Boys Will Be Boys

by Clementine Ford

  This is about fear, pure and simple. The men who are drawn to the MRA movement see women’s liberation as an assault on their fundamental right to power. They may not be able to compete with other men in that hierarchy, but now they can no longer even assert themselves as superior to the women in their lives. As a result, they resent us, they’re afraid of us and they work as hard as they can to punish us for making them feel emasculated and weak. Women have always been forced to absorb the brunt of men’s emotional distress and rage—it’s just that now we have the internet to disseminate both of those things more widely.

  Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

  9

  THE KING OF THE HILL

  When I woke on the morning of 7 October 2018, it was to the expected, rage inducing news that the Republican majority (minus only one woman, plus one male Democrat) had voted together to confirm a man with multiple sexual assault allegations against him to the United States Supreme Court.

  I believe survivors, so I understand that what this means is a man with a history of sexual assault (and clear anger management issues) has now been given immense jurisdiction over the lives of Americans and American women in particular. It’s no coincidence that his nomination was pushed for and strongly endorsed by another blatantly misogynist man with multiple sexual assault allegations to his name, President Donald Trump.

  I am a pretty tough person, but I was surprised by how deeply it hit me to hear coverage of the confirmation. I stood in the kitchen and unexpectedly began to cry, because there is nothing and no one privileged white men won’t do and fuck over to affirm their power. Their depth of entitlement should no longer be astonishing, yet it continues to stun in its audacity. Throughout the course of those confirmation hearings, they conducted themselves like the snotty little schoolboys they are. It wasn’t so much whether or not they believed Dr Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations—it’s that they truly didn’t care if they happened at all. Brett Kavanaugh was their guy, and they were going to be damned if some uppity professor from the past was going to stand in the way of that.

  The person charged with the most disgusting display of behaviour was, unsurprisingly, the President. Throughout the process, he maintained a base level of disdain for Dr Blasey Ford and her supporters, repeatedly and arrogantly affirming that Kavanaugh was a ‘good man’ and that he had no doubt the ‘right’ outcome would be achieved. Presidential behaviour would have demanded at least some nod to the possibility that Dr Blasey Ford was bringing forward accurate and relevant information, but Trump is not now and has never been presidential. Only days before Kavanaugh was confirmed, Trump stood before a crowd of thousands (at one of the many rallies that seem to constitute the sole focus of his presidency) and mocked Dr Blasey Ford. Behind him, a row of men could be seen guffawing raucously.

  Shortly after this repulsive display, Trump tweeted that SCOTUS protesters were hired by George Soros, and that Ana Maria Archila and Maria Gallagher (the two women in particular who bravely and famously confronted Senator Jeff Flake in an elevator to implore him to consider what his complicity in this vote represents to survivors of sexual violence) were actually paid actors. Trump’s enthusiasm for the new internet era of conspiracy theories and ‘fake news’ is central to the erosion of democracy in America, and witnessing it is simultaneously terrifying and maddening.

  But this is how men like Trump and those who model themselves on him operate. Despite insisting that it is women who cannot rein in our emotions and maintain rational perspective, it’s the furious guardians of power who froth and spit at anyone they perceive to be a threat, whether actual or just ideological. What message does this send about power and its rightful claimants?

  More than anything, it was Dr Blasey Ford’s immense dignity that left the most lasting impression. With a measured voice that belied the memories she was being forced to relive, she was professional and controlled, repeatedly offering her apologies that she couldn’t be more helpful. As it was, she described how she remembered Kavanaugh and his friend, Mark Judge, pinning her down on a bed in a secluded room and attempting to remove her clothes. ‘Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter,’ she testified, ‘the uproarious laughter between the two [men] and their having fun at my expense.’

  Perhaps Dr Blasey Ford would have liked to have been angrier. Goodness knows the millions of women watching that day (not just from within America but also around the world) felt that deep rumble of fury rip through us all, as scars we’ve held dormant across our own bodies and memories suddenly tore open once again and began to flood us with pain we thought we’d sealed away long ago.

  But anger belongs to men, and so Dr Blasey Ford could not appear before the world and show what the rage of abuse and trauma really looks like. That was a privilege reserved for Brett Kavanaugh, like so many of the privileges he’s enjoyed before it. The privilege, say, of being able to attend the kind of expensive, elite all-boys school that looks good on an application to Yale Law, the school your grandfather graduated from. The privilege also of being able to drink beer, lots of beer, enough beer to get drunk and perhaps not even remember everything he did while in that state, but never be held responsible for any lack of ‘common sense’ that occurred as a result of it. The privilege of growing up male in an era that explicitly represented sexual assault in popular movies as some kind of hilarious jape that red-blooded young men get themselves involved in but never have to face the consequences for.

  And yes, the privilege of standing in front of a Senate committee and behaving like a belligerent, petulant child and knowing with absolute certainty that this won’t impact his professional reputation in the slightest. Because anger belongs to men.

  In 2018, the journalist Rebecca Traister wrote, ‘Women are taught that if we express anger, we will not be taken seriously. We will sound “childlike,” “emotional,” “unhinged,” “hysterical.” And so, many of us take immense care not to express our anger, lest we undercut the very point we want to make.’

