The evolution of Male Chauvinist Pig to SPERM

Content note: explicit discussion of violence against women, violent misogyny and rape culture.

They call themselves "men's rights activists," and we've let them get away with it.  They have been clever, using language of "rights" and liberal ideas of equality, all the while demonising women and reinforcing sexist oppression.  A Voice for Men, Masculinist Evolution New Zealand (MENZ), the New Zealand Equality Education Foundation and the Union of Fathers have stolen liberatory language while they work on restoring men to their rightful place as top of the heap.

It's about time feminists called this out.  Second wave feminists in the 1960s and 1970s called sexists male chauvinist pigs.  They didn't let MCPs define the terms.

This international "men's rights" movement includes "activists" celebrating domestic violence murders as men fighting back.

Then there is A Voice for Men and their take on fathering daughters:

The night winds on, with discussion of rape and the smothering of penises, the sorrows of false accusations and the narcissism of young girls. A sore point for Factory, who has two daughters, who, like young women everywhere, he says, compete for the most exaggerated rape claim. It is, he says, a status thing. When one of his daughters came home one night and said she’d been raped, he said, "Are you fucking kidding me?" Sitting with us, he hikes his voice up to a falsetto in imitation: " ’Oh, I just got raped.’ " He laughs. There’s a moment of silence. A bridge too far? "I told her if she pressed charges, I’d disown her."

Elam, whose attention has drifted, grins through his beard. "That’s good fathering," he says."

Here in New Zealand MENZ help men to avoid protection orders for domestic violence and tell you what to do if you're accused of rape.  The face of MENZ is John Potter, convicted child sexual abuser.  Posts and comments on the page are Misogyny 101.

Let's call these male chauvinist pigs, with all-new equality lingo, what they are.  Sexist Protectors of Extra Rights for Men.   

SPERMs have many concerns, what with all the feminism.  Recently they got worried about Mad Max and Hollywood being unfair on men.  I'm just going to leave this here, thanks Human Rights Commission.

Increasingly though, the focus of SPERMs is domestic and sexual violence.  They argue men are just as likely to be victims as women, and women are just as likely to be perpetrators as men. 

This argument is well-advanced in Aotearoa, and while MENZ and John Potter may seem fringe, SPERM academics like David Fergusson and MSD's new Chief Science Advisor Richie Poulton who focus on undermining "ideological" approaches to gendered violence, do not.  Nor do the regular deluge of emails from other SPERMs to policy analysts inside government.

Fergusson and Poulton have been arguing for years - with super approving commentary at MENZ and elsewhere - that women are as violent as men, based on research which uses the Conflict Tactics Scale.  I stab you, you push me away, we've been equally violent.  The CTS has been heavily critiqued for missing self-defense, not addressing context like whether or not you're afraid, and not measuring sexual violence in relationships.

Fergusson and Poulton can't explain the gender differences in hospital admissions, rates of seeking protection orders, rates of reporting to the Police, numbers of families in Refuges.  Even they haven't been able to pretend sexual violence is gender neutral.

I do not wish to pretend that men never experience domestic or sexual violence.  There's good evidence that boys are targeted for sexual abuse at previously unsuspected rates,  if not at the same rates as girls.  And with emerging data showing high rates of victimisation for trans* and intersex people, acknowledging diverse experiences of violence is vital.  

But saying violence is always an awful thing - whatever your gender identity - is not the same as pretending it happens at the same rates across gender.  SPERMs are not happy with acknowledging male victims exist; they need them to exist equally with female victims.  And they need female perpetrators to exist equally with male perpetrators.  Contrary to evidence.

New Zealand's Family Violence Death Review from 2013 tells us that in 55 cases of violence which led to death:

• 51 deaths were of female victims of men's violence; 1 death was of a male victim of women's violence; 3 deaths were new male partners killed by ex-male partners
• 53 murders were committed by abusive men; 2 murders were committed by abusive women, one of a male partner, one of a female partner

It will be very interesting to see whether Richie Poulton's ideological influence at MSD leads to a degendering of domestic and sexual violence.  Will he try to further SPERM positions like encouraging female victims into counselling with men using violence and removing state supports for women leaving violent relationships?  How will funding for groups working with male survivors increase?

One area he's likely to attack - because SPERMs hate it - is the White Ribbon Campaign, which focuses on ending men's violence towards women.  White Ribbon commemorates 14 murders by a male engineering student who killed women on a course he missed out on in Montreal in 1991.  Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse Trust, Family First and MENZ all come out swinging on this one, pretty much every year.  They actively campaign to stop others participating - one comment on the MENZ link above explains how they stopped New Zealand Courts displaying any White Ribbon materials.  They argue the White Ribbon campaign should be about male victims too, despite how insulting that would be to the 14 murdered women the campaign honours.

