WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.600 I want to set the scene. It's the Adelaide Festival of Ideas. 2 00:00:03.820 --> 00:00:06.480 We're in the mock Gothic Benython Hall, 3 00:00:07.500 --> 00:00:10.580 surrounded by rather glum portraits 4 00:00:11.520 --> 00:00:13.780 of incredibly important people. 5 00:00:14.380 --> 00:00:18.500 But the even more important people are up on stage sitting beside me, 6 00:00:18.540 --> 00:00:20.520 and I'll introduce them to you in just a second. 7 00:00:21.100 --> 00:00:24.540 The advisory committee toyed with calling this session 8 00:00:24.540 --> 00:00:27.540 The Trouble with Boys, but we came to suspect 9 00:00:27.540 --> 00:00:31.600 that this would only contribute to the trouble by prejudicing debate. 10 00:00:33.140 --> 00:00:36.400 And the truth is that gender equality is still a long way off, 11 00:00:36.460 --> 00:00:39.440 even in the post-feminist developed world. 12 00:00:39.880 --> 00:00:44.940 The easiest, most recognisable, most universally rewarded thing 13 00:00:44.940 --> 00:00:49.300 your committee considered is still the bright young man. 14 00:00:49.820 --> 00:00:53.680 And what's getting harder is being a normal, 15 00:00:53.680 --> 00:00:55.540 slightly dopey, macho bloke. 16 00:00:55.600 --> 00:00:57.100 You just don't get the sort of, 17 00:00:57.540 --> 00:01:00.840 automatic respect and access to opportunity you used to. 18 00:01:02.060 --> 00:01:03.560 If there really is trouble with boys, 19 00:01:04.320 --> 00:01:06.480 maybe here is where it resides. 20 00:01:07.020 --> 00:01:10.180 It's a trouble that arises for boys in dominant cultures, 21 00:01:10.860 --> 00:01:14.860 and also for boys from racially or economically excluded groups. 22 00:01:15.760 --> 00:01:18.660 So we're going to consider some of these questions. 23 00:01:19.080 --> 00:01:22.820 What is changing for boys in a world where across many societies, 24 00:01:23.080 --> 00:01:27.400 manual labour is no longer the primary measure of a bloke, 25 00:01:27.540 --> 00:01:28.080 or a minority, or a minority-based society? 26 00:01:28.080 --> 00:01:31.940 In what way do these issues play out differently for boys in minority cultures, 27 00:01:32.200 --> 00:01:34.480 Aboriginal, migrant, African-American? 28 00:01:35.080 --> 00:01:39.340 Do boys need special treatment and education to fix the trouble? 29 00:01:39.960 --> 00:01:42.560 If so, what needs to be done? 30 00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:46.460 Let me now tell you who is sitting beside me. 31 00:01:46.720 --> 00:01:50.620 This is about my umpteenth encounter in the last few weeks 32 00:01:50.620 --> 00:01:53.200 with Professor Larissa Berent. 33 00:01:53.340 --> 00:01:56.260 She's Professor of Law and Indigenous Studies 34 00:01:56.260 --> 00:01:57.520 at the University of New York. 35 00:01:57.540 --> 00:02:02.960 She graduated from the University of New South Wales Law School in 1992, 36 00:02:03.660 --> 00:02:07.480 and since became the first member of her race 37 00:02:07.480 --> 00:02:12.120 to graduate from Harvard Law School with her Master of Laws and Doctorate. 38 00:02:12.400 --> 00:02:17.140 She works or was admitted to the New South Wales Supreme Court 39 00:02:17.140 --> 00:02:18.440 as a barrister of law. 40 00:02:19.020 --> 00:02:22.540 She's a quite extraordinary young woman, 41 00:02:22.580 --> 00:02:25.120 and she's going to go a long, long way. 42 00:02:25.640 --> 00:02:26.820 Put money on it. 43 00:02:26.820 --> 00:02:31.940 Gary Costella is principal of Mount Gambier High School 44 00:02:31.940 --> 00:02:34.180 in the southeast of South Australia. 45 00:02:34.380 --> 00:02:35.900 It's got about a thousand students, 46 00:02:36.320 --> 00:02:39.520 and it's been transformed from an underperforming school 47 00:02:39.520 --> 00:02:41.720 to a high-achieving school, 48 00:02:41.920 --> 00:02:44.960 and enrolments are increasing apace. 49 00:02:45.480 --> 00:02:50.320 His school was selected in the Australian newspaper's top ten 50 00:02:50.320 --> 00:02:53.800 for recognition of sustained and dramatic improvement, 51 00:02:53.820 --> 00:02:56.800 and Gary is currently on the South Australian Princeton 52 00:02:56.800 --> 00:02:57.360 Principals Board, 53 00:02:57.640 --> 00:03:01.800 and is a former member of the Senior Secondary Assessment Board 54 00:03:01.800 --> 00:03:02.660 of South Australia. 55 00:03:03.640 --> 00:03:08.640 Lisa Delpit is the Executive Director and the eminent scholar 56 00:03:08.640 --> 00:03:12.920 for the Centre for Urban Education and Innovation 57 00:03:12.920 --> 00:03:15.300 at Florida International University. 58 00:03:15.680 --> 00:03:19.100 So she is feeling the cold very intensely. 59 00:03:20.800 --> 00:03:23.960 She's the former holder of the Benjamin E. Mays Chair 60 00:03:23.960 --> 00:03:26.620 of Urban Educational Excellence at Georgia State, 61 00:03:26.620 --> 00:03:27.760 in Atlanta. 62 00:03:28.340 --> 00:03:30.320 Originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 63 00:03:31.140 --> 00:03:34.060 she's a speaker and writer whose work is focused 64 00:03:34.060 --> 00:03:36.260 on the education of children of colour, 65 00:03:36.340 --> 00:03:40.920 and I refer you to the brochure for a more detailed CV, 66 00:03:41.540 --> 00:03:43.860 which is really quite extraordinary. 67 00:03:44.300 --> 00:03:47.960 Now, another young Australian who I think shows considerable promise. 68 00:03:50.620 --> 00:03:52.380 Write down the name Germaine Greer. 69 00:03:52.440 --> 00:03:56.320 I predict, as I do for Larissa, a big future for her. 70 00:03:57.200 --> 00:04:00.620 I've got a feeling she might write a couple of earth-shattering books 71 00:04:00.620 --> 00:04:03.380 that will change the paradigm of the way we think, 72 00:04:03.480 --> 00:04:05.000 but only time can tell. 73 00:04:06.180 --> 00:04:09.240 Ladies and gentlemen, each of the panel will start off 74 00:04:09.240 --> 00:04:11.760 by having a little bit of a soliloquy. 75 00:04:11.760 --> 00:04:14.180 We hope it doesn't go more than 10 or 15 minutes. 76 00:04:14.940 --> 00:04:19.100 And once that is over, we shall then interrogate them. 77 00:04:19.520 --> 00:04:22.920 And to aid and abet that, we will have two microphones. 78 00:04:23.140 --> 00:04:26.600 That one's too much to the right, and I can't stand by it. 79 00:04:26.600 --> 00:04:27.460 So it'll be... 80 00:04:27.460 --> 00:04:30.380 Both of them will be absolutely central. 81 00:04:30.820 --> 00:04:34.300 Absolutely central, because John Howard is watching. 82 00:04:36.940 --> 00:04:41.180 Larissa, would you be kind enough to set our juggernaut in motion? 83 00:04:41.720 --> 00:04:43.500 I'll take on the challenge, Philip. 84 00:04:44.300 --> 00:04:45.640 Well, good afternoon, everyone. 85 00:04:45.700 --> 00:04:47.140 I wanted to begin by acknowledging 86 00:04:47.140 --> 00:04:50.980 on our National Aboriginal Islander Day of Celebration 87 00:04:50.980 --> 00:04:52.160 that I'm on Galma land 88 00:04:52.160 --> 00:04:55.660 and very happy to be spending my NAIDOC day here. 89 00:04:56.960 --> 00:04:59.280 Obviously, being a Kamilaroi woman, 90 00:04:59.440 --> 00:05:03.460 the topic of boys had a couple of cultural issues for me 91 00:05:03.460 --> 00:05:05.020 just to start off with. 92 00:05:05.740 --> 00:05:08.780 The first thing is, of course, as Aboriginal people, 93 00:05:08.940 --> 00:05:10.660 we're quite used to anthropologists 94 00:05:10.660 --> 00:05:14.760 and other non-Indigenous academics coming in and studying us, 95 00:05:14.860 --> 00:05:18.420 and then we're able to read all about what things are like in our community, 96 00:05:18.500 --> 00:05:20.440 but we haven't gotten into the practice 97 00:05:20.440 --> 00:05:22.420 of doing the same to the white community yet, 98 00:05:22.460 --> 00:05:25.940 so we don't have as much literature to do the cross-cultural thing. 99 00:05:26.600 --> 00:05:30.580 And I guess also, too, we have the issue of men's business and women's business, 100 00:05:30.660 --> 00:05:32.760 and we guard those things very carefully 101 00:05:32.760 --> 00:05:36.000 with our cultural traditions being quite gendered, 102 00:05:36.020 --> 00:05:39.520 our law stories being quite gendered, 103 00:05:39.520 --> 00:05:44.480 and as I know, with our more contemporary Aboriginality, 104 00:05:44.620 --> 00:05:48.860 me and my girlfriends guard our sessions with Sex and the City very carefully 105 00:05:48.860 --> 00:05:50.540 as well as sacred women's business. 106 00:05:50.860 --> 00:05:55.460 But I thought that given the brief that Philip had laid out for us, 107 00:05:55.480 --> 00:05:56.580 that I would try and... 108 00:05:56.600 --> 00:06:00.420 I guess put myself in the shoes of the underdog, 109 00:06:00.520 --> 00:06:03.300 which I guess throughout my life I've felt that I have. 110 00:06:03.920 --> 00:06:07.060 With those Westerns that would play on a Sunday afternoon 111 00:06:07.060 --> 00:06:09.120 on the television for the midday movie, 112 00:06:09.300 --> 00:06:11.400 I was always on the side of the Indians, 113 00:06:11.600 --> 00:06:15.600 so I thought that perhaps I could take that same mantra 114 00:06:16.180 --> 00:06:19.300 of sympathising with the underdog to approach this issue. 115 00:06:19.660 --> 00:06:24.680 And I was reminded of a quote by the novelist Rebecca West, 116 00:06:24.820 --> 00:06:25.280 who said, 117 00:06:25.280 --> 00:06:29.200 there is of course no reason for the existence of the male sex 118 00:06:29.200 --> 00:06:32.720 except that sometimes one needs help with the moving of a piano. 119 00:06:33.300 --> 00:06:36.440 Or Mae West, who famously said, 120 00:06:36.600 --> 00:06:38.240 a hard man is good to find. 121 00:06:38.340 --> 00:06:42.440 And I thought, just from that range of comments about men, 122 00:06:42.500 --> 00:06:46.280 it's easy to see why they more and more feel objectified 123 00:06:46.280 --> 00:06:50.660 and the pressure of constantly having to live up with the sex gods 124 00:06:50.660 --> 00:06:53.080 that are found in Calvin Klein underwear ads. 125 00:06:53.400 --> 00:06:55.260 And not only is that so, 126 00:06:55.280 --> 00:06:57.380 but it's also a sexual ideal very difficult to meet. 127 00:06:57.680 --> 00:06:59.800 It's unfortunately very fleeting. 128 00:06:59.960 --> 00:07:03.580 And I think Germaine notes this on the back of her book, 129 00:07:03.700 --> 00:07:07.400 Boy, which is a wonderful celebration of the youthful beauty in men, 130 00:07:07.480 --> 00:07:08.360 when she writes, 131 00:07:08.560 --> 00:07:10.360 I'd like to reclaim for women 132 00:07:10.360 --> 00:07:13.620 the right to appreciate the short-lived beauty of boys. 133 00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:14.860 Short-lived. 