What makes a ‘real man’?

Person holding sign saying 'We Need A Change' at protest. — Image from the Western Sydney University

“… How can a father blame a single mother for not teaching his son how to be an accomplished man? Men expect boys to act like men, but there’s rarely a man in their lives patiently teaching how to be one.” (Cry Like a Man. Jason Wilson 2019).

History was made as the AFL and NRL finals were played.

Brisbane teams won THREE premiership trophies.

Yes, that’s right, THREE.

The AFL, the NRL and the Women’s NRL trophies, but the main celebrations was for the men’s achievements. Women, a passing acknowledgement.

In France, there was the appeal of a man convicted of being one of fifty men who raped Gisele Pelicot while she was drugged and in a comatose state by her husband as he encouraged other men to have sex with her. He denied that it was rape, because her husband allowed, even encouraged the sex to take place.

The wife’s interest were not considered at all.

Men rule, right?

Or they have tried to from the beginning of time it would appear.

Men at times can be pretty damned horrible.

So what is it that makes a ‘real man’?

The idea of feminism is an interesting way to consider what men are about. The book, ‘Difficult women’ by Helen Lewis traces through ten landmarks in the fight for women’s rights and the fierce opposition it attracted from the establishment, the orthodoxy of the day, inevitably the control that men had, and to a large extent still have, over women.

The gains made over the last 150 years have seen women’s legal definition range from being a chattel, owned by a man, whether that be her father or her husband, the act of marriage effectively a passing of the ownership from one man to another, (Who gives this woman to be wed?) to one of being recognised as a person in her own right.

The term “Women are people too” has become a legal reality.

But is it really a lived reality?

We have seen the rise of women’s professional sports in both the NRL and AFL here in Australia, and with the rising importance of soccer (or real football as some would define it), the Matildas rise in that sport. We even have Australian women up there in top English and European teams.

Yet, when the NRLW Broncos Women’s team brought home the Premiership cup to Brisbane, to round off a historic first, the men’s and women’s NRL cups as well as the Brisbane Lions AFL Premiership, hardly a whisper was heard of the women’s achievement. Was their achievement of less significance than that of the men?

Or could it be that media coverage of the women’s games, and the sports panel programmes not focussing on the women’s competition?

Or the games not quite as exciting, as physical?

Or could it be that football, no matter which code is a ‘man’s game’.

Women’s football as a major sport was really only a ‘thing’ during WWI in Britain, when the men were away at war. Women took over the roles of men who were sacrificing their lives for King and Country. Commentary at that time questioned the suitability of women to play the ‘man’s game’, ‘A woman sometimes waddles like a duck and sometimes like a chicken – it all depends on her weight.’ Or ‘I don’t think lady-footballers will ever be able to “shoot” goals.’ At the end of the war, men took back their jobs, their positions as ‘heads of family’ and playing professional football.

In the early days of the WALF, press photos sexualised players. And media coverage was hardly the headline grabbing commentary of the ‘men’s’ games. Even access on TV coverage is limited. The possible exception being the times the Matildas play. But the the soccer does not gain the traction that AFL and NRL does. Could it be that soccer, as a game, is not the big business that the other codes are? Look at the power of the AFL in getting the Tasmanian government to spend over $1billion to build a ‘suitable’ stadium.

Or could it be that blokes watching other blokes play football of any code is a bit of a testosterone hit, almost like actually being on the field doing those amazing feats of athleticism. And the bloke celebrations after.

The women’s game really is not all that exciting… is it?

As a side bar to the rise of women’s professional sport, we have the ‘trans’ issue, the fear that men will go through a sex change just to be able to compete at a level they cannot as a man.

So glad we got sex into this, or is it gender…

Going back in time when women were owned by men, when women were mere chattels to be used for male gratification, whether it is to clean and cook and do other domestic chores or to perform acts of sexual gratification, whether by the man who owned the woman or by others he was willing to allow to engage in sex with ‘his woman’, even if she did not approve, or was not in a physical state to object.

That really brings us to defining rape.

The case in France of the sexual abuse inflicted on Gisele Pelicot, one of the men convicted of her rape appealed his conviction because the woman’s husband had encouraged him to have sex with the comatose woman. How can it be rape when permission has been granted by the husband? The appeals court agreed that what occurred was rape, the appeal saw his sentence increased for none years imprisonment to ten years.

One of the more recent questions raised is what is rape? Defined in broader terms than forced sexual penetration of penis in vagina, and with it the question of consent, including within marriage.

The question of the ownership, the propriety of a man over a woman, and the objectification of women by men, seeing women essentially in sexual/subservience terms, is an age old question harking back to the very earliest definitions of the relationship between men and women. Going back to the fall of Adam and Eve, their expulsion from the Garden of Eden for having dared to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The woman, Eve, is punished, God tells her:

“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labour you will give birth to children.

Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” (Genesis 3;14).

He will rule over you… Wow, is there a title deed that comes with the woman?

Is there such a thing as rape in marriage? Does the woman have no say in the control of her body? Dominique Pelicot thought it was OK to have over 50 men have sex with his comatose wife while he took photos, videoed the acts. Not only did he think there was no such thing as rape for him, but he had such a sense of propriety, ownership of Gisele that he totally controlled the use/abuse of her.

Or is it OK to get a woman so drunk that it is OK to ‘have your way’ with her, when she is in no condition to argue? Or is it OK to have sex with a woman who agree to safe sex last night, so it must be OK to have unprotected sex in the morning… While she may well be still asleep?

The words of Simone de Beauvoir writing in The Second Sex is interesting:

“On the day when it will be possible for women to love not in her weakness but in strength, not to escape herself but to find herself, not to abase herself but to assert herself – on that day love will become for her, as for a man, a source of life and not of mortal danger.”

We live in a time where the women’s role has changed, is different than it has ever been. It includes the rearing of children in the absence of men, single mothers, whether through having children outside seemingly permanent relationships, through fly-in/fly-out work schedules, post divorce families or absences through any other means, many children are raised with no strong, caring father presence. As expressed in the opening quotation, the father’s assertion of his male-ness, and his desire for his infrequently seen son to project an image of manliness which is tough, dominant, manly. In Cry Like a Man, Jason Wilson describes his relationship with his father and other men in his his life where a tough Alpha-Male role which defines ‘manliness’ is set as the benchmark. A manliness which dominates, which is in part defined by driving a muscle car, having sex as often as possible with as many women as possible, demanding subservience from women, proving manliness through strength, toughness, intimidation. The author includes in his story that he was humiliated because at fourteen he was still a virgin. The need to ‘prove manliness’ starts at a very early age.

The absent father role models his manliness through demanding sex, demanding obedience, refusing to take ‘no’ for an answer, whether it is from the woman or from his children, and expects that the son will grow up, just like him.

‘Blokeyness’ is demonstrated in so many ways, and looking back on the end of the football season, the celebrations, including Mad Monday or is it Sunday, where some players dress in drag or otherwise act in misogynistic ways, homophobia is on display, all done in the name of ‘fun’, but as was commented on in a match where there was some loud homophobic slanging off aimed at a player on the ‘away’ side, the rhetorical question was raised, ‘how would a gay person supporting his ‘home’ team, dressed in the team colours feel?’

Locker room laughs include ‘careful picking up the soap’ in the showers among other ‘little’ put downs. It must be difficult to be gay but needing to have one’s sexuality so tightly locked in the closet. To laugh on the outside but hurt so deeply inside.

Consider also the role of women in supporting their sportsman partners at awards ceremonies. The men wear formal suits while the women dress in beautiful gowns that are pretty revealing. Is it a competition between the women to see who can dress the ‘sexiest’ to somehow bestow more credit on ‘their man’?

And as for women in sport, it was clearly demonstrated that an unwanted, unasked for kiss on the lips under the gaze of the TV cameras is not acceptable behaviour… it never was really. That kiss overshadowed the sporting success of the team and the leadership role of the woman, captain of the Spanish team which had just won the world cup. The coach has paid a price for that ‘indiscretion’, but that he even thought it was OK to do speaks volumes to his lack of respect for his players, and dare I say women in general.

The coach deserved some credit too, right?

That attitude plays out so very much in the rise of domestic violence today. The pressures felt by men as society and the role of women, and the structure of families change is felt on so many levels. Men feel they have lost power, but did they ever ‘deserve’ that power?

The role of the father is an important role in the raising of children, and especially in the raising of boys. The 1999 movie, Fight Club is about a young man striving to be ‘a man’, something he really knew so little about, having been raised by a single mother.

Jason Wilson did not learn how to ‘Cry Like a Man’ from his father, it is something he learned much later in life, when he too was a husband, a father, facing the pains and anguishes of life, learning that being a father, a husband is team work, where the raising of children, the running of a home is a collective, an environment where the stresses of life are dealt with by talking through the issues, to be there when someone hurts, to not throw blame, to not shove the problems aside, but to actively, emotionally connect with the pains that life brings.

To listen, to understand that we do not have all the answers, but by connecting may just find something that works.

The need to socialise and learn of life’s challenges with other men is important too, but, too often in a bar and for too long with too many drinks than is useful… but that really is no different than what used to happen. In the past, it was the woman’s fault for getting ‘smacked around’ by her husband, she deserves it… And wasn’t it the case that women ‘ask to be raped’? What were you wearing?