Thursday, August 6, 2009

Responding

On the front page of Tuesday August 4th's 2009 Canberra Times there is an article claiming that a video was made of a teenage girl being sexually assaulted by three male teenagers. Afterwards the girl claims that she received phone calls and text messages from others taunting her about seeing a video of the assault.

In 2007 I remember a teenage school boy running across 3 empty traffic lanes, right up to the rear of my car screaming out 'whore' towards me. This boy's face was full of anger and accusation directed at someone he knew nothing about.

So in a society where anger and violence are acceptable ways of dealing with "interpersonal (school massacres) and international (bombing other peoples) issues"(1), where "images of violence and 'pimping and ho'ing '(whoring) are popularized by those who profit from them"(2) and where even children are sexualised through advertising and 'sexy' clothing styles(3) should we respond?

"For all is like an ocean, all is flowing and blending; a touch in one place sets up movement at the other end of the earth."(4)

I have been reading a book entitled 'Conversations about Culture, Gender, Violence and Narrative Practice' (CCGVNP) which contains stories of women from different cultures who are responding to the violence within their communities. The violence is most often perpetrated by men.

The acceptance that violence and abuse are masculine models of expression destroys not only the lives of women and children but also withers up the dreams of boys and men.

In 'Raising Boys' Steve Biddulph talks about how inquisitive, loving and considerate boys slowly shut down "useful and healthy emotions like sadness, fear and tenderness" in order to cope in the schoolyard. "A boy hardens his feelings and tenses his body"(5).

In an interview with Bert (CCGVNP), who is in a program for domestic violence, he says
"I find that the need to be more dominant than somebody else is something I see ingrained in most men...My dad was (like that) and the way I look at it now, I can see now how he put that on me... how I learnt this from him.. and he probably learnt it from somebody else.."(6)

Also in CCGVNP there are copies of correspondence between two Islamic youths, one in Australia and one in Canada, and how these young men are trying to deal with racist, religious and personal taunts from other school students. These incidents are angering them and encouraging them to act in violent ways of which they are later ashamed. "Instead of talking about it I would just take the anger out on my mum."(7)

In one account from CCGVNP a young black man in North America"would talk about having seen friends die on the street. He would sit and look out the window rather than at (the counsellor) and we would hear the sound of the street while he would say,'It's like a war out there'...the metaphor of war seemed quite realistic as the prevalence of violent deaths of young men in North America is staggering. At the same time ...he would speak of the times of his childhood when he had spent days in the woods at his grandmother's place. These quite times, alone in the woods, were described with such longing."(8)

These young men are looking to change the roles society has cast them in.

Trudinger's paper on 'Young men, angry language and the language of anger' tells the story of Steve. Who is also trying to change from his past.
"Steve talked about an argument he had had only the night before with his mother, about what they would watch on television. He said some pretty inappropriate and hurtful things, but just before he thought he might become physically violent, he went to his room to 'chill-out'. He later approached his mother and said 'sorry'."
Saying sorry "turned out to mean a great deal: in times past, he would have expected to intimidate his mother to leave the room,...choosing to leave the room himself was a big step. Steve said it meant that he didn't want to subject his mother to anymore verbal abuse...he was showing to himself and his mum that he could control his anger, take responsibility for his actions and 'help things get better, not worse'. His apology, he said,'was real', and 'took a lot of guts'."(9)

Bert- "Before, I thought (the alpha male mentality) was just part of what men do...But if I realize this is just an idea, a powerful idea, ingrained on me by someone else...well that's different...To be a different sort of man is not weakness."(10)

Social behaviours are learned by modeling the behaviours of others. Watching role models we admire allows our brains to take on skills, attitudes and values that we can use ourselves(11). Fathers, uncles and older male friends who introduce boys to sports, hobbies and music or "involve them in creative work in a shed or garden"(12) are giving boys opportunities to broaden their self-image, especially through praise.
Boys without these influences can adopt hobbies which make them feel masculine like "action figures with huge muscles, guns, trucks and so on."(13) and they may also adopt tough and uncaring attitudes.

By watching men express emotions like sadness, fear and love boys will also learn that these emotions are acceptable and expressible for a man (14). "So they do not have to be bottled up and volcanic when (they meet) the inevitable griefs of life."(15)

Biddulph states that anger though is usually the most comfortable emotion for men(16). Anger however is an emotion that is used to cover up other emotions such as fear, humiliation, hurt, disappointment etc. and it is almost invariably directed at someone else (17). Womens experience of men's expression of anger "can intimidate and silence"(18).

The book CCGVNP talks about using communities as a resource for responding to violence. The Indigenous Women's Patrols of Yirrkala and Gunyangara use kindness and humour when dealing with violent situations 'We always approach people with kindness, even if they are acting badly...We respect them and in turn this means that they respect us"(19) These women combine family, key community members and culture to resolve issues of violence.

The Creative Interventions project in Oaklands California also incorporates the intimate family and community networks which already exist to deal with domestic violence. An example they give is "I remember that my cousin and his friends helped this girl who was being beaten up by her dad. They went to his house and told him that they knew what was happening and he'd better not do it again."(20) These stories strengthen community based interventions.



(1)Akamatsu N 2007 A question about how violence becomes normalised in Conversations about Culture, Gender, Violence and Narrative Practice Yeun A & White C ed. Dulwich Centre Publications p. 120
(2)Berndt L 2007 On meeting Dawn in CCGVNP 'as above' p.93
(3)Biddulph S 2003 Raising Boys Finch Publishing Sydney p.119
(4)Dostoyevsky F 1952 The Brothers Karamazov Brittanica Chicago p.168
(5)Biddulph S 'as above' p.118
(6)Gray N 2007 Responding to men's violence in CCGVNP 'as above' p.142,143
(7)Yuen A 2007 Young men and violence in CCGVNP p.187
(8)Gray N 2007 ibid. p.147
(9)Trudinger M 200 Young men, angry language and the language of anger Gecko no.3 Dulwich Centre Publications p.47,48
(10)Gray N 2007 ibid. p.143
(11)Biddulph S 2003 'as above' p.147
(12)ibid. p.143
(13)ibid. p.143
(14)ibid.p.68
(15)ibid.p.69 A letter from Tony S.
(16)ibid. p.69
(17)Gordon T 2000 Parent Effectiveness Training Three Rivers Press New York p.143
(18)Trudinger 'as above' p.36
(19)Mununggirritj D & Yunupingu M 2007 The work of the community patrol in CCGVNP p.58
(20)Kim M 2007 Alternative interventions to violence in CCGVNP p.38