[Un]reasonably outraged by Boys’ Club mentality in 2024

In the year 2000, two Silicon Valley engineers launched Hot or Not to rate a female’s attractiveness. Four years later, Facebook threw itself into the ring based on this same premise. It would be easy to say these initiatives reflected the deeply misogynistic world at the time, but it has continued 20 years on.

Statement from the Knox Football Club—makes me wonder where the President and Committee were on game day if they only learned about the incident from others…

Just last month there was the Yarra Valley Grammar debacle where male students shared a spreadsheet rating fellow female students into different categories. Most horrifically: “unrapable”. Then the Knox Football Club where adult men lined the oval as female players ran out to play, rating the women as they entered (and tried to trip the opposing team, um WHAT?!).

Sadly this is not unusual for organisations that are male-heavy: often sporting clubs and certain schools with elitist mentalities. Perhaps they are referred to as “Boys’ Clubs” because they are populated with too many immature, regressive, emotionally unintelligent men who behave like boys. It’s a cultural issue and it’s time to grow the f-ck up.

Last week, after playing a football match for a senior club, a 20-year-old was offered a beer by an older player. A nice gesture which he politely declined because he is still on a probationary licence. The guy bought him the beer anyway. When the young man didn’t drink it, he was fined—in a “good-natured” way. Players are fined for misdemeanours as an amusing team-bonding exercise and the funds go towards an end of year celebration (piss-up). I’m OK with fines being related to the game itself. You gave away a 50-metre penalty? Sure, fine the player. You were late to training? Pay your $10. But if you cannot legally drink a beer then drive, and you choose to abide by that law as a responsible young adult, you are penalised?

As much as this 20-year-old tried to convince me it was “all a bit of fun”, my horrified reaction could not be diluted. This is the core of the problem. These tiny microaggressions fuel a culture of blokey bullshit. It’s irrelevant whether the fine was a few dollars or just a joke. It is these seemingly insignificant examples that make young men feel pressure in a male-dominated environment. Should he have driven after having that beer, been pulled over or had an accident, would that beer-buying footy player offer to drive that young man to uni and work for the next year when he lost his licence? What if an accident resulted in an injury to someone else? Do we open our clubs to recovering alcoholics or are they risking their sobriety by joining?

I’ve had women tell me similar stories of the men in their lives. One husband played soccer and was fined for leaving straight after the game because he was returning home to his young family. Another joined a football club as an adult and was shocked to find on the end-of-season bus trip a TV running constant porn. He turned it off. Brave for a new player, but also clearly a man comfortable enough to state when a boundary was crossed. He probably spoke for many other men on that bus who sighed relief at not being labelled the “no fun” guy.

It's not just the perpetrators of these sexist acts, but the bystanders too. This interesting article by a female working in a male-dominated environment summed it up beautifully:

“The reality of a boys club is that it is allowed to exist because men and male leaders enable it to exist.”

In the case of the Knox Football Club, at least 20 men were laughing and making comments but not one other male watching said a thing. Are we OK with this as a society? Do we have to narrow it down to stupid expressions such as “imagine if that was your daughter / sister / wife being laughed at or rated as unrapeable, how would you feel?”

When I made a formal complaint about some violent and offensive behaviour by an opposing team at our kids’ junior footy club it was escalated to a league representative. I’m confident the man in charge had a special alarm for “female complaints” which he automatically categorised as “hysterical mothers who don’t understand footy”. I was irate at the dismissive response, so I wrote this article for The Age. That was five years ago and here we are, still dealing with this infuriating indifference by some men in positions of power.

“Unfortunately I really do believe that men aren’t going to stop behaving like this unless other men call it out, they don’t listen to women.” [Donvale player at the Knox game]

In 2024, we should be beyond this but we’re not and I want to scream and cry rage tears like the hysterical woman these men think I am.

We need to zoom in on the microaggressions, stop dismissing it as all a bit of fun and get serious about what we will tolerate. Men need to lead from above by setting standards of behaviour, enforcing clear boundaries and allowing good, sensitive men the chance to stand up and draw a clear line. Let’s get real: the decent men are the only ones who can teach misogynists the way forward.

Does this outrage you as much as it does me? Join the conversation on Substack.

Kx 

P.S. When women exclude men even in the name of art, we are sued.