Fight Like A Girl

by Clementine Ford

  In 2015, Western Australia Police tweeted out their support for White Ribbon, asserting their commitment to a future in which women don’t experience violence. This is fairly comical, given their record on the treatment of Aboriginal women. Earlier in the year, police in Port Hedland imprisoned a twenty-three-year-old Aboriginal woman (named in the press as ‘Ms Dhu’) for the shocking crime of a couple of unpaid fines. They did little to secure proper medical attention for her as she went into septic shock in front of them (one officer later testified that they thought she was faking it) and she died.

  She died.

  She died.

  She died.

  This is the same police force which has been in the press for issuing an astronomical fine to an Aboriginal woman living in poverty who was caught shoplifting tampons from her local supermarket. But sure, they’re totes into helping chicks out because white ribbons look great on their uniforms.

  Those who can’t interpret the punishment of a poor woman for stealing sanitary products as a form of violence are among the majority who don’t understand that the broad complexity of violence is compounded against those who also suffer the oppression of racial inequality, poverty, ableism, homophobia, transphobia and mental illness. But again, having even a minimal understanding of what constitutes violence is irrelevant to the White Ribbon equation.

  All the sporting codes in the country make a big show of supporting the White Ribbon foundation. They trot out their ribbons and pledges on 25 November and then spend the rest of the year allowing men facing charges of sexual assault and/or domestic abuse to continue playing and being paid. When people question them on this, their supporters come out in rabid support, yelling, ‘Innocent until proven guilty! Should he not be allowed to work and earn a wage?!’ As if it’s going to economically ruin a football player to be suspended from playing a few games. Meanwhile, sporting forums and Facebook groups are filled with comments casting judgment on the women involved. They’re star-fuckers and footy sluts. They’re lying. They wanted it and then they changed their minds later. They were mad because he just wanted a fuck and didn’t want to go out with them. They’re making it up to get revenge. They’re ruining a man’s life.

  Eddie McGuire can get on radio and make hilarious ‘jokes’ about drowning a female colleague, but it’s not like he really means it. Danny Frawley and James Brayshaw can enthusiastically go along with him but it’s all just playful ‘banter’, right? Stop getting your knickers in a twist! If women can’t handle the rough and tumble nature of the footy field, they should bugger off!

  Oh, but don’t worry, they’re all Good Guys. He’s a Good Guy, he’s a Good Guy and he’s a Good Guy. It doesn’t matter that they tell sexist jokes and tell women to get back into the kitchen, to stop overreacting, to be less irrational, are you sad, love, just because you can’t get a root? You need a good root, if you weren’t so ugly maybe you could get a root, I’d throw you a root but even I’m not that generous, you just need a good dick up ya, I bet you’d jibber less if you had a cock in your mouth, you big fucking lesbian dyke, man-hater, fuck you, you fat bitch, dog, whore, slut, cunt, you are nothing.

  This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the discrepancy between what White Ribbon claims to represent and what it actually does. Unfortunately, most of the women’s health sector workers that I speak with on a regular basis are too afraid to say any of this publicly because they’re scared their organisation’s already paltry funding will be further cut.

  This was just one of the many things I realised that day, after I presented my naive thoughts to a roomful of people infinitely more qualified than I to discuss these issues but who responded to my inexperience with kindness and patience. I accepted their invitation to stay for the remainder of the training, and I learned more in those two hours than I had in years of reading newspaper articles and participating in ‘this is what I think’ conversations with similarly unenlightened people. Even now, one of the reasons I love being invited to work with women’s health organisations is because of the sheer wealth of knowledge I encounter. It has been my great privilege to absorb information from women like Ada Conroy, who works not only for an organisation helping domestic violence victims and survivors but who moonlights as a men’s behavioural change therapist, and Diana Labiris, who flicked a floodlight on in my brain simply by asking me to think of what it meant that almost all of the people behind the thankless organisation, catering and clean-ups of the White Ribbon morning teas that are designed to celebrate men’s contributions to the cause are women.

  I know now why that is. It’s because women do the work. We always have. It is usually done without complaint or protestation, because most girls are conditioned from birth to accept that unpaid domestic labour is our natural responsibility. White Ribbon is supposed to be an organisation where men speak to other men about violence prevention – but it’s women who send out the invitations, plan the food, type up the name tags, wait at the door to greet arriving guests and then sit and listen as corporate suits are applauded for being Good Guys.

  Do men really need to be acknowledged for doing the right thing? Do they even realise they’re taking credit for work that women have performed more tirelessly and with greater risk to their health and wellbeing? Do men need to be revered and admired, their egos stroked with the palms of a thousand tired hands?

  Or is it that women believe men need to have these things in order to continue caring about us – that this is the negotiated trade we must make to get them even nominally interested in helping disrupt the violence we suffer at the hands of their brothers?

