Guest post by Dr Stewart Hase
There is a belief in the minds of too many men that it is somehow appropriate for males to force themselves sexually on women. It is borne from a sense of entitlement that men feel they have of women: that somehow she does not have the right to resist and that her vagina is his right.
We have had a disgusting reminder of this aspect of the minds of men in the recent episode (for those not living in Australia or asleep) where a minister of the government recently sexually harassed a staff member while they were both on a business trip to Hong Kong. There have been at least two brilliant exposes of this event from Kate Galloway and Jennifer Wilson on this blog, for those interested in reading the women’s view.
However, I am a bloke and I want to give my blokey point of view on this. One of the most shameful of the various dimensions to this saga is that at least one of the above mentioned female correspondents received a large number of abusive and extremely violent responses because she criticized the behavior of this minister, Jamie Briggs. The sense of entitlement over the bodies of women in the minds of some men is so strong that they think it essential to defend those who have been caught. You don’t need to be a shrink to realize that what they are doing is guiltily defending their own predilections in a phenomenon that psychologists call projection.
Not only has this abuse occurred on an industrial scale but yesterday one of the most senior members of the current government, Peter Dutton (I refuse to call him ‘The Honourable’) sent a text of support to Jamie Briggs telling him that a certain newspaper reporter, who had publicly chastised him, was a ‘..mad f*&^@ng witch’. So, there’s a wonderful role model for our citizens about how to treat women who ‘bell the cat’ from someone who should be calling for the head of Jamie Briggs and distancing himself as a matter of moral and ethical course.
Curiously enough, Dutton was part of a committee that sacked Briggs from the ministry when the event was publicized. So, in public Dutton is appalled by the sexual harassment of Briggs but in private he is supporting his gender buddy. Duplicity knows no bounds it seems and the message is clear that sexual harassment is just fine. The reason Dutton’s message was revealed was because he sent it to the newspaper reporter by mistake (his incompetence knows no bounds either). He then apologized publicly. Of course, if he had not made this mistake then he would have got away with revealing what he really thinks.
And, of course, there has been the usual round of victim blaming and excuses. He was drunk was the first and she shouldn’t have been there was a second. So, it is fine to sexually harass someone if you are drunk. ‘Your honour, the alcohol made me do it’. And worse, that she was somehow responsible for his behavior. It’s the old, ‘she asked for it’ routine. This is the Western equivalent of women wearing a a burka and chador so that they won’t cause men to become aroused. ‘She made my penis get out of control, your honour’. There was also the usual barrage of misinformation that one sees in these sorts of cases that attempted to obfuscate and blur the true story and focus on the victim not the perpetrator. The truth is lost in the fog of misdirection.
Let’s remember that this staff person is an employee of a government minister who is in an extremely powerful position. Briggs knew this and would have known too that his victim would have been more likely to succumb to his advances because of his power. Clearly he suffers from the delusions reinforced by too many movies and TV series about the ‘rights of men’. His victim knew it too and has been extremely brave to have reported the incident, which, incidentally, she attempted to deal with, in the first instance, without publicity by talking to a senior staff immediately.
The mechanisms behind this almost exclusively male belief about their rights to the bodies (and minds presumably) of women are not hard to find. The fact that he is a naughty boy for behaving badly and she is a slut for letting him are powerful messages reinforced by families, in the first instance, and by society in general. I travel a lot and I am astounded at how pervasive misogyny is among ‘normal’ men in every country and town that I have visited.
I’m a bloke. I understand impulses and sexual desire. As a psychologist I am aware of the biological drivers for these impulses and desires. I also understand being drunk. Been there and done that in spades. So, trust me my fellow-men, when I say that there are many men out there who can control their impulses, who can challenge this belief about entitlement, and their potential power. And that latter issue is the raw meaning behind all this. The need for power.
So, what’s so different about those who know where the boundaries are, who know what is right and what is wrong? It’s not all about education because perpetrators come from both the educated and uneducated. It’s not about race.
It has to do with self-awareness, respect for fellow travelers on this planet, about self-confidence and a healthy belief in self, and knowing how to use power well rather than for self-interest. It is about being civilized and raising ourselves up from the primal swamp where impulse and narcissistic behavior was a matter of survival.
Blokes, we are better than that. It’s time for all of us, including our leaders, to stand up and be counted. It is time to really take a stand against this scourge. We need to behave well and recognize when we have not done our best and be accountable. We need to support and listen to women who tell us about how they want to be treated rather than abuse and attempt to disempower them. Guys, we don’t need to be bullies to have fulfilling relationships. In fact the former will prevent the latter.
