What does it mean to be real men? We are continuing on with our journey towards 40 Tips for Men…

40 Tips for Men: Tip #16

Be slow to the mic.

Picture this: There is a conference or book launch or some form of meeting happening in South Africa. Afterwards, there is a time of Q & A. Without knowing anything about the meeting, describe as best you can, the first five people who ask a question.

Now there will obviously be exceptions to this depending on the type of meeting and the mindset of the people gathered, but if we went with an average of all such times that have happened in the last year i don’t think i would be far off by saying that at least three, but probably closer to four of the people will be male, very likely white and probably over the age of 45… if we’re going to be completely honest only two of them will actually ask questions.

In a business or staff meeting where you have a fifty percent split between men and women, do an experiment and set a timer every time a man speaks and every time a woman speaks and compare the two afterwards. And in case you think i am just making this stuff up, here are two articles that back it up:

‘In meetings where both men and women are present, women speak 25 percent less than men on average, a study published in the American Political Science Review found.’

‘In 2017, Prattle studied more than 155,000 company conference calls over the past 19 years in research for Bloomberg, finding that men spoke 92% of the time. This is only partially explained by the dearth of women in executive roles — put frankly, it is also because men talk more.’

In addition to simply talking more men tend to interrupt women and talk over them or simply ignore them completely. Plus there is the delightfully attractive [NOT!] concept of ‘Mansplaining’ where a man will either explain to a woman something she already knows, often in a patronising or condescening manner, or a man will say the same thing a woman has just said and will get a response suggesting it was his idea.

i hate the term ‘give someone a voice’ because everyone has a voice and so we can never do that – unless we are performing some kind of late night creepy Dr Frankenstein basement voodoo and we should cut that out too – but what we can do is step away from the mic and invite other voices to speak.

We can call it when someone interrupts a woman in a meeting we are in [this is a tricky one cos can be seen as man saviour vibes where a woman is capable of defending herself and so might be a case of reading the room or the particular person] or make space for voices that have not been able to contribute and quieten those who have spoken at length. Especially if we are the leader who is running the meeting.

For white men, we need to be doubly focused on this one. Because the same thing tends to happen with white people over people of colour.

The dangerous thought we are probably not saying out loud to ourselves is that “What I have to say is so important that if I don’t say it this meeting will not be as successful as it could be.” Now obviously [hopefully] it is not that, but i have seen it in myself [This room REALLY needs to hear this question] and the majority of the time it is just not true. Sure my words might be helpful, but someone else’s words will be equally helpful and likely even more so.

One thing i tried to adopt during my year of LUT studies [something like 12 of us in a room for six weeks scattered across a year] was choosing to only speak after a woman and a person of colour had spoken. So an internalised rule that from my perspective meant i was never going to be responsible for two men or two white people speaking in a row. It was not always easy and i think i learned a lot about how important i think my voice is, and how much it really isn’t, over another person’s.

If you are regularly in meetings with men and women, then make a concerted effort to pay attention to this dynamic and watch how it plays out. It might be something that needs to be addressed with whoever leads the meeting or with just the men there, or it might be something you can slowly start to work against with your own voice and posture.

[BONUS TIP: i was disgusted recently to see a Women’s Christian Conference in the States being advertised at which every single one of the four or five speakers was an old white male. That is the extreme of just vomit-enducing blindness. But if you are someone who is invited to speak at a camp or be on a panel or be part of a conference then that is a space where you can help do this work. Refuse to be on an all-male panel [and an all-white panel, seriously it’s 2019 in South Africa, STOPPIT!]]

Men, let’s step away from the mic but also do whatever we can to ensure that women’s voices are amplified and magnified and listened to.

#40TipsForMen

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40 Tips for Men: Tip #17

Stop objectifying women.

For many of us, this might be a work we have to do for the rest of our lives, because, similar to racism/prejudice, we have been fed this in subtle and more overt forms our whole lives.

When we appreciate a woman simply for her looks or a particular part of her body then we stop seeing her as a person with thoughts and feelings and dreams and fears and ideas and she becomes more like an object to us, some ‘thing’ meant for our pleasure. Can we take a moment to realise how messed up that is?

And while it may be somewhat effective, i don’t think it is helpful to try and counter this with a phrase/idea like “She is someone’s daughter or sister or mother” because in an equally worse way that suggests that the woman has value based on some relationship she has to someone else. It should be true of every woman, regardless of relationship or connection, that we see her and appreciate her as a complete person with a name and a story and an internal life as well as an external one.

