET # #M GoldenJ Globes. In accepting the Cecil B. campaign, aimed at ending sexual harassment # E TOOOO #M METO OM # ET TO ME E TO OO OO ME ET TOMOE ETOO #METOO # ETO OO # O # TO TO O # # T O DeMille award for outstanding contribution to and gender disparity. O # #M TOO #METOO #M #M ME ME O O #M M ME OO O TO ETOOO #ME ETOOETOO TO TO #M #M ET ET T #M entertainment, Winfrey managed to do three “And when that new day finally dawns, it will E ETO #METOO #METOO #M #MET O #M O # ET ET OO OO OO E #M #M OO E ME OO OO # # # TO things at once. She captured perfectly the be because of a lot of magnificent women … and OO OO #METOO #METO #ME TOO TO #M #M ME ME ME O ET #MET O #ME TO #M O ET E TO TO TO deep-rooted inequalities at the heart not just of some pretty phenomenal men, fighting hard to M TOO TOO O #M ETO #M#EMTEOO #MOOE TO O O O # ME #M E ETOOO T #TOO O #M #M the entertainment industry, but across all in- make sure that they become the leaders who O # #METOO #METOO #MET ETO O #TMOO #M OO ME #M#M E ET O TOO OO #M EOT #O #M E #M TO EETT TO OO dustries, blue-collar and white-. She sparked take us to the time when nobody ever has to say ET #ME ETO #M MET ETTOO #MTOETOO E#TM O OOOO O # # O METO OOO #M OO #ME OO O # OOETOO#M # # M wild speculation regarding her own presiden- ‘me too’ again.” ETO #METOO # O #METOO ET ET TOO #M #M ME # #MET MME ET M TOO #M #MET #MOEO ET E TO ME OE TEO OO tial ambitions. And, perhaps, most importantly, She added, “For too long, women have not # ME O OOO #O #M OO #OMETOTO #METOO O TO OT #O TO O O # OO #METOO #TMOE ET ME EET TO #M O # #M #MEO MOE O#M she delivered a rousing message of hope to been heard or believed if they dared to speak TO O #MET E TOO ##MM TOOO #M OO ET ME ET T#OM T #O OET ME ETO #M O ETOO ETO #M #ME #MOOETOOTO OO OET MO OO young women and girls everywhere in the face their truth to the power of those men. But their # #M O TO # M#M ET METTOOO #M #OM #ET #M #OMO E#M OO OO #TMOETOO #MMETEOO #M O ETO OOO O# O ET M OO E #EM TET of sexual abuse and marauding male power. time is up. Their time is up.” T #MET E # EETOOO MOE #T #M #ME OO ETO #MTO TE O OO ME TOO #M OO #M #ME O # MET ETOMETOOTO #MET O#M O EOT # OTO O E ME O T O ETOTOO OOTOO # O # O # OE #M #M OMOE OO # M # O ME TO #M #M #ME #M ME ME TO ETOET T O ME GoodWeekend 15 OO ET # E O TOOETO ET TO TO O # OO O #MO TO ET M O #M TO ME O # O #OMO ETOOO ##METOOO # ME #M #M #EM O # TO O ME O # MEMTEO #M ME #M METTO EE TET O # TO # TO O # TOO ETO TO ET OOO TTOO OOO O O E O ME ETO #M O O # OO #M OO # O ET TO #M #M # #M ET #M M #M MET ME E O O OO OO OO ETO ETO ET EOTO TO M O TO ET ET #M O O OO O #M O T# T E M #M ET #M #M # O ET E #M O # O OO ET ET ME OO OM O O TO #M OO OO TO #M T O ET ME ET #M #M O # ET E ET M # OO ET ET ME OO M O # OO #M OO OO TO # O ET ET #M #M O O ET M OO ET ET M # #M OO OO # O ET #M O TO OO ET E #M OO #M ET #M O OO ET #M OO ETO O HIS MOMENT, this great reckoning in his- HIS IS a treacherous path for any writer to Ttory, didn’t just happen. It took the eleva- Ttry to navigate, especially a straight, tion of a sexual predator – a self-confessed middle-aged male in a gender-fraught – and “pussy” grabber – to the leadership of the free gender-fluid – world. Every brief utterance is world to galvanise millions of women. It took – how shall I put this – cocked and loaded; great reporting, first from The New York Times every assertion open to furious rebuttal. and then The New Yorker magazine, to reveal a I remember at a party two years ago meeting a shocking litany of sexual abuse by movie mogul lesbian couple who happened to be midstream Harvey Weinstein, one of the giants of talking about … cunts. I introduced myself Hollywood. And, of course, it took the lightning and offered the view that I was struck by speed of the information revolution to enable how the worst word in the English language millions of women to finally share their often was a reference to the most sacred part of a traumatised sexual histories, creating a deaf- woman’s body. ening roar – and ricocheting effect – around the “Listen mate,” one of them retorted. “I’ve world. Every day a new name, another indus- been with hundreds of cunts in my life and try, another once-darkened corridor of power none of them was sacred.” exposed to the blinding light of disgrace. So it’s complicated, right? Yet I continue to After the forensic takedown of Weinstein, it grapple with the way language often deni- was actor Kevin Spacey’s turn to be outed (in grates women. A “cunt” – when uttered by a his case for alleged sexual misconduct towards heterosexual male – is typically the most con- boys and young men), then comedian and pro- temptible person one can meet. The pudendum ducer Louis C.K, then television hosts Charlie – or woman’s vulva – originates from the Latin Rose and Matt Lauer; then dozens of other word pudere, meaning “to be ashamed”. Vagina prominent men in the arts and entertainment: derives from the 17th century, and is a Latin actors, playwrights, producers, editorial direc- word meaning “sheath” or “scabbard”. tors, chief executives, studio heads, fashion (Presumably where a man puts his sword.) photographers, editors, publishers, journalists. Older women are often dubbed “hags”, “crones” From the American entertainment industry and “witches”. “Schamlippen” is a common it tripped the wire into state legislatures; then German slang word for the vulva, translating on to national politics, with congressmen from to “lips of shame”. Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota and, in the case This shame is real and ever-present, according of Alabama, the egregious would-be Republican to Tony Award-winning American playwright senator Roy Moore, all caught up in the widen- Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues, a ing scandal. (And we’ve only just begun talking global phenomenon of the late 1990s. properly about restaurant and automotive in- campaign in a letter describing it as a “witch- Oprah Winfrey’s “Twenty years ago, no one said the word ‘va- dustry employees, nurses, farm workers, do- hunt against men” and a sign that Anglo- barnstorming gina’,” she tells Good Weekend. “You couldn’t say mestic workers and hotel attendants. In Chicago American “puritanism” had gone too far. speech at the 2018 it anywhere. I always make a joke that you can recently, female members of the local union Deneuve later distanced herself from some of Golden Globes put plutonium on the front pages of newspapers, were granted the right to install “panic buttons” her more extreme co-signatories.) featured a signal to or Scud missiles, or radiation, or death, but if on their uniforms because, apparently, bending Here, journalist and Fairfax contributor marauding males: you say vagina everyone goes into hysterics. over to clean a bath, or turn down the sheets, Tracey Spicer sent a tweet to her nearly 50,000 “Their time is up.” “That tells us everything we need to know has always been a hazardous occupation.) followers asking about sexual harassment in about the world. The place where most of us From the US, it then crossed the Atlantic to the Australian media and entertainment indus- come from … the majority of human beings on Britain, where a dozen MPs were accused of tries. She was overwhelmed by allegations the planet have passed through the vagina.” unwanted sexual behaviour, and the ruling from more than 500 women, and the names of Ensler’s journey across the global landscape Conservative Party’s Defence Secretary 65 men. (That figure now stands at 1000 of female suffering and indignity is highly in- Michael Fallon was forced to resign. Then back women and 100 men.) As we all know, celebrity structive in trying to grasp what is happening to the United States and into Silicon Valley and gardener Don Burke emerged as undisputed today. In 1996, The Vagina Monologues – a sports, where the long-time women’s gymnas- leader of the pack, after which claims against 90-minute distillation of more than 200 women tics physician, Larry Nassar, was awaiting final actor Craig McLachlan surfaced. exploring their femininity – was performed for sentencing for his sickening behaviour with At the time of writing, more names were the first time, and by 1998 had been showcased more than 150 women and girls, all on the pre- about to be revealed and hundreds of women from Islamabad to London, Oklahoma to text of medical treatment. (He would be sent to in the music industry had joined the Jerusalem. In 2001, in New York’s Madison prison for up to 175 years.) #MeNoMore movement to highlight direct Square Garden, actor Jane Fonda simulated Millions of women worldwide were sharing experiences of rape, harassment and assault. giving birth on stage, while fellow actor Glenn stories of mistreatment, via the Twitter Melbourne’s Lord Mayor Robert Doyle had Close repeatedly shouted the word “cunt” to hashtag #MeToo, in what was being described also taken leave of absence following allega- 18,000 women, followed by the collective or- as a “watershed”, a “tipping point”, a “karmic tions of sexual harassment and indecent as- gasmic moaning of the Vulva Choir. earthquake”. Or, as Jacqueline Maley would sault; while universities across the country Ensler’s “monologues” captured stories of label the growing list of perpetrators in The were still dealing with a 2016 report from the menstruation, menopause and mutilation; Sydney Morning Herald, the “Oh god. Not you Australian Human Rights Commission show- of date rape, gang rape, incest and shame; of too?” phenomenon. ing 21 per cent of students, the vast majority of women with black eyes and broken bones; In France, where an estimated 225,000 them women, had experienced some form of of women humiliated and violated and left women were victims of violence in 2016, social sexual harassment in a university setting. mute and homeless in their own bodies. networks began overflowing with accounts of “Do you hear the rumble?” asked Wendy In the US-Mexican border city of Ciudad sexual harassment and assault, often carrying Squires in a Sydney Morning Herald column Juarez, Ensler later learnt of 400 women who the hashtag #BalanceTonPorc, meaning crackling with fury, shortly after the Weinstein had disappeared over the previous decade, 370 “Expose Your Pig”. Speaking in late November allegations lit a global bonfire. “Can you smell of them murdered, ravaged and disfigured. on the International Day for the Elimination the fear?” And then, “It’s time for men in “These women,” she wrote, “had become as of Violence Against Women, President media to know what it feels like to be watched disposable as empty Coca-Cola cans. Emmanuel Macron described French society and judged and to have their careers put in Sometimes their bones turned up next to old as “sick with sexism”, before calling for a jeopardy as a result. It’s time they are afraid, bottles in parking lots. Sometimes they were minute’s silence for the 123 women – one just like we women have been our entire ca- blamed for being mutilated and tortured be- every three days – killed during 2016. (The reers … This avalanche has not reached a stop cause of what they’d been wearing. They were backlash – and furious counter-backlash – yet. Nope, it’s going to continue to roll and rapidly becoming an endangered species.” came less than two months later when nearly gather momentum and I predict many will be During the Bosnian war of the early 1990s, 100 prominent French women, including actor caught in its destructive wake. Good luck “rape camps” were set up by Serbian paramili-
Catherine Deneuve, denounced the #MeToo [men] – you’ll need it.” tary units where up to 50,000 mostly Muslim AAP; CHANNEL NINE; JAMES BRICKWOOD