Repeat after me blokes. ‘ One: I need unambiguous permission to make sexual advances to a woman and if she makes it clear that advances are not welcome then I need to back off. And this means I need to raise my emotional intelligence beyond the age of three years of age and really listen to what women are telling me so that I can read them appropriately. Two: I should never make sexual advances towards women (or men for that matter) who are my staff. Three: I should not be getting drunk with my staff if I am their manager. Four: No means no. Five: I need to make it clear in words they understand to any male I know that their behavior is or was inappropriate if they have been guilty of sexual harassment (or bullying).’
Dr Stewart Hase is a registered psychologist and has a doctorate in organisational behaviour as well as a BA, Diploma of Psychology, and a Master of Arts (Hons) in psychology. Stewart blogs at stewarthase.blogspot.com where this post was first published
No Place For Sheep 
Prohibitions on, recommendations for, prostrations of, violent behaviour towards, on-going and repeat ‘incidents’; this is the gender war. These are all the result of the simple fact that men and women are not friends with each other.
Unwanted sexual advances, misconduct, abuse, violence, lurid behaviour – if we want these to go away we need a positive recommendation. ‘Men need more female friends’.
(* add in LGBTQI to the equation too)
I don’t ever remember having to remind myself not to rape, not to sexually harass and not to menace a female. I just don’t do it because I treat females and males (everybody) in a fair, civil way; even the ones I don’t like very much.
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“I don’t ever remember having to remind myself not to rape, sexually harass…”
If only more could say that, Hawkpeter
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Just as well only men are cruel to other people. Just as well no women would ever tolerate herself being involved in this:http://www.mamamia.com.au/medicare-pap-smears-not-free/
Ok. So Stewart wrote a good article and I’d praise Hawkpeter for his responses to women, which are similar to my own. But that floating signifier “misogyny”, the catch all label troubles me..
Btw, pity Stewart hasn’t presented on other issues, strange he has waited this long to contribute here.
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Stewart’s written a few pieces here PW
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Hi Paul. I take on the world on in my own blog. so don’t say much except on occasion because I’m not sure I could add anything, but I never miss the Sheep:))
Oh, I’ve seen all genders be astoundingly cruel to each other in multiple contexts. But, I think we have a social norm here that has dominated for too long-that women and their parts are the goods and chapels of men. The effect of this on women has been so significant in so many ways that I think this warrants special attention. I’ve written similar things about bullying too as well as other aspects of ‘man’s (sic) inhumanity to man (sic)’
I too have never had the urge to rape, physically hurt or force myself on women (or men for that matter) but I guess, like a lot of us, I have reasonable impulse control.
I agree that the term misogyny is perhaps not the right word. My sense is that it has nothing to do with hating women most of the time (sometimes I think it is but for complex reasons that I won’t go into here). Rather, it is about power, entitlement, low impulse control (for a whole lot of reasons but mainly social), and lack of respect-I think.
In any case, it is great to see some respectful blokes out there, here at the Sheep Pen.
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Good to see something Freudian slipped in amongst the social Norms in this comment.
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Nice one. It was deliberate:))
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Chattels, perhaps? (Disconnect the autocorrect!)
The urge to sexual activity is strong, it is why we are all here today on this earth. Self-control is necessary, and societal constraints are useful dampeners. Those who lack both are the usual offenders.
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You are missing the point. Both men and women are conditioned to respond in certain ways that feel “right”.. you won’t get a hard assed masculinist to admit he is wrong unless he feels it is wrong.
Same with some feminists.
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Interesting. One question that I thought remains from Stuart’s article is, do we perhaps need to educate people more about the mechanics of attraction so that people are better-able to anticipate whether a sexual advance is welcomed or not?
Devil’s advocate here but from my personal, male experience it seems like the most reliable way to know if someone’s attracted to you is by the way they look at you – the “come hither” look… for which someone’s “piercing eyes” are perhaps easily mistaken? Or it could easily be missed entirely and put down to the person having forgotten their glasses! I’m sure I missed a number of opportunities in my younger years as a result of such assumptions, more’s the shitty! And women/girls rarely tell fellas directly that they’re attracted to them and expect us to figure it out and act on it ourselves. Why is that? Is it purely cultural or something else? And isn’t it a plainly anti-feminist behaviour??
Lots of other interesting points to point at as well but I’m rather too pressed for time to do them justice. Suffice to say though I’m still not convinced that this whole issue is as simple as being about power and entitlement, though they may have an influence on the way men and women interact… or not… I’ll try to think about how to explain myself better!
