Addressing toxic effects of male entitlement

THE RECENT intimate-partner killings of Nevia Sinclair, Suianne Easy, and Shantel Whyte are not as surprising as they seem to be. Data from agencies such as STATIN and UNESCO show that: 1

. One in four Jamaican women has experienced physical abuse from intimate male partners. 2

. Between 2017 and 2019, nearly 15 per cent of all women in Jamaica, ages 15 to 49, and, at some point, married or partnered, had experienced physical or sexual violence from a male partner. 3

. In 2017, Jamaica had the second-highest rate of killings of females in the world. Death seems to be the price that too many women pay for challenging male entitlement to their time, space, peace, finances, emotions, bodies, and lives.

ROOTS OF MALE ENTITLEMENT

Male entitlement is a patriarchal norm endorsed by society. Men benefit from subjugating women in a system given credibility by thinkers, religious leaders, musical artistes, media practitioners, institutions such as school, family, and community; and women are conditioned to accept patriarchal norms.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle’s work portrayed women as morally, intellectually, and physically inferior to men. He regarded women as the property of men; their roles in society were to serve men and have men’s children. To Aristotle, male domination was a right and a duty. He saw men as perfect and women as the cause of any imperfection in the world. This worldview remains alive.

One of Confucius’ texts explains that a loyal and virtuous woman obeys her father before her marriage, her husband after marriage, and her first son if she is widowed. She was not to concern herself with talent or intelligence. These norms have also lasted for centuries.

Christianity, among other religions, keeps patriarchal concepts alive. Despite efforts of some feminist movements, the identity of the Christian God remains predominantly male, referred to as ‘He’, ‘King’, ‘Lord’, and ‘Father’. The creation story portrays Adam as the default human and Eve as the subordinate, who turns out to be a temptress and deceiver.

Women such as Jezebel and Delilah are vilified for being smart, aware, and in charge of their own sexuality. However, patriarchs such as Abraham, David, and Solomon get free passes for their treachery and promiscuity in relation to women.

Caribbean enslavers were patriarchs who had absolute power over plantation property that included human beings. These old, white men resembled depictions of God, and were further encouraged by biblical teachings that justified their cruel and degrading show of male entitlement. Plantation models continue to underpin today’s gender roles in post-slavery societies.

GENDER IMAGES IN MEDIA AND MUSIC

The media has continued the legacy of the gender stereotypes. For example, news media sexualises and objectifies the female body. Further, news reports implicitly or explicitly engage in victim-blaming when women suffer sexual abuse. Women are further dehumanised in music, film, television, video games, social media, and even women’s magazines. A woman’s sphere is generally shown to be cooking, cleaning, childcare, and satisfying a male partner.

In social media discussions, male entitlement is evident when males talk down to females who disagree with them. Blaming, shaming, trivialising, and labelling their posts as ‘emotional’ or ‘man-hating’ serve to silence vulnerable women.

In addition, advertising tends to depict women in terms of their sexual availability. For example, choosing a car may be compared with choosing a wife. On the contrary, men are generally seen as strong and decisive.

Examples of gender stereotypes can be found in all genres of popular music. The female body tends to be objectified and hypersexualised, and the woman is seen as existing for the man’s sexual pleasure. She is therefore portrayed as the sum of her body parts, without mention of her intellect or interests. She may be called a ‘ho’, ‘slut’ or ‘b*tch’ if she empowers herself and defies male privilege.

A man is stereotyped as macho, entitled to sexual gratification with or without the woman’s consent. Misogyny may merely be more blatant in dancehall and rap lyrics, but the latter are repetitively and rhythmically influencing today’s youth.

SOCIALISATION

Men and women learn by example how society expects them to behave. From childhood, they develop mindsets based on assumptions that: 1

. Women are the extension of men. They are the ones to change their last names Page 1 after marriage. 2 . Women are men’s property. Society accepts that fathers give away their daughters in marriage, but not their sons. Groping and cat-calling women can be excused as ‘boys being boys’. 3

. Women’s flesh distracts men. Dress codes therefore require women to control male reaction to their bodies. Some results are insistence on sleeves for women and anklelength uniforms for schoolgirls. 4

. Sexually active boys are studs, while sexually active girls are sluts. Chastity is therefore valued for girls but a burden for boys; and a girl’s virginity is a trophy to be possessed, even if by coercion. 5

. A woman is to gratify a man’s sexual needs while ignoring her own; and a man is to extract as much sex from as many women as he can. 6

. If a woman is raped, she has teased the man. She wore the wrong clothes; found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the wrong people; or consumed too many drinks. She is also wrong if she failed to kick and scream during the ordeal, but rather, stayed quiet to save her life. 7

. If a woman is murdered by an intimate partner, she provoked the man. She had poor judgement; made a wrong choice of partner; took the man’s money and then dumped him; or reminded him of a toxic mother by emasculating him.

These thinking patterns, damaging yet deeply embedded in a patriarchal society, absolve men of responsibility for harming women. Present and future generations deserve healthy malefemale relationships as fellow human beings, not playthings or stereotypes.

WAY FORWARD

The murders of Nevia, Suianne, and Shantel point to the need for men to take responsibility for their part in improving gender relationships. Men can call on each other to unlearn the learned misogyny and help demolish systems that damage and kill women.

Wherever men are – in clubs, homes, schools, courts, churches, businesses, hospitals, boardrooms, street corners, music studios and stages – they can influence other men to forego male entitlement as one way of ending intimate-partner violence. They can join women in establishing new cultural norms based on mutual empathy and understanding.

Today is a good time to start.