Gay men misogynist

In recent years there has been a concerted effort on the part of both the Commonwealth and the state governments in Australia to foster the image of an Australian nation committed to the promotion of fundamental human rights. Human rights legislation is but one means of doing so.

More importantly, I want to ask quite bluntly whether the government honestly believes it can combat the many inequalities that result from systemic gender hierarchies without also combating inequalities based on sexual difference? Given this, I can only assume that Ms Edwardes and her colleagues do take sexual inequality seriously or that they are at least willing to admit that it exists and is unacceptable.

In , June Williams, Western Australia's Commissioner for Equal Opportunity, released a page Report outlining and documenting in some detail the systemic discrimination faced by those who identify or who are identified as non-heterosexual in our society. When I was a baby gay.

You act disgusted at the mention of vaginas. These findings hold important implications for implicit bias and hiring practices. In Western Australia, this recognition has resulted in equal opportunity legislation which outlaws discrimination on the basis of sex, race, religion, political affiliation, marital status, age, disability and impairment.

What has most surprised me, however, is the reluctance on the part those persons who do support the need to protect other societal groups to extend these protections to sexual minorities. To the best of my knowledge, this is a system which even Ms Edwardes and many of her colleagues support.

As long as lesbians and gay men are denied participation in all aspects of public life, real equality will never be achieved. Actress Rose McGowan caused a stir last month when she described gay men as “as misogynistic as straight men, if not more so” and blasted gay men for not standing up more for women's rights.

Heterosexual men higher in homonegativity and gay men higher in misogyny both showed a stronger preference for the masculine-gay actor over the feminine-gay actor. Any attempt to achieve true systemic equality will thus fail in so far as it denies and fails to address the very real consequences of systemic homophobia on lesbians and gay men and on society as a whole.

This study focuses on forms of sexism that overlap with misogyny. If you think all fem guys are unattractive and refuse to see them as more than their femininity, you’re a gay misogynist. Even though McGowan later apologized for generalizing gay men (Hare ), the incident challenged the myth gay men cannot be misogynistic, or more generally sexist.

One month after the release of the Commissioner's Report, then Attorney General Cheryl Edwardes announced that the Western Australian government did not accept the Commission's findings and would not amend the State's human rights legislation. While it is true that not all inequalities can be addressed simultaneously, it is also true that inequalities do not exist in a vacuum.

Since the release of the Williams Report in , much has been written in Western Australia at least in the press outlining why the present state government's refusal to extend basic human rights protections to lesbians and gay men is inexcusable, a violation of international law, an abject failure of leadership, even ludicrous.

It ensures that lesbians and gay men, to the extent that they are perceived as violating those gender norms upon which heterosexual male dominance is based, remain silenced and hence invisible. Noting that "discrimination on the ground of homosexuality in the areas of employment, education, accommodation, and the provision of goods, services and other facilities is widespread" [1] the Report concluded that the Western Australian Equal Opportunity Act should be amended so as to include "sexuality" as a ground of unlawful discrimination.

To a large extent, forced invisibility is what homophobia is about. Again and again, in an attempt to convince others of their need for equality, lesbians and gay men have found themselves having to document hence re-live the hostilities and fears that are a daily feature in the lives of those for whom hatred, violence and some of the most horrific forms of discrimination remain an unchecked reality.

Here, the gay man actively engages in the well-established misogynistic action of reducing a woman’s value merely to her desirability through a male lens. And so I ask, why inaction when it comes to discrimination on the basis of sexuality? As a gay man, I am not too surprised by the level of ignorance shown by many of those who oppose equal rights protections for lesbians and gay men.

This is perhaps best reflected in the now pervasive acceptance that our governments have an obligation to implement anti-discrimination measures aimed at protecting those individuals and groups historically and presently affected by both blatant and insidious forms of discrimination.

Discrimination does not exist in a vacuum. There is an assumption that because gay men aren’t sexually attracted to women, they are much less likely to be sexist or misogynistic.* Yolo Aliki’s article here at GMP shows that assumption. The article concludes with a discussion of the ways in which gay male misogyny reinforces white male dominance over women and queer femininities specifically, advocating for resistance to the reproduction of such patriarchal arrangements.

To implement equality initiatives without first understanding what gender stereotypes do, who they harm and who they benefit, however, is to implement an equality agenda that is at best politically myopic and at worst responsible for encouraging those discriminatory harms that make homophobia and sex discrimination the oppressive and interconnected constructs that they are and always will be - unless they are challenged simultaneously.

If, for example, the government is truly committed, as it must be, to eradicating sex discrimination, then a concerted effort must be made to eliminate the many barriers that presently impede gender equality. That is, to the best of my knowledge, I have never read any statements by Ms Edwardes or her colleagues indicating that sex discrimination for example does not exist or need to be addressed.

Any effort to address societal discrimination must recognise that the lesbian and gay community, as a minority community long denied full participation, also suffers disproportionately from systemic and direct discrimination, and that eliminating those barriers central to the maintenance of the homophobic reality in which lesbians and gay men live and work is also in the best interests of society as a whole.

Indeed, Ms Edwardes and her government have made it quite clear that they are at least publicly willing to commit their support to programmes aimed at eliminating domestic abuse, sexual assault, sexual harassment and the many other systemic harms which are central to women's inequality.

All too often, life experience has taught me that the wrath of the homophobe, the sexist and the racist is to be expected, as some will remain socially regressive regardless of the level of public disapproval for their expressions of hatred. It is my purpose in writing this paper to argue that it cannot.

Misogyny is defined as a hatred of women, whereas sexism is discrimination based on sex ().