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Thanks for that. You are to suggest that places like this are an ideal place to start in working out how to untangle the mess that civilisation is in at this stage of its development.
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I agree with the general thrust of Stewart’s article. However it is not all a one-way street and the phenomenon of the female boss is on the increase.
I would rephrase the final paragraph:
“Repeat after me people.
One: I need unambiguous permission to make sexual advances to a person and if he/she makes it clear that advances are not welcome then I need to back off. And this means I need to raise my emotional intelligence beyond the age of three years of age and really listen to what others are telling me so that I can read them appropriately.
Two: I should never make sexual advances towards women (or men for that matter) who are my staff.
Three: I should not be getting drunk with my staff if I am their manager.
Four: No means no.
Five: I need to make it clear in words they understand to any person I know that their behavior is or was inappropriate if they have been guilty of sexual harassment (or bullying).’ ”
Better.
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Well said.
Another thing that comes to mind is manners. It’s interesting to note how manners have taken a hike. Remember your manners, and you’ll be spared any embarrassment. This applies to everyone.
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Manners, Gina ? I still remember them, but there certainly isn’t much civility about in the anonymous blogging world.
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We usually do surprisingly well on Sheep.
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Must be because there is a good woman in charge….smiley.
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🙂 Yes.
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We even taught the dog good manners.
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I must have missed out on that sense of entitlement, I have always respected women, on some occasions too much so.
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I don’t think every man gets a dose of it, thankfully. I think my sons escaped it, I hope so!
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Point and counterpoint. Pictures worth a thousand words.
https://twitter.com/GrogsGamut/status/684511961782980608
But do I detect a bit of “If you can’t blame the victim, spread the blame”?
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Compensating for my poor expression in annotating the previous embedding, this exchange encapsulates more accurately what I was trying to convey.
Obliquity. When fear of job loss in a medium having an obsolete business model otherwise rules the roost.
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Brick and Mutton are our boys, white boys that is, a bit ‘naughty’ but let’s all laugh with them like Samantha does.
We’ll get stuck into that brown foreign boy, Gayle, he’s the real baddie, dares to flirt with our Aussie girls, let’s teach him a lesson.
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” We need to support and listen to women who tell us about how they want to be treated rather than abuse and attempt to disempower them”
…and that’s why the upbringing of our boys should never be left to fathers/males only, the boys need mothers to teach them that women are equal to men, they have to be respected..
. Lucky are the boys who have caring females in their lives , grandmas, aunts, cousins, sisters, female teachers, female class mates..
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Agree so much , Helvi
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Indeed some men are sexually harassed – usually by other men, however given that women now make up a whole 29 % of federal parliamentarians, 23% executive staff & a whopping 39% in the public service – we can expect a few bad apples there also. No one is perfect.
(Ref: http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features30Dec+2012)
That said, the great big elephant which is the bullying/harassment/entitlement of women by men, remains a huge problem. No doubt LGBTI people who harass others and hetero-women who harass others can be dragged along with the squealing masses of men who are so threatened by having their sense of entitlement judged and found to be beyond contempt.
We can have a gender equal pledge as Don Quixote suggested, WHEN we have equal male/female representation across the board.
Okay?
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Does that mean that women get an open go until then?
The elephant needs to be removed from the room, not given equal rights.
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Please point out where I suggested that “women get an open go until…” I guess you mean open slather on harassment until equal representation?
Where?
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Did you even read this part of my comment?
” No doubt LGBTI people who harass others and hetero-women who harass others can be dragged along with the squealing masses of men who are so threatened by having their sense of entitlement judged and found to be beyond contempt.”
From the stone-age through to the 21st century men have held the balance of power – overwhelmingly.
By starting with the largest turd in the room, we will clean up the remaining crap as go we go?
Capiche?
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Only from the stone age?
You can start with the largest turd, but I would prefer to clean them all out at one go.
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Why does this have to be so difficult?
Most sexual harassment is made by men – this is the big turd. It is up to men to clean up their behaviour – this being the point of Dr Stewart Hase’s article.
Therefore, given the size of this turd, be good to see you act instead of bleat.
The LGBTI/Hetfemale turd – won’t take too long at all – if fact we could take care of it together. But I have a suspicion that’s not what you are on about.
Cheers
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I’ve actually found this subject very interesting and worth the think over the last week.
Here is another harsh situation:http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/35241632
This should come up as a story on Dr. Eva Carneiro, a Chelsea football club club doctor sacked in circumstances where you wonder at this clubs lack of concern for both staff and players, with the English FA complicit in the dirtiest of it.
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Sorry people.. something has gone through my PC and mangled my details at various sites.
