Men behaving badly: It’s just not on

IT doesn’t really matter how much we men love, treasure, or appreciate our women, does it?

It doesn’t matter how much we adore them, enjoy having them around us, and how our adoration sees us put them on a pedestal. Does it? Yet... there will always be a line, a barrier, beyond which we cannot visualise a woman, which is more than a little discomfiting, really.

Do we hide behind such platitudes as, “Well, not all women want equality,” because it suits us to? And in fact, right there is another assumption that we may make to our peril.

Who said anything about equality? Most of the women I know have ambition, and have a desire to be, not just good, but the best that they are capable of being, and for many, that makes them outstanding. Yet... there will always be that line in the sand, that glass ceiling, that niche, that place, where misogyny is sustained, as by Stephen Braithwaite, “respecting any woman who knows her place.”

Men don’t want women to have equality! Oh, they make polite noises, but they don’t want equality, and will harp endlessly, of the many ‘failings’ of women because it is in their best interests to do so.

However, what they clearly perceive as a distinctly feminine quality is emotion, and we’ve all seen it a thousand times, an eye roll, when a woman communicates from a compassionate or empathetic perspective, only to see that nuanced approach become the driver in a successful negotiation or conclusion. And we men have all dismissed such contributions as luck! Because we cannot see it in any other way!

Men dominate the boardrooms of leading governments, the military, Fortune 500 companies, media outlets, and civil administrations, while women are much more widely represented in the health sector, social services, and retail.

Is that just a gender gap mishap? No way! In fact, though derived etymologically from the Latin ‘genus,’ in reference to labelling species at birth, the Anglo-Norman ‘gendre’ offered multiple options, greater diversity, until as political scientist Julia Azari observed, the word ‘gender’ “came about in the early 1960’s to differentiate between one’s biological sex and imposed sociocultural roles.”

So where do these ‘separations’ of career and philosophy have their genesis? Is it as basic and simple as a time when the caveman came home with a dead beast over his shoulder for the woman to skin and cook?

Maybe, because ever since those days men have felt they are the ones best qualified to lead, while their - yes, they see them as their women – are left to nurture and educate. So, you see, it is not a matter of equality, but power and what’s important. Well at least, what we men see as important.

Growing up in societies and environments where boys grow up with bats and balls, while girls grow up with dolls and prams will do that to you. How we navigate away from the absolute reality that men and women are not, and never can be, equal. We are not, and never will be the same, as our physical differences and our situational responses, emotional or not, will always be different. What we do need to recognise is the complementary nature of these subliminal and distinctive responses, and how they have the potential to significantly enrich our society’s potential.

There are almost certainly, few men who actively pursue a misogynistic perspective, yet it is there all the same a wry acceptance of John Wayne who said famously, “They have the right to do what they want – as long as dinner is on the table when I get home.”

We may never will be equal, but it behoves us, unlike Wayne, to offer more than a shred of dignity to those women who seek to unleash the emotion, the compassion and empathy, that our melange of power would otherwise deny them.