  To the men who may be reading this: I am not interested in placating you, nor do I care if feminism makes you personally uncomfortable. It should make you uncomfortable, and if you are genuinely interested in becoming part of a better world, you will take that discomfort and use it to find a better way. Women are being killed in ridiculous numbers. Sexism is rife across every level of society. You may not be personally responsible for any of this, but you are also not targeted by the aggression of it. This isn’t about your feelings. So stop expecting women to preface their anger and activism with disclaimers that, of course, it’s not about YOU.

  Because it is. It’s about you because it’s about patriarchy, and even the kindest, nicest, most supportive and decent man benefits from this structure in ways that women just don’t. Men have to be proactive in recognising that and fighting against it, and that requires effort and commitment. It’s not enough to just turn up.

  YOU have to do the work.

  But why are you being so mean to me? you might be thinking. Why are you making me feel like this is all my fault?

  Listen up, son, because I want to work with you on this. You have to get over this idea that when feminists talk about men’s violence against women (which is more broadly about the dominion of men as a whole over women) that we are talking about you personally. No matter how vulnerable and defensive these conversations might make you feel, no one is actually coming around to your house and screaming through the windows, ‘Tyler, you fucking abusive bag of shit, get your arse out here now and answer to your crimes!’ If you are feeling sensitive, it is because the last decade of feminism has regrettably made a concerted effort to bring issues of gender inequality to the fore by steadily removing almost all mention of men’s complicity. Of course you’re feeling antsy at being thrust into the spotlight now – haven’t you always been told that most men are wonderful, brilliant creatures who would never do anything terrible to a woman? Having been reassured that this is not really about you at all, it must be difficult to sit there and listen while angry, misandrist feminazis like myself point a finger in your direction. That’s not fair! You’re a good person!

  But are you? I mean, really? I’m just going to throw this out there because, as far as provocative truth bombs go, it’s been ticking away for too long: this universal male decency we keep hearing about is largely a myth.

  Sure,
most men might not be bad. You’re probably not bad. But it takes more than ‘not being bad’ to be ‘actually good’.

  Whenever conversation is raised about patriarchy, violence and the lack of equality that still permeates our society, I find myself inundated with messages or comments from men offended by the discussion of male-perpetrated violence. Most men, they take ostentatious pains to remind me, are ‘decent’, so why do I insist on tarring all of them with the same brush? It’s not fair and it’s not true. If I want their ongoing support, I had jolly well better start being nicer to them.

  Leaving aside the arrogance it requires to listen to a conversation about the gendered violence suffered by women and make it about your hurt feelings (not to mention the privilege in knowing you can just walk away from social justice without really being affected), I’d like to know where the evidence is for this so-called decency. Is it in the number of men who stand by while sexist jokes are made because ‘it’s meant to be funny’? Is it drawn from those folks who want women to know that even though they’re not saying it’s our fault, we shouldn’t have been drinking so much? Is it found in the proportions of dudes who talk about how it’s women’s own incompetency that’s holding us back from sitting in positions of power or being paid equal wages for equal work? Is it in the number of men who wax lyrical about how ‘ugly’ women are when we express a robust opinion, or dare to not pluck and preen their bodies in a way that ‘all’ men find pleasing (a supposedly universal revulsion made slightly inconvenient by the number of men who are either indifferent to hair or actively turned on by it)?

  Are these men really ‘good’? Or is their supposed decency constructed entirely around the fact they’ve never beaten a woman and they won’t let anyone say anything nasty about their mothers? How can we really know?

  The truth is, all it takes to be hailed as a ‘decent bloke’ is to take an each-way bet at doing nothing – nothing to perpetuate oppression, sure, but also nothing to stop it. As if the privilege of this complacency weren’t bad enough, some of these ‘decent blokes’ want to be rewarded for their lack of action, an expectation that not-so-subtly reveals the very same entitlement that serves to perpetuate gender inequality. Translated, what they’re really saying is, ‘Praise me, because I have refrained from behaving in a way both you and I know I could get away with if I wanted to. Please may I have my cookie now? Actually, just give it to me.’

  Have you heard the joke about the male feminist who walked into a bar? It was because it was set so low.

  There’s a scene at the end of the wonderful film Made in Dagenham where this very concept is explored. Written by William Ivory, the film is one of those classic British feel-good productions where an oppressed class rises up against their superiors and fights for justice. In this instance, it depicts the fight for equal pay conducted by female sewing machinists at Dagenham’s Ford factory in the late 1960s. Led by Rita O’Grady (played to perfection by Sally Hawkins), the women’s protest against gender discrimination becomes so big and powerful that it leads to the creation of the UK’s Equal Pay Act 1970. As the movement gains momentum, their struggle finds itself undermined by some of the male union heavyweights. On her way to speak to a vote that would force the union to back them, Rita is confronted by her husband, Eddie. He’s trying to stop her from going, and decides to use the bargaining chip of what a Great Guy he is. Eddie reminds Rita that, unlike many of the other husbands, he isn’t at the pub every night getting drunk or out ‘screwin’ other women’. ‘’Ere,’ he says, ‘I’ve never once raised me hand to you. Or the kids!’