134 00:07:15.900 --> 00:07:21.280 Held up to the ideal unattainable notions of beauty 135 00:07:21.280 --> 00:07:24.700 that only exist for a lucky few at all, 136 00:07:24.700 --> 00:07:26.700 and then for them only fleetingly, 137 00:07:27.360 --> 00:07:32.100 perhaps we can find some empathy with the plight of modern masculinity 138 00:07:32.100 --> 00:07:33.580 because, of course, for women, 139 00:07:33.680 --> 00:07:37.440 that's often been the standards against which we've been pushed as well. 140 00:07:37.880 --> 00:07:41.960 And I guess I see that as we see more and more products produced for men 141 00:07:41.960 --> 00:07:44.060 so they can cleanse, tone and moisturise. 142 00:07:44.380 --> 00:07:48.440 I've noticed that there are more and more men frequenting the day spa, 143 00:07:48.580 --> 00:07:52.680 and I've been gleeful to hear some of my male friends talking about facials. 144 00:07:53.300 --> 00:07:54.680 So I can see that they're not the same. 145 00:07:54.700 --> 00:07:57.700 They see this pressure that society's placing on them. 146 00:07:58.260 --> 00:08:01.200 But I guess to take the subject a little bit more seriously, 147 00:08:01.440 --> 00:08:03.060 one of the things that I did think was 148 00:08:03.060 --> 00:08:05.640 that it's important not to essentialise men 149 00:08:05.640 --> 00:08:08.120 in the way that women have often been essentialised 150 00:08:08.120 --> 00:08:09.740 in discourses about feminism. 151 00:08:10.300 --> 00:08:13.180 And I guess that when I thought about it a bit more, 152 00:08:13.800 --> 00:08:17.380 there are those who've always been on the periphery of the power structure, 153 00:08:17.680 --> 00:08:20.900 if not totally excluded from them. 154 00:08:20.940 --> 00:08:24.420 And if we think about the experiences of black men, gay men, 155 00:08:24.420 --> 00:08:27.720 transgendered men, Catholic, Irish, Asian, etc, 156 00:08:28.100 --> 00:08:32.420 they've all been outside of the inner circle power of white maleness. 157 00:08:32.760 --> 00:08:36.080 And it's also true, I think, that working class and poor men 158 00:08:36.080 --> 00:08:38.720 yield very little power within their societies. 159 00:08:39.140 --> 00:08:41.440 So I think the first things to probably acknowledge 160 00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:43.520 is that the number that have held real power 161 00:08:43.520 --> 00:08:46.540 have perhaps been a smaller subset of the white male 162 00:08:46.540 --> 00:08:47.780 than we sometimes acknowledge. 163 00:08:48.100 --> 00:08:52.080 And the fact that there is an enormously high suicide rate 164 00:08:52.080 --> 00:08:54.400 amongst men underscores a serious problem. 165 00:08:54.420 --> 00:08:56.700 There's isolation and alienation that many feel. 166 00:08:57.020 --> 00:09:00.280 And the fact that many of those men are young 167 00:09:00.280 --> 00:09:04.240 only heightens the tragedy of the very real pressures that are upon them. 168 00:09:05.520 --> 00:09:09.120 I guess I also wondered whether it's becoming harder for men 169 00:09:09.120 --> 00:09:12.600 only because the power structure is shifting 170 00:09:12.600 --> 00:09:15.160 and women are finally clawing our way back somewhat. 171 00:09:16.660 --> 00:09:19.560 And so in some ways we're being asked to sympathise 172 00:09:19.560 --> 00:09:21.420 with those who are surrendering their power. 173 00:09:21.660 --> 00:09:23.240 And I think of my mother, 174 00:09:23.240 --> 00:09:26.000 who was stuck in a marriage with an unfaithful partner 175 00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:28.980 because she didn't have the economic means to leave him. 176 00:09:29.280 --> 00:09:33.940 And so with the advantages of education that she was unable to access 177 00:09:33.940 --> 00:09:38.500 and from the hard-earned benefits gained from the feminist movement, 178 00:09:38.800 --> 00:09:42.140 women of my generation now have a financial independence 179 00:09:42.140 --> 00:09:44.460 and choice that my mother didn't have. 180 00:09:44.640 --> 00:09:47.640 And so I'll never have to marry for financial security 181 00:09:47.640 --> 00:09:50.720 or stay in a relationship because I fear poverty. 182 00:09:52.260 --> 00:09:53.220 So what's the problem? 183 00:09:53.240 --> 00:09:56.920 What surprises me, I guess, is that despite these opportunities 184 00:09:56.920 --> 00:09:59.120 that have been given to women of my generation, 185 00:09:59.380 --> 00:10:02.120 how many women I meet of my acquaintance 186 00:10:02.120 --> 00:10:04.440 who have had those opportunities, who are educated, 187 00:10:04.680 --> 00:10:06.680 who are successful and do have those choices, 188 00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:10.560 who subconsciously, or rather consciously, 189 00:10:10.760 --> 00:10:13.980 still work with the assumption that one day they'll find a man 190 00:10:13.980 --> 00:10:15.120 who'll take care of them, 191 00:10:15.280 --> 00:10:19.480 that they still at the end of the day have a financial plan 192 00:10:19.480 --> 00:10:22.200 that includes finding a husband who'll provide for them. 193 00:10:22.200 --> 00:10:27.220 And I guess the opposite of that is also that there's a socialisation 194 00:10:27.220 --> 00:10:31.300 that still occurs in our broader society that places on men, 195 00:10:31.520 --> 00:10:36.260 regardless of the economic opportunities available to women 196 00:10:36.260 --> 00:10:39.240 and the choices they have, that they're very much still seen 197 00:10:39.240 --> 00:10:41.500 as having to be the breadwinners and the providers. 198 00:10:42.340 --> 00:10:46.300 I guess the other issue that I think is relevant to this debate 199 00:10:46.300 --> 00:10:48.900 is that the gender wars haven't always been as straightforward 200 00:10:48.900 --> 00:10:50.420 for Aboriginal people. 201 00:10:50.900 --> 00:10:51.780 I think... 202 00:10:51.780 --> 00:10:56.820 ..we often conceptualise the power structure within a society 203 00:10:56.820 --> 00:11:01.320 such as Australia as being a competition between men and women, 204 00:11:01.380 --> 00:11:05.180 and within those groups we have the subgroups of Aboriginal men 205 00:11:05.180 --> 00:11:06.940 and the subgroups of Aboriginal women. 206 00:11:07.140 --> 00:11:11.240 But I'm not sure that in a colonised country like Australia 207 00:11:11.240 --> 00:11:14.360 that's actually how the power structure sits, 208 00:11:14.540 --> 00:11:18.020 and I think if we look at particularly the socioeconomic data, 209 00:11:18.200 --> 00:11:21.760 it's perhaps much more, at least from an Indigenous perspective, 210 00:11:21.780 --> 00:11:26.160 a power structure that would place the colonised above... 211 00:11:26.160 --> 00:11:28.260 ..underneath the colonisers, 212 00:11:28.300 --> 00:11:31.260 and within those subgroups we see the gendered issues 213 00:11:31.260 --> 00:11:33.800 between men and women being played out. 214 00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:37.060 This has been, I think, a tension 215 00:11:37.060 --> 00:11:39.620 in how we conceptualise power within society 216 00:11:39.620 --> 00:11:42.620 that's been a real challenge for the feminist movement. 217 00:11:42.900 --> 00:11:47.700 It's meant that unless there's an ability to be able to recognise 218 00:11:47.700 --> 00:11:51.760 the complicity that white women have as part of the power structure, 219 00:11:51.780 --> 00:11:55.820 that Aboriginal women feel quite excluded from debates about feminism. 220 00:11:56.140 --> 00:12:00.820 And if you look at the political areas in which Aboriginal women work, 221 00:12:00.960 --> 00:12:04.800 they're often in areas like native title, in areas of reconciliation, 222 00:12:05.640 --> 00:12:07.960 they're involved with issues around sovereignty, 223 00:12:08.260 --> 00:12:11.580 issues around racism and issues towards access to justice. 224 00:12:11.700 --> 00:12:15.280 And these would be political goals and movements 225 00:12:15.280 --> 00:12:17.220 where Aboriginal women would see themselves 226 00:12:17.220 --> 00:12:19.780 working very much beside Aboriginal men 227 00:12:19.780 --> 00:12:21.760 and quite reluctant even on the fact 228 00:12:21.780 --> 00:12:23.360 that they're working on issues like domestic violence 229 00:12:23.360 --> 00:12:27.280 and sexual assault, sexism, et cetera, 230 00:12:27.440 --> 00:12:30.500 which are very real problems within the Aboriginal community. 231 00:12:31.020 --> 00:12:35.620 But the impetus or the alliance with white women 232 00:12:35.620 --> 00:12:40.600 to overcome those issues is one that I think can't be really explored 233 00:12:40.600 --> 00:12:44.520 unless there's a real acknowledgement of the colonial context 234 00:12:44.520 --> 00:12:48.080 in which Aboriginal women feel that they live. 235 00:12:48.840 --> 00:12:50.420 As a Kamilaroi woman, 236 00:12:50.420 --> 00:12:52.960 I actually come from a matrilineal society 237 00:12:52.960 --> 00:12:55.920 and in our Dreamtime stories, 238 00:12:56.200 --> 00:12:59.660 the spirit of creation is actually a female spirit. 239 00:12:59.800 --> 00:13:03.700 So I grew up in a culture that believes very firmly that God is a woman. 240 00:13:04.440 --> 00:13:07.600 Within our society, Aboriginal women were, 241 00:13:07.780 --> 00:13:10.060 and in many places continue to be, 242 00:13:10.180 --> 00:13:13.040 the primary providers of food. 243 00:13:13.260 --> 00:13:18.960 And this meant that in our pre-colonial communities, 244 00:13:18.960 --> 00:13:23.960 there was an enormous power that women yielded as a result of that. 245 00:13:24.200 --> 00:13:25.780 And as I mentioned earlier, 246 00:13:25.920 --> 00:13:28.940 we do have the notions of women's business and men's business. 247 00:13:29.180 --> 00:13:32.240 And while they were appreciated as quite separate spheres, 248 00:13:32.700 --> 00:13:38.660 it wasn't with the same subjugation that European women have been viewed 249 00:13:38.660 --> 00:13:40.720 in relation to the way in which they had 250 00:13:40.720 --> 00:13:43.800 specifically different roles within their communities. 251 00:13:44.060 --> 00:13:45.880 And I would argue very strongly 252 00:13:45.880 --> 00:13:48.940 that the element of sexism, 253 00:13:48.960 --> 00:13:52.420 that's now so pervasive within Aboriginal communities, 254 00:13:52.620 --> 00:13:57.640 is much more of a result of the influence of Western cultures 255 00:13:57.640 --> 00:14:00.100 and its inherent sexism 256 00:14:00.100 --> 00:14:03.380 than it is of the gendered roles of women in our traditional society. 257 00:14:03.820 --> 00:14:06.300 We see this for Aboriginal women in particular, 258 00:14:06.540 --> 00:14:08.980 where many of our young women now believe 259 00:14:08.980 --> 00:14:13.680 that the high levels of sexual assault that occur within our communities 260 00:14:13.680 --> 00:14:16.420 are actually part of our culture, 261 00:14:16.480 --> 00:14:18.680 even though our older women are always 262 00:14:18.680 --> 00:14:20.480 very strong about telling them 263 00:14:20.480 --> 00:14:25.160 that that wasn't the way in which our traditional societies work. 264 00:14:25.280 --> 00:14:27.500 They're certainly not part of our traditional cultures. 