Violence against women and children is never acceptable, no matter who the perpetrator. Bill Shorten, in an interesting piece in The Nightly, notes that violence against women and children is overwhelmingly committed by men. He went on to say that ‘gendered violence is not new in this country’ and that ‘language matters’.
I agree, but he lost me when he used the phrase ‘toxic masculinity’.
Those who use biological strength against women and children are not masculine. They are cowards. Masculinity is never inherently toxic. It’s protective, capable of great violence against evil, yet selfless and strong when practised appropriately.
The phrase is toxic. Masculinity is not.
At an academic conference held by my discipline’s main professional body several years ago, I sat in an otherwise empty room talking to the other presenters on such mundane topics as unpopular economic reforms we desperately needed (much like the goods and services tax over two decades ago).
We were talking among ourselves because the other several hundred people were focused on those speaking about ‘toxic masculinity’. Several of the attendees were tweeting words to the effect of ‘wouldn’t it be great if we could get rid of all the other topics and just focus on toxic masculinity’.
I wrote to a friend and colleague who was a leader in the organisation at the time to let him know that while the enthusiasm of this anti-chivalrous movement was on-trend, it would not be these scholars, but my sons and grandsons (like my forefathers) who would fight the next war.
I told him that I would not pay another cent toward supporting such an organisation.
The protectors of our nation certainly wouldn’t be those so-called ‘more evolved’ humans who were celebrating their intellectual victory over brow-beaten loser dads like Homer Simpson or Peppa Pig’s Daddy Pig.
I find it bizarre how the class wars have cross-cut the gender wars.
Despite there still being a glass ceiling for bourgeoisie women immediately below CEO level, getting to the level of ‘colonel’ has become not a glass ceiling, but an opaque ceiling for working class men. Indeed, in elite circles, working class men are more likely to become ‘passed over majors’ simply because they are men.
It indicates that Shorten ignores his own privilege as he loses his base while also losing his perspective of the class divide. Labor politicians like Shorten are no longer interested in the working class because they wear gender-focused glasses when formulating policy.
Shorten confirmed this view when he wrote:
‘Violence against women and children does not distinguish between postcodes, what school you went to, how much money you have in the bank account, your cultural background, or your religion.’
Shorten’s argument paints a picture of all men, regardless of class or upbringing, as being somehow responsible for gender-based violence.
Shorten continued:
‘We’ve got to teach people about the toxic masculinity of online influencers and podcasters.’
He then went on to say that:
‘It is alarming in the digital age that 25 per cent of teenage boys look up to social media personalities that perpetuate stupid, old-fashioned, violent attitudes.’
At this point Shorten’s argument falls apart. Teenage boys look up to those who are allowed to shine. The ‘new-fashioned’ influencers wouldn’t have lasted a second back in my day.
So that somehow makes me old-fashioned? That is the biggest load of nonsense.
Teenage boys inevitably live up to the expectations that are set for them. Under Labor, they are expected to be passive and weak. Strong men have been removed from boys’ lives. No strong man in his right mind would ever be a school teacher these days. It’s not worth the risk.
The role model has been outsourced to do-gooders who don’t have a clue. My mother says that the men in my life did their best to provide and protect and they were never toxic.
But somehow the government knows better?
We once used to say that chivalry was not dead, it was just hiding in a closet.
Now it is on life support and hidden in a basement somewhere, but it still has a beating heart.
We all know who Shorten is referring to when he mentions social media personalities. No gentleman would refer to that bloke as ‘masculine’. But almost nobody would publicly consider themselves a ‘gentleman’ today because it is attached to the supposed negative connotations of the patriarchy and the inequality such a term implies.
But people forget that historically, Australian society, rightly or wrongly, was centred around the male head of the family who had to do what he was told all day at work. He could only feel in control of anything when he was at home. It certainly wasn’t fair to women or children, and it often placed undue pressure on those who had neither the capacity nor desire to perform the required leadership roles well. But that was the reality back then.
Yet traditional Labor, rightly in my view, supported the White Australia Policy and the patriarchy (and all that entailed back in the day) because that was the nature of the times.
Yet Shorten somehow missed the old-school Labor memo. Or he chose to avoid Labor’s historical roots.
Regardless, those were different times. Yet working class men didn’t have it good then nor do they now. To this day, it is not uncommon for working class men to be at age 63 and to find themselves physically broken and unable to perform the only jobs they know yet they find themselves two years short of the age pension.
Not one of the academics at the ‘toxic masculinity fest’ I attended would have a clue what that is like.
But interestingly, there are still sympathetic administrators who allow these broken men to receive the dole without too much inconvenience. Because these men will never be eligible for the disability pension and must hold on until they can receive the age pension for at least two years.