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A Mangalore torpedo?
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Had to Google that one.
I thought it might be a virulent form of gin sling.
Actually back after a read through the FG Twitter feed. Good some of it, although where some of them get their reputations from I’d not be quite sure.
I’ve actually a twitter feed myself but lost the code word. They are another lot that seem to want me do a heap of nonsenses to get going again so I’ve let it go.
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What was Google able to tell you, ‘Did you mean Bangalore?’?
I had deliberately substituted an ‘M’ for the ‘b’ as part of a connective leap, Mangalore being where No.4 Central Ammunition Depot is located, where they presumably keep such things.
Re “some of them [getting] their reputations from”, to what/whom do you refer? My tweets, or those to which I respond/respond to me?
As to Twitter, I don’t think Twitter (the corporation) understands what Twitter (the ‘intelligence’ gatherer) really is. You know, ‘need to know’, and all that. Their problem being with the beast having gone rogue with things like connective leaps. And links, and things.
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Oh, and hashtag conversations. Like #MTRsues, or #reinstateallanasher, for example. They weren’t developed by Twitter, but by users.
Then there were the third party applications for Twitter, like Twitpic, which I found stayed up when Twitter was down, with me being able to tweet an image of text AND, for the sacrifice of just 26 characters, STILL TWEET!
Twitter’s reward for @NoahEverett, who developed Twitpic at Twitter’s encouragement, was first to cap his app at 100,000 users, then to sue him! Eventually Twitter begrudgingly agreed to buy him out, probably purporting to agree to maintain access to the Twitpic archive for users in the process. But look up any of the Twitpic links I have posted over time and you will find them broken.
Like I once tweeted to @NoahEverett, who resides in Charleston SC, “your taxes at work”.
There! Thats better. I hope Twitter .gov likes this glowing reference.
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Do you ever read John Grisham’s legal thrillers?
There is essentially something so cold as to US capitalism- we identified it during the Vietnam War- and with the financialisation and globalisation of capitalism, it means the pathology, ideology and mindset seem permanently entrenched and dominant to the detriment of humanity and the planet. Think Murdoch.
Too many minds caught up in trying impose something feudalistic on civilisation, perhaps in response to traits within themselves they are unable to identify that drive cruelty and impatience, instead of employing their creativity for the advance of all, including theselves.
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Paul and FG
Well colour me confused, l’il ole me tryin’ to follow your convo and its relevance to article, then I realised…. I saw the light….. this is a thread about male behaviour.
Please, do continue….
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Just blokey stuff, diannaart..
Have you ever been to Mangalore?
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Only driven through Mangalore, memorable mainly for its location near Puckapunyal when mum got lost and wound up with us kids at the gate to the Army base.
Could we help you blokes with your own shed or something?
@Forrest Gump
Still using Ubuntu?
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Seems our posts crossed yesterday. The answer is ‘not at the moment’, although that implies no criticism as to that operating system.
What I am using is the Android system, which came inbuilt within a fairly large ‘Smart All-in-One Android’ PC monitor that was originally purchased to replace the old fading screen of my Ubuntu (Dell Optiplex GX520) PC. It can be used in either mode, as a monitor, or as a stand-alone Android PC.
Last year my online experience was marred by a succession of exploits, I think via unpatched vulnerabilities in the fairly old version of Firefox I was using with Ubuntu. Most of these exploits seemed aimed at limiting my Twitter experience.
Must be the things I say or point to, as I have a very low Twitter profile with my only 123 followers, that has attracted this attention.
Are you on Twitter diannaart? A Twitter search throws up an @diannaart, but as the but two tweets to that account are in Spanish, and seemingly from Mexico, I’m guessing that isn’t you. Clicking your avatar here on Sheep implies some connection with the Dandenong Ranges area.
Apropos of that, are you familiar with the poem ‘Bannermann of the Dandenong’? I always thought it could have been titled ‘The Best Man’. (I have a thing for titles.)
Hope you are enjoying the continuity. Now I must talk to Paul Walter. He has given me an idea for a cocktail that I might be able to name ‘Mangalore Torpedo’.
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diannaart
Thank you for your encouragement. I had been out all morning, and it was so refreshing to have confirmed your comprehension as to the subject of the thread. There is generally little I can add to the thrust of articles by Drs Wilson or Hase, many of such dealing with matters completely beyond my experience. So I tend to confine myself to the odd humorous observation, or some tangent intended to make a connective leap to some other article or subject upon which Jennifer has written.
