📑 About the boys: Tim Winton on how toxic masculinity is shackling men to misogyny

Quote from Tim Winton
Bookmarked About the boys: Tim Winton on how toxic masculinity is shackling men to misogyny by Tim Winton (the Guardian)

What I’ve come to notice is that all these kids are rehearsing and projecting. Trying it on. Rehearsing their masculinity. Projecting their experimental versions of it. And wordlessly looking for cues the whole time. Not just from each other, but from older people around them, especially the men. Which can be heartbreaking to witness, to tell you the truth. Because the feedback they get is so damn unhelpful. If it’s well-meant it’s often feeble and half-hearted. Because good men don’t always stick their necks out and make an effort.

In a speech about a new book The Shepherd’s Hut, Tim Winton says that it is men who need to step up and liberate boys from the culture of toxic masculinity that has come to mark Australian society.

In the absence of explicit, widely-shared and enriching rites of passage, young men in particular are forced to make themselves up as they go along. Which usually means they put themselves together from spare parts, and the stuff closest to hand tends to be cheap and defective. And that’s dangerous.

Toxic masculinity is a burden to men. I’m not for a moment suggesting men and women suffer equally from misogyny, because that’s clearly and fundamentally not true. And nobody needs to hear me mansplaining on the subject of the patriarchy. But I think we forget or simply don’t notice the ways in which men, too, are shackled by misogyny. It narrows their lives. Distorts them. And that sort of damage radiates; it travels, just as trauma is embedded and travels and metastasizes in families. Slavery should have taught us that. The Stolen Generations are still teaching us. Misogyny, like racism, is one of the great engines of intergenerational trauma.

Along with Molly Ringwald’s reflections on the problematic art of John Hughes and Phil Cleary’s post on the misogynistic subculture of football, they represent a challenge for equity.

It is also interesting reading these pieces alongside Kate O’Halloran’s article on the fear associated with women exercise.

One of the biggest issues for women was the difference between theirs and men’s “entitlement” to space. At 53, [Lisa Schuppe] is a keen surfer, but has only recently taken up the sport again after her experience as a girl who wanted to surf just like her friends who were boys – but was instead treated inequitably.

Here is a longer version of the speech

14 responses on “📑 About the boys: Tim Winton on how toxic masculinity is shackling men to misogyny”

  4. In a speech to the Garma festival, Richard Flanagan explains how Australia needs to change and at the heart of this change is an acceptance of the Uluru Statement.

    The Uluru statement contained a contention and two proposals: that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people never ceded sovereignty over what is now Australia; that Indigenous people should be given a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament; and that a Makarrata commission, using the Yolngu word for coming together after a struggle, should be established to perform the role of a truth and justice commission, and to explore options for a national agreement.

    Central to Flanagan’s change is a reimagining of Australian nationalism and storytelling.

    And as I boarded flight after flight, making my way slowly northwards, I wondered what joins us over such a vast expanse, what connects wintry worlds with tropical? What finally joins us as people into this idea that we call Australia?

    And the answer is story. The story of us as a nation. The story of us as Australia and as being Australian.source

    In some ways this reminds me of Tim Winton’s reimagination of masculinity. I wonder though if notions of ‘nationalism’ and ‘masculinity’ have always been somewhat fragmented and broken?

    The world is being undone before us. History is once more moving, and it is moving to fragmentation on the basis of concocted differences, toward the destruction of democracy using not coups and guns to entrench autocracies and dictators, but the ballot box and social media. The bonfire of our vanities is fully loaded with the fuel of growing inequality, fear, and division

    We see gay and transgender people being once more scapegoated, and we see race and religion used to divide. We see truth everywhere denied. Duterte. Orbán. Erdoğan. Putin. Democracy is withering in Poland. Slovakia. Cambodia. Once great nations are lost in division that with each passing day grows more intractable. The chaos of Brexit. The catastrophe of Trump’s white nationalism.