16 GoodWeekend women were herded into enclosures and “PERHAPS the Australian Institute of Criminology re- paging male aggression, but the truth is I had preyed on around the clock, week in, week out. ported that more than 1.2 million adult women absolutely no idea what women faced. No idea Often they were only released when they were IT TAKES had experienced an incident of sexual violence what it was like to feel afraid walking to my pregnant, or their bellies had been torn open A MOMENT since the age of 15. Every week almost two car, or jogging at night; to be pressed against first. Gang rapes. Public rapes. Rape as an in- Australian women will be killed by a current or on a crowded train; to be ignored or talked strument of terror. Rape in the service of eth- LIKE THIS IN former partner. over repeatedly; to know that my value at work nic cleansing. Rape of mothers, daughters, To pick just one of infinite examples, in 2012, was often predicated on my sexual attractive- sisters, aunts, girls as young as 12. Women HISTORY Rachelle Yeo was stabbed to death in her home ness to my boss. No idea what it was like to with their vaginas destroyed, as Ensler so FOR MEN on Sydney’s northern beaches by her former have someone indecently expose themselves to chillingly captured in one of her monologues, partner. Today, her father Roger Yeo is an am- me; to have to devise strategies each day, often My Vagina Was My Village: TO TRULY bassador for White Ribbon Australia, the or- unconsciously, to just feel safe. No idea what it WAKE UP.” ganisation committed to engaging men in was like to be shamed, or reduced to the parts My vagina. A live wet water village. They invaded ending violence against women and girls. of me that could be breached. it. Butchered it and burned it down. I do not touch “Kathy [Rachelle’s mother] and I, and many During the course of researching this arti- now. Do not visit. I live someplace else now. I don’t others, have experienced the grief and impact cle, I was horrified to hear that in the northern know where that is. of losing a daughter, a wife, a sister or niece NSW town where my former wife and I raised to men’s violence,” he explained recently our two daughters during the first decade of T MIGHT be tempting to see this brutality through the White Ribbon website. “That im- the noughties, the rape and abuse of teenage Ias a malignancy that only obliterates women pact reaches far beyond the direct impact on girls was purportedly not uncommon. Verbal and girls far from our privileged shores. the victim and their immediate family. We and physical assault – young men urinating on The sex trafficking of young girls in South- understand now that for every tragedy affect- girls, calling them “whores”, “fat cunts”, “bitch- East Asia has nothing to do with us, nor bride ing one victim, there are thousands of other es” and “sluts” – was also reputedly prevalent. and widow burning in India, nor the dousing of lives affected.” “I don’t think what happens [there] is women and girls with kerosene and being set unique,” says Ivy D’Orsogna, who grew up in alight in Pakistan. In their international ERHAPS, THEN, it takes a moment like the same town and is making a web series on bestselling book, Half the Sky: How to Change Pthis in history for men to truly wake up. the subject. “There is definitely a feeling of the World, published in 2009, New York Times Until now, I thought I was awake. For 23 years, xenophobia among a lot of the young guys – this columnist Nicholas Kristof and his wife I’d been married to a woman of strong feminist is our town – and this sense of entitlement ex- Sheryl WuDunn described how a beautiful principles. I’d read the works of numerous femi- tends to the bodies of young women. There 17-year-old Kurdish girl in northern Iraq, Du’a nist authors, and profiled women like Helen were prosecuted cases, but there were so Aswad, was accused – without proof – of sleep- Garner, Germaine Greer, former New Zealand many things that happened where boys were ing with a Sunni Arab boy with whom she’d PM Helen Clark; the feminist warriors of never charged or held accountable.” fallen in love. The young woman was dragged Northern Ireland, the McCartney sisters, even Now Sydney-based, the 24-year-old daugh- into the street by eight men, as a large crowd Xena, the warrior princess (with whom I had a ter of award-winning screenwriter and pro- gathered around her. mock arm wrestle and … lost!) I’d worked for ducer Deb Cox (SeaChange, Miss Fisher’s “At least 1000 men joined in the assault,” brilliant female editors and come to see how my Murder Mysteries and others) tells Good they wrote. “So many men in the crowd shot own entrenched biases, assumptions and sense Weekend that in one incident, an underage girl video clips with their cell phones that on the of entitlement had been shaped by the mere fact was put “on the spit” by five teenage boys and web you can find a half-dozen versions of what of being a privileged, straight, white male. penetrated with penises and other objects, happened next. In 1987, early in my journalistic career, I’d while they filmed it on their iPhones. “Du’a was thrown to the ground, and her black reported on the Anita Cobby murder trial, “Many [teenage] girls I know who grew up skirt was ripped off to humiliate her. She tried to where I heard evidence so shocking – about the there experienced sexual assault in one form or get up, but they kicked her around as if she were rape, torture and slaying of that young Sydney another,” she says. “For a while guys were also a soccer ball. Frantic, she tried to fend off the nurse – that it would take me years to erase pissing on girls, or pissing into cups and throw- blows, to get up, to cover herself, to find a sym- from my mind. Fifteen years later, I’d also sat ing them on girls. They were just like dogs piss- pathetic face in the crowd. Then the men gath- in court and stared into the merciless, coal- ing on their territory. ‘You’re ours and we can do ered rocks and concrete blocks and dropped black eyes of Bilal Skaf, the 21-year-old who what we like with you.’ ” them on her. It took 30 minutes for Du’a to die.” had led the gang rapes of Sydney women and The #MeToo tidal wave that has crashed over It’s tempting to see this and other “honour” girls in the lead-up to the 2000 Olympics. As the world has obviously empowered women to killings, as well as the genital mutilation of one of his young victims told me two years revisit their sexual histories, often in graphic girls in Africa and the Middle East, as periph- after the attack, the men had dragged her by detail. True, there has been a conflating of mild eral to what has erupted since Harvey her hair into Gosling Park in south-west transgressions with the worst kinds of abuse; Weinstein’s monstrous behaviour was ex- Sydney’s Greenacre where they’d repeatedly not to mention an abandonment of due process posed. Or to view as unrelated to the post- raped her, while pointing a gun at her head. in some cases – a fact that should concern us all. Weinstein world, female feticide in India; the “I tried to kill myself [afterwards],” she said. But the common denominator here is a deeply hurling of sulphuric acid into the faces of “I kept cutting myself ... anything just to see embedded misogyny that expresses itself women and girls in Asia – usually by men blood. I would just get so worked up I would cut across the spectrum: stories of rape, abuse, who’ve been spurned; or the fact that, in myself with a razor or a piece of glass. On one harassment, belittlement, groping, stalking, ac- Kenya, female political candidates are known occasion I swallowed nearly a packet of costing, grooming, intimidating, demeaning, to have carried knives and wear several layers Panadol. I just felt worthless. I felt dirty. I pouncing, hurting, patronising (mansplaining), of clothing to deter attempted rape. Publicly shamed: thought, ‘Who is going to want me now?’ I was fat-shaming, objectifying. Stories of invitations But this violence against women – in all its (from left) Harvey in year 10 at the time and I was going extreme- where none existed. Stories of workplace gen- myriad forms – is the most persistent, wide- Weinstein; Kevin ly well, and then everything fell apart. der pay gaps – which TV presenter Lisa spread form of violence on the planet today, Spacey; Louis C.K.; “You could never imagine that one event Wilkinson had the courage and self-possession with the United Nations and the World Health Charlie Rose; Matt could change your life so dramatically. I used to expose last October at the Nine Network. Organisation estimating that one billion Lauer; Michael to just sit in my room and cry and cry and cry, Stories of institutionalised enabling, where women have been raped or beaten. Australia is Fallon; Don Burke; and not come out.” confidentiality clauses have been designed to not exempt from this epic horror story. In 2001, Craig McLachlan. So, yes, I thought I was awake to this ram- shut victims up. (Did you note that, Channel
GoodWeekend 17 Seven?) Stories of men refusing to take no for midwives or, merely, women displaying signs “HOW MANY quests for porn every day? No one is born a an answer; of women being pressured into hav- of sexual independence – were tortured and rapist, a sexual abuser or a porn addict; even ing sex and/or being made to feel guilty if they murdered as “witches”. As Naomi Wolf pointed OF US the creepiest, sleaziest and most dangerous of didn’t. Stories of horrifying emotional and out in her celebrated 2012 book, Vagina: A New PARENTS these men began as sweet little boys. Something psychological violence, where men use their Biography, one of the torture devices was had to happen to make them into abusers.” children as weapons of punishment. Stories of known as “the Pear of Anguish” – a pear- HAVE shame and sadness and crippling loss of confi- shaped iron object that expanded inside the WATCHED HAT HAPPENED, according to dence; of the light inside a precious human victim as the torturer turned the screws. Wnorthern NSW-based Dr Arne Rubinstein, heart being extinguished. Women’s vaginas were often the target of OUR SWEET founding chief executive of The Making of Men As Australian feminist writer Clementine searches for the “witches” or “devil’s” mark. (both an organisation and bestselling book), Ford put it in her impassioned 2016 book Fight “I cannot stress enough how many of our cur- TODDLER was that so many boys never actually grew up. Like a Girl: “A lot of the time, being a girl in this rent anxieties about the vagina and about fe- BOYS Their bodies did, but their minds didn’t. world hurts … to feel subjugated and alone, to male sexual pleasure were introduced to society “After puberty,” Rubinstein says, “they can know that the words you say, the ideas you at this time and descend to us even now in forms SLOWLY become angry and lost because they’re still have and the gifts you can contribute are all recognisably dating to this period,” she wrote. LOSE THEIR operating from boy psychology. And to under- considered null and void, unless you offer them Then it was the clitoris – the rapturous stand this boy psychology, you only need to in a way that maintains the status quo.” pleasure centre of a woman’s birthright and CAPACIT Y picture the typical behaviour of a seven-year- freedom – that came to be seen as the cause of TO CRY?” old in the playground. He wants to be acknowl- ND SO the question we come to is: why? “moral turpitude”; a view that reached its apo- edged all the time. He sees himself as the cen- AWhy is it that men have killed, enslaved, gee in Britain in the 1860s when Dr Isaac tre of the universe. He takes no responsibility