Droppie [farcebk] 🐨♀🌈🐧🦘canberratimes.com.au/story/923…
By Jenna Price
I am standing at the counter of one of the big four banks, speaking with a kind and patient teller. Her name is Camille. The amicable calm is suddenly shattered by a bloke who marches to the front, barking about his locked account.He has a busy life and multiple responsibilities, he is entitled to have this problem solved immediately. His demeanour gets louder and feels threatening. His mood degenerates into a full-blown meltdown. I feel nervous, but the teller tells me this happens every other day.
Days later I am shopping for special birthday chocolates, and again feeling anxious. Outside the shop I'm trying to get into, a bunch of young men are brawling, wrestling. Inside the store, I find other people hesitating at the exit, concerned they'll get caught up. The lovely store manager Mackenzie walks me to my car because I'm freaked out. I'm not particularly frail but that roiling big dick energy is disturbing.
We need a few solutions folks. All of us need to pitch in. And maybe Mark Parton has the answers. Parton, the ACT's Opposition Leader, is the self-appointed shadow minister for men and boys. I don't think he's quite got the whole picture. He told a forum last week that men and boys are not the problem.
About the same time as that forum was happening I read about a so-called "rape academy" uncovered by US media outlet CNN, where men learn ways to drug and rape their partners in much the same way as Gisele Pelicot was violated by her former husband Dominique. There are claims 62 million men visited a particular website and a connected group on Telegram - the good news is that the figure is likely to be inflated by men looking at other material on these platforms. The bad news is that none of that was about being a better man.
And then data from nearly 3000 surveys of men in the US and Canada crosses my desk. The Canadian researchers aimed to assess rates of self-reported sexual aggression in men. More than 95 per cent of respondents said they had recently used strategies to get a woman to have sex when they knew the women did not want sex and had not consented. Of those, two-thirds were successful. If you can call rape success.
The methods they reported using included consistent physical pressure and verbal coercion; overt force, including physical restraint and use of pain. Use of pain. I'm asking you, do you think that's a problem? I certainly do. It seems to me that in fact there is a problem with men. Not all men - of course - but enough men to make many of us feel unsafe.
Parton's right about one thing though. He says every state and territory should have a minister for men and boys. That's exactly what Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan did last week when she appointed former teacher Paul Edbrooke to that role. Here's why it's a good idea.
Not because men are particularly hard done by. They aren't - despite fanciful claims that men are becoming "redundant". What is accurate is that we have an epidemic of male violence against women - and many men seem not to wish to hear from women about it. Some argue about the data, some pretend that women are fakers, some believe that men are the true victims but are too frightened to report it. We have an epidemic of male violence against men too.
Men kill women. They also kill men. Men injure women. They also injure men. All of it terrible. And, tragically, men also kill themselves. How is it that men become so disheartened, isolated, disenfranchised that they end their lives? There is indeed a terrible epidemic of male suicide - but that's not the fault of women. Unfortunately, there are bunch of rape and violence apologists who like to pretend it is.
It was heartening to read the comments of Zero Suicide founder Paul Withall when he claimed at a recent forum that women are more open to discussing issues facing men and boys in 2026 than when he first started advocacy work in 2019.
"These feminists have men in their lives, so they do see the problem," he said. "The approach has changed ... we're not going to attack women or blame women for us taking our own lives anymore." Anymore.
Male suicide is not the fault of women. Male violence against women is the fault of men. These two things are both true. Are men innately violent? I know too many wonderful blokes to know that's not true - but what is causing violence to surface in men? That's a question everyone needs to ask themselves.
Too many men themselves are not looking for solutions. Instead, they are whacking themselves with a hammer for the perfect chin or getting whacked with whatever drug will get them to their desired state. I note that looksmaxxer (read idiot) Clavicular whacked himself so hard that he ended up in hospital and is trying to promise he will give up drugs. Looksmaxxing is not nearly as sexy as thinksmaxxing*.
The problem with influencers and their older men's right activism counterparts is that they want to blame their problems on women as if it's us versus them. Women are not to blame. It's not the fault of women that men are violent. Men do it all by themselves.
The question of how to encourage men to scrutinise their own behaviour - given so many appear unwilling to absorb excellent, national education and awareness work - remains.
Will ministers for men and boys be able to fix the problem? I'd love to think that would be the answer. Let's hope men listen to them. I'm sick of being frightened of men who are not in control of themselves.
#misogyny #sexism #FsckRWNJs #FsckThePatriarchy #FsckMisogynists #FsckSexists #Feminism #WomensRights #WomensRepresentation #DomesticViolence #DieDickswingersDie #WomanNeedsManLikeFishNeedsBicycle #MaleViolence #WomensSafety #WhyAreMen
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