http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/09/struggle-sexism-man-twitter-misogyny-battle
Joining the struggle against sexism won't make you less of a man
From Twitter rape threats to lads' mags, women are
confronting misogyny – but until more men join them, the battle can't be won
'Men worry
they cannot speak about this subject authentically, that their perspective is
of less value than a woman's. Others fret they'll get it wrong, that they'll
inadvertently say something that is itself sexist.' Photograph: Sarah Lee for
the Guardian
The way I
remember it, we sat for at least 10 minutes in silence. No one wanted to be the
first to speak, for fear that would look too domineering. Even the people who'd
organised the group stayed quiet, each of them reluctant to play the role of
"leader", with its dread, patriarchal associations. So we stayed
seated in our circle of wooden chairs, earnestly mute. When one man did finally
start talking, it was in a whispered mumble, lest he be deemed excessively
assertive.
Ah, happy memories of student life, specifically my first
(and, I fear, last) meeting of the Wadham
College men's group at Oxford
It wasn't nostalgia that brought back these memories, but
rather a glimpsed photograph of Alastair Campbell wearing an 80s-style T-shirt
bearing, in bold capital letters, the slogan No More Page
Three. Good for him and good for that campaign, which advanced this
week with the decision by the Irish edition of the Sun to drop the famous
topless picture in deference to what it called "cultural
differences". But the Campbell snap and the response – tweeted
jokes about the former spin guru's chest or urging him to get the rest of his
kit off – confirmed both how rare and how open to ridicule are forays by men
into the war against sexism.
That there is a battle to be fought is surely beyond
doubt. Whether it's a prosecuting barrister branding a 13-year-old female
victim of sexual abuse "predatory",
or the ongoing death
and rape threats against women who
speak out on social media, all those who care about even basic notions of
fairness or justice can see there is a momentous struggle to be joined. Yet men
hesitate. Register the voices who rise up to object to these or any of the
other instances, constant and ubiquitous, of sexism and misogyny and they
overwhelmingly belong to women.
Perhaps that's inevitable. An attack on any group will be
felt first and most keenly by that group: it usually falls to Jews, for
example, to sound the alarm over antisemitism. But that rule
is not universal. The backlash against the Home Office's "Go
Home" vans, a hateful scheme now under
investigation by the
Advertising Standards Authority, has not been the exclusive preserve of
immigrants, legal or illegal, or the descendants of immigrants. Even Nigel
Farage denounced it.
But
somehow men leave the heavy lifting against gender bias and gender hatred to
women. The most charitable explanation is that men worry they cannot speak
about this subject authentically, that their perspective is of less value than
a woman's. Others fret they'll get it wrong, that they'll inadvertently say
something that is itself sexist, thereby revealing that they too don't
"get it" – so it's safer to say nothing. The diffidence of the men
who took part in last week's #twittersilence was striking, several indicating
that they were only "sort of" taking part.
Underlying all of this is that fear of ridicule, the
suspicion that there is something funny about a man in a No Page Three T-shirt,
or even about the simple act of calling
himself a feminist. My remembered student experience is part of
that, the notion that if a heterosexual man takes anti-sexism too seriously
he'll end up emasculated, humourless and ideologically barred from expressing
sexual desire – in other words, less of a man.
The result in what should be a universal movement for
human equality is a big gap where the men should be. Of course the differences
between sexism and racism are vast, but it's useful to recall the great civil
rights struggles of 50 years ago all the same. That was an African-American
movement from top to bottom, from its leaders to its grassroots, as it had to
be. But white anti-racists were part of it. Scan the photographs of those freedom marches and there are
white faces as well as black.
That was
necessary, for the twin and bleakly simple reasons that white Americans were
both the problem and an essential part of the solution: racism did not exist in
the abstract, but in the hearts of white people and white-led institutions, and
it was white people who held the power to change things. Martin Luther King and
Rosa Parks prevailed because they not only raised the consciousness of black America
Again, the parallel is imperfect, but surely contemporary
feminism has to engage men for similar reasons. Dip into the eye-opening@EverydaySexism feed on Twitter and you will see evidence of the most
egregious discrimination – women assaulted and insulted as they go about their
daily lives – almost all of it committed by men. At the risk of stating the
obvious, progress requires more than the testimony of the woman told in a job
interview that it'd be nice to have some "eye candy"
around. It will also require men to stop saying it.
That means a change in men, but also perhaps in the
struggle itself. For there is not just a gender gap on this issue. Wary as I am
of pointing it out, there does seem to be a gulf separating the feminist
conversation currently aired loudest in the public sphere and the kind of
monotonous, grinding experience recorded by @EverydaySexism. It is the culture
wars that grab media interest – a run of pop
videos featuring
topless women; proposed "modesty"
wrappings to hide the
covers of lads' mags; Jane Austen on bank notes; horrors on Twitter – yet it is
the stubborn problems of unequal pay, low conviction rates for rape, workplace discrimination against mothers and, say, the need for statutory
carer's leave, which probably speak more directly to the lives of
women outside the media bubble.
For now,
though, the challenge is for men to find their place – and to be welcomed – in
a struggle that may be led by the women's movement but which is surely a human
cause. We've tried sitting in silence – and it hasn't worked.
Twitter: @Freedland
