As more stories emerge about what goes on in university residential colleges, we are faced with facts about toxic masculinity that have been known personally by many people but rarely spoken about aloud in public. Another aspect of the same malaise that infects the culture is the kind of violence that led to the lockout laws that so many young people still complain about, which have turned Kings Cross into a haven for baby boomers where once it was a popular resort for young people intent on “having fun”.
In a story in Domain on the weekend, we learn that the southern end of the shopping centre in the Cross, which had been full of strip clubs and drinking establishments, both of which were designed for use by young men, has changed in the four years that the lockout laws have been in place. There are more eateries now, and less of the types of places people go to when they want to "have fun".
These stories sum up feelings I have when, a rare occasion, I happen to go out late at night on a weekend. I was down in the casino's food court and it was about eleven o'clock at night on the Sunday before the Labour Day public holiday. I was buying something to eat and needed to use the lavatory. But most of the stalls were filthy. In one the seat had been saturated with urine. One was full of toilet paper that wouldn't flush away. One was covered in dark-red vomit. I eventually found one that was clean and used it. When I exited the stall I saw a cleaner with a mop coming into the room. He had evidently been called on to do something to clean up the mess made by people "having fun".
But earlier in the day I had been exposed to another aspect of toxic Australian masculinity. At Central Station in the middle of the afternoon as I was going up the escalators with a friend, a casually-dressed young man stopped the flow of people walking up on the right-hand side of the machine. He was standing near us and then from further down in the queue of people could be heard a big, male voice calling out loudly, “Go the chooks!” Everyone was suddenly on alert at this display of raw physicality, and most of the people around us there were unhappy as a result. You could have cut the air with a knife. My friend, who is a woman, got fed up with the display and edged past the young man standing on the escalator, heading up to the street level. I followed her. From below as we went up the same man who had called out earlier shouted “Dropkicks!” in an effort to shame us for our lack of appreciation for the brilliance of the Eastern Suburbs Rugby League team. At the next set of escalators, near the grand Concourse, two more fans were walking with their mates. They were dressed in a shirt with the team’s familiar red, white and blue: the colours of the nation’s flag.
We know that domestic violence complaints are more frequent at grand final time because of the toxic mixture of alcohol and the kinds of emotions that are inspired in men by spectator sports. But this kind of behaviour is everywhere encouraged. On bus stops at the moment there is an ad for a brand of rum, that takes its name from a town in Queensland, which displays a famous photo of two rugby league players, a short man and a very tall man, who are covered in mud after playing a game in wet weather. The word that is associated with both the photo and the beverage is “mateship”, as though both of the things being shown in the poster – the drink and the football players – are emblematic of something central to the culture. This kind of license to behave badly is all around us and we need to crack down on it if we want to change the toxic male culture that we inhabit.
In a story in Domain on the weekend, we learn that the southern end of the shopping centre in the Cross, which had been full of strip clubs and drinking establishments, both of which were designed for use by young men, has changed in the four years that the lockout laws have been in place. There are more eateries now, and less of the types of places people go to when they want to "have fun".
These stories sum up feelings I have when, a rare occasion, I happen to go out late at night on a weekend. I was down in the casino's food court and it was about eleven o'clock at night on the Sunday before the Labour Day public holiday. I was buying something to eat and needed to use the lavatory. But most of the stalls were filthy. In one the seat had been saturated with urine. One was full of toilet paper that wouldn't flush away. One was covered in dark-red vomit. I eventually found one that was clean and used it. When I exited the stall I saw a cleaner with a mop coming into the room. He had evidently been called on to do something to clean up the mess made by people "having fun".
But earlier in the day I had been exposed to another aspect of toxic Australian masculinity. At Central Station in the middle of the afternoon as I was going up the escalators with a friend, a casually-dressed young man stopped the flow of people walking up on the right-hand side of the machine. He was standing near us and then from further down in the queue of people could be heard a big, male voice calling out loudly, “Go the chooks!” Everyone was suddenly on alert at this display of raw physicality, and most of the people around us there were unhappy as a result. You could have cut the air with a knife. My friend, who is a woman, got fed up with the display and edged past the young man standing on the escalator, heading up to the street level. I followed her. From below as we went up the same man who had called out earlier shouted “Dropkicks!” in an effort to shame us for our lack of appreciation for the brilliance of the Eastern Suburbs Rugby League team. At the next set of escalators, near the grand Concourse, two more fans were walking with their mates. They were dressed in a shirt with the team’s familiar red, white and blue: the colours of the nation’s flag.
We know that domestic violence complaints are more frequent at grand final time because of the toxic mixture of alcohol and the kinds of emotions that are inspired in men by spectator sports. But this kind of behaviour is everywhere encouraged. On bus stops at the moment there is an ad for a brand of rum, that takes its name from a town in Queensland, which displays a famous photo of two rugby league players, a short man and a very tall man, who are covered in mud after playing a game in wet weather. The word that is associated with both the photo and the beverage is “mateship”, as though both of the things being shown in the poster – the drink and the football players – are emblematic of something central to the culture. This kind of license to behave badly is all around us and we need to crack down on it if we want to change the toxic male culture that we inhabit.
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