Confessions of a libra

Big boys do cry | Credit: Here

05.06.25

Tiktok sent me down a rabbit hole and I’m ashamed I ever doubted its cultural impact. A doctor explained the results of this longitudinal study about men done in Australia. A longitudinal study tracks research participants over years to track patterns. They tracked men aged 18-57 – a total of 26, 000 participants over more than a decade – and found 35% of the men said they were emotionally and/or physically violent with their intimate partner. Here is the link to the Guardian article detailing the study. When broken down further to just the physical violence alone, it was 1 in 10 men who admitted to physical violence with their partner. That number is still insanely high, though not shocking to hear for the womenfolk. Those numbers validate something we women know to be true in our bones. Some of us are reading this and feeling numb from resignation.

I will follow this trail through an intersectional lens by exploring; race, colonisation, gender, language, class and bias. I’ve often thought for years that many issues in Australian society can be traced back to its convict beginnings. Australia’s began on such violent terms. With the population made up largely of criminals, the men who managed those criminals and a few wealthy people in search of an adventure. The Brits had no idea what was in store coming to a land as formidable as this. Trying to impose European farming methods, schedules and architecture on this land which runs on its own rhythm. The struggle to actually settle into the environment they so badly wanted to conquer, bred more violence and discontentment among the convicts. Bear with me while I weave a few historical ideas but I promise it all ties in together at the end.

With everything we know about epigenetics, have we considered the epigenetic information that would stem from an island being occupied with the more risk-taking, criminally minded, competitive members of society? The men from this era of British history had traits that are still prevalent in Australian society today; dominant personalities, stoicism, alcoholism and masking of pain to survive the dog eat dog world. Alcohol was already a problem for the Brits prior to their invasion. During the eras of the 1600’s and 1800’s clean drinking water was scarce, especially in bustling cities. Sewage systems were primitive if existent at all which led to a rise in diluted beer and ale being sold as a safer alternative to drinking water. If you have ever been a true crime girly, this information comes up as its considered to be relevant to that time period.

In short, the Brits brought with them an unhealth attitude to alcohol themselves. In early convict culture, soldiers were paid in Rum. In the early 1800’s even punishments from the police could be negotiated with rum. The New South Wales Corps were nicknamed the Rum Corps due to its grip on the rum trade. While the newly minted White Australians were settling in, it was decided early on to use alcohol to control the Indigenous population. Indigenous people were plied with unfamiliar alcohol through very insidious and ritualistic forcing of lowering inhabitations. The relationship between the settlers and the First Nations people began on uneven ground, and had all the makings of an abusive relationship.

It’s fascinating to realise the modern Australian accent really grew in the last few decades exponentially, especially with the rise in immigration. Some linguists believe that at least in part, that the Australian cadence and enunciation could have arisen due to slurred speech from the rampant alcoholism. It would explain the nasal tone and the way we barely annunciate. Either way, Australia’s drinking culture is still prevalent now. We accept Aussie men to be this blokey-blokes who go to work, make their money then go blow off steam at the pub to get away from the Missus for a second. Alcohol consumption can be so normalised, I would not be surprised if many Australian men (and women) don’t realise that the frequency with which they consume their alcohol would suggest alcoholism. When the culture normalises bingeing and alcohol as a form of decompression, you get some of the cultural issues we have in the present day.

We go back to history again to unearth an archetype in Australian masculinity. Australia’s beginnings as a penal colony birthed a reverence for anti-establishment, outcasted men. Hence why in Australia, bushrangers are looked upon with as national heros. For those outside of Australia, a bushranger is an outlaw who uses robbery as a way of life. These men have become idols to the modern Australian men validating brutish behaviours as noble, roughness as symbol of Australian masculinity, rebellion in the face of the systemic problems and all the while never critiquing the actual systems that encouraged this behaviour in the first place. Yet, even in the way we talk about bushrangers, shows that the modern White Australian is taught to view Australian-ness from a purely White lens. That is why for most people hearing ‘Australian’ conjures up purely images of White people. This is foreign to me as an African Australian.

