Up Front by Emma Hart

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Up Front: Dear Dudebros

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  • Anke Richter,

    You courageous woman, Emma - thank you for that clear message and your beautiful strong angry voice. Good angry. I hope this piece gets handed out in sex-ed in schools. I hope it will hang on pub walls and in locker rooms and in men's toilets. I hope this lands somewhere, preferably the minds of growing boys. Never too late.

    Lyttelton • Since May 2007 • 25 posts Report Reply

  • Rosemary McDonald,

    And what kind of a loser “has sex” with a woman whom they know “wasn’t that into it”?

    The kind of loser who can afford a wriggly-arsed, slimy, bottom-feeding scumsucker of a legal team to try and make his behaviour seem oh-so-normal

    And oh, the kind of loser who was originally charged with one charge of sexual violation by rape, and one charge of indecent assault.

    The alleged offending involves two victims and took place in Hamilton in March and May this year.

    Waikato, or on the road • Since Apr 2014 • 1346 posts Report Reply

  • Kumara Republic,

    The guilty parties blame rape and sexual harassment on 'exposing uncovered meat'. But the very same guilty parties also want Muslim women to 'strip off'. This tweet illustrates just a few examples of that inanity. They also think anything to address the 'boys will always have raging hormones' is PC gone mad, especially when it's the likes of Tony Veitch.

    The common thread? The guilty parties somehow think women are their copyright. I'll leave it to Laurie Penny to deconstruct the whole thing better than I can.

    * http://www.huffingtonpost.com/labourlist/france-tells-women-what-n_b_221803.html
    * https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/22/this-isnt-feminism-its-islamophobia
    * http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2016/01/after-cologne-we-cant-let-bigots-steal-feminism

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report Reply

  • linger,

    somehow think

    Not the verb I'd use; but considering others as persons isn't likely once you're comfortable reducing another person to "meat".

    Tokyo • Since Apr 2007 • 1944 posts Report Reply

  • Lilith __,

    Thank you Emma. <3

    Dunedin • Since Jul 2010 • 3895 posts Report Reply

  • nzlemming,

    You rock, Emma.

    Waikanae • Since Nov 2006 • 2937 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen,

    And women can read

    Sadly the dudebros won't.

    Well said Emma.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart, in reply to Bart Janssen,

    Sadly the dudebros won’t.

    Here's the weird thing. Okay, it's not weird, it's entirely predictable, but still.

    I've never had a column as widely-shared as this one has been. Someone went to all the trouble of going over to The Isis Knot to donate money because she needed to read this so much. I thought this column was going to get me piles of shit, but it's been forty shares on Facebook and twenty new Twitter followers.

    One guy, one guy got all "not all men!" on Russell's FB link to the column, and the amount of mental energy I've put in to composing replies I'm smart enough to not make is just ridiculous.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Rosemary McDonald, in reply to Emma Hart,

    One guy, one guy got all “not all men!”

    There is so much sensitivity out there.

    A pity its mostly ( really? ) self centred.

    Waikato, or on the road • Since Apr 2014 • 1346 posts Report Reply

  • william blake, in reply to ,

    I would let the comment likening sculpture students go as a truly bad analogy to male violence but Emmas' excellent piece has been shared by several of my FB friends and many of them will be the sculptors you implicate.

    The only equivalence I can make is that sculpture, ultimately, has to speak for itself, like really bad male behaviour; speaks for itself. Pax.

    Since Mar 2010 • 380 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen,

    How do you stop the "not all men" without making the ones who try feel like shit - and give up.

    The feeling like shit is OK, women suffer much more so feeling like shit is part of the deal - it's the giving up.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart, in reply to Bart Janssen,

    How do you stop the “not all men” without making the ones who try feel like shit – and give up.

    The feeling like shit is OK, women suffer much more so feeling like shit is part of the deal – it’s the giving up.

    Okay, so. You don't have to fight every battle. You can't: you get exhausted and you quit. It's okay to let one go, which is what I'm trying really hard to do today.

    #notallmen is a derailing tactic. Stay on topic. If you feel up to it, point out that they're not disagreeing with anything that was actually said, therefore you can assume that they have no argument.

    Also, I'm a big fan of Thomas Jefferson. "Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions." Mock them. "OMG, #notallmen! I am totally defeated by the freshness and originality and impeccable logic of your argument! You so smart!"

    What I can't deal with is the women. The women who think Tony Veitch is a pretty good guy, and strippers are just asking for it, and what do the stupid slags expect if they're going to dress like that and drink like that and stick their arms in the shark tank. I can't fathom what's going through their heads.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Brent Jackson,

    I can’t fathom what’s going through their heads.

    I could hazard a guess, that for some of them, it is a safety mechanism. It is the risky behaviour that is at fault, so as long as they don't do any of that risky stuff, they think that they will be safe.