  When I watched this movie for the first time, my heart sank in this moment. I felt sure that Rita was going to capitulate to Eddie, and go back to the role of the dutiful wife. My heart was ready to break at the thought of her returning to her kitchen while her colleagues went on without her to force the union to take them seriously. How many women have sacrificed their dreams and political ambitions in similar situations – because they’ve been reminded of the positions they are supposed to fill instead and weren’t supported enough to break out of them?

  Not Rita, though. I should have known better than to doubt her! She takes one look at Eddie and hisses, ‘Christ. You’re a saint now, is that what you’re tellin’ me, Eddie? You’re a bleedin’ saint? ’Cause you give us an even break?’

  ‘What are you saying?’ he responds, astonished that this hasn’t worked out as he (and I) thought it would.

  Rita goes in for the kill.

  ‘That’s as it should be!’ she explodes. ‘Jesus, Eddie! What do you think this strike’s all been about, eh? Oh yeah. Actually, you’re right. You don’t go on the drink, do ya? You don’t gamble, you join in with the kids, you don’t knock us about. Oh, lucky me! For Christ’s sake, Eddie, that’s as it should be! You try and understand that.’

  Rita delivers her final blow.

  ‘Rights, not privileges,’ she says. ‘It’s that easy. It really bloody is.’

  And it really bloody is.

  In many ways, Eddie represents the challenge facing many men who otherwise consider themselves to be decent blokes. Eddie was a nice man. In Rita’s community, he was the kind of husband a woman would be considered lucky to have. But that’s only because the bar for all the others was set so exceptionally low that all Eddie needed to do to be considered a prize catch was not have an alcohol problem, be a womaniser or beat his wife and kids. Should he or any man expect a medal for such basic decency? And what does it say about the perceived domain of masculinity if this kind of decency makes you the exception to the rule?

  Too many of us labour under the assumption that being good is simply a matter of being not bad. It says a lot about those of us who are privileged (and as a middle-class, cisgender, employed white woman, I include myself in those ranks) that we have made it so easy to frame decency as being merely the opposite of active discrimination. Am I a good person to people of colour simply because I don’t attend KKK meetings or burn crosses on my front lawn? Am I an active ally to Aboriginal people because I don’t use hate speech to describe them or dress up in blackface for costume parties? Am I a friend to trans people just because I ‘let’ trans women use ‘my’ bathroom and I sobbed after watching Boys Don’t Cry? Are disabled people less discriminated against in my presence just because I don’t call them cripples or spastics and I thought Stella Young was a genius?

  Of course not. Not purposefully contributing to the oppression felt by people already marginalised by the system doesn’t make me a champion of human rights. I might not be actively making things worse for another human being, but that doesn’t mean I’m doing anything to make things better. What it might mean is that I maintain a conscious neutrality on the social circumstances which make their lives harder while enjoying the benefits that come my way simply because those systems are designed in my favour. My privilege in these areas affords me the luxury of remaining impartial if I choose while allowing me to feel secretly smug about what a wonderful, accommodating person I am.

  It took me some time to learn this (because society is not generally overly concerned with the top levels of hierarchy having to learn anything about why their power is so undeserved), but unpacking privilege is a lifelong process. It can’t be done in a day. White people, for example, don’t get to read an article about racism, nod our heads and then suddenly decide our personal growth work is done. Until we live in a world where racial discrimination is eradicated, even well-meaning white people like myself will always be guilty of committing micro-aggressions and making mistakes. Arguing against that reality isn’t only disingenuous, it creates further harm for the people who have to endure the sting of racism every day. The best we can do is to commit to learning from, listening to and signal boosting the work of people for whom racist oppression is a reality. Not the white people who think it’s our right to decide what is and isn’t racist, a ranking system that’s usually based on the attitudes, jokes, beliefs and prejudices many of us not only d
on’t want to have to sacrifice but want to be further protected from having to feel bad about.

  The same is true for gender inequality. Men who refrain from doing the wrong thing are no more or less than just that. They are not heroes just because they don’t behave like misogynist pricks. If a man doesn’t beat his family or cheat on his wife but still laughs at sexist jokes or stands by while they’re happening, is he really a great promoter of equal rights? Or is he just a normal person making his own way down the river of life and causing no great ripples either way?

  There are two lessons that are vital for us to learn if we have any hope of overcoming the sinkhole of action that lives inside the Making Sure Men’s Feelings Aren’t Hurt By Feminism movement.

  First, we are under no obligation to reward men for being basically okay. Feminism is the fight to bring about gender equality and equity for all, not the battle to gain equality for women as long as men are okay with that. It will not be won by replicating the same patterns of patriarchy that, among other things, sees men taking credit for women’s work, having to work half as hard to be praised twice as much and being automatically inserted into positions of leadership simply because we are still battling the deeply ingrained social conditioning that makes everyone instinctively believe men are just better placed to wield authority. No one deserves a medal because they managed to resist being a certified fuck-knuckle even though – and maybe especially because – they could if they wanted to but they didn’t. We need to reposition men’s opposition to violence, sexism and gender inequality as the norm, not keep acting as if it’s some kind of mind-blowing display of sacrificial kindness.