Credit: Here

John Caesar or “Black” Caesar was considered Australia’s first bushranger. This moment is important for me because I remember looking into him for a project in Year 8. I always said if I got a platform, I would bring this man back into Australian consciousness. He was a man of African descent but his exact parentage was unknown though theorised to either have roots in the West Indies or Madagascar. He lived as a servant in Deptford England back in 1786. He was charged with theft and transported to Australia for 7 years. He arrived with the First Fleet and was affectionately known as ‘Black Caesar”, a known hard worker and labourer.

He was tried again once in Sydney and was sentenced to life the second go around. Within a fortnight he had stolen some arms and escaped into the bush. He survived by robbing settlers and Indigenous people alike but after being speared by a local Indigenous man he returned only to be sent to work on Norfolk Island where he fathered a child with an Englishwoman. His life and story is super interesting when you consider all the racial and political considerations at the time. Many more bushrangers are known to be of Irish descent, but I always find it interesting the way history is reported by the “victors”. There is active erasure that is perpetuated to cement narratives born of colonial eras. This is why nationalism that separates people based on their race is unproductive for Australia’s future. It wasn’t even Australia’s past.

Credit: Here

Modern Australian culture that values the larrikin, only revers it when it comes in convenient packaging and ancestry. For while we learn about people like Ned Kelly, we don’t hear enough about people like Tunnerminnerwait. A well-spoken Indigenous man born and raised in Tasmania from 1812. He was born to the Parperloihener clan of Tasmania and his name means “waterbird”. At 11 he witnessed a massacre wherein white Australian troops fired upon unarmed civilians, mostly women and children. He later worked for a civil servant until he himself became the Chief Protector of Aborigines.

He was brought to Victoria to help civilise the “Victorian Blacks”. While there, he began collecting evidence of frontier violence and unearthed a massacre of Gunditjmara clan members by whale hunters, anywhere up to 200 people were killed. In September 1841, Tunnerminnerwait and 4 other people waged resistance against the British settlement in Port Philip. They stole their arms, they robbed stations from Dandenong to South Gippsland districts in Victoria. They were only captured after three military expeditions to track them, a mark of their cunning and fortitude.

Through Tunnerminnerwait, I am illustrating how Australian culture only values law-breaking larrakin archetype when he is dressed in more acceptable parentage and history. We prop up so many white men and choose to empathise with their disgruntlement, but we cannot “advance Australia fair” as stated in our national anthem, without looking at Australianness from a more holistic perspective. Failure to humanise and platform Indigenous voices as a priority is simply lazy and comfortable. You cannot claim to be anti-racist yet enjoy the umbrella that only listening to white perspectives gives you. A part of why some people struggle with empathy is because they are actively shutting out the voices that would crack their beautiful illusions. Indigenous Australians should be at the centre of every conversation surrounding what can make Australia strong and fair.

In the early days Indigenous Australians weren’t the aggressors. They were simply responding appropriately to displacement and entitlement from white settlers. They were met with warfare that they never sought out, displacement from land and kin (the stolen generation goes way back) just so now we can tell them to get over it because Centrelink exists. This is incredibly gaslighting behaviour, and were this level of systemic violence perpetrated on Europeans, we would have several days annually to celebrate with a monarch’s blessing on top. Indigenous Australians preserving their culture should never be seen as an affront to Australian way of life, as Indigenous way of life should be the Australian way of life. First Nations people are often mischaracterised as having needed settlement for advancement, while erasing the advancement that White people simply chose to right off without research.

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Here is a checkpoint; we have discussed convict beginnings, the larrikin archetype of Australian masculinity, the erasure of black bodies in the psyche of Australian culture and the glorification of white logic and masculinity over older, ancestral knowing. Let’s tie this back to modern male Australian culture. With all this groundwork, we have a nation of blokes who epigenetically believe in their right to fight.

Australian men have rejected emotional intimacy, in favour of shallowness that doesn’t bruise the ego. So when they go home and the Missus thinks she has an opinion about how the household should be run, that’s a losing battle. Boys will be boys, and that includes a culture of men suppressing their true feelings and emotions. Let’s press our complexity together with enough pressure to create a hostile inner world that is easily grated by defiance. This can be seen when you’re out driving, the amount of road rage that some men in this country have just begs the question – why exactly aren’t you going to therapy?