265 00:14:27.800 --> 00:14:30.500 And we very sadly also see this phenomena 266 00:14:30.500 --> 00:14:34.180 amongst our Aboriginal men 267 00:14:34.180 --> 00:14:37.440 in terms of the way in which they have a very skewed idea 268 00:14:37.440 --> 00:14:41.240 about what actually makes up Aboriginal values and cultures now. 269 00:14:41.460 --> 00:14:44.940 And I think where we particularly see this for our young boys 270 00:14:44.940 --> 00:14:48.660 is that whereas before they would have an initiation system 271 00:14:48.680 --> 00:14:51.220 and ceremony where they would spend time with the men 272 00:14:51.220 --> 00:14:53.880 and go off and do men's business, 273 00:14:54.600 --> 00:14:56.640 they now see their writer's passage 274 00:14:56.640 --> 00:14:59.180 as the first time that they get arrested and put in jail, 275 00:14:59.360 --> 00:15:02.760 and that's what they see as their main passage through to adulthood. 276 00:15:02.980 --> 00:15:06.840 So these are enormously complex issues that we have to deal with 277 00:15:06.840 --> 00:15:10.140 in terms of how our youth believe that they should behave 278 00:15:10.680 --> 00:15:12.340 and what's actually part of our culture. 279 00:15:13.500 --> 00:15:15.480 So it's not surprising, given that, 280 00:15:15.480 --> 00:15:17.800 that one of the key areas of concern for us, 281 00:15:17.800 --> 00:15:21.820 particularly with our youth and particularly with our young men, 282 00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:24.800 is the over-representation of Aboriginal people 283 00:15:25.320 --> 00:15:28.480 in the juvenile justice system and the criminal justice system, 284 00:15:28.660 --> 00:15:32.060 with a statistically lower life expectancy, 285 00:15:32.380 --> 00:15:36.640 poorer health, lower levels of education and higher unemployment, 286 00:15:36.960 --> 00:15:38.560 and in some communities, 287 00:15:38.800 --> 00:15:42.300 endemic levels of substance abuse and child sexual abuse, 288 00:15:42.440 --> 00:15:44.100 and of course those two things aren't unrelated. 289 00:15:44.460 --> 00:15:46.800 We really struggle to give children 290 00:15:47.020 --> 00:15:51.360 an alternative view of the path forward that's possible for them. 291 00:15:52.360 --> 00:15:56.340 And I guess if you add into that the sense of hopelessness 292 00:15:56.340 --> 00:15:58.580 and the lack of alternative and the lack of agency 293 00:15:58.580 --> 00:16:02.300 that children, especially boys, feel when they grow up in that environment, 294 00:16:02.420 --> 00:16:06.660 while they're also still getting those subconscious, socialising messages 295 00:16:06.660 --> 00:16:10.340 about the fact that they're the ones expected to provide for their families 296 00:16:10.340 --> 00:16:13.980 and seeing no actual way in which they have the agency to do that, 297 00:16:14.080 --> 00:16:15.920 I think we can begin to understand 298 00:16:15.920 --> 00:16:17.980 the source of some of their despair. 299 00:16:18.620 --> 00:16:21.340 And I don't think that there are any quick fixes for that, 300 00:16:21.440 --> 00:16:23.600 and we can talk about the importance of mentoring 301 00:16:23.600 --> 00:16:28.560 and the way in which giving children an alternative pathway can be very useful. 302 00:16:29.360 --> 00:16:33.000 For example, I know I've told this story to Philip before, 303 00:16:33.060 --> 00:16:36.540 but one of the things that really struck me 304 00:16:36.540 --> 00:16:39.200 when I started to work with young kids in Redfern 305 00:16:39.200 --> 00:16:41.120 was how many of the young boys would say 306 00:16:41.120 --> 00:16:43.540 that they wanted to go into the police force. 307 00:16:43.760 --> 00:16:45.460 And when I asked them why they would... 308 00:16:45.920 --> 00:16:47.220 why they wanted to do that, 309 00:16:47.320 --> 00:16:50.800 considering that was really the point at which there was a lot of interface 310 00:16:50.800 --> 00:16:53.080 and quite violent interface with the white community, 311 00:16:53.400 --> 00:16:55.860 many of them said because they were interested in law. 312 00:16:56.280 --> 00:16:58.640 And so when I asked them why they would... 313 00:16:58.640 --> 00:17:00.940 if that was the case, why they didn't want to be lawyers, 314 00:17:01.180 --> 00:17:03.180 they said, oh, I've never thought of that before. 315 00:17:03.320 --> 00:17:07.840 So it was that inability for them to see beyond the world that they knew, 316 00:17:07.920 --> 00:17:10.900 and that's obviously one very important way that we can do that. 317 00:17:11.100 --> 00:17:15.840 But the other anecdote that I thought that I would end on 318 00:17:15.920 --> 00:17:18.400 because I think it is actually a way that shows... 319 00:17:18.920 --> 00:17:21.520 an alternative pathway that's possible 320 00:17:21.520 --> 00:17:26.720 is the very successful result of the circle sentencing trials in Nowra. 321 00:17:27.000 --> 00:17:33.280 And circle sentencing is a process that's integrated into the court system. 322 00:17:33.500 --> 00:17:38.180 So once we have a juvenile offender who pleads guilty to an offence 323 00:17:38.180 --> 00:17:40.980 and where it's appropriate, rather than being sentenced, 324 00:17:41.080 --> 00:17:44.740 they can opt to go through a process of circle sentencing, 325 00:17:44.760 --> 00:17:45.900 and that means they can go through a process of trial 326 00:17:45.920 --> 00:17:48.380 where they come together with their family, the victim, 327 00:17:48.500 --> 00:17:51.220 the victim's family and members of the Aboriginal community. 328 00:17:51.680 --> 00:17:57.460 And through that process, the offender actually gets to hear how his or her... 329 00:17:57.460 --> 00:17:59.640 The trials have mostly been used with men, 330 00:17:59.780 --> 00:18:03.040 but so how his behaviour has affected the victim, 331 00:18:03.180 --> 00:18:05.440 but also what impact it's had on the community 332 00:18:05.440 --> 00:18:09.020 so that they actually understand the broader impact of their actions. 333 00:18:09.360 --> 00:18:13.140 And then the elders in the community decide what the punishment will be. 334 00:18:13.280 --> 00:18:15.060 So, for example, in some cases, 335 00:18:15.920 --> 00:18:19.320 the offender has been to ensure that the offender 336 00:18:19.320 --> 00:18:22.320 then spends, say, 100 hours fishing for the community. 337 00:18:22.520 --> 00:18:25.400 This is a good way of showing the value 338 00:18:25.400 --> 00:18:28.260 of actually making a substantial contribution 339 00:18:28.260 --> 00:18:29.900 through your labour to the community. 340 00:18:30.160 --> 00:18:32.660 But it also means that that young offender 341 00:18:32.660 --> 00:18:36.780 is going to have to spend 100 hours' time with old people, 342 00:18:36.960 --> 00:18:40.420 the older men, who can impart knowledge about Aboriginal values, 343 00:18:40.720 --> 00:18:44.960 who can provide a mentoring and develop a relationship with that child. 344 00:18:44.960 --> 00:18:49.100 And I think the proof of how that's a really strong alternative 345 00:18:49.100 --> 00:18:52.980 for young offenders is that of the first 30 trials... 346 00:18:52.980 --> 00:18:55.240 ..instances that we had in the trial in Nowra, 347 00:18:55.440 --> 00:18:58.120 there was only one instance of recidivism. 348 00:18:58.600 --> 00:19:01.920 And the people who'd gone through the process said that rather than 349 00:19:01.920 --> 00:19:03.380 it being a soft option, 350 00:19:03.460 --> 00:19:05.920 because they were having an alternative to the court system, 351 00:19:06.320 --> 00:19:08.700 having to actually face up to the victims, 352 00:19:08.840 --> 00:19:10.960 having to face up to the community, 353 00:19:11.280 --> 00:19:14.920 was actually a much tougher emotional process for them 354 00:19:14.920 --> 00:19:17.060 to go through, and many of them said it was a profoundly 355 00:19:17.060 --> 00:19:18.240 life-changing experience. 356 00:19:19.240 --> 00:19:23.380 And I guess the final proof of its success is that it's one of those 357 00:19:23.380 --> 00:19:26.520 rare examples where something that's being trialled in our community 358 00:19:26.520 --> 00:19:30.300 is actually now being mooted for use in the non-Aboriginal community. 359 00:19:31.340 --> 00:19:32.220 Brilliant, Marisa. 360 00:19:33.340 --> 00:19:33.920 APPLAUSE 361 00:19:43.780 --> 00:19:45.220 We're in the Benythyn Hall. 362 00:19:45.320 --> 00:19:48.440 Why is it, do you think, that people smile for photographs 363 00:19:49.240 --> 00:19:51.100 and look grim for paintings? 364 00:19:51.680 --> 00:19:54.340 This is the Adelaide Festival of Ideas. 365 00:19:54.360 --> 00:19:57.900 It's also a little wireless program called Late Night Live on Radio National, 366 00:19:58.080 --> 00:20:01.680 Radio Australia, the World Wide Web and something called The Pod. 367 00:20:01.680 --> 00:20:06.780 And now the torch passes from Marisa to Gary Costello. 368 00:20:07.140 --> 00:20:08.420 Thank you, Philip. 369 00:20:08.840 --> 00:20:11.700 Can I start by going back to where Larissa started 370 00:20:11.700 --> 00:20:15.800 and assure her that even though the opposite may be good to find, 371 00:20:15.900 --> 00:20:17.920 she's actually sitting next to a very soft man? 372 00:20:20.640 --> 00:20:21.200 LAUGHTER 373 00:20:23.500 --> 00:20:25.220 I'm going to lose an half now. 374 00:20:26.200 --> 00:20:26.760 LAUGHTER 375 00:20:27.780 --> 00:20:28.800 Now which way? 376 00:20:29.820 --> 00:20:30.880 On her left. 377 00:20:31.020 --> 00:20:31.520 LAUGHTER 378 00:20:33.920 --> 00:20:34.780 Oh, OK. 379 00:20:36.220 --> 00:20:36.780 LAUGHTER 380 00:20:38.620 --> 00:20:41.040 My background is currently as a principal, 381 00:20:41.100 --> 00:20:44.740 but my previous work was as a student counsellor, 382 00:20:44.800 --> 00:20:47.480 English coordinator deputy principal in schools. 383 00:20:47.700 --> 00:20:52.620 And one of the things that always used to hit me there was that in my role 384 00:20:52.620 --> 00:20:55.540 I was always dealing with a disproportionate number of boys 385 00:20:55.540 --> 00:20:57.760 who seemed to be having difficulty. 386 00:20:58.320 --> 00:21:01.660 And there was a very large percentage of the boys who were in the middle 387 00:21:01.660 --> 00:21:03.920 of the class, and I was always dealing with boys in our failing classes. 388 00:21:04.620 --> 00:21:08.160 And when I did the statistics and started talking to boys in the school 389 00:21:08.160 --> 00:21:12.700 that I was in, I found that there were six times as many boys being suspended 390 00:21:12.700 --> 00:21:14.560 from school as girls. 