"As a Father" Empathy Towards Victims of Sexual Assault
Simon Toad
Shipmate
in Purgatory
In the past few days a credible allegation of rape in parliamentary offices was made public. A staffer of Defence Minister Linda Reynolds alleges she was raped by another Ministerial staffer in the Minister's office late at night. That's probably all people need to know about the allegation. The matter has been handled badly by the Government, not only at the time of the assault but in their approach to the matter altogether. As Laura Tingle, perhaps the most experienced political journalist in the country put it, the Government handled the matter as a political problem to be dealt with instead of as a crime to be reported to the Police.
This thread is about the Prime Minister's response at a Press Conference, which was reported in The Monthly as follows:
"As the father of daughters, as a husband, as a son, as a brother etc" is a well-worn way for men to try and show that they understand that women's safety is an issue that touches them. I reckon I have heard it since I first started listening to the news. I reckon I have said it before. Over the last few years though I have started to notice the reaction that Rachel Withers writes about in the linked article.
This time, it hit me between the eyes on my Social Media accounts, as all the women in or about journalism I follow started writing about it. I was perplexed. Wasn't this a good way to express empathy with women? Isn't this the breaking down of the old code, the horrible "Bro's before Ho's" ethic? In Australia, that ethic was part of the idea of mateship as an exclusively male thing, an exclusionary male form of mateship. In its harshest, most extreme form, your relationship with your mates is more important than your relationship with other women. This form of mateship is I hope dead and buried, but it might still exists in very male environments. I would be surprised, but not gobsmacked, if it did still survive. It existed at my boys only high school in the early 1980's, and was in my mouth and the mouths of my friends as children.
But with four words from my wife, the scales fell away: Its about the patriarchy. If we as men can only feel empathy for a woman who is sexually assaulted by imagining it happened to a woman in our family, then our thought patterns remain thoroughly patriarchal, still trapped in that exclusionary male form of mateship. And if we say that the "As a father... " phrase is meant as a way of expressing care and concern, then we do so from our positions of privilege in the patriarchy. Its not just women being touchy here, it is actually how we are supposed to think of women as men in a patriarchy.
A great many men in Australia are big fans of the patriarchy. A large number can't conceive of another way to organise things. The patriarchy for them doesn't have a name. It just is. These men don't follow the people I follow on social media, they don't read the news media, they don't watch the OZ ABC, and possibly get their news from radio stations in the car, or news breaks on the telly. It strikes me that for blokes like that, empathising with victims of sexual assault by listening to a snippet where the PM says "As a father..." is not a disaster. It strikes me that it is better than the victim blaming which is also par for the course. There may be a formulation that can get the point across in a less problematic way. I would need to think about that some more. It is very important that someone like the PM get this formulation right, as we all know after January 6th.
Women's safety is fundamental to an equal society. How can it be that a woman's career can be derailed in the way this woman's has through no fault of her own? Ms Higgins (the person attacked) might be developing into the best and brightest conservative politician in the mid-21st Century, but her career has hit a hump. With support from friends and contacts in conservative politics, she may well be able to recover. I hope that we are mature enough as a country to allow her to recover her career. It is in the national interest that her career in conservative politics can recover. But if it does recover, I think it would be a first.
That must make lots of woman very very angry.
This thread is about the Prime Minister's response at a Press Conference, which was reported in The Monthly as follows:
Prime Minister Scott Morrison formally responded to the Liberal Party sexual assault allegations this morning, apologising to former adviser Brittany Higgins and announcing a cultural and structural review into the handling of claims of harassment. “We clearly need to do better,” Morrison said, wearing a teal ribbon for sexual assault awareness. But the prime minister’s reasoning for the announcement drew a fierce backlash, disgusting women around the country.
Morrison said it was a discussion with his wife, Jenny (another empathy consultant?), that prompted him to announce the review. “She said to me: ‘You have to think about this as a father first. What would you want to happen if it were our girls?’” he said. “Jenny has a way of clarifying things,” he added, saying he had reflected on it overnight.
"As the father of daughters, as a husband, as a son, as a brother etc" is a well-worn way for men to try and show that they understand that women's safety is an issue that touches them. I reckon I have heard it since I first started listening to the news. I reckon I have said it before. Over the last few years though I have started to notice the reaction that Rachel Withers writes about in the linked article.
