Privatisation is a word that has been on everyone’s lips for quite some time now. Remember the Michael Douglas’ character Gordon Gekko in the 1980’s movie ‘Wall Street", and his "greed is good" motto. I want to steer away from these economic issues (which do have real social costs) and discuss a more insidious privatisation that has been overtaking our society.
My point of departure is the recent announcement that the Prime Miniature wants to introduce legislation to bypass the Anti-discrimination Act thus allowing gender specific scholarships to encourage "young" men to take up teaching. We’re told that this is to address the imbalance in teaching staff where women far outnumber men. Both Liberal and Labor have made a big deal about education and the need for boys to have good male role models, something both parties argue is missing from the experience of young people today.
The arguments they put forward are along the lines of "women do a great job, but, hey, they don’t have balls. And all boys need balls". Sorry to be so direct but if you listen to what they are saying we find the ideology of privatisation within the language and words they use. What do I mean by this? We turn here to the notion of family, which is central to the debate.
If our idea of family is the industrial age, nuclear family of mum, dad and two point three children, we must ask where this naturalised ideal came from. The answer is not that hard to work out. It was an ideal family type for the production of industrial age products and the consumption of the same. The family we know as the "traditional family" is not an age old given. It was a construction of both the forces of capital and, in the West, the Christian church. There is nothing natural about it but it does serve some ‘good’ purposes.
These ‘good’ purposes include the sustenance of the productive worker (the man), the provision of sexual favors to him leading to the production of children, of whom the male child would be molded to fit the ‘worker’ expectations while the female children would be molded to fit the carer roles. This arrangement has worked extremely well to ensure the so-called development of the Western world. However, it’s not all negative, as this arrangement has provided some social stability and identity for billions of individuals and has allowed us to enjoy the current privileges we have. However, the roots of this development of family are planted firmly in a male or patriarchal vision of the world.
Under this view power and control are central concerns. The patriarchal ideology – and I call it that because it is something we males fall into without thinking about – has been concerned about the advances made by women and if I can be so bold, other minority groups, and is now fighting back. My litmus test of how well activist groups are doing is to take note of phrases like "I’m not racist but …" or "I’m not against women in the workforce but …" or "Sure women can advance. After all it’s a level playing field". These types of statements and their variants should alert us to the underlying ideology provoking these utterances. A large part of what guides them is the idea of the very role models that Howard, Latham et al believe young men should have. And the best way, as far as these ideologues are concerned, to sustain their world view, is to privatise the process of the social development of children.
This can best be done by establishing conditions that prevent women from advancing, encourage men to compete and to ensure the prevailing media and propaganda images promote both these conditions as natural and normal. I heard a 16 or 17 year old boy say that wanting to become a teacher was viewed as being "sissy" while another said that there were no financial incentives for him to take up this noble art. Where did these two young men get these ideas from? I suggest it was the very same male role models Howard and Latham want to promote and who want to maintain the oppression and repression of women’s human rights. The best way to do this is to make sure that female and male role modeling is done within the controlled, privatised domain of the ‘family’ home. For it is here, in the most ‘scared’ institution (if you believe the ideologues) that children can best be taught the rights and wrongs of the world.
This type of privatisation doesn’t get much of a run on the daily news and even less in the discussions of our so-called leaders. Yet it is one of the driving forces behind the current backlash against women, Indigenous peoples, refugees, the disabled and the poor. The Gordon Gekko creed is alive and well and at its heart is the desire to win at any cost, to ‘annihilate’ to ‘destroy’ and to ‘cower’ any competitor for the scarce resources around us into submission. Under the patriarchal rule of an old man who is, like all of us, aging and losing his faculties and the political system he represents, women can expect more of the same and men who are concerned and engaged in the struggle for human rights, will find themselves called names and have their reputations smeared.
This is a good thing because it demonstrates that there have been advances. That although there is still a long, long way to go, the struggle is being effective. The only danger for us is that we may make a small advance and win a concession that has immediate results and in the process loose sight of the bigger picture. Gordon Gekko was right to some degree, "greed is good" but it has to be greed for the whole not just for immediate personal and private gain. Because if it is we are acting no differently than those who oppress us. We need to adopt the ways of the ‘old’ women who were able to sit and talk and open up and accept compromises and negotiate equitably. While it is idealistic to think there were no power plays in these groups, it is significant to observe the ways they interacted and ‘socialised’ their private travails. The lesson from these tribal women is that we need to talk. We need to take back the privatised airwaves and communications networks and begin to talk, openly and publicly. To attempt to do so is the first step, in my estimation, in overcoming the privatised burdens we are being asked to shoulder at the expense of the greater social good we could contribute to.