Unconditional support for women’s lib.—from a man

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32803, 31 December 1971, Page 9

Unconditional support for women’s lib.—from a man

(By the

REV. W. ]. KEIR.

minister of the Christchurch North Presbyterian Church)

If you are a man, read on. I am going to criticise men, and I include myself. I intend to stick my neck out and speak up for women’s liberation. I know 1 risk bombardment from men for letting the side down, and from women’s liberationists, either because I appear patronising, or because they do not need men to speak for them.

However, I must take these risks, for three reasons. First, I feel very strongly that women’s liberationists are right. We men have a privileged status in society which we do not deserve, and I confess that it is only because of some courageous and very patient women’s liberationists that I have come to realise it. Second, men hardly ever speak up for women’s rights. Quite typically we leave that sort of thing to the women, and my conscience can no longer live with that. Third, it is only the privileged who are in a position to change the lot of the less privileged. Only when men change their attitudes and support the cause of women’s rights will women’s lot change, just as the lot of the coloured races will only change when the privileged whites do something about it (the parallel is too close for my comfort).

But I hear male cries of protest already. “The battle for women’s rights was fought 50 years ago and if they are not equal now it is their own fault. They have the vote, and they have opportunities to reach the top but they have not aspired to leadership or taken advantage of their opportunities.”

Male attitude It may be true that women are slow to grasp their opportunities, but I wonder whether it has occurred to us men that it may be our attitudes towards women that have caused this. If you ask me it is small wonder that women don’t aspire to leadership. If they do, men too often make them feel unwanted or like strange beings who have relinquished their femininity in the interests of ambition (only men are allowed to be ambitious). The worst of it is that most men do not even realise they have these prejudiced attitudes towards women. They have been built into male behaviour over thousands of years. Society has forced stereotyped notions on men and women about what it is to be masculine and feminine, and, as luck would have it, men have turned out to be in the advantage. I think we men have a lot to answer for in the way we have misused this advantage. We still place women in an inferior position in society and this is bad for men, bad for women, and bad for the future of society. We are still content to let women do the more routine monotonous things in life; the unpleasant and subservient things, while we do the more creative and interesting things. We regard it as our right and privilege to be free to go fishing or hobnob at the pub in exclusively male company where we can pick our noses and belch. Yet we also regard it as our right to expect a meal on the table when we get home.

Unconscious contempt

Unconsciously we look down on women. We spoil them,'patronise them, indulge them and make jokes about their emotionalism, their inconsistency, and their lack of practical know-how, as if they were small children. Then we expect them to look up to us and admire us for our heroic deeds in the garden or on the football field. We expect them to be sexually on call when required and consider that they have completed their responsibilities when they have reared the children, cooked the meals, washed our underpants, and cleaned the toilet This makes women secondclass citizens. And it is no use men patting themselves on the back about how their wives are free to work and have outside interests. Your proud boasting only betrays the fact that it was you, not she, who was in a position to allow her such freedom. Women have to wait until men give them freedom. Men regard their freedom as their right.

Arrogant stance Why do men take this arrogant stance? No reason at all that I can see, except our own selfishness and pride. Look at the way women still have to fight for equal pay. We have taken it as an unbreakable law of nature that women do not need to be paid as much as men. It is so built into our social structure that equal pay threatens to wreck our economy unless it is brought in gradually. Meanwhile the women suffer as usual. Surely a person’s gender should be the last reason for paying them less than someone else. The expression "exploitation of female labour” is not too harsh a way of describing it. Another example of male privilege is law concerning illegitimate children. In our society a man need not be held responsible for his illegitimate child unless forced to by court action, whereas a woman is automatically held responsible for her ille-

gitimate child until she chooses to release it. Why should men enjoy this kind of advantage? Too many men get off thqir responsibilities entirely in this situation, and that is really ironical because one of the boasts of male superiority is that they face their responsibilities better than women.

Protection When Miss Bernadette Devlin announced that she was to have a child she would not reveal the identity of the child’s father, and so far he has not identified himself. While she is forced by her anatomy to suffer the public attention, and even stigma, of bearing an illegitimate child, some privileged male hides in the protection of anonymity and sails gloriously on through life unsmeared. The same fate will fall on the 400,000 Vietnamese women who bear the children sired by American soldiers. Most of the children will be raised by their mothers in Vietnam and their fathers will return to America to enjoy their Godgiven male right to be free of such trivialities. Like most men, they assume that women are the servant classes. They must do the child rearing. Men have greater and more glorious tilings to do.