391 00:21:16.160 --> 00:21:20.680 And behind those behaviours, what often came to pass when we had a chance 392 00:21:20.680 --> 00:21:24.360 to talk about it was that I found lots of boys who I think were trapped 393 00:21:24.360 --> 00:21:27.620 into masculinities from which they did not see an escape. 394 00:21:27.620 --> 00:21:31.240 They thought the masculinity that they had was the one they were destined 395 00:21:31.240 --> 00:21:35.120 to have, and even though they knew that it gave them limited options 396 00:21:35.120 --> 00:21:36.700 and probably even less joy. 397 00:21:38.400 --> 00:21:43.300 Behind that, though, often when they came into my office and we did get 398 00:21:43.300 --> 00:21:46.320 talking about it, there would often be boys who couldn't articulate, 399 00:21:46.400 --> 00:21:49.760 but through their demeanour and body language would often express 400 00:21:49.760 --> 00:21:51.600 a very profound sadness. 401 00:21:52.520 --> 00:21:57.560 And if they could put it into words at all, it would be often something 402 00:21:57.620 --> 00:22:00.960 like, no one gives an F whether I'm alive or dead. 403 00:22:02.020 --> 00:22:07.880 And the response could sometimes be, are you telling me that no one loves 404 00:22:07.880 --> 00:22:08.900 or cares for you? 405 00:22:09.640 --> 00:22:13.760 And often what we would then get with the mask would crack and the boy 406 00:22:13.760 --> 00:22:17.180 who was the toughest boy in the school would dissolve into tears. 407 00:22:18.580 --> 00:22:22.520 Because what we were doing, and what I realised we need to do, 408 00:22:22.560 --> 00:22:27.420 is to give boys permission and also give them the words to express 409 00:22:27.620 --> 00:22:31.420 their deepest feelings, because they do feel things very deeply, 410 00:22:31.560 --> 00:22:36.940 but that had to happen initially, I think, free from the scrutiny 411 00:22:36.940 --> 00:22:37.700 of their peers. 412 00:22:39.480 --> 00:22:43.420 William Pollock, in a book that the American writer talks of called 413 00:22:43.420 --> 00:22:48.140 Real Boys, describes the four major masks which he sees boys wearing, 414 00:22:48.340 --> 00:22:50.040 and I think we're all familiar with them. 415 00:22:50.100 --> 00:22:56.460 There's the sturdy oak, the hiding of emotion, and the give them hell, 416 00:22:56.560 --> 00:22:57.380 the hell raiser. 417 00:22:57.620 --> 00:23:02.220 The attention seeking big wheel and the macho no sissy stuff. 418 00:23:03.580 --> 00:23:07.200 And I think all of those are masks that we recognise and that we see 419 00:23:07.200 --> 00:23:08.040 boys using. 420 00:23:08.580 --> 00:23:13.360 And the sadness of it is that I think those masks actually make a 421 00:23:13.360 --> 00:23:16.740 bonsai in lots of ways of the talents and individuality of boys. 422 00:23:17.480 --> 00:23:20.500 And one of the little rituals that I sometimes use when I'm dealing 423 00:23:20.500 --> 00:23:23.400 with boys in distress is that we go through a little ritual when they 424 00:23:23.400 --> 00:23:27.240 come into my office where we agree that they're going to leave their 425 00:23:27.240 --> 00:23:29.260 mask in a bowl that I've got by the door. 426 00:23:29.720 --> 00:23:34.000 And I agree that I'll take off my principal mask and we'll actually 427 00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:36.000 have a conversation about what's going on. 428 00:23:37.320 --> 00:23:41.340 So because of the theme of today about what should we do, I'll talk a bit 429 00:23:41.340 --> 00:23:44.340 about what we try to do in our school, not pretending that it's perfect. 430 00:23:45.080 --> 00:23:49.480 And implicit in that will be, of course, what I think are some ways forward. 431 00:23:50.240 --> 00:23:53.600 What we've really tried to do in this school is develop a culture which 432 00:23:53.600 --> 00:23:55.900 is very respectful of both sexes. 433 00:23:55.900 --> 00:23:59.540 And to recognise that one of the great responsibilities we have is to 434 00:23:59.540 --> 00:24:03.940 actually personalise learning and wellbeing programs for all individuals, 435 00:24:04.080 --> 00:24:04.900 male or female. 436 00:24:05.500 --> 00:24:08.880 And to recognise that it is actually silly to be committed to the 437 00:24:08.880 --> 00:24:12.500 promotion of one gender by denying the needs of the other. 438 00:24:14.180 --> 00:24:17.700 And the big question that we always pose, or the one that we've come to 439 00:24:17.700 --> 00:24:21.780 pose that we talk about the most, that occupies the knees the most, is 440 00:24:21.780 --> 00:24:24.380 how do we actually create a school where nobody fails? 441 00:24:24.380 --> 00:24:27.880 Because there doesn't have to be this bell curve, does there? 442 00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:29.660 It doesn't have to be like that. 443 00:24:30.520 --> 00:24:34.800 We also avoid the how to fix the boys notion, because I think that has a 444 00:24:34.800 --> 00:24:36.460 suggestion of doom and gloom in it. 445 00:24:37.400 --> 00:24:42.320 And try to avoid the stereotypes, two of which are that boys like sport, 446 00:24:42.540 --> 00:24:46.140 so you give them lots of sport, and boys don't like to read. 447 00:24:46.460 --> 00:24:51.140 Because I think those stereotypes are probably not always helpful. 448 00:24:52.880 --> 00:24:54.360 It should never, of course, be the case that we're going to have a school 449 00:24:54.380 --> 00:24:54.400 where boys are not the same. 450 00:24:54.400 --> 00:24:57.240 It should never be an oxymoron to talk about a sensitive, intelligent, 451 00:24:57.400 --> 00:24:58.360 compassionate boy. 452 00:24:59.720 --> 00:25:03.640 But often, the way the conversation goes is that that's how it appears. 453 00:25:04.360 --> 00:25:08.480 At our school, what we try to do is to, our award system is set up to try 454 00:25:08.480 --> 00:25:12.120 to acknowledge kindness, decency, and good citizenship. 455 00:25:13.340 --> 00:25:18.940 And to indicate to boys that they are, in fact, qualities which are much 456 00:25:18.940 --> 00:25:20.200 admired and valued. 457 00:25:21.340 --> 00:25:26.680 One of the things I think we have a real moral obligation to is to care for all 458 00:25:26.680 --> 00:25:28.080 of our students holistically. 459 00:25:29.140 --> 00:25:32.200 Because if you look at the figures that Lisa talked about a moment ago around 460 00:25:32.920 --> 00:25:36.320 the self-damaging behaviour of boys, they're too compelling to ignore. 461 00:25:37.440 --> 00:25:42.140 Amongst the highest suicide rate in the world, particularly in rural areas, 462 00:25:43.120 --> 00:25:47.020 even though they engage in self-harming activities a little bit less than girls, 463 00:25:47.060 --> 00:25:50.180 they are much more successful at killing themselves at a rate of five times the 464 00:25:50.200 --> 00:25:50.460 rate of five to one. 465 00:25:51.040 --> 00:25:55.040 They kill themselves three times more frequently than girls in road accidents. 466 00:25:55.420 --> 00:26:00.740 And they have a very high incidence, of course, of use of alcohol, illicit drugs, 467 00:26:00.880 --> 00:26:03.480 workplace accidents, and particularly violent crime. 468 00:26:04.840 --> 00:26:08.320 One of the issues I think, too, is that a lot of young men, I think, are actually, 469 00:26:08.420 --> 00:26:14.660 or boys are, very confused about what sort of masculinities are available to them. 470 00:26:15.220 --> 00:26:20.040 And some of them, I think, are locked into the macho role despite the fact that 471 00:26:20.200 --> 00:26:24.240 every bit of evidence we've got shows that it doesn't actually promote happiness 472 00:26:24.240 --> 00:26:29.460 or wellbeing, and that the stoicism and emotional depression of the sturdy oak 473 00:26:29.460 --> 00:26:33.700 is in fact correlated very highly with mental and physical health problems. 474 00:26:34.160 --> 00:26:36.860 And that literally it's leading men to an early grave. 475 00:26:37.340 --> 00:26:41.800 So one of the roles we have as a school is to try to model and promote different masculinities. 476 00:26:42.380 --> 00:26:49.040 And to actually say to boys that gender is in fact not something, sorry, our sex and our maleness 477 00:26:49.040 --> 00:26:53.340 is quite different from our gender, that gender is in fact not constructed, 478 00:26:53.520 --> 00:26:56.540 is in fact constructed in a specific social setting. 479 00:26:56.640 --> 00:26:58.160 It's not programmed into our genes. 480 00:26:58.600 --> 00:27:03.280 And that we can actually change and offer alternatives. 481 00:27:04.800 --> 00:27:09.300 And I think one of my jobs as a principal is to change the context and tone of a school 482 00:27:09.980 --> 00:27:14.840 because that's actually the context in which deep change for boys has a chance of occurring. 483 00:27:17.300 --> 00:27:19.020 We also have to try to really understand the role of gender in our society. 484 00:27:19.020 --> 00:27:23.520 And re-script the conversations that we have with boys because I reckon in the past 485 00:27:23.520 --> 00:27:28.760 I felt as a student and I also felt in my early days of teaching that boys were spoken to differently 486 00:27:28.760 --> 00:27:30.440 by teachers than girls. 487 00:27:30.580 --> 00:27:36.180 We would be prepared to be harder and almost a bit crueler in the way that we spoke to boys 488 00:27:36.180 --> 00:27:37.720 that we wouldn't do with girls. 489 00:27:38.140 --> 00:27:41.080 And so what we try to do is to re-script the way we talk. 490 00:27:41.560 --> 00:27:44.920 And I heard a teacher the other day in the school, and it was terrific to hear, 491 00:27:44.980 --> 00:27:48.700 saying to a boy who he was dealing with who wasn't doing the right thing, 492 00:27:48.700 --> 00:27:49.000 it was saying to him, 493 00:27:49.020 --> 00:27:52.760 I've got something along the lines, at the moment things look pretty tough for you Ben, 494 00:27:52.920 --> 00:27:56.960 but I can actually see in the future you being a really good plumber 495 00:27:56.960 --> 00:28:00.460 because I know that's what you want to do and I reckon you're going to be a good citizen. 496 00:28:01.120 --> 00:28:04.360 Now that sort of conversation with a boy I think is really important. 497 00:28:05.440 --> 00:28:08.780 Because what we've got to do for a lot of boys is actually give them hope. 498 00:28:09.520 --> 00:28:15.760 And also let them see males who can behave in very gentle, decent and socially responsible ways. 499 00:28:17.240 --> 00:28:18.720 I think also in schools, 500 00:28:19.020 --> 00:28:21.200 we have to show boys that we too can be vulnerable. 501 00:28:22.980 --> 00:28:27.580 And they need role models, they need male role models who can actually say sorry. 502 00:28:28.680 --> 00:28:31.000 Because they don't always see males doing that. 503 00:28:31.680 --> 00:28:35.920 They also need to know that males don't have to be successful in all they do. 504 00:28:36.340 --> 00:28:41.040 And so we try to have a culture of our teachers apologising if they actually do stupid things, 505 00:28:41.160 --> 00:28:42.040 because we do at times. 