Sports clubs have a crucial role to play in fighting toxic masculinity
AS a species, we left the cave long ago. But some young men appear to have lurched back there, judging by troglodyte attitudes towards women exposed by the Belfast rape trial.
Either this mindset is challenged or society is headed in a destructive direction.
Round-the-clock access to free porn on smartphones, laptops and tablets; widespread consumption of ‘entertainment’ where sexual violence is normalised and women routinely called whores; definitions of masculinity wrongly conflated with a tendency to objectify women and treat them as disposable commodities. No wonder boys are learning to think about the opposite sex in a deeply flawed manner.
This is happening as a result of online content, peer pressure and the pack mentality of certain male-dominated team sports.
Unfortunately, parents are losing control to social media where odious language and behaviour has been put on a routine footing.
If you fill a laptop full of bad code, you wouldn’t expect it to operate properly. The same applies to people. If young men are absorbing contemptible messages about women, learning to think in terms of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ girls, and use labels such as ‘sluts’, how can anyone be surprised when vile situations arise?
Breaking the cycle won’t be easy, but it must happen. Sporting bodies have an important role to play here. It’s noticeable that in sports where women compete in greater numbers – athletics, sailing, tennis, badminton, golf – that disrespectful tone is more likely to be absent. But it’s all too evident in some rugby and soccer circles where the pack mentality is encouraged as part of team spirit-building.
The Belfast case has galvanised women and men across Ireland – a positive message to retrieve from the wreckage because men must be part of the conversation that needs to happen.
I don’t suggest we live in a rape culture – that is hyperbole – but men need to understand why women feel a mounting anger at how sex crimes are regularly minimised and at the way women continue to be held to a higher standard; made responsible for her own behaviour as well as his.
I know most men are horrified by the misogyny revealed by this case. Such brutish attitudes are not representative, but variations on the views expressed in social media ‘banter’ by some of the men on trial are not unknown in certain locker rooms, dressed up as repartee.
Decent men must have heard their fellows express similar sentiments occasionally, and stayed silent. I don’t point this out by way of criticism but to urge them to become proactive – to tackle the language of pornography.
Such words coarsen. They blur the difference between right and wrong and lead to harmful attitudes. They are a potential pathway to obnoxious, dangerous and hurtful situations.
One of the lines from the trial that echoes for me was Paddy Jackson’s comment that he knew the woman had left the house because he heard her heels on the tiled floor downstairs. He had just engaged in a sexual encounter with a 19-year-old girl, yet didn’t even feel the need to escort her off the premises or see her into a taxi. She represented instant gratification, an anonymous, meaningless, interchangeable, no-stringsattached, one-night stand. It is no way to behave towards another person. It demeans human dignity.
Treating women cavalierly is not illegal, but it is devastating for a woman to find herself reduced to a utensil. We have to confront such mindsets which cause injury, not just to women but to relationships between women and men, and to society at large.
While the Belfast jury decided there was no lack of consent for what happened in Mr Jackson’s bedroom, nobody can argue about an absence of respect towards the young woman from three of the four men. Standards of fundamental decency were in short supply.
Who did away with the idea that human interaction is enhanced when an emotional relationship occurs in tandem with a sexual one? It has served us well as a species. And are we really meant to accept that group sex is unremarkable? Three of those four defendants acquitted in Belfast behaved as if they thought so.
THE case spotlights the Trump mentality that a man has licence to misbehave if he’s a celebrity. In certain all-male schools, sports stars are forgiven for breaching rules – about uniform, or unsuitable behaviour toward fellow pupils, for example – because they are instrumental in winning championships. This latitude accustoms them to believing rules don’t apply to them.
Sports organisations must be in the vanguard of addressing aggressive masculinity. Many sporting heroes are fine role models, gentlemanly and well behaved, but others have a sense of sexual entitlement bred in schools and clubs.
As a society, we need to engage in conversations around sex and consent. People must realise that consent can be withdrawn at any time during an encounter, and consent cannot be assumed – especially where alcohol is involved.
The conversations have to start at home. Parents of boys need to teach them positive values and respectful attitudes towards girls. Many do, but parents face additional burdens today.
Peer pressure has always been influential, especially during teen years, but smartphones are widespread from a young age, and there is nothing that can’t be accessed instantly via social media. One solution is to let children have only basic mobile phones.
Consent classes need to go on the curriculum as part of sex education. Universities run them for first years but it’s too late by then – a macho mentality can be fixed already.
Instead, consent must be addressed in schools, with boys and girls taught that using sexual encounters for bragging rights is callous, wounding and just plain wrong.
Boys also need to learn that they may meet girls willing to be used, but these girls are vulnerable and have low self-esteem. They should be protected, not exploited.
Communication has to figure in consent conversations. When high alcohol consumption is involved, problems arise. Drink impairs the ability to communicate, comprehend and think ahead. If drink had only been invented recently, I doubt if it would be licensed for public consumption because it can so radically impact on situations.
Spontaneous protests in Dublin and Belfast this week show how people are exercised by the ramifications of this case.
Let’s treat it as a wake-up call. Let’s take back control.
Boys and girls must be taught that using sexual encounters for bragging rights is just plain wrong