Along with Rob Cover’s recent ‘Shirtfronting: the dangerous diplomacy of hypermasculine Australian politics’on OLO, this is a very important article, because it is helping to break down the great taboo that surrounds the subject of masculinity and violence.

However, I don't think men are 'in trouble' because of masculine violence. It's the human race that is in trouble, because violent masculinity is not an issue that men really want to deal with.

This is because enculturated violence in men is inextricably linked to masculine privilege. Until men can comfortably discuss this all-important link between masculine violence and masculine privilege, the topic will continue to be hijacked by all the usual ‘good men versus bad men’ distractions.

Men are extremely adept at deflecting any discussion of how they are complicit in their own enculturation and how they benefit, as a gender, from violent masculinity.

Masculine violence (committed only by the ‘bad guys’, of course) grants all men a lot more privilege, choices, independence, freedom, attention, money, status and power than women can ever hope to enjoy (at least under current social norms).

Violent masculinity severely restricts and limits women’s lives – the great gender irony being that violent masculinity makes women dependent on men for their protection, as well as inhibiting them from learning positive fighting and physical survival skills of their own.

Indeed, violent masculinity restricts all our lives - locking us into a continuous search for enemies to fight, both from within and without.

Where does it hurt most Killarney?

You are obviously sick.

Emma Fulu,

Emma Fulu has a PhD from the University of Melbourne and currently works for the Medical Research Council in South Africa which is leading a consortium to deliver a new global programme for DFID, What Works to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls. Previously Emma was working for Partners for Prevention, a UNDP, UNFPA, UN Women and UNV Regional Joint Programme, coordinating a large-scale study on gender, masculinities and violence across seven countries in the Asia-Pacific region, she has also been an research advisor in Melanesia and Micronesia, and coordinated the first-ever national survey on violence against women in the Maldives. Her first book Domestic Violence in Asia: Globalization, Gender and Islam in the Maldives was published in 2013.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/emma-fulu/

There's a picture of our friend Emma on the engangingmen.net, a gender justice information network. link here:

http://www.engagingmen.net/profile/emmafulu

You berate white Australan men using a non-white female gender warrior (with a pacific islander background) who does her research on non-white men in other countries.

That's the best you got?

dane

‘You berate white Australan men using a non-white female gender warrior (with a pacific islander background) who does her research on non-white men in other countries./ That's the best you got?’

Haven’t you heard of stuff like ‘global perspectives’ and ‘we’re a global community’?

When it comes to monetary policy, globalisation has been shoved down our throats for three decades. But when it comes to viewing humanity’s problems from a global perspective, people like yourself suddenly want to retreat into parochial tribalism.

Don’t worry, dude. No one would ever even think of suggesting that white men living in rich, developed countries would get into all this nasty masculine violence stuff.

No, not at all! You’re the good guys.

Hasbeen

‘You are obviously sick.’

Thank you for your concern, hazza. I’ll take a couple of Panadol, make some chicken soup and put my feet up for a while.

Andee surmises but this is short on evidence. When a sentence starts with "the fact is.." it usually turns out to be unsupported, or one possible explanation, hardly a "fact".
Yet while I think the analysis and diagnosis here are crude, I agree that the male of the species is in trouble.
It could be argued that rule of law seems peculiarly adapted to the female of the species, men being so prone to lawlessness. Women should press home their advantage and take recourse in the law more often, not for petty offences but serious ones. It seems too often the minor infringements that are prosecuted, while enormities perpetrated by men are allowed to pass.
Too many women seem "adapted" to male violence and rampant sexuality, and are prepared to put up with it, rationalise it or look the other way.
How else can we explain mens' virtual immunity from discovery, let alone prosecution, given the pandemic phenomena of violence and sexual misconduct of every imaginable kind? Women are complicit. This is not necessarily to blame women; the law has historically been complicit and women generally at a disadvantage, as well as being subject to intimidation. It takes a lot of courage to stand up to a dangerous man, especially when the law makes excuses for him, as it has in the past.
Thankfully this is changing and violence is being less and less tolerated.
I blame education, or the lack of it; men have to be educated in how to behave and why. Just as important, they must be deprived of opportunity. I would make the claim that virtually every male is capable of serious sexual misconduct at some period of his life, given the opportunity.
I've never given a male the opportunity to abuse my kids. They're boys and girls and I've always kept a weather eye for signs of misconduct. I've also discussed the topic with them in depth; not just sexual misconduct, but machismo generally.
Men have to change! It's no good blaming testosterone and primitive urges. We're supposed to be civilised and they're just excuses.

Killa,

If we're all the same, why don't you move to Mosul or anywhere in the ME for that matter? Let us know if you still think we are all the same when you get back.

Btw. I find it interesting that the biographical information about the author on OLO, on Amazon, and on Lexington books is exactly the same and very, very brief.

I also noticed the author didn't answer my question about whether or not he is gay. There is nothing wrong with being gay but I just can't help thinking that we have Emma, a non-white female who researches foreign societies, and a gay man of who knows what extraction berating hetrosexual Australian men.

Of course, they are free to do that but we should be free to judge the veracity of their advocacy accordingly.