Once again, Morrison showed himself to be short-changed in the empathy department, relying, as too many men do, on his relationship to the women in his life in order to see other women as deserving of dignity. ... It’s hard to believe we’re still having to call people out on the “as a father of daughters” trope, after so many instances of it, and it was no wonder that “Oh FFS”, along with #ScottyTheMisogynist and #AskJen, began trending on Twitter. As is pointed out every time this comes up, women are not just someone’s daughter/wife/sister; they themselves are someone, and men shouldn’t need to imagine them as their own relations to care about what happens to them. Would Morrison have been able to mount the appropriate level of empathy for Higgins (or anyone else in this situation) if he had only sons? Or, as his answer implies, would his mind have been with the perpetrator?
10 News political reporter Tegan George rightly called the prime minister out on his comments. “Shouldn’t you have thought about it as a human being?” she asked during the press conference. “What happens if men don’t have a wife and children?” Morrison only dug in deeper. “In my own experience, being a husband and a father is central to me, my human being. So I just can’t follow the question you’re putting.”
This time, it hit me between the eyes on my Social Media accounts, as all the women in or about journalism I follow started writing about it. I was perplexed. Wasn't this a good way to express empathy with women? Isn't this the breaking down of the old code, the horrible "Bro's before Ho's" ethic? In Australia, that ethic was part of the idea of mateship as an exclusively male thing, an exclusionary male form of mateship. In its harshest, most extreme form, your relationship with your mates is more important than your relationship with other women. This form of mateship is I hope dead and buried, but it might still exists in very male environments. I would be surprised, but not gobsmacked, if it did still survive. It existed at my boys only high school in the early 1980's, and was in my mouth and the mouths of my friends as children.
But with four words from my wife, the scales fell away: Its about the patriarchy. If we as men can only feel empathy for a woman who is sexually assaulted by imagining it happened to a woman in our family, then our thought patterns remain thoroughly patriarchal, still trapped in that exclusionary male form of mateship. And if we say that the "As a father... " phrase is meant as a way of expressing care and concern, then we do so from our positions of privilege in the patriarchy. Its not just women being touchy here, it is actually how we are supposed to think of women as men in a patriarchy.
A great many men in Australia are big fans of the patriarchy. A large number can't conceive of another way to organise things. The patriarchy for them doesn't have a name. It just is. These men don't follow the people I follow on social media, they don't read the news media, they don't watch the OZ ABC, and possibly get their news from radio stations in the car, or news breaks on the telly. It strikes me that for blokes like that, empathising with victims of sexual assault by listening to a snippet where the PM says "As a father..." is not a disaster. It strikes me that it is better than the victim blaming which is also par for the course. There may be a formulation that can get the point across in a less problematic way. I would need to think about that some more. It is very important that someone like the PM get this formulation right, as we all know after January 6th.
Women's safety is fundamental to an equal society. How can it be that a woman's career can be derailed in the way this woman's has through no fault of her own? Ms Higgins (the person attacked) might be developing into the best and brightest conservative politician in the mid-21st Century, but her career has hit a hump. With support from friends and contacts in conservative politics, she may well be able to recover. I hope that we are mature enough as a country to allow her to recover her career. It is in the national interest that her career in conservative politics can recover. But if it does recover, I think it would be a first.
That must make lots of woman very very angry.
Comments
That said, in my more charitable moments, I can maybe accept this as just a way of demonstrating a personal connection to the issue, like eg. "As someone with elderly parents, I am appalled at this government's incompetent management of long-term care facilities". It doesn't really do much for me personally: if the guy thinks long-term care is being mismanaged, I'd rather just hear his evidence than his biography, but I guess it works on some people.
For me"patriarchy" is becoming a well worn cliche for feminists to latch on to, every time a white male opens their mouth.
I sympathise with scomo anyway. He has a lot things he has to attend to. And looks like he was kept in the dark on this one until a few days ago.
Good point
More likely Scummo had his head firmly in the sand...
And has it occurred to you that one does not have to be female to be a feminist?
Just sayin’...
I don't think his daughters would be old enough to travel alone. According to an article I found dated October 25 2013, they were 5 and 2 at that time.
Even if the older one is now legally allowed to fly alone, she likely wouldn't be considered a suitable guardian for her sister, and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be able to check into a reputable hotel without their parents.
The story just struck me as amusing because Cruz couldn't just say "I messed up, I'm sorry", he had to tug at everyone's heart-strings by portraying his misstep as flowing from his desire to be a loving parent.