scarred, diminished and silenced women of Baker Brown introduced cliterodectomies as a for his actions. He finds it difficult to deal with every age, race and class, on every continent, way of returning women to their required do- his emotions. And he wants his mother. for so long? Yes, we know it’s about the aphro- cility. (This practice is still widely employed “Whereas in the healthy man’s psychology, a disiac of power and male privilege, and the way across broad swathes of Africa and, to a lesser man sees himself as part of the universe, not the a woman’s worth is so often seen as less conse- extent, the Middle East.) centre of it; he takes full responsibility for his quential than a man’s. But what lies at the rot- Who was it who decided a menstruating actions, he deals with his emotions and he looks ting heart of all this? woman could not enter a “House of God”, lest for a healthy relationship with the feminine. If The answer is an old one, and surely springs she defile it? Or that a woman’s sexual agency you ask a lot of women if they know any men from patriarchy and its relentless war on the and desire was such a heresy that it required who are still doing the boy psychology stuff, the feminine. Since the beginning of recorded her being put under control? The men who majority will actually say, ‘Yeah, I married him.’ time, most cultures worshipped some version hungered for her, that’s who. “The role modelling and mentoring for of the goddess. In ancient Mesopotamia, the And now we see a rampaging male hunger, boys and teenagers is very poor, and the mes- vulva of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess, was a which has so ignited – as Australian writer saging is terrible. So that’s what our organisa- sacred site and Sumerians sang hymns to her Charlotte Wood put it recently – the global tion does – it gets men to help the next “lap of honey”. Agrarian societies honoured “force of dark and furious energy inside women”. generation think about what it means to have their female deities, as menstrual cycles were It is no accident that it comes at a time when a healthy relationship – with both the mascu- interconnected with the lunar-based agricul- the most powerful man in the world stands ac- line and the feminine.” tural cycles. The earth was Gaia, the ancestral cused of sexually assaulting or harassing at least We’ve all grown up with the clichés that boys Mother of life. She was inherent to all of 19 women, not to mention having been caught don’t cry. They don’t show fear. They keep a Nature. She was nature, until the rise of patri- boasting on the infamous 2005 Access Hollywood stiff upper lip. They suck it up, lest they be la- archal religions began declaring goddess wor- tape of moving on a woman “like a bitch”. belled a “girl” or a “pussy”. All these stock ship and female sexuality the devil’s work. “I’m automatically attracted to beautiful,” phrases that shame the idea of being soft, com- Nature and woman needed to be tamed. Donald Trump said. “I just start kissing them. passionate or kind-hearted. And what replaces At the 2016 Toronto International Film It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. this, as John Bell observed, is “a strutting of Festival, writer and director Jill Soloway And when you’re a star, they let you do it … Grab male power” – perhaps the perfect image for (Transparent) offered an intriguing insight into ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.” the caricature of machismo currently on dis- this when they (Soloway prefers “they” to the For all Trump’s grotesqueries, it’s his con- Below, from left: play in the White House. And yes, perhaps, the gender-specific he or she) said: “Five thousand tempt for women – and his at-the-ready un- Access Hollywood perfect image of what men do, not just to years ago cavemen saw women getting their zipped fly – that has helped shine a light on the host Billy Bush, women, but to gays, queers, transgenders, bi- periods and bleeding, and they bled in time persistent brutality of the male libido. Donald Trump sexuals and, of course, other straight men – with the moon, and they didn’t die when they American Buddhist teacher John Bell put it and actor Arianne anyone considered different or a threat. bled. And so prehistoric man thought that eloquently in a lengthy online post for Yes Zucker in 2005, “For many men,” Bell wrote, “the huge, bea- women were magic and they got scared. So magazine when he asked: “What happened to on the day of the coning archway of healthy human need for they created language to just fuck with us.” boys that they grew up to feel they need sex so infamous tape closeness and love gradually gets bricked up, Man has been fucking with Woman for a long badly that this behaviour is so pervasive? recording; a female brick by hurtful brick, until the only available time … and not just through language. In ancient “What happened to men that they support a circumcision opening for all those real needs has been nar- Greece the great lawmaker Solon decreed that a $US97 billion porn industry that produces ceremony in rowed to a small keyhole called sex. free woman could be sold into slavery for losing 13,000 porn films a year (compared to Uganda, a tradition “Add extra testosterone, unrelenting sexual her virginity prior to marriage. The Hebrew Hollywood’s 600 films), has 420 million porn in some parts of advertising and media images, and boyhood Bible (Deuteronomy 22: 13-21) allowed for a fa- web pages, and 68 million search engine re- the continent. training to be aggressive to get what you want, ther to stone his daughter to death if her wed- ding sheets were not bloodied. (Little wonder, then, that one of the morning Jewish prayers says: “Blessed are you, Lord, our God, ruler of the universe who has not created me a woman.”) The Church Fathers cast women as seduc- tresses who lured men towards the abyss. Tertullian, the Latin Christian author, regard- ed as the founder of Western theology, de- scribed the vagina as a “temple built over a sewer”, and “the Devil’s gateway”. We had the chastity belts of the Middle Ages, where a husband could literally secure his wife’s vagina with a series of iron metal body locks, before taking the keys as he travelled, or sallied forth to war. Across Europe, between the 14th and 17th centuries, tens of thousands