506 00:28:42.620 --> 00:28:47.620 And I know at assemblies and so forth I'm very public with our students about the failures I have. 507 00:28:47.620 --> 00:28:52.620 Because they need to say that I mess things up even though I've put a huge amount of effort into them, 508 00:28:52.680 --> 00:28:54.040 but it's not the end of the world. 509 00:28:56.680 --> 00:29:01.040 Part of the other thing I think is that boys need to feel valued and respected 510 00:29:01.040 --> 00:29:03.100 and not feel bad about being male. 511 00:29:04.080 --> 00:29:08.480 And I think of the research of Daniel Goldman with his emotional intelligence work 512 00:29:08.480 --> 00:29:16.560 where he talks about research about a number of heart patients who were undergoing heart surgery. 513 00:29:17.620 --> 00:29:22.800 The ones who actually survived were the ones who actually had a very optimistic view of the world. 514 00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:27.920 And his figures show that it's about three times as many people in those circumstances 515 00:29:27.920 --> 00:29:32.220 who have an optimistic outlook who survive than those who have a pessimistic view. 516 00:29:33.100 --> 00:29:39.300 And I think hope and optimism can be created in schools through encouragement and decent and respectful dialogue. 517 00:29:39.940 --> 00:29:47.240 I don't think, and many of you out here would be parents, I don't think boys respond positively to coercion. 518 00:29:47.620 --> 00:29:51.640 And they will rarely change as a result of blame or vindictiveness. 519 00:29:53.780 --> 00:30:02.000 The other thing that I think is, and often a criticism of that, is that you can't be dishonest with your praise. 520 00:30:02.340 --> 00:30:08.500 And I'm not suggesting dishonest praise or a laissez-faire approach, quite the opposite of that. 521 00:30:09.040 --> 00:30:15.500 I think our approach is to be very honest, but to expect appropriate effort and conduct 522 00:30:15.500 --> 00:30:17.600 so that boys are exposed to that. 523 00:30:17.620 --> 00:30:22.580 They are expected to show respect for themselves and to show respect for the opposite sex and for their peers. 524 00:30:24.300 --> 00:30:27.560 Now one of the things that I read once which had a profound effect on me 525 00:30:27.560 --> 00:30:29.980 and it made sense to me, and I can't remember where I read it, 526 00:30:30.120 --> 00:30:36.200 was an article which talked in schools about the fact that the importance of talking about your higher purpose 527 00:30:36.200 --> 00:30:39.800 as distinct from the daily busy-ness of what you're actually doing. 528 00:30:41.120 --> 00:30:47.180 Because in our- schools are generally pretty well under-resourced even though they may not look like that, they often are. 529 00:30:47.240 --> 00:30:47.600 They often are. 530 00:30:47.620 --> 00:30:52.460 and what we have to do I think is talk about the higher purpose of what we're 531 00:30:52.460 --> 00:30:53.140 doing in schools 532 00:30:53.700 --> 00:30:58.520 and to do that in our school we are very explicit we have a code of conduct which 533 00:30:58.520 --> 00:30:59.940 the acronym for which is care 534 00:31:00.600 --> 00:31:03.960 standing for communication achievement respect and empowerment 535 00:31:04.600 --> 00:31:07.400 and what it is is a series of 536 00:31:08.140 --> 00:31:13.120 ethical statements about behaviour it is not a set of rules 537 00:31:13.120 --> 00:31:18.100 and because it has been shaped by our whole community our students our parents 538 00:31:18.100 --> 00:31:18.840 and our teachers 539 00:31:19.320 --> 00:31:23.160 our boys are very accepting of it because what they can see in it 540 00:31:23.160 --> 00:31:26.560 they can see their own voice and it's 541 00:31:26.560 --> 00:31:30.460 everywhere they look in the school and because they can see their own voice and 542 00:31:30.460 --> 00:31:31.360 the voice of their peers 543 00:31:31.880 --> 00:31:37.520 they are in fact respecting of it what we also do 544 00:31:37.520 --> 00:31:42.340 is we talk very much about the things that we value and we in our school we've 545 00:31:42.340 --> 00:31:43.040 narrowed it down 546 00:31:43.040 --> 00:31:47.460 to an unusual selection I suppose we've narrowed it down to three key things 547 00:31:48.100 --> 00:31:51.780 which are modelled I hope everywhere and articulated very clearly 548 00:31:51.780 --> 00:31:55.260 and we focus on what we've said is learning pretty obvious 549 00:31:55.260 --> 00:31:59.680 optimism I think I've explained why and the third one is enjoyment 550 00:32:00.840 --> 00:32:05.560 and they are with our code of conduct the touchstone in everything that we do 551 00:32:05.560 --> 00:32:10.660 and we've developed a particular language around them why enjoyment 552 00:32:10.660 --> 00:32:12.920 well one of the reasons is 553 00:32:12.920 --> 00:32:18.480 is that I can remember my experience at school teachers telling me well put up 554 00:32:18.480 --> 00:32:22.380 for this for a while Sonny because it'll be good for you at the end and I reckon 555 00:32:22.380 --> 00:32:27.820 what we want is to enjoy the journey as well because Andrew Fuller the clinical 556 00:32:27.820 --> 00:32:31.040 psychologist from Melbourne he'll tell us that with the click-and-go generation 557 00:32:31.040 --> 00:32:36.620 as he calls them they don't actually think long-term they think very much in 558 00:32:36.620 --> 00:32:42.760 terms of fairly immediate enjoyment what we found by telling kids that they 559 00:32:42.760 --> 00:32:42.900 can enjoy the journey and enjoy the experience is that they can enjoy the journey and enjoy the experience. 560 00:32:42.920 --> 00:32:43.980 what we found by telling kids that they can enjoy the journey and enjoy the experience. 561 00:32:43.980 --> 00:32:47.720 themselves at school and hopefully we model that is it has diffused an 562 00:32:47.720 --> 00:32:52.640 enormous amount of the pressure and the conflict that was previously there but 563 00:32:52.640 --> 00:32:57.480 the enjoyment is not fun the enjoyment is much more than that it's a commitment 564 00:32:57.480 --> 00:33:01.980 to work hard to develop respectful relationships and to enjoy yourself 565 00:33:01.980 --> 00:33:07.620 without dumbing down the curriculum or damaging the integrity of the learning 566 00:33:07.620 --> 00:33:12.860 experience I'll give you a snapshot of a few other things that we attempt to do to 567 00:33:12.860 --> 00:33:18.680 make a schoolboy friendly I think it's important to have strong compassionate 568 00:33:18.680 --> 00:33:23.060 male models who are clearly sensitive in the way they deal with people and to 569 00:33:23.060 --> 00:33:26.980 have them in non non-traditional roles we are fortunate for example to have a 570 00:33:26.980 --> 00:33:31.000 male home economics teacher drama teacher student counselor and librarian 571 00:33:31.660 --> 00:33:39.160 so that boys see those as reasonable things to be doing we also hope to focus 572 00:33:39.160 --> 00:33:41.560 very much on relaxed respectful relationships 573 00:33:42.360 --> 00:33:46.720 Stephen Bedolph in his book he talks about boys learning teachers and not 574 00:33:46.720 --> 00:33:53.400 subjects by which he means boys if they do not actually respect the teacher will 575 00:33:53.400 --> 00:33:58.820 in fact damage themselves quite happily by and you that they'll articulate this 576 00:33:58.820 --> 00:34:04.780 they'll say I won't work in Costello's class because he's a whatever and if they 577 00:34:04.780 --> 00:34:08.840 if they don't actually relate to you they will actually withdraw even though 578 00:34:08.840 --> 00:34:10.640 they are the ones being damaged by it 579 00:34:10.640 --> 00:34:11.540 you 580 00:34:11.560 --> 00:34:15.400 our focus is to try to give our students to say in every decision that's 581 00:34:15.400 --> 00:34:18.600 made in the school and so you'll see them on our governing councils all our 582 00:34:18.600 --> 00:34:24.540 committees in our society and environment classes we have we have 583 00:34:24.540 --> 00:34:28.840 class meetings where what students actually want is fed through into the 584 00:34:28.840 --> 00:34:33.020 decision making structure and we try to act on all of the requests that we get 585 00:34:33.600 --> 00:34:38.740 and our students also have the right and the obligation to give written 586 00:34:38.740 --> 00:34:41.540 structured feedback to their teachers on the quality of the content and the 587 00:34:41.560 --> 00:34:46.620 their teaching. So in recent times they've been asked questions, what facilities do you want? 588 00:34:47.260 --> 00:34:52.620 A much deeper question, tell me what it looks like and feels like to be a learner at Mount Gambier 589 00:34:52.620 --> 00:34:58.640 High School. And so they tell us what it's actually like to be on the receiving end of this process. 590 00:34:59.240 --> 00:35:04.140 And we run lots and lots of dialogue and focus groups on just about everything that you can 591 00:35:04.140 --> 00:35:09.460 think of, one of which recently was on what they want their senior secondary education to look like. 592 00:35:11.560 --> 00:35:16.340 We also try to set up our curriculum so that they're doing lots of stuff. If you come to our 593 00:35:16.340 --> 00:35:21.020 school you'll find that I think we've got 15 vet courses where they can study everything from 594 00:35:21.020 --> 00:35:25.560 building to fishing to automotive. And they're actually responsible in a lot of the building 595 00:35:25.560 --> 00:35:30.640 programs around the school, which they do in their tech classes. And you'll see them 596 00:35:31.780 --> 00:35:36.400 involved with architects and designers. For example, we have a very strong commitment to the 597 00:35:36.400 --> 00:35:40.900 arts in our school. And part of that is that we want the school in the end to end up looking like 598 00:35:40.900 --> 00:35:41.540 very much like a school. And so we've got a lot of people who are very much involved in the school. 