  Anger in women is pathologised as something foul and noxious. An angry woman is an unstable one, her rage never able to be understood as something correct and justifiable, only unwieldy and volatile. In the not-too-distant past, angry women were institutionalised by husbands, fathers and brothers—men for whom women’s anger was seen as an inconvenience at best and an embarrassment at worst. They were institutionalised for other things, too. Being raped was one of them. Becoming pregnant out of wedlock another. Reading books, also a sin.

  Why are you so angry? the angry woman is asked.

  It is not a genuine enquiry, but a judgment.

  Kavanaugh could spit and sputter his way through that hearing because anger belongs to men. If Dr Blasey Ford had shown a shred of his temperament, she would have been excoriated. Instead, she does exactly as she’s supposed to—exactly as she’s been trained, as a woman—and she can now suffer the other indignity reserved for us of being called confused.

  Anger belongs to men.

  And yet, women are the masters at storing it. We can and should start using it again, despite what conditioning has taught us. Elizabeth Warren put it best when she tweeted the following:

  ‘Brett Kavanaugh was allowed to be angry. Dr. Ford wasn’t. Women grow up hearing that being angry makes us unattractive. Well, today, I’m angry – and I own it. I plan to use that anger to take back the House, take back the Senate, & put Democrats in charge. Are you with me?’

  Of course, anger is nice in theory but the punishment for women who embrace it is vast. The treatment of women in public life is frequently disgraceful, even when they’re doing everything they can to keep whatever it is in check that we are instructed to. Is it any wonder Dr Blasey Ford’s testimony was ultimately judged by a collective made up almost entirely of men? The same collective of men who assign themselves the power to decide what happens to women’s bodies and who is entitled to basic human rights like reproduct
ive healthcare? Women can’t have any influence over that! How could we possibly be trusted to know what we’re talking about? Hell, how could we be trusted at all? The more women in a room, the fewer men and that doesn’t sound like equality to me!

  Even women who are adjacent to public life are still considered fair targets for boorish observations by men who really shouldn’t be throwing stones. But this is par for the course in a society that turns a blind eye to sexism and fiercely clings to its right to reserve positions of power for men. Men who will be given political portfolios, cabinet positions, Senate seats, prominent media voices, seats on ASX boards and unfettered access to decision-making—but who will almost never be made to fall on their swords when there is a woman around to do it for them.

  The depressing fallout from the 2016 US presidential election is proof enough of that. It wasn’t misogyny that lost Clinton the election. No, it was that she stole the nomination from Bernie Sanders. It wasn’t racism that caused Trump’s supporters to respond gleefully to his calls to BUILD A WALL. No, it was that Clinton was ugly and ‘shrill’.

  How frustrating must it have been for the most qualified candidate in US history to lose to a man so incompetent, dangerous and cartoonish that he is living satire. That enough people in the right places preferred an ignorant, racist, misogynist, dangerous imbecile (not to mention an accused rapist) to a woman with decades of political experience is proof of how much further we have to go. Hillary Clinton has endured a lifetime of abuse about her looks (they were even blamed for her husband’s infidelities), her ‘shrill’ personality, her mannishness, her hawkishness, her sensitivity (heaven forbid a person be seen to cry once in a while) and her general ‘lack of appeal’. People still seem to be baffled by the idea that a woman could be powerful in her own right rather than have it bestowed on her by the male gaze. I’m not saying she’s above critique or that none of it is fair—I’m saying there’s a flavour to it that is purely due to her being a woman that isn’t found in critiques of men with similar political leanings.

  Speaking of Clinton, Monica Lewinsky has fared no better. In the decades since the exposure of her affair with President (Bill) Clinton, she has been hounded, harassed, shamed and mocked. From the very start, she was made a target of ridicule—her big teeth, big gums, big hair and big bottom all fodder for caricatures and hysterical disgust. By her own admission, this onslaught caused her to consider suicide on numerous occasions. Bill Clinton has never been forced to atone for his sins, but Lewinsky—at the time a young, vulnerable intern who in no way, shape or form could be considered to have had the upper hand in their relationship—has spent a lifetime living with them. The unfairness of this can best be summed up by the comments of Australian journalist Paul Bongiorno, who in 2016 replied to a tweet announcing a telemovie about Monica Lewinsky with the wholly unnecessary comment: ‘The actress not ugly enough.’

  Whoever the woman might be, if she attempts to enter public life on her own terms and to lead in accordance with her own compass, she’ll be targeted for destruction. Look at the appalling response to the historic election of Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. In 2018, Ocasio-Cortez unseated a ten term incumbent to win the Democratic Party’s primary election for the 14th congressional district. She went on to win a seat on Congress in the 2018 mid-terms, becoming the youngest woman ever (at twenty-nine) to make that claim. A proud socialist, she has been subjected to some of the most horrific attacks made on women (and women of colour in particular) who dare to assert themselves as leaders in any capacity, with everything from her intelligence to even her choice of clothing used as a means of discrediting her ability to lead. Because she fights back (with aplomb, I might add), she’s treated like a sullen, petulant child – and let me tell you, it’s astonishing how frequently grown women are undermined and infantilised simply for the act of standing up for ourselves.