I like to think that Connective Leap has been embraced, or at least tolerated, on this blog as a foil to Collective Shout, which I think is not. In that connection I would like to bring to your attention Jennifer’s likely fond memories as to the hashtag conversation #MTRsues of January 2012, my seemingly digressive mention of which may have engendered thoughts of thread hijacking. In drawing this to my attention you have created an opportunity for me to diplomatically point out the one (technical) deficiency of Jennifer’s blog, the apparent absence of a user-accesible user posting history of the like of that on OnLineOpinion’s site. And perhaps that is WordPress’s fault.
Was such to be available, much more as to male behaviour on this blog could be found more quickly by viewers, and posters, of the blog.
I know I tend to focus a bit upon the dull and boring mechanics of communication, be it here or on Twitter, but the manipulation of such seems to be going on around us all the time. Sorry
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Acheiving some sort of competence with Cyber technology is the road less travelled, but you have read the writing on the wall well..to not acquire this literacy is to write your own warrant for virtual ostracism in the future.
I’ve never found it easy, as an older person.
The facility the young have with them astonishes me.
I’ve been bailed out as tousing new tech by such people the way I had to bail my champion mother, a proud and great woman, back in the nineties, as to using a video player recorder and I’ve been in the same humiliating position, as to PC’s.
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Mangalore, I think we passed through it on a holiday once, at the top of the Yarra Valley? Beautiful place, Vic.
The tweets were all good, but I remember one individual for an unkindness some years ago.
That’s as much as you will get out of me on the subject (folds arms, grits teeth).
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North of Seymour, on the road to Shepparton. Also location of an emergency/bad weather diversion alternative aerodrome for Melbourne.
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On my mum’s side, lots of rellies from Shep. Great grandad, from Norway, was a water bailiff when they were opening the Goulbourn and Murray up for irrigated agriculture.
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Thought I’d butt in here – lest I create single letter columns.
Yes, I’m on Twitter but not ‘diannaart’ – there’s quite a few out there… and I have even fewer followers than you – which has a lot to do with the quality rather than the quantity of my posts there. Some kind of inverse value system… well that’s what I tell myself.
We crossed paths (swords) at Online Opinion. Remember Graham Young?
I am in the Dandenongs.
Keeping my old HP PC alive with Linux Puppy – but am looking at moving to something or other – Android perhaps?
I will now discreetly back away to join the ladies in the kitchen.
Cheers
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Your modesty becomes you, diaanart.
Like me, your true value will only be recognised after you are gone.
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;-))
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Actually at online op this morning for a look and the usual cave-people were at it, hoeing into a muslim chap pleading for more forethought and mutual tolerancebetween xtians and muslims.
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Not much has changed at OLO then.
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Thank you for your intrusive forestalling of potential blog format problems. I was wondering how to do that myself. (Format was a mathematician, too, wasn’t he?)
Interesting your views on the existence of an inverse value system in relation to Twitter. I think you are right. Did you know I had written a lemma to Godwin’s Law? ‘The speed of approach to the probability of one [that any online debate will eventually resort to comparisons with Hitler] is inversely proportional to the bandwidth in use’. And I fitted it into a Tweet! (You can see it embedded here on Sheep in the Uthman Badar thread in the archives.) Mike (Godwin) follows me on Twitter, BTW.
As to crossing paths (or swords) on OLO, I rather thought we flew together? You were the OLO Aviatrix, if I remember correctly?
And what might the ladies in the kitchen be cooking up, if I can ask that in an unentitled way?
PS Can’t really recommend Android. Twitter for Android is dumbed down in comparison with the real Twitter on a PC. I’m only using it because of a mixture of hatred of learning curves and necessity.
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Indeed we fought on the same side at OLO. I can’t recall my moniker at the time – Graham so frequently cancelled my subscription for expressing honest opinion, therefore had to keep creating new names and email addresses…
Thanks for the heads up on Android, a shame, PC’s require so much in maintenance and problem solving, whereas my Ipad never has a glitch. I would actually like a happy medium between the two something I can customise but not so prone to bugs.
As for what is being cooked up in the kitchen – not sure, everyone is wearing bright yellow protective gear and respirators…
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Funny you should say that. I went back yesterday and read the muslim man with the olive branch, but really, the comments section was abysmal.
I’ m happy to argue a point with someone you can have an actual exchange of ideas with, but brute sloganeering in itself, with no hope of a response worthy of the name, what can you do?
I’ll go back and give it another go, hopefully some of the better informed people that used to balance things out there are still about (eg FG) and we shall see.
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Thats another thing I cannot see how to do using Android when posting here: activate the ‘like’ button. Cumbersome even to find out who has ‘liked’ a comment.
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