You have no idea how many of these men exist. And ‘toxic masculinity’ will only ensure that the reality of life as a male member of the working class punishes those who did the physically hardest jobs that nobody else wanted to do.
I guarantee you the socialist female academic who became a university professor at age 35 will never have to navigate the dilemma of the working-class men they claim to support.
At the same time, please don’t tar all Australian public servants with the same brush. They often appreciate the realities that never make it into public policy debates, and they administer our laws accordingly. Even if you never hear about them from professors who those who allegedly support the working class.
In the meantime, we have a bunch of self-entitled elites who have never had to keep a piece of lamb fat in their tool bags to stop the blisters from their axe or brush-hook, or who have earned blisters from swinging a pick or an adze or driving a crowbar.
There are many others who have not used the tools of war like a machine gun or a howitzer that bring their own quirky injuries for the brave men and women who do the work the elites will never have to do.
(If none of this makes any sense to you, then you don’t really know what it is like to be a member of the working class that Labor used to represent.)
And herein lies the problem:
Do humans actually progress closer towards perfection over time?
Writing in 1915 (well before the devastation of the great war took full effect), American sociologist Victor Yarros asked:
‘…does a “progress” which renders such horrors possible, or which fails to prevent or exclude them, signify or contain anything worthwhile?’
Most of us hope that things get better over time. But like all the old people you knew who worked hard their entire lives only to die poor and destitute, history has a habit of not living up to our expectations.
One thing I do know is that, for all my faults, the strong women in my life taught me how to be a gentleman. My great-grandmother made me walk on the gutter side, under threat of death or disablement, when we walked along the footpath in Ashfield. Gestures such as opening doors and prioritising womenfolk over my own needs were drummed into me from birth.
Despite an experience at ANU many years ago where I opened a door for my aunt’s lesbian partner (who had to then rush on to open the next door for me in a display of ‘equality’), for the most part, my gentlemanly actions have been received with gratitude.
For example, a young woman standing next to me at a bus stop recently was shocked and at the same time grateful when I gave up my bus stop seat for her.
(The truth is the ghost of my great-grandmother haunts me. Even when I was forced by the creative bloke to walk on the non-gutter side of a female journalist for some footage recently, I was awkwardly embarrassed by the predicament. She sympathised with me with a knowing concern.)
And training as an Army officer included ensuring I ate last because my men were the priority. Officers had the (then) Queen’s Commission to do their duty and their first duty was to their soldiers.
Which brings me back to male social media influencers who are creeps and not gentlemen.
My grandmothers would have smacked those clowns into oblivion.
I will kill and die for my mother and my grandmothers and my sisters and my girl and her mother and siblings and any other woman because that is what I was taught to do. Even if my efforts were ineffectual, I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t use my last breath trying.
As I age, I know my ability to protect others diminishes exponentially. It is a fact that I can never change, and my physical experience continuously reinforces that fact.
And regrettably, even if my ego forced me to challenge a social media influencer to a physical battle, that time is all but gone. (Although there is always some fight left, even in old dogs.)
But that is not the point.
My great-grandmother worked in the St Marys munitions factory during the second world war while her husband and brothers served in the Middle East and later New Guinea. She was no shrinking violet. She knew exactly what men needed to do and aspire to and be and I am all the better for her example. That doesn’t mean she put up with their crap, either.
But she proved to me that to be masculine is not to be toxic. It is to play your God-given role as a man to protect your tribe, and all women and children or those who otherwise do not have a man’s God-given physical advantages.
Masculinity is not toxic. Even if it has become trendy to think it so.
The truth is that our society has lost the plot as it encourages men to become Homer Simpsons and Piggy Dads. Any man who thinks this is okay really needs to go into a room full of mirrors, have a good hard look at themselves.
For while the West has become soft and weak and complacent, others have not cut their men off at the knees. Progress is what progress does and it hasn’t done much for men in the West recently.
So when truly toxic masculinity is at our doors, who will stand up to such aggression? The boys who have been taught to be meek? The boys who followed some idiot on social media? Or the boys who were taught to be gentlemen by the strong women in their lives supported by strong men who know how to defend their culture, their people, and their societies?
Masculinity is not toxic. Only toxic people make it so. You must choose.
The men who hurt women and children are cowards. Bill Shorten ought to know better than to blame all men for the actions of cowards.
And I guarantee you the intellectuals who do nothing but confuse our boys who might otherwise become gentlemen are hurting themselves as much as everybody else.
Dr Michael de Percy @FlaneurPolitiq is a political scientist and political commentator. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILTA), and a Member of the Royal Society of NSW. He is National Vice President of the Telecommunications Association, Chairman of the ACT and Southern NSW Chapter of CILTA, and a member of the Australian Nuclear Association. Michael is a graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon and was appointed to the College of Experts at the Australian Research Council in 2022.