of women – healers, priestesses, poetesses, GETTY IMAGES
18 GoodWeekend and we can start to understand how sex for i=Change denotes personal responsibility for men has become so fraught, so distorted, so change) whereby retailers commit a dollar of unhealthy, so compulsive, so desperate. every online sale to causes such as helping non- “Men are [taught] to be in charge, to hold all government organisations end sex trafficking reins of power, to feel superior to women, to ex- in Asia and pioneer new technologies in pect women to serve men in exchange for pro- Uganda so that premature babies survive. tection and security. The conditioning includes While the customers choose where the dollar learning to not show feelings other than anger goes, the brands make the donation and, in the or toughness ... How many of us parents have past five years, i=Change has raised $500,000 watched our sweet toddler boys slowly lose their through partnerships with 40 retailers, both in capacity to cry, or hide their tenderness to fit Australia and internationally, that have di- into the harsh teenage-boy culture? So as men, rectly impacted the lives of more than 115,000 most of us grow up being cut off from our feel- women and girls. ings, from our true loving nature, from our nat- “From what I’ve learnt and seen,” says ural compassion, from easy relationships with Meltzer, “I believe men’s violence against women most other men. We feel isolated, competitive, to be the most pressing human rights issue of insecure, lonely and fake – though we can rarely our time. Most ideologies, belief systems, insti- admit it, and usually only in the safe embrace of tutions and religions that fundamentally mini- a lover, if we’re lucky. The reality is that men mise the feminine, control women and girls, have a huge, lifelong reservoir of tears and fears Above, from left: nor weak, nor insecure. They are forced to ensure they don’t realise their potential and, in to shed about all this trauma.” Jane Fonda, cage and kill the feminine within their own many respects, denigrate them, hide them away Eve Ensler and beings and consequently the world.” from public life and ensure they’re not educated, CAN hear voices being raised against these Glenn Close on Talking to Good Weekend now, Ensler believes could only have been created by men, enforced Ireflections: that they represent a derailment stage during a it is imperative that we work out how to over- by men, interpreted and implemented by men. of the conversation we need to be having right performance haul patriarchal thinking once and for all. “Are To allow ourselves the illusion this is in any way now; that this moment calls for nothing less than of The Vagina we going to fire every man?” she asks. “Are we preordained is beyond primitive, and a tragic listening to women, believing women, defending Monologues going to put every man in prison? Are we going outsourcing of responsibility.” women, standing alongside women. In other in New York. to punish every man? What is going to be the For Meltzer, this is overwhelmingly a men’s words, this is not the time for men to play victim. process by which we transform patriarchy? issue, for the simple reason that it is men who This is the time to allow the flood of women’s “I’ve always said that men are… equally are wreaking the destruction. “We pander to pain and profound outrage to wash over us. tyranised by the patriarchy, sometimes more political correctness here because we don’t call Eve Ensler has every reason to fear and de- damaged by it, because at least women got to this what it is. We call it family violence, as if spise men, and to not want to hear what ails keep their hearts intact. Men have been re- it’s a toddler throwing a toy at his mum or a them. From a young age, she was beaten, moved from their tenderness, their tears; the dog biting someone on the ankle. bruised, choked, nearly murdered by her father, centre of their own beings. So this is a really “Family violence is mostly a man choosing to and yet her journey to the source of female suf- critical question for men. What are men going use violence against his partner. Violence is fering ultimately took her into the heart of male to do to help themselves break out of patriar- almost exclusively the domain of men. Who’s darkness. In her 2006 book, Insecure At Last, she chy and come into a new system where they get doing the vast amount of killing? It’s men. Who described meeting a soldier in Kosovo in the to be free to be tender, loving, caring, heart- picks up the pieces, and fights to hold families late 1990s. His name was Agrim, and he seemed opened, feeling beings?” together? It’s women. paralysed, both physically and mentally. “Women build life, while we are adept at “For some reason,” she wrote, “he looked at I KNOW many men like this, as you no doubt destroying it. Unless, as men, we begin to look me, threw his arms around my neck, and started do, too. Men who would never dream of making at what it is in the male psyche, in the versions weeping. No, it was more like wailing. I have unwanted comments to a woman, touching her of masculinity we’re born into and enforce never heard a sound like that. He would not let inappropriately, let alone trying to force her upon each other, and begin actively engaging go. Then his weeping wailing began to build and into