One final note.  I've trained close to 50 sexual violence prevention practitioners in New Zealand over the last few years, with nearly an even gender split.  The vast majority of the men doing that work understand gendered dynamics well, and are constantly looking for new ways to encourage other men to behave in respectful, playful and equity based ways when they are sexual with other people, and to intervene if they see men around them supporting violence.

Just one SPERM in that time is probably pretty good going, though I still worry about the damage he may be doing with the young people he works with.   Our training included how to facilitate a session on "Blurred Lines" to encourage conversation about gender norms.  The vicious misogyny of this song, when you actually read the lyrics, is difficult to miss.  The SPERM was most concerned about these lyrics:

"So, hit me up when you pass through
I'll give you something big enough to tear your ass in two"

He was worried that young men who don't have big enough penises to "tear asses in two" would not feel masculine enough.  This SPERM was thinking like a rapist.

"Men's rights activists" are not fighting for rights and equality.  I'm sick of being polite about them, using their language and having to re-prove, over and over again, that sexist oppression exists.  Sexist Protectors of Extra Rights for Men want to always be the centre of attention, setting all the rules, having all their needs met, being the only voices heard.  Enough.  Let's take it back.

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For the first time, I am closing comments on a post.  I've been the target of SPERMs in New Zealand before, and while I can't control what they write about me on their own sites, I'm choosing not to allow that here, for this post.  Apologies to all our fabulous readers who would no doubt enjoy discussing and debating the issues above.

government inquiry on sexual violence services

i've only just heard that there is a parliamentary "inquiry into the funding of specialist sexual violence social services".  submissions apparently close this thursday, 10 october.

you can find a link to a pdf copy of the press release on the right-hand sidebar of this page.  it gives the terms of reference of the inquiry:

The terms of reference for the inquiry are to review:

• the state of specialist services and determine whether they reflect an integrated approach to service delivery, full coverage, and best practice

• specialist services, including those for Māori and other diverse ethnic communities, and assess whether they are accessible, culturally appropriate, and sustainable.

i wouldn't have thought there was a need for a full inquiry to know that sexual violence services are grossly underfunded, and have been for many, many years.  there's some good information in this article, which tells us about the inquiry into funding that has already been done:

These funding issues were investigated in 2007 when the Taskforce for Action on Sexual Violence was set up to advise Government on how to prevent and respond to sexual crime.
The Taskforce’s 2009 report recommended “effective funding of front-line services for victims and offenders”, immediate changes in the justice system, and a coordinated response to the problem from “across the social, health, education and justice systems in partnership with the community sector”.

and look at this: you can still download a copy of that report or even a summary of it from here (see box on right side).  one of the main points in the summary is:

ensuring a coordinated response as work continues across the social, health,ƒ ƒeducation and justice systems and in partnership with the community sector

and page 3 of the report has this:

Specific Taskforce projects have focused on understanding sexual violence from a Mäori cultural perspective. This work includes a case study of the Tiaki Tinana rape prevention education project; a stocktake of kaupapa Mäori and tikanga services; and Te Puäwaitanga o Te Käkano.

in fact, the only thing missing from the report, and it is a big omission, are the needs of "other diverse ethnic communities".  i don't know that there needs to be a whole commission of inquiry on it - maybe they could have consulted with ethnic communities to see what could be added to the 2009 report.  i have some ideas on that.

it seems to me that this inquiry is just the government trying to look like it's doing something, without actually doing something.  they've shown that they are not prepared to make the difficult decisions, especially around changes to the justice system.  while simon power was making progress in this area, judith collins made it clear when she took over the justice portfolio that she wasn't prepared to make any changes.

neither have the government committed to decent funding for rape crisis centres.  if they had, wellington rape crisis wouldn't have needed to take funding from hell's pizza, and auckland sexual abuse help line would not have been close to shutting down so many times over the last few years.

still, i suppose we must play the game and put the time into resubmitting to this inquiry, re-doing work that has already been done.  long-time readers of the blog will remember the submission we put in from THM on the original inquiry.  i'll be submitting again, in the hope that there might finally be some concrete action, some minister that actually has the courage to bring about change.

if you're in hamilton, link house are doing a submission-writing workshop on thursday morning, specifically to help in writing submissions for this inquiry.  contact me at info@anjum.co.nz if you'd like further details.

