I’m not a big one for New Year’s resolutions, or setting intentions or even picking a word or mantra.
Sometimes, however, I set something for myself. I’m not strict about it and I don’t usually make it something terribly difficult. One year it was to get myself to the dentist and I did it. Go me! Another was to stop calling everyone “guys” because, you know, some people aren’t guys and it’s nice to be inclusive.
I don’t mean the good men that rush the comments in every article detailing yet another sexual assault, yet another rape, yet another woman murdered. Only to proclaim themselves “good men” because “not all men” blah blah blah.
If talking about toxic masculinity in the context of another raped or murdered woman only makes you desperate to distance yourself from those men, you’re not a “good man”. You’re a derailer. The woman who has been harmed or killed means less to you than your own ego. You’re not interested in getting to the core of the problem or bringing about change. Just in letting everyone know that you don’t assault or kill women. You, personally, aren’t responsible. And there are so many of you out there, pleading to distance yourself from those men, that there are now women who’ve taken up your cause. They, like you, forget about the number of women being sexually harassed, stalked, abused, beaten, raped and killed. The literal body count is ignored while they point out the bleeding obvious.
If we are talking about violent men and you, your son, your best mate, your partner or whoever else you have in mind is not a violent man, good! No one is saying otherwise.
But that doesn’t make a man “good” by default. Not being a violent prick is not enough, my dudes. You NOT assaulting, molesting, harassing or murdering people does not earn you the title of “good man” if it stops there. That is nothing but a baseline for civil decency. You don’t get accolades for NOT committing crimes.
In response to the rape and murder of Eurydice Dixon, MP Jeffrey Bourman, of the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, is trying to push through a motion in Parliament to allow the carrying and use of pepper spray and tasers for self-defence. He believes that women should be allowed these items to protect themselves from “stronger and potentially more experienced” attackers.
30 women in Australia have been killed by men this year. At this rate, it’s more than one a week, on average. And many of us are furious about it on more than one level.
Yet another young woman, Eurydice Dixon, was robbed of her life as she cut through a park, just a few minutes’ walk from home. The usual response, from police and media, has been reminding women, yet again, to take responsibility for our safety.
Don’t walk alone, don’t go to parks, don’t do this, don’t wear that, don’t drink this, don’t say that, don’t fucking so much as exist in public without one of the “good” men for your own damn protection from the “bad” men. And let’s ignore the fact that, statistically, you’re in even more danger at home. Intimate partner violence contributes to more death, disability and illness in women aged 15 to 44 than any other preventable risk factor, according to a Victorian study.
But don’t dare voice that thought, you misandrist, feminazi bitch.
The minute you do, some man will be there to deflect, derail, minimise and deny. They don’t care that we are rightfully angry and frustrated. We DO take care. We ALL do! This is drummed into us from childhood!
We walk with our keys wolverined in our fists, we text each other when we are home, we call each other when we are in a taxi and feeling unsafe, we walk in groups, we take well-lit routes, we lock the car doors. Sometimes our personal risk assessment allows us to walk home alone at night, sometimes it’s just unavoidable. The punishment for this apparent transgression should never be rape and murder and yet here we are. It’s as if our very presence in public is a risk we must constantly mitigate, by not being alone, by not being in the dark, by holding a potential weapon and by being constantly on guard.
And if you’re a woman of colour, a disabled woman or a transwoman, you’re at even greater risk, statistically.