You are no longer 007 . . . get over it

This has been a big year for powerful men being dragged into sex scandals. Perhaps it could be a sign for men that things are really changing. There is a common thread that runs through the cases of former assistant minister Andrew Broad, who on Tuesday said he would not recontest his seat; his colleague Barnaby Joyce; former NSW opposition leader Luke Foley; actor Geoffrey Rush and the scores of others that have dominated the news since the #MeToo campaign began in 2017.

It is such a widespread change that it is hard to sum it up, but here goes: The new reality is that male identity built on a fantasy of submission and power is no longer acceptable for women or, indeed, for mainstream society. The element that has leapt to the fore this year is that society no longer tolerates the view of women taken from 1970s James Bond films. This new understanding has become established in most other workplaces and institutions but the political parties, Liberal and National, but also to some extent Labor, seem to be cocooned from it. These debates about the limits of flirting and romance are of course only one aspect of women’s fight for equality. It is also about access to health services and equal pay and the choice of a governor-general.

But the issue is powerful because it speaks to a daily physical mechanism of oppression of women. Men cannot avoid coming to terms with it.