Every woman has value. That should be the starting point. Not “if she is pretty” or “If she is good at sports” or “if she can speak well”. Which begs me to ask the question of all of us, ‘How is it possible in 2019 that there is still such a thing as beauty contests and Miss World pageants?’ Why are we not interrogating these kinds of things more deeply?

But back to the objectification of women, in this article i read this week Sam Carr speaks about how pornography is specifically problematic in this way:

‘In short, empathy and sexual objectification are incompatible. There is evidence that when observers hone in on a woman’s physical appearance, she becomes “less human” and “more object” in the eyes of the observer. Under a sexually objectifying gaze, women’s bodies momentarily become the “property” of the observer – whether they have consented or not.’ [Sam Carr, from article ‘How pornography removes empathy – and fosters harassment and abuse’]

So men, if you are watching anything where a woman is being used simply as a means of arousing you or giving you sexual pleasure in some way, that really needs to stop. Pornography has also been closely linked to violence towards women and trafficking, which feel like easy reasons for us all to advocate against it.

But maybe even more detrimental are the adverts where women are used to sell cars or alcohol or whatever else. When we forward these adverts [or videos or pics] in our mens only whatsapp groups not only are we personally responsible for the objectification of women, but we are also imposing that on our friends. Similar to tip #7 on jokes we need to really start cutting those things down. Stop sending them yourself and if one arrives in a whatsapp group you are part of, politely but firmly say something like, “That is not okay. Please remove it.” and give an explanation if you need to.

If we cut down the demand and show that we are no longer interested in women being objectified for our entertainment or lust, then sooner or later the message will get through and the supply will be affected.

Let’s stop objectifying women, not because of who they are related to, but because they are women. And deserve much better.

#40TipsForMen

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40 Tips for Men: Tip #18

[TRIGGER WARNING—talk of sexual assault in terms of rape]

Stop desensitising yourself to the word ‘Rape!’

You were not raped when you faced a tough exam. Your favourite football team was not raped when they lost 6-0. Yet i have used people use the term ‘rape’ in a profoundly disturbing way to casually refer to something they didn’t particularly like.

The ultimate danger of letting the word ‘rape’ slip into language as slang meaning anything other than the despicable violent act that it is, is that we water down the meaning of the word and make it something that is no longer shocking or associated with the evil and awful reality it represents for so many people.

This is why rape is something never worth joking about either. We never.fully know the experiences of the audience we have and there may be someone [or someones] listening who has undergone a life-transforming soul-crushing experience with a word that you are now making light of. For a laugh.

In case we have forgotten, let’s remind ourselves just how disgusting and evil this thing is:

The Merriam Webster definition reads: ‘unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against a person’s will or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent because of mental illness, mental deficiency, intoxication, unconsciousness, or deception.’

Although i appreciate the Dictionary.com definition which contains the phrase ‘with or without force’ reminding us that consent has to be enthusiastic and not simply ‘spoken or shown’ when linked to the fear of what might happen if it is not.

‘Popular definitions and feelings about the word generally reflect the real gravity of rape, occasional rape jokes aside. But alas, popular usage is slipping, allowing new uses that debase this word and reduce its power to convey what rape really, literally involves. At best, these debasements desensitize us to hearing the word and recalling its true, awful meaning, taking away the horror it should convey; over time, this may make us maybe care just a little less, be shocked just a little less, when we hear about this idea of this “rape” thing really happening. At its worst, this gradual debasement just explicitly reinforces many rapists’ beliefs, and certain supportive social messages, that rape is a cool thing you do when you’re a cool guy.’ [Feminist 765, ‘How not to confuse ‘Rape’ with a fun slang word’.]

This feels like an easy one. It doesn’t happen a lot thankfully, but this is one where we can act as a community and gently shut it down when it does. Any time the word ‘rape’ is used to mean anything besides the truly awful, despicable, evil thing that it is, that is not okay.

i think we need to seriously consider some of the entertainment we watch and participate in where rape is involved. If someone being raped on the screen is part of a movie or show we are watching, do we really want to be entertained by something like that?

Let’s stop desensitising ourselves to the seriousness of what rape is.

#40TipsForMen

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40 Tips for Men: Tip #19

Say Sorry. But also be sorry. Which means changing.

i read this on the Twitterer today:

“It’s crazy that most men don’t know how to apologize when I’ve seen women apologize for apologizing.”[@solomongeorgio]

As people responded to his feed, a number of woman shared stories about having apologised to inanimate objects [like after dropping the tv remote and apologising to it] which led him to write this followup tweet:

“More women have apologized for inanimate objects than men for shitty behavior.” [@solomongeorgio]

If you are a man reading this, can you remember the last time you apologised for doing something wrong? Not just saying the word “Sorry” but meaning it and committing to do better.

