50. Men

Hi. I am Greg and I want to grumble about men – collectively, as a group.

As we know, to our horror, last week 2 masked men barged into a newspaper office in Paris and gunned down staff because they did not like the satirical content of the paper, while an accomplice attacked that bastion of Zionist imperialism, a local supermarket in Paris. Before Christmas we had our own terrorist holding a Sydney café at gunpoint – with tragic results, and then there was the unspeakable massacre of children in the Pakistani school. All conducted by men – as were the Boston marathon bombings, the London underground bombings, the Bali bombings, the World Trade Towers – the list goes on.

I know you are probably thinking that these crimes were not about them being men – but it makes as much sense as thinking about these as Islamic crimes. Obviously not all men condone or commit violent crime, but nor do all Muslims. And nor is such terrorism confined to Islam – anyone remember Timothy McVeigh or Anders Breivik? And yet we speak about Islamic terrorists, not “religious terrorists” or male terrorists.

Obviously there is a difference in that these recent crimes were perpetrated by people claiming it was in the service of Islam, a claim rejected by most Muslims. But equally obviously, there are fanatical women in Islam – and with all sorts of beliefs – but they are far less likely to use the gun or bomb (notwithstanding the current “manhunt” for Hayat Boumeddiene, whose position in the terrorist saga appears to be defined by her relationship [girlfriend] to the male terrorists). So, given that it is overwhelmingly men that perpetrate such atrocities – “Islamic” or otherwise, surely gender has some part in the explanation?

As songwriter Judy Small asked long ago in the wake of another massacre “why does gunman sound so familiar, while gun-woman doesn’t quite ring true”?

Of course you may think I am confusing correlation with cause. The fact that it is men mostly that commit violence does not make men or masculinity the cause – and it certainly does not mean that all men are to blame.

But I wonder if we take the same approach to Islam? Or do we really believe that there is something inherent in the content of Islam that drives such terrorism? About a billion Muslims would disagree, but I could also point to texts, rituals and beliefs about masculinity that show and create a disposition to violence.

And meanwhile, each week in Australia, another woman dies and more are made homeless as a result of domestic violence.

I am Greg, I am grumbling about overly-convenient categories.

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast.
First Broadcast: 13 January 2015