When Funnell wrote ‘some men’, she was being careful. There is a backlash that comes with talking about male violence. Threats on social media are commonplace. When I appeared at the National Press Club with Ken Lay in 2013, the feedback was instantaneous, and that has not changed. In politics, I dealt with aggression and threats that included a brick through my office window, a detonator in the mail, and even a bullet on my home doorstep. As concerning as these were, it is the violent sexual threats made against women who speak out that are often the most foreboding. They are rarely directed at male counterparts.
Men’s feelings are often at the centre of our responses, with the discomfort and abuse of women often missing from the equation. And it is not only male commentators who run this line. Author Bettina Arndt has adopted the label #MenToo, and we have seen female morning TV show hosts warning that the #MeToo movement has gone too far. Channel 7’s Sunrise even ran a TV poll in December 2018 asking ‘Do you agree that we now live in a male-bashing society?’ (I am confident they meant this metaphorically.)
Men’s role in addressing violence has been somewhat muted in previous decades: understandably, the concern of people has primarily been getting women and children to safety, be that by fleeing their home, going to a shelter or the provision of psycho-social, medical and legal support. In the past decade or so, however, there’s been a concerted effort for men and women to work together. Male-led prevention efforts have a role because engaging men in ending men’s violence against women must be done in an informed way. Organisations such as White Ribbon have helped create unprecedented public awareness, but the challenge for these organisations is they need to ensure that women, women’s experience and feminist theory are central to their work.
Of course it is NOT ALL MEN, but those who respond to women’s experiences of sexism or feeling unsafe with ‘not all men’ miss the point—a point reinforced by US writer Suzannah Weiss: ‘“Not all men sexually harass women”, some might say, or, “not all men are rapists”. This is true, but … when we shift the discussion from the oppression of women to the protection of men’s images, we undermine the very real problems women and men face.’27
Men don’t need looking after in this debate, nor is it women’s job to educate them. But we need to work together. After Eurydice Dixon’s murder, writer Joshua Badge challenged the #NotAllMen response: ‘#YesAllMen. Men must accept that violence against women is a men’s issue … too many men do not challenge the norms and behaviours which perpetuate violence.’ Michael Flood, academic and gender equality advocate, claims engaging men is critical. He’s not naive, though: he notes that some male support is ‘based on a simplistic understanding where men may adopt the kind of comforting idea that really the problem is other men—a tiny majority of sexist men—whereas what is more likely in fact is that they themselves may collude with, or be complicit with sexism or gender inequalities in subtle ways’.28