We saw a lot of defensiveness in the past few weeks where instead of hearing and responding to the pain and fear, sadness and trauma of so many women in our land, too many men got fixated on arguing against the idea that #MenAreTrash.

i don’t believe the point is whether that particular tag is helpful or not but just how much of a priority that particular argument needed to be when there was a call for men to be looking in the mirror and at their friend groups, gym and work spaces and evaluating what thinking and behaviour needs to change.

Manning up means recognising where you got it wrong and saying “Sorry!”. Followed by a commitment to do it differently the next time

There was an old “Love is…” cartoon i remember from when i was a kid that said, ‘Love is never having to say you’re sorry!’ What a load of rubbish. That’s not Love, that’s abuse, or entitlement or something that smells really bad. Love means owning when you make a mistake or have a bad attitude or fail to step in when you should have and acknowledging it and once again committing to do it differently the next time.

Men, we need to learn to say “Sorry!” And more importantly, we need to learn to be sorry.

#40TipsForMen

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40 Tips for Men: Tip #20

Redefine this inherited image of what a ‘real man’ is.

Responses given when people have asked what a real man is, include: “Take charge; be authoritative,” “Take risks,” “It means suppressing any kind of weakness,” “I think for me being a real man means talk like a man,” “Walk like a man. Never cry.”

For starters, that ‘Real men don’t cry!’ thing is nonsense. The most real men that i know are so quick and deep into emotion when it is necessary that it assists others around them to really tap into their own emotions and just be real.

When men are ‘taking charge and being authoritative’ it is often at the expense of the women in the room. When white men are doing it, it might be the minorities at the table. i would suggest that a real man is someone who serves the group he is leading [if he is leading] by inviting the opinions of everyone in the room and by making sure lesser heard voices have a space to be heard. A real man is someone who recognises that the majority of the spaces he is in have been occupied with male leadership for as long as he can remember and starts working towards seeing other people leading in those spaces.

A real man would be someone who acknowledges that weakness is a part of life, as is mistake, and that neither of them disqualifies you as a person and rather creates a space for collaboration and teamwork.

i remember reading a very toxic book when i was a child [Mild at heart] where in one chapter the father was watching his son try to rock climb and eventually he made it to the top and the dad was so proud. But there was this sense given, that if the kid had not made it, that he would have been a complete loser and maybe even disowned by this father. That is not being a real man. That is being a synonym for a donkey in a pit. In fact so much Christian theology [looking at you Mark Driscoll and friends] has been so completely toxic in this regard that it has just added to a societal picture of what a man is that has been destructive both for men and for everyone around them. If we take a look at how Jesus was around women, and around children, and around the sick and the marginalised and the foreigner, that gives us a really great picture of how we should do those things.

Men acknowledge when they make mistakes and commit to doing better next time or being part of the solution.

If talking like a man means belittling women and children, or being racist, or rude, or unwavering in opinion, then that’s another description of a ‘real man’ that needs to change. A real man is someone who shows respect and honours the people around him, and gentleness when it is required, and humility.

Someone told me a story of a dad taking their son who had just turned eighteen out for a beer and got him drunk and then took him to a strip club. This, combined with the school matric and boarding school system of hazing/initiation, is not what a real man is. That’s bad parenting or bad senior leadership. If sticking a boy who is younger than you’s head into the toilet makes you feel like a man then you really have no idea. This rites of passage nonsense is a huge part of why this country is in a lot of the mess it is.

A guy who plays rugby can be a man, but so can a guy who decides to play chess. A guy who works out at the gym can be a man, but so can a guy who does ballet. A guy who sings can be a man as much as a guy who rides a motorbike.

We need to redefine this image of ‘a real man’ and transform it to mean someone whose presence adds rather than subtracts, who is against bullying rather than encouraging it, who doesn’t use phrases like “you run like a girl” or “you hit like a girl” as if to suggest that doing anything like a girl is less than. There are many other words like ‘gay’, ‘retard’, ‘moffie’ and so on which have been used by people who are very definitely not men to describe people or actions disparagingly. This needs to stop.

We need to redefine a good man as being someone who is a good friend to his mates, a good father and husband to his family, a good son to his mother, a good colleague at work, a good citizen in his community and someone who seeks the best for everyone around him.

This inherited twisted and broken idea of what a ‘real man’ is needs to go for good and in its place we need to see men owning the damage and destruction and fear and mess that has been done in the name of ‘good men’ and commit to being a part of the solution, and calling others to do the same.

#40TipsForMen

[For the next five tips, click here]

[To return to the start of the series and catch up on some tips you may have missed, click here]