  Ocasio-Cortez was one of a record-breaking number of women who put themselves forward for (and won) battles in the 2018 mid-terms. Their presence is undoubtedly agitating the mostly white, mostly male systems of governance that have dominated colonial American politics for centuries. And still, they are overlooked and dismissed from both sides of politics. Despite the extraordinary success Stacey Abrams achieved in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election, she received a skerrick of the breathless accolades given to Beto O’Rourke following his narrow loss to Ted Cruz in Texas. Far fewer people discussed Abrams as a potential candidate for the 2020 presidential race, almost certainly because Abrams is both black and a woman and being both of these things apparently renders your political impact invisible to large swathes of the public.

  But, we are told repeatedly, it should all be about merit.

  Bullshit.

  It’s so easy for lazy people to believe that those privileged most by gender, race, sexuality and class are somehow judged separately from the benefits these attributes bring. Our culture doesn’t view women (or people of colour, or disabled people, or gender diverse people, or anyone who isn’t a white man, basically) as being inherently meritorious. Imagine—just imagine—what the public’s reaction would be if the majority of politicians elected to government were women. If the majority of newspaper columnists, TV commentators and CEOs were chicks. Think of the outcry if our talkback radio stations (which are currently wall-to-wall white men, because ‘no one wants to listen to women’ on the wireless) were suddenly overrun by bloody sheilas.

  Merit? No, that wouldn’t be merit. That would be ‘cultural Marxism’. That would herald the start of matriarchy and the end of the world. It would be a witch-led conspiracy. Women? Running things? UNFAIR.

  In fact, the ‘merit’ argument is little more than a convenient retort to anyone who tries to point out the workings of the deeply flawed systems we live in. It’s telling that those who defend the merit system often present themselves (as Trump has done most egregiously) as supporters of women’s rights.

  If you believe that women are as capable of performing in positions of responsibility as men, it logically follows that we shouldn’t see these structures of power being dominated by men. On the other hand, if you defend the current and historical imbalance of power as being due to nothing more than the application of ‘merit’, it doesn’t matter how loudly you profess your feminist credentials—what you quite obviously believe is that white, middle-class, heterosexual men who have always held all the power are the only ones capable of doing so. It means you inherently think these people are better than everyone else.

  You can’t have it both ways.

  But maybe it’s just because so many men find it difficult to even listen to women in the first place. During the 2017 US Senate testimony hearings, Senator Kamala Harris was not only repeatedly interrupted and spoken over by her colleagues, Republican senators John McCain and Richard Burr, she was also later referred to as ‘hysterical’ by a Trump campaign adviser speaking on CNN. The treatment of Harris prompted an outpouring of support from women, many of whom shared similar stories of workplace indignation at the hands of sexist colleagues.

  There is a tendency for serious dialogue to downplay or outright discard discussions that refer to practices like ‘mansplaining’ and ‘manteruppting’. But while the portmanteaus might seem a little juvenile to some, these twin phenomena are real (and are especially pronounced for women of colour, like Kamala Harris, who must confront the dual aggressions of misogyny and racism). Women aren’t exaggerating when we complain of being frequently interrupted, undermined or condescended to. Nor is our awareness of this a fabrication born out of paranoia or some kind of feminine sensitivity. As Susan Chira wrote in the New York Times in 2017, gender disparity in the influential realms of America’s high-powered industries remains starkly in favour of men. Just over 93 percent and four-fifths of Fortune 500 chief executive officers and board members, respectively, are men, both undeniably significant figures even for people like me who believe that feminism’s goal must extend well and truly beyond the success of a small n
umber of privileged (mostly white) women within a capitalist patriarchy.

  That this happens in the private sphere is a given, but men’s use of it as a silencing tactic in the public realm too is well documented. Joanna Richards is a PhD candidate at the University of Canberra’s Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis. In her thesis (published in 2016 and aptly titled Let Her Finish), Richards examined the rate and type of interruptions across ten Australian Senate Estimates Committee hearings over the span of a decade, and included an analysis of the interruptions made both by and to male and female witnesses. She found that more than two-thirds of the interruptions that specifically questioned the speaker’s authority and credibility were directed towards women.

  The gendered component of interruptions isn’t limited purely to the people most likely to be interrupted—it is also influenced by the environment in which the interruptions are taking place. Richards determined that Australia’s Senate Committee hearings featured a male:female ratio of 71 to 29 percent (a split that appears to be reflected across most industries that represent power and influence). Interestingly, Richards found that in this environment men were only slightly more likely than women to be the ones doing the interrupting but that women were disproportionately targeted by those interruptions. When women were the ones interrupting, it was more likely to be classified as a ‘positive’ or ‘defensive’ interruption, either to agree with or affirm what someone else was saying or to defend someone already being interrupted by another speaker. Meanwhile, almost 75 percent of men’s interruptions were ‘negatively trying to take power or take the floor from another speaker’. Additionally, the Senate chair was far more likely to let male interrupters off lightly, while women were 2.5 times more likely than their male colleagues to be called words like ‘emotional’ and ‘unreasonable’.