599 00:35:41.560 --> 00:35:41.580 We've got a lot of people who are very much involved in the school. And so we've got a lot of people who are 600 00:35:41.580 --> 00:35:49.280 like an art gallery. I'm conscious of the time, but the arts curriculum in the school is a very, very 601 00:35:49.280 --> 00:35:59.440 important part of a boy's life at school, as are the youth leadership programs. We find that there are 602 00:35:59.440 --> 00:36:06.440 many, many boys who get from the arts what they get from no other curriculum areas. And it's a place 603 00:36:06.440 --> 00:36:11.540 where they can actually articulate things in a way that they often can't do, a game of cards, a game of 604 00:36:11.560 --> 00:36:41.540 ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or even ball-trick or 605 00:36:41.540 --> 00:36:47.360 classes, doing things that I couldn't, these are some of the hard cases in the school because 606 00:36:47.360 --> 00:36:52.840 they're doing stuff that they think is actually pretty cool. The final thing that I mention is 607 00:36:52.840 --> 00:36:58.080 that with boys I think with, obviously we need to have boundaries drawn, we need to actually 608 00:36:58.080 --> 00:37:03.400 recognise and support how they learn and along the way I think we need to connect with them in 609 00:37:03.400 --> 00:37:08.340 their journey and be part of it and part of the deal is that we have to show respect for who they 610 00:37:08.340 --> 00:37:15.240 are but particularly we have to show respect for what we know they might become. There's a lot to 611 00:37:15.240 --> 00:37:20.920 celebrate about boys, I don't think it's helpful to look upon them as a problem. Kindness and 612 00:37:20.920 --> 00:37:27.460 gentleness is in fact a great solution and if I can just go back and quote the words of Abraham 613 00:37:27.460 --> 00:37:32.860 Lincoln in a totally different context, he talked about the virtue of people being touched 614 00:37:32.860 --> 00:37:38.320 by the better angels of our nature and I think our boys benefit from that. 615 00:37:38.340 --> 00:37:38.860 Thank you. 616 00:37:58.100 --> 00:38:06.100 Well the thousand kids at Mount Gambier High School are lucky to have you Gary and so are we. I wish you'd been my headmaster. 617 00:38:10.560 --> 00:38:11.380 Thank you very much. 618 00:38:12.420 --> 00:38:19.900 And now to a woman who I would want to apply for political asylum here in South Australia 619 00:38:19.900 --> 00:38:27.040 and if she won't agree to apply I think we should just keep her here, Lisa Delbert. 620 00:38:27.280 --> 00:38:36.060 Thank you. I just want to say before I start to that I was so impressed with Gary and I'm 621 00:38:36.060 --> 00:38:38.320 thankful that he is the principal and it's important to give it to ніe- 622 00:38:38.320 --> 00:38:40.340 and I wish you were my child's principal. 623 00:38:40.560 --> 00:38:41.460 Thank you. 624 00:38:46.860 --> 00:38:49.860 I found that as a woman, 625 00:38:49.900 --> 00:38:53.640 understanding maleness is a lifelong quest. 626 00:38:54.980 --> 00:38:58.580 Although sometimes I suspect it is for males as well. 627 00:38:59.840 --> 00:39:02.100 It's sometimes exasperating, 628 00:39:02.120 --> 00:39:05.100 and it's sometimes very thrilling 629 00:39:05.100 --> 00:39:08.320 when you get past that mask 630 00:39:08.320 --> 00:39:12.340 and when you see a tough grown man 631 00:39:13.060 --> 00:39:16.960 holding a baby, his first grandson, and tearing up. 632 00:39:17.820 --> 00:39:20.480 When you get to see inside that shell 633 00:39:20.480 --> 00:39:22.660 that is sometimes there. 634 00:39:24.500 --> 00:39:27.900 Mothers are often frustrated with their sons. 635 00:39:28.100 --> 00:39:31.820 I remember going out when I was in grad school 636 00:39:31.820 --> 00:39:34.760 with a fellow who was working at the time, 637 00:39:35.100 --> 00:39:39.740 and his mother, when he told her that we were going out, 638 00:39:39.820 --> 00:39:42.020 said, well, what's she doing with you, research? 639 00:39:47.080 --> 00:39:50.580 I am the mother of a daughter, 640 00:39:51.720 --> 00:39:53.300 Anne, who's now 16, 641 00:39:53.880 --> 00:39:57.760 and I read something somewhere about advice to your daughter, 642 00:39:58.640 --> 00:40:01.280 that you should seek a man who is nurturing, 643 00:40:01.840 --> 00:40:04.400 a man who is helpful around the house, 644 00:40:04.400 --> 00:40:07.600 a man who is strong and could protect you, 645 00:40:08.260 --> 00:40:09.920 and a man who is supportive. 646 00:40:10.660 --> 00:40:13.240 And you should make sure that those men never meet. 647 00:40:21.720 --> 00:40:24.540 I haven't given that advice to her as yet, 648 00:40:24.600 --> 00:40:25.480 but I'm considering. 649 00:40:28.900 --> 00:40:32.880 One of the things that I'm here to talk about 650 00:40:32.880 --> 00:40:34.220 is to look at issues, 651 00:40:34.220 --> 00:40:37.040 issues of people of color, 652 00:40:37.100 --> 00:40:38.560 and African American particularly. 653 00:40:39.760 --> 00:40:43.820 And what I've noticed and seen is that in Western society, 654 00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:47.320 men are defined as what they do, 655 00:40:47.440 --> 00:40:50.100 a maleness, malehood, and what they achieve, 656 00:40:51.220 --> 00:40:56.860 whereas women are more defined as how and what they feel. 657 00:40:58.760 --> 00:41:03.440 The problem with men of color, 658 00:41:03.440 --> 00:41:05.240 and men from marginalized groups, 659 00:41:05.480 --> 00:41:08.180 is that they aren't allowed in a society 660 00:41:08.180 --> 00:41:11.680 to do and achieve in the same way. 661 00:41:12.260 --> 00:41:15.200 So there becomes real issues for them, 662 00:41:15.240 --> 00:41:18.840 and many times for poor young white men as well. 663 00:41:19.200 --> 00:41:21.180 There becomes an issue of, 664 00:41:21.480 --> 00:41:23.720 well, then how can I be a man? 665 00:41:23.900 --> 00:41:27.760 And I think that lends itself to a lot of the suicides 666 00:41:28.440 --> 00:41:29.800 that Gary spoke of, 667 00:41:29.800 --> 00:41:31.880 and a lot of the family violence. 668 00:41:33.160 --> 00:41:35.280 Because we've cut off, 669 00:41:35.360 --> 00:41:37.740 or the society has cut off the ways 670 00:41:37.740 --> 00:41:39.980 in which they might be the man 671 00:41:39.980 --> 00:41:41.500 as defined by that society. 672 00:41:42.740 --> 00:41:45.380 It was interesting to note in the U.S. 673 00:41:45.380 --> 00:41:48.100 that female-headed black families, 674 00:41:48.200 --> 00:41:51.560 the number and percentage of female-headed black families, 675 00:41:52.260 --> 00:41:57.180 rises and falls with the percentage of unemployed black men. 676 00:41:58.420 --> 00:42:01.860 If you can't work and take care of your family, 677 00:42:01.860 --> 00:42:04.680 then you can't be a family. 678 00:42:06.180 --> 00:42:10.020 One of the things that we, 679 00:42:10.140 --> 00:42:12.980 over our history, 680 00:42:13.080 --> 00:42:17.020 is that men and women, 681 00:42:17.060 --> 00:42:19.880 I think, felt more in partnership 682 00:42:19.880 --> 00:42:23.520 against issues of domination. 683 00:42:24.260 --> 00:42:26.080 And in my own family, 684 00:42:26.120 --> 00:42:30.280 my mother, my father did not go to high school, 685 00:42:30.340 --> 00:42:31.500 but was quite proud, 686 00:42:31.500 --> 00:42:35.160 proud to work to send my mother to graduate school. 687 00:42:35.360 --> 00:42:37.200 So there wasn't an issue 688 00:42:37.200 --> 00:42:40.280 that her being more educated 689 00:42:40.280 --> 00:42:42.580 made him any less than. 690 00:42:43.720 --> 00:42:46.940 It's also interesting that there are those who've said that 691 00:42:47.500 --> 00:42:49.420 American slavery 692 00:42:50.220 --> 00:42:53.400 is what defines black, 693 00:42:53.660 --> 00:42:56.720 keeps black men from being in families 694 00:42:56.720 --> 00:42:58.440 that they learned in slavery, 695 00:42:59.500 --> 00:43:00.460 during enslavement, 696 00:43:00.460 --> 00:43:01.120 not to be. 697 00:43:01.500 --> 00:43:06.340 But the reality is that right after the slavery period, 698 00:43:06.500 --> 00:43:10.280 there were more partnered households, 699 00:43:10.620 --> 00:43:13.760 male and female marriages and households than there are now. 700 00:43:14.120 --> 00:43:17.640 So I want to reinforce the notion that it isn't, 701 00:43:17.660 --> 00:43:19.680 that it is, in many instances, 702 00:43:19.760 --> 00:43:22.300 economic issues and political issues 703 00:43:22.300 --> 00:43:24.700 that destroy black families, 704 00:43:24.760 --> 00:43:27.560 and not anything that has to do either with, 705 00:43:28.420 --> 00:43:31.180 as much with history or with culture. 706 00:43:32.280 --> 00:43:35.160 Just to share some statistics with you 707 00:43:35.160 --> 00:43:37.360 as we move into the second Bush administration. 708 00:43:40.240 --> 00:43:41.880 The devastating crisis, 709 00:43:41.880 --> 00:43:43.860 yeah, I think I will do political asylum, 710 00:43:44.040 --> 00:43:44.920 thank you very much. 711 00:43:47.880 --> 00:43:51.680 The devastating crisis in the education of poor children 712 00:43:51.680 --> 00:43:54.060 and children of color promises to deepen. 713 00:43:54.740 --> 00:43:56.900 Presently, according to the Urban Institute, 714 00:43:57.280 --> 00:43:59.960 50% of black ninth graders, 715 00:43:59.960 --> 00:44:02.240 49% of Native Americans, 716 00:44:02.340 --> 00:44:06.280 and 47% of Latinos do not graduate in four years. 717 00:44:06.680 --> 00:44:10.100 The dropout rates are much higher than that 718 00:44:10.100 --> 00:44:11.900 for male students of color. 719 00:44:12.260 --> 00:44:14.820 In some poor urban and rural areas, 720 00:44:14.980 --> 00:44:17.740 high school dropout rates approach 80% 721 00:44:17.740 --> 00:44:21.360 in the supposedly richest country in the world. 722 00:44:21.900 --> 00:44:24.180 Among those who do stay in school, 723 00:44:24.280 --> 00:44:26.760 a significant number of students of color 724 00:44:26.760 --> 00:44:28.740 are testing at below basic levels 725 00:44:28.740 --> 00:44:30.620 of competency in reading and math. 726 00:44:31.100 --> 00:44:33.120 According to the National Assessment 727 00:44:33.120 --> 00:44:34.380 of Educational Progress, 728 00:44:34.860 --> 00:44:37.800 43% of black 12th graders 729 00:44:37.800 --> 00:44:41.400 and 58% of Latinos are testing below basic. 730 00:44:42.040 --> 00:44:44.340 Black children are three times as likely 731 00:44:44.340 --> 00:44:46.840 to be labeled mentally retarded as whites, 732 00:44:47.200 --> 00:44:50.480 twice as likely to be labeled emotionally disturbed, 733 00:44:50.700 --> 00:44:53.740 and more often isolated in separate classrooms 734 00:44:54.380 --> 00:44:55.340 as a result. 735 00:44:56.540 --> 00:44:58.720 Poor students of color have less opportunity 736 00:44:58.740 --> 00:45:01.580 to access credentialed and experienced teachers, 737 00:45:01.960 --> 00:45:05.180 high quality curriculum, materials, and tools, 738 00:45:05.520 --> 00:45:07.540 after school and summer programs, 739 00:45:07.760 --> 00:45:09.060 and advanced level courses. 740 00:45:10.300 --> 00:45:12.000 As we know too well, 741 00:45:12.140 --> 00:45:14.840 this crisis in public education is paralleled 742 00:45:14.840 --> 00:45:16.440 by a ballooning prison industry. 743 00:45:17.020 --> 00:45:19.660 The United States now incarcerates 744 00:45:19.660 --> 00:45:21.980 a record 2.1 million people, 745 00:45:22.740 --> 00:45:24.660 more than any other nation in the world. 746 00:45:25.800 --> 00:45:28.120 Although youth crime has steadily decreased 747 00:45:28.120 --> 00:45:29.600 over the past 10 years, 748 00:45:29.840 --> 00:45:32.180 youth incarceration rates have been rising. 