Marriage pressure It is partly this type of male attitude which causes the very strong pressures put on women to get married. If a girl does not get married she is regarded as (and feels like) some outcast in society. If she decides to enter some life-long career and contribute something to society apart from her wifely and motherly talents she is regarded as a frustrated spinster; an incomplete and unfulfilled person. The image of womanhood peddled by women’s magazines doesn’t help either. According to them, a woman’s chief role is to get her man and spend the rest of her life devoted to making him happy with the help of a gadget packed kitchen. It is taken for granted that he may have more important things to do than make her

happy. I don’t see why women should feel inadequate just because they do not measure up to this kind of image. Moulded housewives

Many women end up as bored, depressed cabbages

because they are forced into the “housewife” mould and have their senses dulled with the monotony, and many able women fight an up-hill battle for acceptance because they are not attractive, not motherly, or no longer young enough to be a sexual object. It may be true that some women prefer to take a sub servient role but I wonder if that might not be our fault for conditioning them to think that this is their God given calling. It is also true that many women are very good at being housewives and mothers. They love it and find it creative, rewarding and stimulating, and that is good. I’m not saying that no women should be mothers. But perhaps we men could learn some of the motherly virtues like self-sacrifice and tenderness, and this might free women to enjoy some of the privileges men have enjoyed for thousands of years.

It is sobering to remember that something like two women to one man are admitted to psychiatric hospitals in our country. Four women to one man are outpatients, and three women to one man try to commit suicide.

Men to blame Perhaps we men are to blame for this because we have belittled women and made them feel that they are only good for being housekeepers and mothers. And don’t let me hear any sentimental drivel about the dignity and privilege of bearing children. It is painful, messy and undignified and many women feel that God has given them a raw deal in the scheme of things. Perhaps that is understandable since God is a man. according to male dominated traditions.

Of course male superiority is further entrenched by the male stereotypes we love to wallow in. There is a prevalent male mystique in the human race which is especially noticeable in New Zealand. Men need to be liberated from this stereotype as much as women from theirs. A man is only a man if he is a husky football-playing, beer-drink'ng type who can hold his own in any conversation about car engines, Rugby, industry, finances, and race-horses. But put him in a sensitive human situation where he must be thoughtful and express tenderness and affection, or put him in a tense emotional situation where he has to express grief or comfort the

bereaved, and he cannot cope. Insentive males Men are often very bad at the more important sensitive aspects of human relationships because the traditional male role is to be aggressive, competitive, practical, physical. and unemotional. Child rearing, and being soft and kind, is women’s stuff. This starts very young. We give boys tip-trucks and girls dolls, and we tell boys it is sissy to cry. When you reflect that it is mainly men who run industry. Government and influential spheres of life it is little wonder that human values play so small a part in our society. We let women do the really important things in life—child rearing, social work, church work, school teaching and nursing—and we take most of the glory.

Let us face it. We men are still far too dominating in society, and with very few credentials apart from a slight advantage in physical strength, and that seems the last reason why a person should be a leader, decision maker, or breadwinner with all the privileges taken for granted.

Practising humility It is part of my philosophy of life that we all need to practise humility. If we humble ourselves before our fellow human beings it may help to make life on this earth more bearable. I confess to being very bad at it. I am guilty of all the things I have criticised men for. However, I think we men had better examine ourselves honestly, and learn from our sisters some of the fertiinine virtues. We cannot really know what it is like to be subservient until we have swallowed our pride and tried it. If we really love our women we will treat them as our fellow human beings, and to overcome thousands of years of male dominance we may even have to overcompensate a little and humble ourselves a little lower than women, and that will be very hard for us won’t it?

Perhaps we could start by telling women we are sorry. (Saying sorry is very hard for dominating people.) Then we could put our actions where our big mouth is and clean the toilet occasionally. I sympathise with one woman who said, “Whenever I get mad with men, I pray to God. SHE understands.”