(And while those kinds of schmaltzy non-apologies are hardly specific to any one ideology, how much ya wanna bet Cruz is the kinda guy who likes to bray on about how families need discipline, parents are the boss etc.)
And yet I, despite being a white male, haven't experienced this when I open my mouth. Perhaps it is what you say that is the cause rather than your colour or gender?
I also note the irony of complaining about the policing of language by ... policing language.
Dang muh britches, brings uh tear tuh mah ah. He'll make a farn lyin' d'ublin' down sumbitch' fascist presi-dent.
While the survivor was grateful for the intervention that ended the assault, when she heard the evidence from the witnesses, she was left wondering - rightly, to my mind - why it had taken this particular form of emotional strongarming for a man to realise he needed to help.
(If I'm misremembering the details, I apologise. The facts are accurate enough.)
I don't know if the younger generations are better than mine is at this. I do know that my beloved son is quick to check on, and help, people in public distress, without fear or favour - while I'm much more cautious. I would like to think in an analogous situation to the one I've described above, I'd just stop the car at the first time of asking.
Just to be clear, I don't think there's anything "fascist" about being impressed that a parent tries to make his children happy, much less that it universally correlates to any particular accent. It's just that if you're gonna make an apology for something, you should not try to sneak such sentiments in through the side door for cheap redemption.
When you were younger, did you encounter that form of mateship that holds relationships with your male friends to be more important than your relationship with your girlfriend, like I did? For me, it was very strong when I was a boy and a young man.
I don't want to talk about the PC brigade and all that - that's a short road to a fight. I want to think about my upbringing and the way boys are or were socialised, and how that might lead to my personal blindness to something that my wife and heaps of other women I interact with saw immediately.
I'm not even saying that Scotty from Marketing was wrong, or that the media commentators who criticised him were wrong. I have an idea that all of them are right, but its a proposition I am exploring.
So we must assume at least one other parent/adult is accompanying them, and he didn't just dump them in the lobby before coming home again?
Ted Cruz's daughters are 12 and 10. His wife flew with them to Mexico, and remains there with the children.
There is also the dynamic of such a perspective as Morrison's having the effect of focusing the response on him and his parenting and the glorious epiphany he apparently required - as a father - to come to the conclusion that rape is wrong; rather than about the actual justice of the case, and the real victims involved. When politicians and public figures respond to such cases they should be careful they're not essential guilty of saying 'in answer to your question about this victim's entitlement to justice, let's talk about me and how I came to make my commendable decisions based on the type of human being I am.'
A more useful expression would be 'One doesn't have to be a parent (or brother or child of elderly parents etc) to know how horrific this is. The situation speaks for itself to all reasonable, compassionate people, specifically painful as it must be to the particular family involved in this case.'
The trouble comes when language begins to follow the progression of 'speaking as a parent', moving subtly, if unconsciously to 'speaking for all parents'. It is still the case, I believe, that the chief perpetrators of violence against children are their own parents, guardians and family friends. There can be a world of difference between saying 'I know how I'd feel if this had happened to a child of mine..' and 'speaking as a parent..' Though it may be wiser not to make too much of the phrase, either way, when used.
I think the only times I get exercised about the phrase's use is when it is being used as a kind of one-upmanship.
At least this morning he is admitting he messed up. Anyone want to bet that he will be re-elected in 2024? I doubt he will have a chance at being nominated for president.
This story paints the woman as only being of value because she's related (or could be related) to some man, which is clearly problematic. On the other hand, I can also see Mr. Morrison's actions, as raised by @Simon Toad, as a normal act of empathy, attempting to put himself in someone else's shoes, and it's easier for him to imagine "what would I want to happen if my daughter were raped" than "what would I want to happen if I were 30 years younger, female, and raped". It's easier to encompass the first than the second, because it contains fewer hypotheticals and abstractions.
So I don't think "what if it was my daughter / elderly parent / other loved one in this situation" is a bad tool for a person to use to think about the situation, but I think it's hard to express that in this case without it being too close to "she's only valuable because she's some man's daughter".