Imagining a world without sexual violence

Cycling and camping alone, I am confronted regularly with our gendered world.  Not just because people are surprised, or impressed, when they see me struggling up a hill or mountain on my laden bike.  Not just because people often seem uncomfortable with the fact that, after cycling for six hours, I don't care in the slightest if I'm dirty or unkempt - I just want to make piles of food to fill my belly.  Not just because those piles of food will sometimes provoke incredulous questions: "You're eating all of that?  By yourself?"  Not even just because sometimes men older than I am (though this happens less often these days) tell me "I'd never let a daughter of mine do that....."

True stories.

In all of these cycling experiences, my gender is, I believe, relevant.  But it's not the constant, the only question I've been asked in every country I've cycle-toured, by all genders, all ages, and many races.

"But do you feel safe, travelling alone? Aren't you scared, of, you know, being alone?"

My take on these queries is not that they are wondering if my precarious sanity will survive so much meditative time, because when I reply time alone in beautiful parts of the world is what I crave, the question becomes more specific.

What is really being asked here - and often becomes explicit - is "aren't you worried you'll be raped?"

I don't answer this with telling one kind of truth - sexual violence statistics - that of course I'm more likely to be raped by a man I know.  That I'm more likely to be raped in my home or his, than in my tent in a national park by a lake somewhere.

I tell another kind of truth.

Yes, on a handful of occasions in twenty years of solo cycling trips I've felt scared, really scared.  Sometimes I've been alone and literally no one knew where I was and I allowed the fear many (maybe most) women live with around sexual violence to flourish.  Once, camping alone by a river in England, that was because two men were outside my tent discussing coming in.  I pretended I was with someone:  "David, David, wake up, there's someone outside the tent!"

They ran away.

But even if I have been scared those handful of times - and I'm not diminishing those fears, they were real and debilitating - I don't want to stop doing something I love so much.  I don't want to constrain my life, to make it smaller, because of sexual violence or the fear of sexual violence.

So I keep cycling, alone and in beautiful places.  Every cycling trip I make, I come home refreshed and rejuvenated, my world a little larger.  When I meet other women cyclists, we talk about hills and campsites, the sea and our bikes.  We don't talk about mistressing our fears.

When I talk to other women, many, too many to count, tell me they are going to travel alone one day.  Fathers tell me they want their daughters to be able to see the world solo.  We are talking about imagining a world without sexual violence - it's far from all we need, but it's part of the picture.

Mike Tyson: the Undisputed Truth

When the Hand Mirror publicised feminist calls to stop convicted rapist Mike Tyson coming to New Zealand to "inspire" us, some responses suggested it was unfair to Mr Tyson to object to his presence here, mostly because he might have changed his women-hating behaviour since being convicted of raping Desiree Washington in 1992.

So let's check it out, by looking at what he talks about in his new Broadway show about his life, the modestly titled "Undisputed Truth."  Firstly, he didn't get to call the show what he wanted - "Boxing, Bitches and Lawsuits."

Secondly, he jokes about not knowing the difference between menstrual blood, miscarriage blood and blood from a rape - in reference to Robin Givens, an ex-partner who has publically accused him of domestic violence.  Right before he affirms he doesn't owe teenager Desiree Washington an apology, and complains about all the money he has spent on women over the years.

That's all from August this year.  Even more recently he's told the media he was "set up" around raping Desiree Washington.

Then there is his description of himself as a "prostitute-hunter".  In the past, you know, before he got all redeemed.

Just last year, Mr Tyson gave his views on Sarah Palin, in relation to inter-racial sexual experiences:

“But you want her to be with somebody like [Dennis] Rodman getting up in there. Pushing her guts up in the back of her head! Glen Rice is a nice, mellow, docile man, non-threatening black guy — you want someone like Rodman — yeah baby! Imagine Palin with a big old black stallion ripping — yeehaw!”

Mr Tyson is not redeemed, he's a misogynist man who excuses and perpetrates violence against women.  No forgiveness from me, Mr Tyson.  Go and do the real work of facing up to your actions before you claim you've changed.  And stop talking about women and our bodies with such hatred.  The saddest thing about this whole saga is how invisible your hatred seems to be, to too many people.

UPDATE: And round two, Mr Tyson is still not coming here.  Perhaps the Immigration Minister was influenced by one of Mr Tyson's supporters emailing a specialist sexual violence sector agency manager to say he hoped Mr Tyson raped her.  #RAPECULTURE, you're soaking in it.