Bad men happen, when good women do nothing

It’s doubtful I would have paid too much attention to Matthew Mercer and Samuel Monaghan when the duo spoke to the media about their ill-conceived all-male co-working space. Sure, I shook my head and sighed, but this kind of idiocy, while deflating, was not the sort of thing that evoked the outrage in me as it might once have. That’s what happens as you get older. Not so much that you don’t feel the rage, but that it becomes heavier and burdensome, and to invoke it requires more than two ignorant white dudes. Yes, not even when they talked about their co-working space as an “innovative way to address male related social issues.”

It was a silly proposition for sure, and it was with satisfaction that I watched them being mercilessly lampooned in my social media feed. Their well-fed and bearded faces, smiling out with privileged ignorance, looked more foolish than sinister. I might have just laughed along with those on Twitter, but then these two, whose business bears the name Nomadic Thinkers, decided to talk about some things that I could not just laugh at. That I could not be quiet about. That I could not let be lost amongst the tendency we have to ‘mock and move on.’

I’m talking about domestic violence. In an interview with Junkee, Monaghan, in trying to awkwardly justify his new venture, spoke of a friend “who ended up in a violent situation with his wife.” He then explains that this friend “pushed his wife over.” I reread that sentence a few times. Let it sink in. Read the words again: He described this friend as being the one who “ended up” in a violent situation, not his friend’s wife. Are we supposed to think of this man, who abused his partner, as the domestic victim here? (Side note: Men are victims, but not in the way Mercer and Monaghan understand it — I will get back to that in a moment, more unpacking needed here first.)

Monaghan goes on to say that domestic violence stems from depression, which “results from lack of social support and community,” (hopefully you did not have coffee in your mouth as you read that, like I did) and that men need space as a preventative measure. Men need a space to hang out so they won’t abuse their wives. Right. And, I can barely type the words out, “healthy, happy men don’t hit their wives.”

All types of men hit their wives.

Every 9 seconds in the US a woman is assaulted or beaten and an average of 20 people are physically abused by intimate partners every minute. This equates to more than 10 million abuse victims annually in the States. 1 in 7 women have been stalked. On a typical day, domestic violence hotlines nationwide receive approximately 20,800 calls. Domestic violence accounts for 15% of all violent crime in America.

In Australia just under half a million Australian women reported that they had experienced physical or sexual violence or sexual assault in the past 12 months, more than a million women had experienced physical or sexual assault by their male current or ex-partner since the age of 15. 33.3% of women had experienced physical violence since the age of 15, and 19.1% of women had experienced sexual violence since the age of 15. That’s age 15.

The not-at-all-funny irony of the misconceptions that these ‘Nomadic Thinkers’ have is that their idea — creating a space for “men to be men”, or more accurately ‘masculine’ ( epitomized by aggression and controlling behavior) is the very construct that fuels domestic violence to be the modern-day epidemic it is. And yes, men are as much victims of masculinity as women. Only men’s scars aren’t numerous bruises, broken bones, rapes and deaths. Their burdens — fueled by the demands of being a ‘man’ are depression and suicide. It is also worth noting, as Junkee points out: “A Parliamentary Library research paper assessing ‘the risk factors associated with perpetrators and victims of domestic violence’ did not find any link between men suffering from depression and perpetrating domestic violence.”

I cannot say this urgently enough, we need to break down masculinity, not create gated communities for it to thrive. Read those stats again.

Let’s be clear. Feminism is not a threat, at least not to those who don’t have something to lose. It’s a course correction. Complaining about female-only workspaces, and calling something like Nomadic Thinkers a response is so vastly ignorant it barely deserves a retort, but since it’s marched out tirelessly here’s one:

Whether we think it’s ok or not (clue, it’s not) women have historically, socially and domestically been denied their autonomy. The only way that women can create autonomy is away from the gender constructs that deny them that. Men, by definition of their ‘masculinity’, are autonomous. Women can only create this independence by occupying spaces away from men. Just by virtue of “being”, men have that privilege. Want a thorough understanding of this argument? Read this.

Lastly, Mercer and Monaghan lament the fact that as modern-day men, growing up in a western society they don’t have any rites of passage.

“I’m 25 and I’ve grown up in this culture where we don’t have any rites of passage,” Monaghan told Junkee. “In other cultures you go out and hunt in a forest for three days. We just hit 15 and start drinking. There’s a real loss of identity for men. We used to go to war together. Girls do it better naturally, they have tea parties and stuff.”

The only acceptable rite of passage white, young privileged men have these days is that of educating themselves.

Your ignorance will not be whispered in my sons’ names and the other countless men who try and consciously build a better world, and not at the expense of my daughter, my amazing female friends and all my fellow women.

But thank you, for reminding me to speak up.

• Thanks to Al Letson, Zoe Glynn, Asher Wolf, Rania Ghandour and Sarah Moran for lending me their editing eyes.❤