Then they can't use that thought to help them empathize? If it's easier for someone to understand a situation by imagining their loved one in it than imagining themselves in it, that's OK. Consider, for example, attitudes to gay rights. We had a situation where lots of straight men couldn't imagine themselves in a gay man's place, because they couldn't get past their personal feelings about gay sex. Once those same men start discovering that they have gay relatives, gay colleagues, and gay friends, then it's not about "imagine you're doing something you can't imagine yourself doing" but "think about Jim and Brian".
Would it be better if those men didn't have to do that? Sure - but that doesn't make it wrong to use whatever tools you have to get there.
Good point. Silence comes first. Amplification comes second, though. But I would follow the lead of the victim(s). And, yes, we must work together to eliminate the culture that fosters rape as much as possible. And that begins with raising one's own children.
Yep, blaming the fiasco on his 10 and 12 year old daughters is pretty lame. I know my kids would have felt used if I had pulled that on them.
I agree. I don't know if boys in 2020 are socialised in the same way as I was back in the 1970's. I don't have kids, so that whole world I just don't see. But I think rape culture starts there, the 'locker room talk', the celebration of sexual conquest, the othering of women by groups of men. I have an idea that children go through a stage of closely identifying with their gender, that its a developmental stage. I just don't know where that fits into the discussion.
Anselmina wrote:
That is a good start. And you are right @Anselmina It is very important that people in the public eye (and I would add especially conservative leaders) get the formulation right. We just have to condense this into a three word slogan for them.
BIB...I don't know why this was even mentioned in evidence. The only relevant evidence is that the witnesses saw the offence being committed and intervened.
Obviously you are one
Scomo is not popular on here I notice. If you have to call him Scotty from marketing.
Possibly the woman mentioned it because she was surprised that the man took some prodding to respond to a person in trouble.
I still fail to see the relevance.
Just for fun, I'm gonna wager that it means "Bringing it back", ie. "Back to the main topic."
If I'm wrong, I'll buy everyone a beer at the next Shipmates' meetup in Korea.
The challenge from Luke 6:32 is always going to be with us. Some of us only want to funnel the love of/from God toward the people we value or society values. The “deserving” poor etc. The ones with whom we choose to identify.
Well in fairness, it's possible that one could notice it, but not automatically assume that's what BIB means. Personally, when I see something bolded, the phrase " bit in bold" is not what comes into my mind.
But thanks for the clarification. So, Hite or OB?
Actually I didn't. I need new glasses, but will have to save up after buying new hearing aids - getting older is expensive, but it's better than the alternative
Also saving for the Korean Shipmeet.
ETA. It’s a sort of rationing. Trickling out love and empathy here and there, wittingly or unwittingly to try to maintain preferred societal structures and restore order (I.e restore the same old thing). Even the labels “brothers” and “sisters” are problematic.
Witnesses are often asked to describe what happened in their own words. They will often use this sort of language to explain why they did what they did. That's rather how people work.
Could you explain what Mr. Mori said? I guess that I missed it in the news or have forgotten it. Thanks.
It isn't wrong, but it's still really hard to hear that just being a human being isn't enough to make another person see you as a human being. It still sends the message that you don't have any inherent value as a person; your value derives only from other people's regard for you, which is optional.
And if you belong to a group that doesn't have a lot of friends and family who are straight white cisgender males, this avenue of being seen as a human being isn't open to you.
Corrected quoting attribution. BroJames, Purgatory Host
Yes it was, but sorted now.
It sucks in a major way. But sometimes that's the best you can get out of certain people. And it's better than having them revert totally to "who the fuck cares about a woman?".
I've tried bringing on racist people, bit by bit, out of their racism, and I've had to grit my teeth at the baby step landing places they landed on. But it's still a tiny bit of progress past where they were. I imagine it must be much the same for misogyny.
I thought thast any words not spoken in the presence of the accused were hearsay.
It's not a magic bullet, though, as men have always been related to women, but have in our society only started treating women as a group as full human beings fairly recently. Some parents still throw their gay teenagers out of the house. All the powerful men passing laws that violate women's right to control their own bodies have female relatives. Plenty of women are involved in passing those laws as well.
Some people when asked, "What if it were your daughter?" will answer, "My daughter knows better than to put herself in that kind of situation."
E.g.
Q. So when you saw the defendant and N what did you decide to do?
A. To be honest I was just going to drive straight on, and said so to my wife. I didn’t want to get involved, but she said to me ‘What if that was your daughter?’, so I stopped the car.
Fair enough but the important evidence is what they saw and what they did. Everything else is of no importance.