What do men have to do with ‘gender’? What do men have to do with gender inequalities? And what will progress for gender equality mean for men? Here are five key points.
1) Men are gendered.
Men’s and boys’ lives are shaped, just as much as women’s and girls’, by gender. Just like women and girls, men and boys are gendered. The word ‘gender’ often is code for women, but it shouldn’t be. Men too are gendered beings who participate in gender relations.
Here’s a simple definition of gender: the meanings we give to being male and female and the social organisation of men’s and women’s lives. So “gender” includes;
- How people are divided into categories of “male” and “female” (or not);
- The meanings, values, and images attached to these categories;
- The behaviours, practices and identities which members of each category are supposed to adopt;
- How the lives of members of these categories are organised, in terms of power, work, sexuality, space, and so on.
When we tell boys always to be tough, and brave, while we allow girls to be afraid or weak, we are teaching them about gender. When we turn a blind eye to violence between males, saying “Boys will be boys”, we are helping to construct gender. When young men who have lots of sex are given status and praise, while young women who have lots of sex are shamed and punished, we are teaching young men and women about gender. In a thousand different ways, through families, through schools, through the media, through religion, through government policy, people’s lives are shaped by gender.
So, men’s and boys’ lives are gendered.
2) Many men sustain gender inequality
Australia is a gender-unequal society. If we look honestly at our patterns of political power, economic decision-making, cultural representation, and men’s and women’s everyday lives and relations, we can see a widespread pattern of gender inequality.
Gender inequalities are sustained in part by men – by men’s identities, attitudes, behaviours, and relations. Gender inequalities are sustained and reproduced day after day, in part by men. By how many men think, by how many men behave, by how men relate to women and how they relate to other men.
Now often we understand gender inequality in terms of female disadvantage. But the flipside of this is male advantage.
People often talk about gender inequality in terms of women’s disadvantage, discrimination against women, or women’s exclusion from economic decision-making and political power. But the flipside of this is men’s privilege, a longstanding program of affirmative action for men, and men’s monopoly of economic decision-making and political power.
Now, this all may seem a bit abstract. But in fact, male privilege is personal. Male privilege is everyday. Many men, probably most men, do sexism in our everyday lives, in a myriad of ways. Myself included. I think of times when I’ve left the burdens of domestic work to women, whined when a girlfriend didn’t feel like sex, looked at pornography which shows women in callous or hostile ways, or underestimated women’s achievements and skills.
Not all men are privileged, and not all women are disadvantaged. Men’s lives, like women’s, are shaped by intersecting forms of privilege and disadvantage, to do with gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, disability, and so on. Some groups of men in Australian society are deeply disadvantaged – not because they are men, but because they are members of other, disadvantaged social categories.
Even when we men are not actively being sexist, we benefit from male privilege. Men benefit from male privilege (the unearned advantages of an unequal system), whether we want to or not
As a man, when I open my mouth, my views often are given more weight than a woman’s views. When I send in my CV or have a job interview, I am likely to be seen as more competent, because I am male, than a woman with the same skills and experience. I’m a father, and if I work long hours at work, it’s unlikely that anyone will think I’m being selfish and neglecting my children. If I’m a senior leader, there is no tension between my gender and my role. As a man, I’m assertive, but she’s bossy. I’m enthusiastic, but she’s emotional. When I take tough decisions, I’m confident or firm, but her, she’s a bitch.
Gender inequalities are personal and interpersonal. But they are also organisational and structural. They are built into the structures, processes, and cultures of workplaces: their divisions of labour, their decision-making, their informal norms and expectations.
But the privileges given to men by these structures and processes are naturalised and normalised. They are invisible. So members of privileged groups think that our achievements are the result of our efforts and skills, not the unearned advantages of an unequal system.
3) Men have a vital role to play in building a world of gender equality.
Men are part of the problem, but men also are very much part of the solution.
To change gender inequalities, we have to involve men. We won’t make much progress towards gender equality without men’s support. Not because women are weak and can’t do it on their own. Not because poor men have been left out and are now the victims. No, because gender inequality, fundamentally, is a men’s problem.
And here’s the good news. Men have a vital role to play in building gender equality. And some men already are playing a role in building gender equality.
Many men already live in gender-just ways: they respect and care for the women and girls in their lives, and they reject sexist norms of manhood. And some men already play public roles in fostering gender equality. In workplaces, in community organisations, trade unions, in faith institutions, in governments, in social movements, and elsewhere.
4) Men will benefit from progress towards gender equality.
Men will benefit from progress towards gender equality in terms of our:
- personal well-being: freedom from the costs of conformity with dominant definitions of masculinity, costs such as poor health, shallow relationships, and early death;
- interpersonal relations: improvements in the lives of the women and girls about whom men care, and benefits to men’s relationships and friendships with women, children, and other men;
- workplaces and communities: gender equality benefits the communities in which men live. Communities benefit from flexibility in divisions of labour, improvements in women’s health and well-being, reductions in violence against women, and other signs of growing gender equality. Workplaces benefit in terms of greater productivity, creativity, and diversity.
Why should men promote gender equality? First of all, men ought to change. We men receive unfair or unjust privileges, and we have an ethical obligation to address that privilege, to make things fair. Second, it is in men’s interests to change. Men ourselves will benefit from supporting feminism and advancing towards gender equality.
‘Men’s rights’ advocates and others say that women or feminism are to blame for men’s ills. Instead, the problem above all is the traditional and restrictive models of manhood which men have grown up with. These forms of masculinity are harmful for women, and unhealthy for men themselves.
Feminism argues that gender roles and relations are the product of society, not biology. Feminism is anti-sexist, not anti-male. And feminism calls for gender equality, gender justice, and gender diversity.
Feminism benefits men. It opens up gender roles for men, giving men more choices about how to live. Feminism frees men from the automatic expectation that they will be the breadwinner, missing out on parenting and family. Feminism makes more room for friendships with other men, and women, which are intimate and supportive. Feminism is good for men’s relationships and sex lives. Feminist women have better sex than non-feminist women – because they’re more assertive, more in touch with their own pleasure and their bodies, and better at expressing their sexual limits and desires. The male partners of feminist women – and they tend to be feminist too – have better sex as well. Because they’re good at establishing consent, they’re good at intimacy, and they respect and care for women.
Gender equality is good for men, no doubt. And, there are some things that some men will have to give up. We will lose unfair privileges. We will lose unearned advantages.
When I apply for a job, the people assessing me will not automatically assume that, because I am a man, I am automatically more competent than a woman applying for the same job. When I am in a relationship, I will no longer be able to assume that my sexual needs come before my girlfriend’s or my wife’s sexual needs. I will not be able to get away with doing far less of the household work, the domestic work, than my female partner. And so on.
Is giving these up an unfair loss, a hardship? No. It is about what is fair, what is right.
5) We won’t see progress towards gender equality unless, and until, men change too.
In 2020, many girls and women grow up with confident expectations of gender equality. They expect to have the same rights and opportunities as the men around them. But they will won’t see gender equality, they will not have those same opportunities, unless and until men change too.
Men – men who care for women, men who care for justice and equality, and men who care for the wellbeing of our communities and society – must act to end gender inequality. And if we do, men will benefit. If we can make progress towards gender equality, then women will have better lives, and so will men.