    My warning is this: if we here in Australia do not reimagine ourselves we will be undone too.source

    A part of reimagining the stories we tell is a recognition of past transgressions.

    I hope one day someone finds an Indigenous word to describe the unique nature of this enduring tragedy, this eternity of crimes, crimes that continue and that continue to deform us all, black and white, a word particular to our national tragedy’s own epic lineaments of suffering, resistance and endurance, a word such as the Holocaust is to the Jewish tragedy, as the Holodomor is to the Ukrainian tragedy.source

    The challenge we have is that whether we choose to recognise our cultural past or not, it is written in the land all around us.

    It is in the Indigenous languages I hear all around me here, each a different way of divining the universe, unique and irreplaceable. It is in the cosmology and wisdom of traditional communities; it remains artfully written over much of our landscape in the fire-shaped patterning of bush, scrub and grassland; it stares back at us from the great rock paintings of the past and the extraordinary Indigenous art of today, from the films of Warwick Thornton to the paintings of Emily Kame Kngwarreye to the dance of Stephen Page, to the exquisite beauty of Michael Long holding the ball out to Carlton in the 1993 grand final, daring anyone to be better, as a grand final became wholly about his time, and his place, and his magnificent wonder.

    And in that strange frozen moment of pure motion, as Australia thrilled as a man seemed to move at once backward and forward in time in defiance of time and space, it is possible to see also that our great struggle as a nation has always been to find ourselves in each other – the white in the black, the black in the white.source

    A true ‘commonwealth’ is one built around mutual recognition.

    Commonwealth is an old middle English word that derives from an older word, commonweal, which was understood as a general good that was shared, a common well-being. It suggests a mutuality and shared strength. It evokes relationships, the idea of a common inheritance. It is, you could argue, the counterpoint to the Yolngu word for selfishness, for lack of kinship. Commonwealth is kinship.

    It is to a completed commonwealth that I wish to belong. A commonwealth not just of states but more fundamentally a commonwealth of kin, a commonwealth of the Dreaming, of 60,000 years of civilisation. That’s the land I want to walk to, and it’s time we began the journey along the path Indigenous Australia has with grace shown us. To tomorrow. To hope.source

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  6. It is interesting to consider the past reborn from the school yearbook. This has me rethinking the work I did with Year 9’s in developing a yearbook. I remember being chastised by leadership about what the students wanted to published, but maybe it was for good reason? My only question is if the yearbook was scraped of the mysogony and inherent violence, what happens to the underlying culture that seems to erupt like a vissure? How do we change this? It is also interesting thinking about Alec Couros and Katia Hindlebrandt’s discussion about the end of forgetting with this scenario. Is forgetting a privilege of power?
    For a bit of satire, watch Saturday Night Live’s take on the testimony:
    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRJecfRxbr?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent&w=840&h=473%5D
    via Audrey Watters

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  8. Replied to About the boys: Tim Winton on how toxic masculinity is shackling men to misogyny by Aaron Davis Aaron Davis (Read Write Collect)

    In a speech about a new book The Shepherd’s Hut, Tim Winton says that it is men who need to step up and liberate boys from the culture of toxic masculinity that has come to mark Australian society. In the absence of explicit, widely-shared and enriching rites of passage, young men in particular ar…

    Thanks for sharing this Aaron, I found it to be a carefully thought out piece. The idea of Art being a toy rather than a tool was a great hook. Looking forward to reading one of his books now.

    I huffduffed the audio from here. About the boys: Tim Winton on how toxic masculinity is shackling men to misogyny

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  9. Kate O’Halloran reports on the furore that has arisen around the publication Tayla Harris’ photograph, where Channel 7 pulled the image after being inundated by trolls, only to reinstate it after pressure. O’Halloran explains that such trolling is neither new nor is it restricted to AFLW. Instead, it highlights an underlying misogynistic culture within sport:

    There is enormous power and privilege associated with men’s sport, and it is time that power was used to support those who are much more marginalised, paid precariously and subject to abuse simply for making headway into a deeply patriarchal culture.