749 00:45:32.620 --> 00:45:36.660 By 1992, 45 states had passed legislation 750 00:45:36.660 --> 00:45:40.360 making it easier to try juveniles as adults. 751 00:45:40.980 --> 00:45:43.720 31 states enacted harsher penalties 752 00:45:43.720 --> 00:45:44.820 for young offenses, 753 00:45:44.940 --> 00:45:49.240 and 47 relaxed confidentiality provisions 754 00:45:49.240 --> 00:45:50.360 for juveniles. 755 00:45:50.720 --> 00:45:53.440 With increased police presence in schools 756 00:45:54.120 --> 00:45:57.000 and state laws mandating the referral of children 757 00:45:57.000 --> 00:45:59.500 to law enforcement for school code violations, 758 00:46:00.180 --> 00:46:03.300 many see a direct link between failing schools 759 00:46:03.300 --> 00:46:05.240 and overflowing prisons. 760 00:46:06.040 --> 00:46:08.940 And it is again black males 761 00:46:08.940 --> 00:46:13.440 who are subject to that link most strongly. 762 00:46:14.960 --> 00:46:19.420 How do you raise a secure, competent, sane black boy 763 00:46:19.420 --> 00:46:21.660 when the larger society is telling him 764 00:46:21.660 --> 00:46:25.620 that he is violent, stupid, sexually deviant, and criminal? 765 00:46:26.540 --> 00:46:30.060 How do you send a son out to school 766 00:46:30.060 --> 00:46:32.420 when you know his teachers have been inundated 767 00:46:32.420 --> 00:46:34.100 with the same societal beliefs? 768 00:46:35.320 --> 00:46:37.800 I wanted to share three stories with you, 769 00:46:37.840 --> 00:46:40.300 maybe four, we'll see how it goes. 770 00:46:40.800 --> 00:46:42.860 I was visiting my daughter 771 00:46:42.860 --> 00:46:45.720 when she was in preschool class, 772 00:46:46.200 --> 00:46:49.340 and Charles is a four-year-old little black boy 773 00:46:49.340 --> 00:46:51.860 who likes a little white girl, Kathy. 774 00:46:52.360 --> 00:46:54.880 And of course he's always, as four-year-olds are, 775 00:46:54.880 --> 00:46:56.400 giving her kisses and hugs. 776 00:46:57.220 --> 00:46:59.600 But Kathy doesn't like that so much 777 00:46:59.600 --> 00:47:01.700 because she's a little independent little girl 778 00:47:01.700 --> 00:47:04.880 and she doesn't want anybody kissing her all the time. 779 00:47:05.180 --> 00:47:07.800 So the teacher takes him aside 780 00:47:07.800 --> 00:47:09.380 and makes him sit in timeout. 781 00:47:10.780 --> 00:47:13.940 I saw that one day and I said to the teacher, 782 00:47:14.000 --> 00:47:16.020 boy, it sure looks like Charles is smitten. 783 00:47:16.920 --> 00:47:18.700 And the teacher said to me, 784 00:47:19.440 --> 00:47:22.040 he must be seeing all sorts of things at home. 785 00:47:22.340 --> 00:47:24.840 It's like he's practicing being a rapist 786 00:47:24.880 --> 00:47:26.360 if somebody doesn't stop him. 787 00:47:28.520 --> 00:47:30.760 The second story is of Damien, 788 00:47:30.820 --> 00:47:34.040 who's a gifted young middle school, 789 00:47:35.020 --> 00:47:37.200 eighth grade African American boy. 790 00:47:37.800 --> 00:47:39.980 His mom is single. 791 00:47:40.500 --> 00:47:43.340 She is scrimped to get him into a private school. 792 00:47:44.320 --> 00:47:49.020 And she knew enough to go talk to the teachers right away 793 00:47:49.020 --> 00:47:53.020 to say, listen, let me know if there are any problems. 794 00:47:53.220 --> 00:47:54.860 I know he can do the work. 795 00:47:54.860 --> 00:47:56.600 But I want to stay on top of it. 796 00:47:56.900 --> 00:47:58.800 Well, when his report card came out, 797 00:47:58.840 --> 00:48:00.080 he had C's and D's. 798 00:48:00.980 --> 00:48:03.840 And she was just horrified 799 00:48:03.840 --> 00:48:06.120 and went to the teacher and said, well, what happened? 800 00:48:06.380 --> 00:48:09.720 And the teacher said, well, what do you mean? 801 00:48:10.100 --> 00:48:12.380 And she said, why does he have C's and D's? 802 00:48:12.460 --> 00:48:13.680 And I didn't hear anything from you. 803 00:48:13.800 --> 00:48:17.000 And the teacher said, well, C's and D's are very good for him. 804 00:48:19.140 --> 00:48:21.500 And the third story is of Anthony. 805 00:48:21.600 --> 00:48:23.240 I was in his kindergarten class. 806 00:48:23.240 --> 00:48:26.440 And his kindergarten teacher asked me to take a look, 807 00:48:26.460 --> 00:48:29.180 to watch him because she said he was nonverbal. 808 00:48:29.520 --> 00:48:32.320 And he was creating problems in her class. 809 00:48:32.420 --> 00:48:36.240 And she asked me to watch him and give her some insight 810 00:48:36.780 --> 00:48:37.940 into what was going on. 811 00:48:38.600 --> 00:48:40.600 So I pulled Anthony out of the classroom 812 00:48:40.600 --> 00:48:42.040 and talked to him in the hallway. 813 00:48:42.200 --> 00:48:44.400 And he did indeed have things to talk about. 814 00:48:44.460 --> 00:48:45.800 He told me about his cousins. 815 00:48:45.920 --> 00:48:50.140 And he told me about things that were happening in his family. 816 00:48:50.900 --> 00:48:52.660 And I tried to tell the teacher, 817 00:48:53.260 --> 00:48:56.020 I talked to the teacher and said, well, I talked to Anthony 818 00:48:56.020 --> 00:48:57.720 and he says, he told me he had, 819 00:48:57.840 --> 00:49:00.480 it seems there are things he likes to talk about. 820 00:49:01.360 --> 00:49:04.560 And the teacher said, well, he just says anything sometimes. 821 00:49:05.520 --> 00:49:08.180 He's okay before lunch, but after lunch he's impossible. 822 00:49:09.940 --> 00:49:13.780 And I continued to say, well, he was telling me about his cousins. 823 00:49:13.860 --> 00:49:15.620 He was telling me about his friends. 824 00:49:16.140 --> 00:49:18.340 And she said, it's a shame. 825 00:49:18.340 --> 00:49:20.880 He probably doesn't even have scissors at home. 826 00:49:20.940 --> 00:49:22.320 And no one will talk to him. 827 00:49:23.240 --> 00:49:26.860 These children don't even know who their family is. 828 00:49:27.020 --> 00:49:29.740 He probably doesn't even know who his brothers and sisters are. 829 00:49:31.100 --> 00:49:35.020 These are the kinds of things that black boys continue to get 830 00:49:35.020 --> 00:49:36.040 when they go to school. 831 00:49:37.820 --> 00:49:42.380 When I was teaching the first and second grade, 832 00:49:42.600 --> 00:49:44.940 I'd had Vincent was in my class. 833 00:49:45.040 --> 00:49:47.300 He was the son of one of the teachers in the school. 834 00:49:48.120 --> 00:49:51.760 And he was a very bright young guy. 835 00:49:51.760 --> 00:49:54.520 And when I went to talk to his, 836 00:49:55.520 --> 00:49:57.880 when he was in fifth grade, I was still teaching there, 837 00:49:58.020 --> 00:50:00.820 and his mother was very upset because he was failing. 838 00:50:01.540 --> 00:50:04.960 And so I called Vincent because we had a good relationship 839 00:50:04.960 --> 00:50:06.620 and said, well, what's going on, Vincent? 840 00:50:07.280 --> 00:50:09.240 And he said, well, if I do good, 841 00:50:09.320 --> 00:50:12.100 they're going to say that I'm trying to act white 842 00:50:12.100 --> 00:50:13.360 and they'll call me a sissy. 843 00:50:14.760 --> 00:50:16.620 So I was really puzzled with that, 844 00:50:16.660 --> 00:50:19.780 trying to figure out how could such, 845 00:50:19.880 --> 00:50:21.740 how did this kid go forward? 846 00:50:21.760 --> 00:50:22.520 And I thought, well, I'm going to go from first grade 847 00:50:22.520 --> 00:50:25.460 to fifth grade, and things got so very, very different. 848 00:50:26.580 --> 00:50:28.660 And I think I got a part of the answer 849 00:50:28.660 --> 00:50:31.060 when I was observing another kindergarten class, 850 00:50:31.360 --> 00:50:33.580 and I noticed the teacher had divided the children 851 00:50:33.580 --> 00:50:36.780 into three groups, the blue group, the orange group, 852 00:50:36.820 --> 00:50:37.540 and the yellow group. 853 00:50:37.700 --> 00:50:40.260 And I was pleased to see that each of the groups was integrated. 854 00:50:40.900 --> 00:50:45.020 They were, they were, and they were not designated 855 00:50:45.020 --> 00:50:46.340 as low, medium, and high. 856 00:50:47.500 --> 00:50:49.540 But then I looked, I stayed in the class 857 00:50:49.540 --> 00:50:51.080 and looked more carefully. 858 00:50:51.760 --> 00:50:54.500 Although the teacher had told me that one of the, 859 00:50:54.660 --> 00:50:56.540 a little black boy in the class 860 00:50:56.540 --> 00:50:58.340 was her highest performing student. 861 00:50:58.420 --> 00:51:01.340 He was the son of another teacher in the school. 862 00:51:02.060 --> 00:51:04.700 The high group, which that little boy was in, 863 00:51:04.780 --> 00:51:09.780 was casually and unofficially known as Kirsten's group, 864 00:51:09.840 --> 00:51:11.560 and Kirsten was a white girl. 865 00:51:12.120 --> 00:51:14.540 The middle group was known as Matthew's group, 866 00:51:14.580 --> 00:51:18.420 and Matthew was a little, cute little white boy. 867 00:51:18.900 --> 00:51:20.320 And the lowest group, 868 00:51:20.320 --> 00:51:22.740 which was also integrated, 869 00:51:22.920 --> 00:51:24.380 was known as Jason's group. 870 00:51:24.620 --> 00:51:26.940 And Jason was the little black boy 871 00:51:26.940 --> 00:51:28.320 who acted out the most. 872 00:51:28.840 --> 00:51:30.320 So in school, 873 00:51:30.700 --> 00:51:32.560 who gave the teacher the hardest time, 874 00:51:32.740 --> 00:51:35.260 so in school these children were actually learning 875 00:51:35.260 --> 00:51:38.220 that high performance, 876 00:51:38.360 --> 00:51:40.980 even though the highest performing kid in the class 877 00:51:40.980 --> 00:51:41.920 was a black male, 878 00:51:42.120 --> 00:51:45.080 high performance was equated with white female, 879 00:51:46.060 --> 00:51:49.160 and low performance was equated with black male. 880 00:51:49.160 --> 00:51:51.680 So I began to understand why Vincent, 881 00:51:51.960 --> 00:51:54.360 in the subtle ways that we're not even aware of, 882 00:51:54.420 --> 00:51:57.480 now I'm not, please, I'm not blaming this teacher, 883 00:51:57.540 --> 00:51:59.480 because I'm sure she was not in any ways 884 00:51:59.480 --> 00:52:01.260 even aware that she was doing this. 885 00:52:01.600 --> 00:52:05.240 And it's something that permeates all of us so strongly 886 00:52:05.240 --> 00:52:07.380 that we just often are not aware of it 887 00:52:07.380 --> 00:52:10.400 unless we take very, very, very good care 888 00:52:10.400 --> 00:52:12.840 to watch and be aware. 889 00:52:14.580 --> 00:52:17.360 One of the things that continues to happen in schools, 890 00:52:17.580 --> 00:52:18.960 at least in the U.S., 891 00:52:18.960 --> 00:52:22.420 is everything associated with black maleness is negative. 892 00:52:22.840 --> 00:52:26.400 So any way that black males tend to wear their clothes 893 00:52:26.960 --> 00:52:30.920 typically becomes against the rules. 