Your say / Society
’20 fragile penises’
There have been about 20 penises which have been waved about in front of my face which I didn’t ask to see. On buses, trains, tube, in front of a hospital, in a park, on the street, zips have been undone, shorts have been pulled up. I have noticed wedding rings on fingers and asked the question “does your wife know you are doing this?” which does indeed put a damper on the occasion.
The thing about these penises is that they have nothing to do with me, and they have nothing to do with male sexuality. Flaccid “fragilities flapping” [note: from a poem by Siobhan Tebbs] – these 20 penis were shown as expressions of domination, of violence, they say something about the mental fragility of the men attached to them.
We live in a society which is permissive towards male violence and still idolises it. Go, Rambo. We encourage men to curate violence as an identity which they can fall back onto as a sure thing, their safe space to retreat to affirm themselves. This is really handy if you need to kick down a door when there is a fire, but most of the time there is no fire! Only having a sense of self-esteem when you are inflicting pain, controlling or dominating someone else is inconvenient at best, and is probably in truth a mental health issue.
is needed now More than ever
My personal experience of male violence is that it is driven by deep fear of revealing weakness. The violent act is a decoy, a deception – and perhaps the self-deception of the perpetrator is greatest. But in truth, I think we can say male violence isn’t working. If we add up the bag of child abuse, sexual violence, domestic violence, knife crime and male suicide it doesn’t work for women and it doesn’t work for men either.
This week is the end of sadness. Orlando, football hooligans in France, the senseless murder of MP Jo Cox – what I see is a string of men who have chosen violence, the poorest form of communication, to express themselves.
We have to go as far up stream as possible to untangle this massive stupidity. Male violence is not inevitable and it is not just a policing issue.
This is about what we choose to teach our children, this is about how we portray men and women in the media, this is about having zero-tolerance towards everyday sexism and online violence as direct precursors to acts of criminal violence. This is about real sanctions but also about building mental-health and relationship skills particularly in boys and men. This is about freeing ourselves from gender stereotypes, which imprison both women and men as effectively as any walls.
Violence is no longer a form of leadership.
Jess Read is co-leader of the Bristol branch of the Women’s Equality Party.
Read more: Bristol pays tribute to Jo Cox
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