    This reminds me of Phil Cleary’s article in 2004 discussing this subculture. What concerns me is that Harris raised concern that some of the men who made derogatory comments online had wives and daughters. I have concern that it is appropriate for anyone to say such things. It will be interesting to the see the legacy of this moment.

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  10. The word of the month was Lego. I took my children to the Lego Discovery Centre, we went and saw Lego Movie 2 and we have been listening to the soundtrack on repeat.

    In my children’s music classes, the focus has been exploring nature for examples of loud and quiet, short and long sounds. It is funny how much you notice when you make it a conscious choice. Even funnier when the three year old starts calling out, “forte, that’s forte.”
    Work saw me seemingly join another team. I feel like I have a part in so many pieces of the puzzle. It is interesting and, as one colleague pointed out, I will know a lot at the end all this. The problem is that being spread so wide can be a bit frantic at times, especially when you are the intermediary between the different parties.
    Personally, I have been reading The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I avoided Taleb’s work for a while feeling that I needed to be in the right frame of mind to keep up. However, when my wife was recommended it as part of her studies and Chris Aldrich recommended his work, I decided to dive in. In regards to my focus on flânerie, the message I got from the book is that to inoculate against black swans and the fourth quadrant we need to embrace randomness, rather than turn everything into a convenient bell curve.
    Musically, I have been listening to a lot of clips on YouTube and podcasts, in particular I dived into the work of Mike Dawes, as well as returned to Paul Sheeky’s History of Electonic Music. Iched Black Panther. I have also been working through some of Ben Collins’ courses associated with Google Sheets.
    In regards to my writing, I wrote two posts in response to David Hopkins #OpenBlog19 series:

    Feedback or Finding Out? – A Reflection on Learning Observations and Walkthroughs
    Solutions over Answers – a Reflection on Lessons Learned

    Here are some links that have supported my learning this month …
    Learning and Teaching
    What Shakespeare Left Out
    Katherine Duckett reflects on Shakespeare’s legacy and discusses some of the elements that he left out. Her topics include successful rebellions, healthy relationships, mother’s and independent women. It is an interesting excercise to stop and consider what an author chooses not to cover in a particular text.
    The surprisingly radical politics of Dr Seuss
    Fiona MacDonald takes a look at the political side of Dr. Suess’ work. This includes commentary from another author/illustrator Art Spigelmen and discussion of Suess’ work on propaganda during World War II.
    Your curriculum defines your school. Own it. Shape it. Celebrate it.
    Tom Sherrington discusses the importance of curriculum when defining a school. To support this he provides ten questions to reflect upon. Although written for a secondary audience in Britain, this list is useful to consider. This reminds me of Ewan McIntosh’s post on defining a schools competitive position.
    “Real-World” Math Is Everywhere or It’s Nowhere
    Dan Meyer on differentiating between ‘real’ models versus ‘non-real’ models in Mathematics. The problem with this is that from a process point of view it is all real learning.
    Are we designing and building the right schools for future Australia? (We could be getting it so wrong)
    Adam Wood shares four insights from debates around building schools and learning spaces: avoid crisis mentality, design schools for living as well as learning, we only get what we pay for and we need a debate about school architecture. This is a useful provocation in regards to learning spaces.
    Technology
    History Disappeared When Myspace Lost 12 Years of Music, and It Will Happen Again
    Damon Krukowski reflects on the recent revelation that MySpace lost 12 years worth of music. He discusses the challenges associated with archiving in general. This reminds me of Celia Coffa’s keynote at Digicon15 Digital Stories and Future Memories.
    There are now four competing visions of the internet. How should they be governed?
    Kieron O’Hara outlines four visions for the internet from the perspective of e-commerce:

    Silicon Valley
    Beijing’s paternal internet
    Brussels’ bourgeois internet
    Washington DC’s commercial internet

    And a bonus one, Moscow mule model. It is interesting thinking about this after the EU’s recent decision to sign off the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive.
    Ten Lessons I Learned While Teaching Myself to Code
    In light on Clive Thompson’s new book, he reflects on the ten lessons associated with learning to code. Two points that stood out to me from Thompson’s was coding every day and doing so with purpose. I have been doing quite a bit with Google Sheets lately. I find myself needing to relearn things after leaving things for a few weeks. Repetition is important. I was also reminded of Richard Olsen’s post on why coding is the vanguard for modern learning.
    Learning the rules of predicting the future
    Martin Weller responds to a request to predict the future of higher ed by identifying four rules:

    Very little changes, while simultaneously everything changes.
    Change is rarely about the technology.
    Appreciate the historical amnesia in much of educational technology.
    Technology is not ethically or politically neutral.

    Alongside the work of Gary Stager, Audrey Watters and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, this is a useful provocation to think about the past, present and future of education and technology.
    How to quit Facebook without quitting Facebook
    Kaitlyn Tiffany interviews Jenny Odell about her book How to Do Nothing. Rather than leaving social media, Odell encourages us to be more aware. This is similar to what I was trying to capture in my post on being ‘informed’. Odell also discusses the idea of ‘social media’ as a public utility that does not depend upon cashing in on our attention. I just wonder if a state-based solution leads to what China has in place? Maybe the alternative is a decentralized solution? I am not sure.
    Teaching Digital Citizenship: 10 Internet Safety Tips For Students (With Cyber Safety Posters)
    Kathleen Morris outlines her four layered approach to teaching digital citizenship. This focuses on integrating the various skills within the curriculum, providing real world stories to reflect upon, building up student toolkits and developing lines of communication. Associated with this, she also provides ten tips for students.
    Reflection
    Reporting a massacre: Why the ABC didn’t share the shooter’s ‘manifesto’
    Craig McMurtrie unpacks the decision by the ABC to not publish extracts of the Christchurch shooter’s ‘manifesto’. Every move made seems to have be orchestrated to grab attention. As Robert Evans from Bellingcat explains, it is an example of Shit posting. Zeynep Tufekci backed this stance on Twitter. She also linked to a couple of posts she wrote in response to Sandy Hook Massacre and the Virginia shooter explaining the dangers of feeding copycat scenarios. This focus on media manipulation reminded me of dana boyd’s discussion of 4Chan’s association with fake news.
    Pattern and Forecast (Vol. 5)
    Josephine Rowe discusses Nevil Shute 1957 book On the Beach written about a nuclear holocaust in the northern hemisphere. The story documents people’s response of people in Melbourne on the coming nuclear cloud progressively moving south. Rowe compares this with the current milieu around the threat of global warming. With record heat waves in Central Australia and bushfires caused by lightning in Tasmania.
    Trolls are just the start of the problems facing female players
    Kate O’Halloran reports on the furore that has arisen around the publication Tayla Harris’ photograph, where Channel 7 pulled the image after being inundated by trolls, only to reinstate it after pressure. O’Halloran explains that such trolling is neither new nor is it restricted to AFLW. Instead, it highlights an underlying misogynistic culture within sport. This reminds me of Phil Cleary’s article in 2004 discussing this subculture.
    The Price of Gratitude
    Julian Stodd discusses the free act of gratitude. This is something so often overlooked. Stodd’s discussion of ‘cheap, but priceless’ reminds me of Steve Wheeler’s discussion of sharing knowledge and ideas.
    A Brief History of That Most Noble Tuber, the Potato
    Rebecca Earle digs into the history of potato. She starts in the Americas and follows the trail through to the Irish famine. Along with the chili, this is another staple brought from the new world.

    Read Write Respond #039
    So that is March for me, how about you? As always, happy to hear.

    Cover Image via Ms 8

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