non-consensual sex. I also know men who each other to become the solution to this issue, release. It could not be controlled or stopped. It champion women’s rights: like my friend, we’ll be having the same conversation 500 resounded through the neighbourhood. People Melbourne-based social entrepreneur Jeremy years from now. from the village began to gather around. Meltzer, who delivered a TEDx talk on this “We have to listen to women deeply – “I held on to Agrim but, honestly, I wanted subject called Where is Men’s Roar? because too often we don’t – but we have to him to stop. All these years I had told myself “Can I ask you to raise your hands if you have cross the line to find the courage to confront I wanted men to be vulnerable, to have their a sister?” he asked his live audience at the out- and question what in the masculine psychology feelings, to cry. All of a sudden it felt like a lie. set. “Now leave your hand up and raise the other has normalised the profound desecration of I did not want this man to be so destroyed, so hand if you also have a daughter. Great, keep both the feminine? And we must create deep out of control. I wanted him to have answers of them up, and if you have a mum raise your accountability, as men, for ourselves and with and be tough and know the way and make eve- knee.” The audience was a sea of upstretched each other. What is it within our conditioning? rything work out. hands and knees. Meltzer then went on to cite What is it we have so deeply normalised “I understood how part of me was afraid of UN statistics on the global pandemic of violence that we are blind to? Nothing short of a men being lost, how I needed them to be tough against women, calling it “the most systematic revolution in the masculine is required, one and sure. I understood how many years I had and pervasive human rights abuse in the world”. which calls us to return to a healthy masculin- carried their invisible pain so I wouldn’t have to “What the hell is going on?” he asked. “Any ity, that in our quietest moments, we are long- see them weak or ashamed. This weeping liquid one of these women could be our sister, mother ing to inhabit. man in my arms was my undoing, pulling me or daughter. So where are the men? Where is “To achieve this is to aspire to an exquisite out to sea in the wild waves of his crying. men’s roar? Not for the football, but for what integrity, to a level of self-awareness where “It was as if I were holding the secret story of really matters? [Because] this is the greatest such violence – in our public or private lives – men in my lap. Centuries of male sorrow and moral challenge of our times.” becomes impossible.” loss, centuries of unexpressed worry and Born and raised in Melbourne, Meltzer, 42, doubt, centuries of pain. I suddenly understood first witnessed violence against women in the VERYTHING IS now up for grabs, and the violence and war. I understood retaliation and late 1990s, while living in Latin America, Cuba, Equestions keep coming. How do we exam- revenge. I understood how deep the agony is and Miami. “I had a Cuban girlfriend at the ine the mechanisms – and insistent call – of and how its suppression has made men into time and met a lot of her community and heard human desire, and the way this informs our other things. I understood that these tears fall- so many stories of violence,” he tells Good behaviour? How does evolutionary psychology ing down Agrim’s face would have become Weekend. “At one point we almost became vic- play into the differences between men and bullets in any other case, hardened drops of tims of her ex-boyfriend and had to leave town, women, if at all? To what extent does the mas- grief and rage directed toward a needed and I became really angry at how normalised culine libido, and its various pathologies, drive enemy. I saw how in fighting to live up to the all this violence was.” our culture, politics and economy? tyranny of masculinity, men become driven to In 2013 Meltzer established a social enter- Most heterosexual men dream of the tempt- do anything to prove they are neither tender, prise tech start-up called i=Change (The ‘i’ in ress, the endless wonder and diversity of the
GoodWeekend 19 “top dogs” when they’ve had numerous sexual partners, while girls doing the same thing are called “sluts”, “hos”, “whores” and “bitches”? And here’s another thorny one. How do we stop mothers from internalising – and thereby perpetuating – the patriarchy by the way they raise, and talk to, their sons and daughters? Or the way they bury themselves in work, just as absentee fathers have done for so long? Or, far more subtly, the way they often protect the core fragility of a man’s ego, because they know only too well what could happen if he col- lapses into shame. He could hurt himself, or someone else. “As men are falling, women are rising,” wrote Maureen Dowd in The New York Times recently, and that is both a terrifying and elec- trifying thing to witness. Terrifying because there is nothing good about a broken man – not for himself, his children, his partner, his friends or his community. Terrifying also, because – as we have seen with Brexit and the election of Donald Trump – millions of working-class men (and women, too) will blow up a system when they feel dis- empowered by forces beyond their control. Brokenness begets brokenness. But it is also beyond thrilling to imagine a world where the potential of female power, passion and ingenuity might be unleashed, as it has been to varying degrees in China, female form; after all, she’s been inhabiting our through this war zone so that normal displays Millions took to the Rwanda, Botswana and Morocco over recent imagination – our films, songs, literature and of affection aren’t mistaken for something far streets in women’s times. In 1994, Rwanda lost nearly one million conversations – from the time our balls began more sinister? How do men find the courage to marches across the people during the genocide, yet, a decade later, heading south. challenge other men – sometimes our close US in January was one of the fastest growing economies in When does a lumpen-footed move become a friends – when the conversations cross the this year, showing the world – thanks in large part to female par- form of harassment? What does harassment line? Where exactly is that line, given that so the anger and ticipation in the workforce and gender equali- actually mean? Is it a wolf whistle, a fondle, a often men’s talk is shrouded in humour? energy unleashed ty in political life. (Women today hold 61 per lewd comment? What about a pass at a col- What do we do now with some of our favour- by Donald Trump cent of seats in the lower house of Rwanda’s league after work – is that just poor training, or ite creative works? If you’re middle aged like and the #MeToo national legislature, compared to 29 per cent bad intentions? Or is this how couples so often me, do we reassess the pleasure we once de- campaign. in Australia.) come together, through some combination of rived from Woody Allen and Roman Polanski Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi Nobel risk taking and bumbling awkwardness? films because we know now all about their Peace prize-winner, and father of microcredit, And come to think of it, when the sun goes youthful obsessions or, as the case may be, lends almost solely to impoverished women in down, how do we corral our nocturnal sexual their perversions? Do we return to those sex- the developing world, because he knows their appetites, our private kinks and chinks? Do we soaked Philip Roth novels where there’s a families and communities will benefit more follow Sweden’s recent proposed changes to boundless phallus parading through nearly than if he extends loans to men. the law, so that victims only need to prove that everyone of them? Across the globe, the mighty force of female an explicit consent was not granted in order to How do we feel, for instance, about the late power is asserting itself; at the same time as prosecute? What will happen to gender diver- Helmut Newton’s photography, and all the ta- women are continuing to be abused, commodi- sity in organisational culture if men run scared boos he broke as the fashion world’s most infa- fied and dehumanised. The very week that from working closely with women, especially if mous provocateur: women wearing chains and Trump was heard bragging on the Access the allegations are at the more superficial end dog collars, models in wheelchairs and neck Hollywood tapes about grabbing “pussy”, a new of the spectrum? braces, women with saddles on their backs, book called Pussy: A Reclamation, by Regina Do we have, as Bret Stephens wondered their buttocks up against washing machines, or Thomashauer, was hitting The New York Times aloud in The New York Times recently, “the the back seat of a car. (Newton actually carried bestseller list with its exhortation to the re- moral capacity to distinguish between aggres- a lot of the accessories in his own car: false nip- claiming of true feminine power. sive sexual predation and run-of-the-mill ro- ples, handcuffs, whips, leg irons.) “Most women in the world are operating mantic bungling – between a pattern of abusive Should we now retrain our ears to old hits, from a huge amount of scarcity and ignorance behaviour and a good man’s uncharacteristic such as Rod Stewart’s Tonight’s the Night, be- in our sensual lives – and our lives overall,” bad moments?” cause we’ve re-listened to the lyrics and realise Thomashauer wrote. “Women have been Does it matter if the guiltless go down be- it could be about grooming an underage girl? ignored for centuries. We were never the prior- cause, in any war, there’s going to be blood? ity. Our hunger was never met.” Emily Lindin, an occasional columnist for Don’t say a word my virgin child The #MeToo campaign is a symptom of this American Teen Vogue, thinks not. In a series of Just let your inhibitions run wild furious hunger, both ancient and contempo- tweets late last year, she wrote: “I’m actually The secret is about to unfold rary. Ever since the second wave of feminism not at all concerned about innocent men losing Upstairs before the night’s too old. in the 1960s, women have been sharing their their jobs over false sexual assault/harassment stories, setting up hotlines, helping each other, allegations” and “If some innocent men’s repu- HEN THERE’S pornography. How do we writing books, songs, plays, films; marching, tations have to take a hit in the process of un- Thold back the tide of teenage boys and their agitating, dancing for their right not to be doing the patriarchy, that is a price I am use of smartphones, with its unlimited access abused or silenced. absolutely willing to pay.” to the objectification of women? Do we get Now, it’s different. Now, we’re all joined to At least she was being honest, although the Google to examine its own gender biases be- the information superhighway, and the exem- implications of this are truly alarming. What cause, when you look up a word like “ hysteri- plar of patriarchal aggression and arrogance happens when a touch on the arm of a col- cal”, the first example of its usage is “Janet sits in the White House, bestriding the world. league at work, or a friendly “x” on the end of a became hysterical and began screaming”? Something extraordinary has been triggered text message, is misinterpreted for something How do we challenge teenage boys not to within the collective psyche and we’re only
more than it is? How do we steer a course think of themselves as “heroes”, “legends” and beginning to sense what’s still to come. n GETTY IMAGES
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