“A men’s committee? Is it possible? Honestly. Here, over 14 ladies have been killed by men this year alone, have we also set up a committee for men? To make them feel better? For men to become more equal? I know I’m being provoked.
Are men afraid to go home in the evening?
Need men to fear his partner?
His father?
His grandfather?
Who is it who is in prison? Is it the women? No.
A little over five percent of those in prison are women. Five percent. Here, men have ruled over women’s bodies and souls for millennia, and there are five minutes of equality, and then you have to set up a whole selection to make it more comfortable to be a man.
It was boiling inside in me on Thursday afternoon after the men’s committee had presented its report. I had neither seen the presentation nor read the report, but that didn’t stop me from being pissed off. Just the word men’s selection provoked me.
Men’s selection. Taste the word. It went black before my eyes, and in the black I imagined Mannegruppa Ottar marching behind Andrew Tate with the report in their big, powerful fists raised to the sky as they sang the chorus of “Blurred Lines” in unison.
My roommate was provoked by what he thought was an inappropriate rant.
“You can’t possibly have put yourself into this. This is a good thing.”
And I hate for obvious reasons to say so. But he. My roommate. A man. He was right. Just this time. Because when I got out of the blood fog, got a resting heart rate and something close to an inner voice, I started to look at what this selection was really for.
“We have the world best men”, said Culture and Equality Minister Lubna Jaffery when she received the report from the committee, led by Claus Moxnes Jervell, on Thursday. She repeated the same during “Dagsnytt 18” later in the evening. The 35 recommended measures from the report were unanimously applauded during the broadcast. Even Fpu leader Simen Velle struggled to cough up arguments that this was not a good thing.
“I thought, when this report was to be presented, that I should come here and be critical, but I am actually quite positive”, he acknowledged. And I agree with him.
Equality is namely a word that is almost impossible to get mad at.
I have a son and the most important job of my life is to make sure that he has a good life. It is a kind of contract, written in your own blood, that you enter into with yourself when you carry a human being inside your body for nine months. I believe this report can be an important part of being able to fulfill my parts of that contract.
At school hopefully I he is included and makes friends. That he knows a sense of mastery both academically and socially. That he shouldn’t have to feel that he has to be better in the gym than KRLE and that he has to fight to be respected by the boys’ gang, tough it out to be liked by the girls or sing “tonight it’s allowed to be a whore” on the Russian bus for to be allowed to participate in rolling.
Should my son struggling with something, either physically or psychologically, I want society to give him the help he needs without fussing, without being ashamed or being asked to “man up”. That he should not feel alienation and loneliness, inadequacy or pain. Neither young nor old.
In 2022, 610 chose people to take their own lives. 436 of these were men. When he grows up, I hope it is in a society where the numbers are considerably lower. That not feeling good about oneself is taken seriously and is recognized on an equal footing with other disorders. Regardless of gender, but that the help is adapted to the needs that are there – and that you look seriously at the pitch-dark figures we have in this country.
Same day as this report was submitted while watching the last episode of the Netflix series “Baby Reindeer”. The most watched series on the streaming service right now. Comedian Richard Gadd’s autobiographical story exemplifies the importance of this report. On the surface, this series is about a man who has his whole life turned upside down by a poor woman, but it’s also about other and more horrific forms of abuse. Performed by a man.
Gadd’s “character” Donny Dunn’s psyche is torn to shreds due to self-hatred after pain inflicted on him by others. And he keeps everything to himself. He walks around alone and carries a lot of pain, because it is so shameful.
And it is too his experience of not living up to the male ideal which contributes to weakening his psyche. This eternal pursuit of acceptance from other men and boys.
Exactly this shows how men, probably to a greater extent than women, have less leeway to show different sides of themselves and gain acceptance for it.
It’s about to expand the meaning of the word man and build a society where you stop saying things like “let men be men” and make the word man so unattainable that men walk around with a feeling of not being able to say that they are just that – a man .
My blood mist has for the time being, and I acknowledge that I am kicking myself in the face by trivializing this report. It is very easy to make fun of all these commissions, reports and committees, but what is the alternative? That we should not take the problems faced by both large groups and individuals seriously? What kind of society are we then?
If men’s mental health is taken care of, perhaps men will not kill their partner after a break-up, a spotlight on the prostate may possibly make it easier for women to live with endometriosis and fathers will have more statutory rights of care, perhaps there will be an end to employers trying to pay the fathers out of cardboard binder.
An extended I hope and believe that the concept of equality will contribute to a better society for both women and men.
So independent of what comes into effect from this report, how many funds are used to implement these measures, it is a reminder that something must be done.
Of all.
