Fellas, You Need to Hear This
So sit down, shut up and listen to what the women around you, across the country and around the world are trying to tell you. And if you won’t listen to them, believe me when I tell you I will goad you every chance I get until you take a swing at me. At which point I will sit you down and I will make you listen.
Like most of the thousands of women I listened to today, I’ve had it with the bullshit excuses I’m hearing from men who are refusing to acknowledge the simple idea that everyone has a role to play in creating social change — including, especially even, those of us who are big and strong and hairy with loud voices and fuck-you attitudes, the ones who like to call themselves men.
I’m sick of hearing the phrase “cultural marxism” thrown about by men who wouldn’t know a Marxist if one seized them by the means of production. There is nothing Marxist about expecting that all human beings be accorded the same level of autonomy regardless of gender. I’ve been an ardent admirer of the phrase “Liberty and Justice for All” since I encountered it as a young boy. If anyone needs a refresher on the meaning of any of the words ‘Liberty’, ‘Justice’ or ‘All’ just hit me up [hint: the last one includes women].
The same goes for any refusal to engage on the basis of “third wave feminism”, “social justice warriors” or “THE LEFT” in general. Just because people with different views to you also happen to find sexual assault repugnant doesn’t make it less repugnant. The number of women harassed, assaulted, raped and killed by men doesn’t get any more acceptable just because people you normally disagree with find it unacceptable. If you’re seriously trying to tell me that you’d be on board if only there were more conservative women speaking up, have you considered that one of the main voices you should be listening to right now belongs to a former Liberal Party staffer?
This is not a left or right issue, this is a freedom versus aggression issue. Remember that “non-aggression principle" you keep quoting. If you can get your head around the idea that the government sticking a needle in your arm without your permission is a violation of your right to bodily autonomy then this is a no-brainer.
Yes I saw socialists, I saw unionists. I even saw the occasional person with brightly dyed hair. Deal with it. I also saw retirees, schoolgirls, women from the Indigenous community, women from the Islamic and Christian communities, and thousands upon thousands of the very same women I see every day, heading to their jobs as doctors, lawyers, construction workers, childcare workers, accountants, florists, security guards and musicians who are just well and truly over having to worry about whether or not tonight’s trip home will be “the one" where somebody bigger and stronger will attempt to take their dignity, or potentially their life, for no other reason than they’ve come to the conclusion that they’ll get away with it.
I’m really sick of men hijacking the trimmings of the liberty movement, talking up the merits of civil society, pointing out that problems are better solved as close to the problem as possible and that human beings are much better served by finding voluntary, consensual solutions amongst themselves than by having solutions imposed upon them — then turning around and crying “police matter” when serious violations of human rights occur around them every day. How quickly you betrayed your inner boot-licker. Wave your Gadsden flags elsewhere, I’ll tread on anyone I see fit to tread on when it comes to defending the rights of the innocent.
I can’t begin to articulate just how sick I am of the mindless chest thumping from men who talk a big game about what they’d do if they ever got hold of a rapist but lack the testicular fortitude to call out their own friends' behaviour when necessary. Who exactly is that song and dance for? You don’t even intimidate me. Do you really think you’re going to cow men with zero regard for human dignity by airing your fantasies?
I don't care if it's not all men, or not most men. It's some men. And until it isn't, the rest of us are not doing enough.
It doesn’t matter that you don’t know anyone 'like that’. It doesn’t matter that you self-identify as a 'male feminist’. It doesn’t matter that you’re a nice guy and I couldn’t give a shit about the fact that every bloke you know loves his mum, adores his missus and would do 10 to 15 years before he’d let someone touch his baby girl. The fact that there exists any percentage of men who feel they can rape with impunity is a massive problem.
And if you’re going to whinge about that one time Clementine Ford said something mean about men then just fuck right off. Seriously, that’s what gets to you and you think you’re ready to call yourself a man? Grow up son.
If it’s not a problem you think we can solve easily then stop trying to minimise the problem. The fact that we don’t have all the answers is no excuse for sitting on the sidelines. And if you think you’re “doing enough”, look around, you’re not.
