Inevitably, a young woman posted a comment that this event made her feel uncomfortable, and that she didn’t believe that it was healthy to promote a Men’s themed event in the pub, especially given all the recent publicity about rape culture on campus and the report this week that our campus had the highest number of sexual assaults reported from universities in our province. Other young women chimed in, and by this morning, the event apparently had been cancelled.
I should mention that there was a Ladies’ Night held recently at the same pub, with free admission for women, and drink specials. I don’t believe there was an outcry about that.
This conversation with my daughter made me wonder, not for the first time, “What have we done to our children?”
I have two kids. My son is 24 and my daughter is 20. I remember when our son was born, and as he grew into a toddler and a young child, we deliberately raised him to be a gentle person. We did not buy into the “boys will be boys” mentality – that is, that boys are naturally and inevitably more destructive and physically harmful than girls are, and that this supposedly innate quality excused poor behaviour. When he would pat (or hit) our faces, we told him to “be gentle.” When he tried to take a toy away from another child, he was told to “be gentle.” When he touched delicate or breakable objects, or read a book, we said “be gentle.” We did the same with our daughter.
When he was 7 years old, our son became involved with the university football team, and he has been involved with them ever since. Now he is employed with a professional football team. Football, as you know, is anything but a gentle atmosphere. And although I love football, as I’ve previously discussed, I know that in football, and in the male-dominated realm of professional sports, there is a systemic atmosphere of sexism and homophobia, even with the recent numbers of top athletes who have openly expressed their sexuality, and with the increased level of public outcry at the violent off-field antics of some NFL players.
I am not naive, and I know that our football team is not immune from this sexist and homophobic influence, even though there are a large number of very decent young men who have been associated with it over the years. I have heard the rumours about wild football parties, and young women who make themselves available for *whatever.* I’ve heard how some male students (not just football players) talk about their female counterparts. Heck, I’ve heard 45-year-old men sitting in the crowds at football games talk about how hot their teenage daughters’ friends are, and exactly what they’d like to do to them if they ever had the chance.
My son and I have had several conversations over the years about male sports culture and how women are treated within this culture. I have reminded him that our family’s values require us to see things differently, that women in any context are worthy of respect, just as men are. I have told him that the way sports culture treats women is unequivocally unacceptable to me, and that I expect and hope it is unequivocally unacceptable to him as well. Even though he has many very close friends through football, some of his best friends are young women.
My daughter was raised around the football team. She was definitely a girly girl when she was little – we used to tell our family when they asked about birthday and Christmas gifts “If it’s bright pink, green or orange, and it has sparkles or feathers, she’ll like it.” But she learned how to “belch” at the age of 4 from one of the football boys (thanks, Fitzy!), she played front yard baseball and football and soccer, and she grew up not being afraid of the football boys (or any others), and able and willing to stand up for herself and for others.
At the same time, I have tried to teach her to be wise in her choices. Even though “No” should mean “No”, I want her to be thoughtful about the situations in which she finds herself. If she walks into a room where there is a group of young men and she is the only woman, should she stay in that room? Who are the young men? Is it a party where everyone has been drinking excessively? Or is it a study group? Perhaps if it is a party, and she is the only young woman, it might not be wise to stay. I want her to be fearless but I want her also to be smart and safe.
The problem with the scenario above, where Men’s Night is banned from the student pub, is that it does absolutely nothing to minimize “rape culture” on campus. It does nothing to foster a spirit of community or an atmosphere of trying to solve these problems together.
I think it is a sad commentary on our society.
We’ve created a society where women feel obliged and entitled to take offense at anything male-related. Where people with penises are automatically considered potential rapists. Where an unwelcome or an inadvertent touch from a man is treated with the same severity as a rape. Where women can say and do anything they feel like doing, because “No means No.”
I think we’ve probably created a society where many young men are confused, frustrated and fearful. We have basically isolated any expression of “maleness” to team sports, and told them that any other gatherings that are gender-specifically male oriented are unacceptable, while we continue to have our Ladies’ Nights and Montreal Massacre rallies and Vagina Monologues. I can’t imagine being a young man on a date or at a bar, and wondering whether anything I’ve done could possibly be construed as sexual assault. We have created a society where it is almost shameful to be a man, and where there are indeed many blurred lines between what is acceptable and what is unacceptable in the relationship between men and women.
And ultimately, we have created a society of double standards. A society where it’s okay to have Ladies’ Night, but not okay to have Men’s Night. Where it’s okay for a girl to pat a guy on his cute butt, but if a guy were to pat a girl on her cute butt, it would be called “assault” and carry the same stigma as if he had raped her. A society where womanhood is to be celebrated and manhood is to be denigrated. I totally get that in the mix of gender relations and feminism there is a reaction to centuries of paternalism. In the words of that classic Virginia Slims ad, we have come a long way, baby – but maybe we’ve gone a bit too far.
Several years ago, we had a guest speaker on campus. Don McPherson was a quarterback in both the CFL and NFL. He now speaks about gender roles and domestic violence. I remember him saying that violence against women is not a women’s issue, but a men’s issue. He talked about how we raise our boys to contain their emotions, to be tough and strong, and how this gender construct fails to teach boys how to appropriately express their honest feelings and emotions. He told us that his pivotal “Ah-ha!”moment occurred in an airport, when a little boy about 3 years old fell down and hurt himself and was crying. His mother – his MOTHER! – told the little boy to stop crying and to BE A MAN.
I’d like to ask these young women, who are so opposed to anything man-related, how they will raise their sons. Are they going to look at them from their very first days of babyhood and see potential rapists? Are they going to raise them to “Be a man”? To not cry or admit that they are scared or hurt or unsure? Or are they going to nurture and celebrate the things that are good and healthy and wonderful about boys and men and being human, and teach them to own and respect their feelings?
I am by no means downplaying the reality of sexual assault and rape culture. I know it exists. I know it exists in our town and in our university. I have friends who are victims. Recent high profile incidents in our region, like the Dalhousie dentistry scandal, the Saint Mary’s orientation chant, the Rehtaeh Parsons suicide, and even, I would add, the societal acceptance and celebration of music like Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”, are proof that these issues are very real and very deeply ingrained in our culture.
We women have great power to change things. Just ask any of the Famous Five (if you don’t know who they are, you should). We need to use that power for good, to ensure that everyone is valued and respected and celebrated, and to nurture all that is good in ALL of us, male and female. Nothing good will come from alienating and victimizing each other. We need to be willing to work together to create deep and lasting change.
We also need to take care in how we react to completely innocent things. Like Men’s Night at the pub.
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