    But if I did, I'd probably be man-splaining ...

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 620 posts Report Reply

  • william blake, in reply to ,

    Ok.

    Since Mar 2010 • 380 posts Report Reply

  • Nick Russell,

    One thing that bothered me about the response to the story about the Chiefs and the stripper was that so many seemed to think that the real problem was in having an Aussie league-style mad monday binge in the first place. I can understand that on one level - it's very unprofessional and a bad look for the game and all that. But having a binge or hiring a stripper really wasn't the big problem here. The big problem was the profound and disturbing lack of respect for a woman who was just trying to do her job.

    Wellington • Since Jul 2008 • 129 posts Report Reply

  • Rosemary McDonald, in reply to Nick Russell,

    Aussie league-style mad monday

    Or Rules

    but, they had to come up with The ethics of dwarf tossing, 'cos some folk simply couldn't figure out for themselves where the boundaries were.

    Just because they're paid to provide a service, doesn't mean you own them.

    Waikato, or on the road • Since Apr 2014 • 1346 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart, in reply to ,

    Why make such a strongly gendered argument about it? What are you wanting to achieve?

    Because, in this case, I am addressing a gendered problem: the different social expectations of male and female behaviour. Because the two incidents that sparked it, the Chiefs' debacle and the Kuggeleijn trial, were men attacking women, and people were all 'boys will be boys' and 'what was she expecting'.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Deborah, in reply to ,

    Steven, I have no doubt whatsoever of your good faith. From the bits and pieces I've picked up over the years, I know for sure that over the years, you've dealt with some extraordinarily difficult stuff. And done so with grace.

    I guess the thing about making it a gendered argument is that for the most part, in general language and general social structures and general social attitudes, when women are subjected to sexual violence, and domestic violence, the question is always asked, "What did she do to provoke that?"

    Yes, we know that #notallmen ask that question. We know that #notallmen are violent. We know that #notallmen think women who wear short skirts or strip or go out running by themselves or walk home at night or ... or.... or ... are asking for it.

    The thing is, as soon as someone says, #notallmen, we are supposed to spend our energy dealing with the one (or several, or even many) men who are not implicated, instead of trying to work on deconstructing and dismantling the social structures that enable violence against women. All women.

    And I say "all women" because as a 50 year old woman, I still worry about my physical safety when I have to walk from my office across a darkened campus to my car park. Because I know that if I was attacked, someone would say, "Well, what was she doing, walking alone by herself."

    I was on RadioNZ last week, talking about the woman who was attacked by the rugby team. And on cue, early this week, a letter arrived in my mailbox at work, pointing out that the woman had asked for it. The person who wrote the letter used a male-gendered name.

    If we have to constantly divert to say #notallmen, then we never get time to deal with the bigger social structure. We have to constantly deal with the individual instances, instead of looking at broader patterns. And the broader pattern shows us that violence by (some) men against women is tacitly accepted and even condoned.

    We need to be able to focus on that pattern of condoning violence by (some) men against women.

    That's why #notallmen is a derail. It forces us from the general to the particular. And when we do that, we miss the broader pattern.

    I also think that if we can start to focus on the social structures that enable violence against women, we will also start the dismantle the social structures that enable violence against children, and enable violence in general.

    So... #notallmen. Yes, I agree, #notallmen Not the man I've lived with for over quarter of a century, not most of the men I know in everyday life, not the men I've become acquainted with through PAS.

    But let's try to focus on the big patterns, and start to break them down and dismantle them.

    Nga mihi, e hoa.

    New Lynn • Since Nov 2006 • 1447 posts Report Reply

  • dave stewart,

    Without wanting to detract from the seriousness... "feckless shit-gibbon" - sublime!

    Since Aug 2014 • 37 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    I nominate #fecklessshitgibbon as WOTY

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Ian Dalziel,

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report Reply

  • Lilith __,

    Men who treat women as people: you're not part of the problem.
    Could we talk about this problem of the vast number of men who don't treat women as people? And what can be done about it?

    What can you, as a decent man, do to change the attitudes of other men?

    Dunedin • Since Jul 2010 • 3895 posts Report Reply

  • Ian Dalziel,

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report Reply

  • Gregor Ronald,

    Right on, Emma - great points, well made. You're the first I've heard discussing the "Why insist on bad sex?" angle, that should make people stop and think.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 103 posts Report Reply

  • Kumara Republic, in reply to Emma Hart,

    Because the two incidents that sparked it, the Chiefs' debacle and the Kuggeleijn trial, were men attacking women, and people were all 'boys will be boys' and 'what was she expecting'.

    Turns out there's a term for my aforementioned theories, and it's called pinkwashing.

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report Reply

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