There was a post on Facebook about women being expected to have sex with men to get on in life. I commented that "many men would 100% sleep their way to the top if they could, but it's not an option generally available to men". It was meant to be a quip but as usual it was not taken lightly. As always, me being me, I try to think of male equivalents and a moment's thought made it obvious that men also have to jump through some hoops to get ahead - the main one being violence. Men often have to accept that they could be seriously injured or killed at work.
Accidents at work are much higher among men than women (ONS). Some of it is part of the job but a lot is about taking unnecessary risks to prove yourself man enough. Roofing, scaffolding, tree-work, road work and working around heavy machinery are common examples. Some is just filthy degrading work with garbage or sewage. Men work in mines and on the trawlers, and of course they go to war. Accepting this inevitably leads to a certain hardness which can easily lead to cruelty. Women are not expected to put up with any of this. My dad worked at the Shoreham B power station in the 70s and was expected to crawl around in the still hot turbines breathing coal-dust, asbestos, heavy metals and random hydrocarbons. He died at 60 of a tumour in his brain stem.
Being a soft lad, I largely avoided hard manual labour. I mostly did care work when I was a young man which was less well-paid but also less terrifying. My worst experience was when I was about 21 working for a landscaper in the Sussex countryside. I had a place at Askham Bryan agricultural college conditional on me getting a year's work experience in horticulture. Landscaping is not like gardening - it's all concrete and power-tools. Plants are generally an after-thought. It was a hot summer day - we were cutting a field hedge off the back of a farm trailer with hand-held hedge-cutters. It was sweaty and crippling and dangerous. The boss wouldn't let me work in shorts and tee-shirt - I had to wear the company overalls - to look professional and I was sweating profusely and no water was available. I didn't normally get hay-fever, but I was sneezing uncontrollably, and my nose was bleeding all over my face. I kept having to stop to mop up. Later he got so angry with me he dragged me out of the van by my hair. It was unacceptable behaviour of course but I was young and felt it was my fault so didn't tell anyone. This was what I had to do to get on at work. As it was I left the firm and didn't go to college. Probably it was a lucky escape given that college's reputation.
Women will say this is not the same of course - because for women the 'hoops' are sexual - ie. dirty and shameful, which they claim is worse. I spoke to one woman who told me being raped is worse than being killed - literally 'a fate worse than death' - but I'm pretty sure most women would submit to sexual assault if threatened with violence. Those women are very clear about which is worse. UK crime stats (ONS) show that men are as likely to be the victims of male violence and twice as likely to be murdered as women. I understand this is true throughout the western world.
I was listening to interviews with victims of Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed on BBC Radio 4 recently. Their experiences sounded miserable to be sure but all of them said that they submitted because they wanted to keep their jobs. They'd made their choice - if they wanted to work at Harrods, or other high-end London retail outlets, submitting to Al-Fayed was the price they had to pay. That was what they had to do to get what they wanted so they did it.
It's not a good choice I agree - the whole capitalist edifice is based on poor people having to submit to scary degrading treatment by more powerful people if they want to get on - but that's true of men and women. The women's price is perhaps more psychological - shame and humiliation - than the men's but one mustn't underestimate the trauma involved in being victimised by hard men, or the terror of a life-threatening injury. The only difference is that traditionally, we take crimes against women more seriously than those against men. That's just how it is - it's deep in the culture. Sexual and domestic violence are taken more seriously because they tend to be the crimes women are victims of. Being killed or maimed by some stranger in a public place - which is what usually happens to men - just isn't that important. Plus men talk about it less than women - we keep it to ourselves and we certainly don't ask for help.
