MANKIND: Deconstructing Masculinity

After the night's host had acknowledged the traditional owners of the land, Aussie hop MC Ozi Batler (Shannon Kennedy) performed a hip hop/rap a cappella. He spoke of his own personal experiences as a new father and a full-time dad, questioning which particular values (he was brought up with) to instil in his son, and which to ignore. 

Performance artist/photographer Eric Bridgeman brought up the increasing sexualisation of men in Australia (football players in particular) and a previous art project in which he painted the faces of well known football players onto the naked bodies of once famous porn stars. Bridgeman identified the different concepts of masculinity by referring to men in Papua New Guinea, including his cousin, who at 15 years of age was building his first hut and already searching for a wife.

Dr Michael Salter from Western Sydney University made a direct link between the nation's love of contact/combat sport with increasingly high levels of domestic violence. He made a note of the expectation of violence and aggression of boys from a young age, and how this follows through well into adulthood — that society expects men to enjoy being violent and aggressive in sport and on the field, but not at home. Dr Salter also mentioned that society does not value non-violence in men, really we don't value it at all — which is one of the reasons cared work pays so little.

Singer/actor/performer Paul Capsis spoke of the first time he performed in drag — he found the experience liberating, and then restricting. When he was growing up he noticed that in social settings men were violent, aggressive and loud or they were often quiet and rarely spoke.  

The following discussion brought up even more thought-provoking men's issues, on how rates of men's suicide are four times higher than women, and this reaches to six times in seniors — though women have twice the rate of depression, three times that of anxiety and are far more likely to self-harm. It also discussed the alarming rates of domestic violence (an average of one woman a week dies as a result), how men are still the primary victims of male violence and how this drastically needs to change as we begin to appreciate the power of non-violence in society.