It’s never been so obvious to me as in past days that most men don’t appear to care much about violence against women. Or not enough to actually do something concrete about it, anyway.
Last Friday, news broke that a notorious group of pick-up artists from LA were back in Australia. They run a company called Real Social Dynamics or RSD, which trains young men in techniques for hooking up with women. They aren’t about forming loving relationships, though – no, this is about learning how to bed as many women as possible, and learning how to humiliate, harass and – sometimes – seriously assault women in the process.
In late 2014, RSA founder Julien Blanc arrived in Australia to run their seminars. When women heard about it, they organised petitions and media and protests at hotels and other venues. After a couple of days Blanc realised he couldn’t operate his sleazy business, and flew out. Afterwards, then-Immigration Minister Scott Morrison took credit for revoking Blanc’s visa – in other words, when there was no visa to revoke because it expired on Blanc’s departure.
So when new RSD presenter Jeff Allen arrived in Australia just last week, women again jumped to action. RSA were more organised this time, anticipating trouble. Extraordinary secrecy surrounded event locations and would only be announced 2 hours prior. So RSD would be harder to find and fight. Despite this, once again women won.
I was proud to be part of a group who started agitating on social media on Friday, and a petition we promoted went viral, quickly attracting over 60,000 signatures. We gained more momentum over the weekend, when more media and politicians including Larissa Waters got involved. Within 24 hours Jeff Allen knew he and his group were beaten once again and he departed on Sunday.
It was a huge victory for women protecting other women from violence and harm. Yet, even though I should have been thrilled my efforts with other amazing feminists all weekend had paid off, it was bittersweet. This was because I still can’t see, in the Australia of 2016, any real effort from men in positions of power to take action against abhorrent organisations like RSA.
Just as Scott Morrison had before him, current Immigration Minister Peter Dutton sat on his hands for 4 days despite the barrage of phone calls, emails and social media posts being sent to his staff, mostly by outraged women. Only after Allen had left the country did the Immigration Department announce they’d revoked his visa. Once again – as Morrison had before him – Dutton took credit for ridding Australia of RSA. In fact, he did nothing worthwhile.
While working on feminist campaigns I’ve seen much posturing from men about women’s issues. I’ve seen men make stirring speeches about violence against women. Many times, I’ve seen men (and groups of men) receive greater attention for saying the same things women have been saying for decades. I’ve seen that men love to step up and talk about violence against women, but in many cases, their words aren’t followed by action.
I could count on the fingers of one hand the men I’ve known who are prepared to work for women’s rights with little in it for themselves. To be fair, there are some. Phil Cleary comes immediately to mind, and this past weekend we had several blokes behind the scenes on the RSA campaign, all working hard. But they are rare beings.
Women don’t mind doing the work. We work for the honour of genuinely making the world safer for other women. We don’t sit around bemoaning the lack of male assistance, we’re too busy for that. Plus, it’s easier to have no male involvement than the wrong type. We’re not anti-men either (which shouldn’t even need to be said, yet it’s such a feminist stereotype). And we’re certainly not saying all women are saints – many women are anti-feminist or uninterested, including some whose actual job is to support women – like Australia’s actual Minister for Women, Michaelia Cash, who was MIA all last weekend, just like her male colleagues.
Yet it’s depressing to realise there’s so little effective back-up from men, and to know that what women do is unlikely to make enough headway while men fail to get more involved. And it’s confusing, too – why don’t more men care about protecting women of Australia from pick-up creeps like Blanc and Allen? Why don’t more men realise that this sleazy objectification of women leads directly to increases in violence committed against them?
When issues like this come up, the misogynistic nature of Australia’s government is starkly laid bare. The lack of women at the top mean Australian government (and much of the media) can be seen for what it is – an exclusive boy’s club where issues affecting men take precedence. Not one male government minister or MP – to my knowledge – got involved or stood up for women against RSD before the fight was actually won.
If those same politicians learned a terrorist organisation were operating in Australia, no stone would remain unturned in their determination to find them and punish or deport them. But RSD are only a threat to women, so there’s little political will to get involved.
Yet women starkly see that RSD and their ilk are promoting terrorism – domestic terrorism. Terrorism against women. Terrorism that kills dozens of women each year, while the effects of “real” terrorism is responsible for few or no deaths.
Terrorism most women have far more cause to be frightened of in their daily lives than the extremely rare possibility of sitting on a train next to a suicide bomber.
If you’re a woman, ask yourself how many of the men in your life got as angry about Blanc as you did. And if they weren’t as angry as you, why exactly is this okay, and why does it continue to be okay?
Until we answer these questions satisfactorily, women will continue to be assaulted and killed, by strangers and by people known to them. This divide in caring about issues depending on which gender it affects has to stop. We are all people, and it has to stop, now.