I’ve often scoffed at men saying they just enjoy their friendships the way they are. I have dated White Australian men and have the benefit of my African roots to be able to dissect them from a different lens. In the study we cited at the beginning, it was found that men having affectionate relationships with their fathers made them at least 48% less likely to commit intimate partner violence. Well from my casual sociological observations, a lot of Australian men I have been around – friends or lovers – have emotionally constipated relationships with their father. If they are lucky the father is physically present and somewhat emotionally present but not necessarily emotionally available. The type to handle anything if you ask, will pay your way, but god forbid they go out of their way to think about your mental state without prompting.

In most relationships I have had with men, they have had humongous father wounds. A lot of Australian men I have orbited were scared of their father. They resented the iron fist but I could see them never being brave enough to confront their shadows and then perpetuating the behaviours. Sometimes toxic cycles don’t start because everyone’s piece of shit. Sometimes it’s just feeling ill-equipped to navigate learning a new pathway. I wish I could tell so many men to their face that it’s not weak for you to want therapy. It’s also not weak for you to cry. It’s also not weak for you to want your homie to remember your birthday or to be able to drop into existentialism while playing a video game, instead of performing masculinity. Instead of joining in and calling women “bitches” and “nags”. So many Australian men I have witnessed turn on “cooler” versions of themselves in front of the boys, because the boys can’t know you love the Missus, that would be gay!

When women share their domestic violence experiences there is a culture of defensiveness and minimising threats. If you actually listen to real Australian women you will know that from the cops to the general public, it is not easy to navigate being a victim. Something society should protect, especially in a society where it is supposedly “not all men”. Worse still – and this is not exclusive to Australia – police officers are known to have really high rates of perpetuating domestic violence themselves.

So in a culture where we don’t like to talk about things that are too deep, in favour of just chilling and drinking alcohol – we are creating social problems then closing our eyes and refusing to fix them. As a Black woman my death by an Australian man is much less protected. Oh, you know Black women are strong they don’t need anyone. Likely the perpetrator would be deemed as mentally ill and given a reduced sentence. I’ve never understood how it is that White criminals can be mentally ill and that’s valid (and happens pretty often) and yet I’ve hardly seen anyone support the mental health of Black criminals. “But sir, he is originally from a war torn country” that would actually be insanely valid defense, but that would confront our cognitive dissonance.

I reject the premise that men are inherently violent. But I have long-thought the root to many men’s problems worldwide is deep, earth-shattering insecurity. It is why I believe patriarchy was started in the first place. Men became insecure because women had their rituals, their community, they worshipped Goddesses, they were in tune with the moon and they were bringing life into this world. There is no greater measure of life than one’s ability to birth it.

Men went, okay so what are we good for, then? When we choose to define manhood by very rigid bounds; stoicism, provider and inherent value – we are essentially creating a box. In my opinion, most people don’t thrive in box. They twist, and turn and contort themselves while allowing the pressure to build. The pressure builds and you get road rage or a woman being punched in her face. If we are to bring logic into it, women in Australia are dying at the hands of men they should trust – so men need to hold each other accountable and go to therapy.

Your problems will not be solved by clinging to false supremacy. You know that if we removed all the women from your life, your existence would be much bleaker. The colours wouldn’t be as vibrant. No one would hold you in moments of vulnerability. No one would think to prepare a homecooked meal for you, if those women left never to return. Men are and have always been useful to society. When you cling to patriarchy, religion and colonialist thinking you are choosing to enclose yourself in a tight suffocating box. Then you are confused by women, who have simply evolved their way of thinking. Evolving is natural. Your refusal to meet new information and integrate it safely is dangerous to us all.

Australian culture needs to upgrade, but not because we are shirking our past but rather embracing it. Instead of pretending we live in a post-racial utopia, or that it’s normal that 14 women have died since the 1st of January, let’s just air out the dirty laundry so we can try and get to an understanding. That would truly be giving ourselves a ‘fair go’. May the good men that read this raise hell by artfully changing their relationships with themselves and their friends. Actively encourage growth and discourage stagnancy. More bros need therapy, or doing fun creative hobbies as a group that don’t involve gaming and nudity. Australia is young enough to set a strong precedent for progressiveness. I live in one of the most liveable cities in the world and feel fortunate for the multiculturalism here. It doesn’t detract from the Australian spirit. May my words bypass the ego and lodge straight into the subconscious, as a vehicle for change.