894 00:52:32.140 --> 00:52:35.900 Any wonder why black males reject school 895 00:52:35.900 --> 00:52:37.720 in such large numbers, 896 00:52:37.860 --> 00:52:39.300 because I believe, of course, 897 00:52:39.340 --> 00:52:41.580 they're rejected first by the schools. 898 00:52:42.660 --> 00:52:45.820 There are lots of things that I think we could do. 899 00:52:46.020 --> 00:52:48.900 I was pleased to hear some of the things Larissa 900 00:52:48.960 --> 00:52:50.380 suggested as well as Gary. 901 00:52:51.200 --> 00:52:53.120 We need, of course, in schools, 902 00:52:53.320 --> 00:52:55.240 we need black male teachers. 903 00:52:55.960 --> 00:52:58.680 If not teachers, we need folk who, 904 00:52:58.780 --> 00:53:01.020 and we need the kind of black male teachers 905 00:53:01.020 --> 00:53:05.800 that Gary spoke of who can deconstruct maleness 906 00:53:05.800 --> 00:53:09.820 and have male, redefine maleness in other terms. 907 00:53:11.240 --> 00:53:15.380 We also, if they can't be there regularly as teachers, 908 00:53:15.500 --> 00:53:17.940 we need to make sure that they are brought in 909 00:53:17.940 --> 00:53:22.400 to the schools in a way that shows the children 910 00:53:22.400 --> 00:53:24.620 that the teachers really respect them. 911 00:53:25.300 --> 00:53:29.520 And I say that because you'll have sometimes in school 912 00:53:29.520 --> 00:53:33.780 the only black male that boys will see is a custodian 913 00:53:33.780 --> 00:53:35.980 who is often their friend, 914 00:53:37.060 --> 00:53:41.840 but they don't see someone in a position of power 915 00:53:41.840 --> 00:53:44.220 that they can then know that it's okay, 916 00:53:44.380 --> 00:53:47.920 that intellectualism can fill that gap 917 00:53:47.940 --> 00:53:49.380 and that they can get with being black and male. 918 00:53:49.900 --> 00:53:55.320 We also need to make sure that our children 919 00:53:55.320 --> 00:53:57.240 know their own intellectual histories. 920 00:53:58.020 --> 00:54:01.860 And that is not done very much in our schools either. 921 00:54:02.580 --> 00:54:03.680 I'll stop now. 922 00:54:03.840 --> 00:54:05.280 There are other, I'm going to, I guess, 923 00:54:05.280 --> 00:54:08.240 talk in other presentations while I'm here 924 00:54:08.240 --> 00:54:10.220 about other things that we're trying to do. 925 00:54:10.420 --> 00:54:15.380 But I think the key is that we have to treat 926 00:54:15.380 --> 00:54:17.920 all of our children as children. 927 00:54:17.920 --> 00:54:18.600 We have to treat them as human beings. 928 00:54:19.000 --> 00:54:22.280 And we have to understand what the larger society 929 00:54:22.280 --> 00:54:24.620 might be telling them that we have to work against. 930 00:54:25.000 --> 00:54:25.560 Thank you. 931 00:54:38.020 --> 00:54:40.580 Lisa Delpit comes from the state that, 932 00:54:40.600 --> 00:54:43.220 with a little bit of help from the hanging chads, 933 00:54:45.480 --> 00:54:46.520 Governor Jeb, 934 00:54:46.520 --> 00:54:50.180 and the Supreme Court gave us the Bush administration. 935 00:54:50.780 --> 00:54:53.200 But having listened to her, having met her today, 936 00:54:53.300 --> 00:54:55.300 I am willing to forgive Florida. 937 00:54:56.920 --> 00:55:00.120 Ladies and gentlemen, we have two GGs in Australia. 938 00:55:00.180 --> 00:55:01.820 One of them lives at Yarra Lumna. 939 00:55:01.920 --> 00:55:03.620 The other is visiting Adelaide. 940 00:55:03.880 --> 00:55:06.480 And we've got the best of the bargain, Germaine Greer. 941 00:55:07.720 --> 00:55:08.240 . 942 00:55:10.220 --> 00:55:10.740 . 943 00:55:15.840 --> 00:55:16.420 ! 944 00:55:16.420 --> 00:55:17.460 Well, thank you very much. 945 00:55:17.460 --> 00:55:19.500 I'm very much afraid I'm going to talk about 946 00:55:19.500 --> 00:55:22.960 as much nonsense as the other GG today. 947 00:55:24.260 --> 00:55:27.260 Because I really don't know all that much 948 00:55:27.260 --> 00:55:29.600 about day-to-day dealings with boys. 949 00:55:30.580 --> 00:55:33.140 But what I'd like to suggest is the wider 950 00:55:33.740 --> 00:55:35.860 imaginative context of boyhood. 951 00:55:37.740 --> 00:55:40.660 There is a contrast in our language, 952 00:55:40.740 --> 00:55:43.680 between the boy and the man. 953 00:55:44.300 --> 00:55:47.540 And there's a historical contrast in that 954 00:55:47.540 --> 00:55:53.460 a man was usually made by the ceremonial murder of the boy. 955 00:55:53.800 --> 00:55:55.720 Now in some initiating ceremonies, 956 00:55:56.180 --> 00:55:59.300 boys were actively cut about the head 957 00:55:59.300 --> 00:56:01.420 and slashed down the back and so forth. 958 00:56:01.540 --> 00:56:06.880 Sometimes they are reborn in various rather painful rituals. 959 00:56:07.060 --> 00:56:08.760 We don't do any of that now. 960 00:56:09.980 --> 00:56:12.540 Instead we seem to have generalized it. 961 00:56:12.600 --> 00:56:14.780 You may have noticed in the discussion so far, 962 00:56:14.980 --> 00:56:19.520 we've talked about boys as if they were small men 963 00:56:19.520 --> 00:56:23.460 and as if they were destined to become men. 964 00:56:24.180 --> 00:56:26.140 And that the best thing we could do for them 965 00:56:26.140 --> 00:56:28.760 was to transform them into men as soon as possible. 966 00:56:29.120 --> 00:56:30.860 Now I'm not really sure about that. 967 00:56:30.960 --> 00:56:35.420 Because I think the boy is actually more interesting than the man. 968 00:56:35.800 --> 00:56:36.320 . 969 00:56:37.280 --> 00:56:40.240 That's not just because he ejaculates more often, 970 00:56:40.320 --> 00:56:42.240 although it may have something to do with it. 971 00:56:43.020 --> 00:56:49.120 It's really because the boy is a trickster, 972 00:56:49.240 --> 00:56:54.380 an inventor, a rebel, a show-off. 973 00:56:54.740 --> 00:56:59.080 He is capable of all kinds of transgressive behaviors 974 00:56:59.080 --> 00:57:03.220 which he will have to get rid of 975 00:57:03.220 --> 00:57:06.300 when he decides to enter the masculine realm. 976 00:57:06.320 --> 00:57:10.400 The masculine establishment will put him in a suit and a tie, 977 00:57:10.640 --> 00:57:12.280 will teach him how to be efficient, 978 00:57:12.480 --> 00:57:14.780 how to be goal-oriented and so forth. 979 00:57:15.040 --> 00:57:19.900 Now things are made difficult for people in the job of civilizing boys 980 00:57:20.480 --> 00:57:24.600 by the fact that our most successful examples of entrepreneurs, 981 00:57:25.040 --> 00:57:27.440 for example, were bad at school. 982 00:57:28.360 --> 00:57:29.600 They sloped off. 983 00:57:29.720 --> 00:57:31.240 Bill Gates was hopeless at school. 984 00:57:31.460 --> 00:57:32.920 So was Richard Branson. 985 00:57:33.100 --> 00:57:34.100 This doesn't really help. 986 00:57:34.100 --> 00:57:37.100 Because if boys have a fantasy about being a buccaneer 987 00:57:37.780 --> 00:57:39.480 and sailing across the ocean 988 00:57:39.480 --> 00:57:41.320 and bringing home vast amounts of booty, 989 00:57:41.600 --> 00:57:45.060 just doing it at school isn't going to make it, you know. 990 00:57:45.240 --> 00:57:47.640 Especially as schools got terribly girly 991 00:57:47.640 --> 00:57:54.140 and the element of enterprise and exploit has been diminished. 992 00:57:55.000 --> 00:57:59.600 Now if I sit in front of an audience of schoolboys and schoolgirls, 993 00:57:59.600 --> 00:58:02.480 I'm aware of a huge contrast in their behavior. 994 00:58:02.700 --> 00:58:04.080 That the girls sit in front of the boys 995 00:58:04.100 --> 00:58:04.620 and they sit in pairs. 996 00:58:04.940 --> 00:58:06.340 They snuggle up together 997 00:58:06.340 --> 00:58:10.600 and they generally ask questions to which they really want the answer. 998 00:58:11.360 --> 00:58:13.720 Boys, on the other hand, are performing. 999 00:58:14.140 --> 00:58:16.640 They have their group around them. 1000 00:58:16.760 --> 00:58:19.700 They ask a question to challenge the speaker. 1001 00:58:20.160 --> 00:58:23.960 And they ask a question to impress the gang behind them. 1002 00:58:24.080 --> 00:58:26.440 They want immediate applause from their mates. 1003 00:58:26.840 --> 00:58:30.380 And this is a fundamentally different dynamic in the schoolroom. 1004 00:58:30.600 --> 00:58:33.680 And it's one of the difficulties when you're teaching mixed groups. 1005 00:58:34.100 --> 00:58:35.840 That the boys can run away with it. 1006 00:58:35.860 --> 00:58:36.560 And for what? 1007 00:58:36.760 --> 00:58:37.920 Now think about it. 1008 00:58:38.260 --> 00:58:43.240 We have a huge culture which is entirely built by boys. 1009 00:58:43.540 --> 00:58:46.620 And I'm talking about the culture of rock music, 1010 00:58:46.760 --> 00:58:49.120 which changes every year. 1011 00:58:49.260 --> 00:58:50.400 There's a new innovation. 1012 00:58:50.720 --> 00:58:51.580 This is boys. 1013 00:58:51.960 --> 00:58:53.880 They're not being taught to do it at school. 1014 00:58:54.100 --> 00:58:55.360 They're just doing it. 1015 00:58:55.720 --> 00:58:56.860 Likewise rap. 1016 00:58:57.280 --> 00:59:00.340 Likewise break dancing, dancing in the street. 1017 00:59:00.440 --> 00:59:02.120 All kinds of extravagant behaviors. 1018 00:59:02.520 --> 00:59:04.020 One of the things that interests me, 1019 00:59:04.100 --> 00:59:06.160 is that all our new comics are boys. 1020 00:59:06.480 --> 00:59:09.140 They come in their droves, hundreds of them. 1021 00:59:09.200 --> 00:59:12.820 All ready to risk their arm by playing their fantasy, 1022 00:59:13.060 --> 00:59:15.440 which is usually highly subversive, 1023 00:59:15.500 --> 00:59:16.960 and just going for it. 1024 00:59:16.980 --> 00:59:18.060 For the crack. 1025 00:59:19.120 --> 00:59:25.100 Now it's arguable that you only remain creative as a man, 1026 00:59:25.320 --> 00:59:28.060 as long as you're in touch with your inner boy. 1027 00:59:28.940 --> 00:59:30.860 Mozart is the most obvious example. 1028 00:59:31.100 --> 00:59:33.740 Mozart made a point of never growing up. 1029 00:59:33.740 --> 00:59:35.520 He died a child. 1030 00:59:35.640 --> 00:59:36.540 Look at Mick Jagger. 1031 00:59:36.620 --> 00:59:38.300 Would you say Mick Jagger was grown up? 1032 00:59:39.560 --> 00:59:41.360 I mean, he's extremely elderly, 1033 00:59:41.460 --> 00:59:43.420 but I would argue that he's still a boy. 1034 00:59:44.740 --> 00:59:46.820 But one of the other examples is, 1035 00:59:46.880 --> 00:59:48.740 what are the great role models? 1036 00:59:48.840 --> 00:59:49.700 They're the athletes. 1037 00:59:49.980 --> 00:59:54.200 And athletes remain in a permanent condition of boyhood. 1038 00:59:54.440 --> 00:59:56.360 They are owned by men. 1039 00:59:56.580 --> 01:00:00.140 They are manipulated, and I would argue abused by men. 1040 01:00:00.320 --> 01:00:02.740 Their human rights are undermined 1041 01:00:02.740 --> 01:00:05.760 by the men who buy and sell them and who own them. 1042 01:00:06.080 --> 01:00:09.580 And they, insofar as they are principally athletes, 1043 01:00:09.900 --> 01:00:11.320 they remain boys. 1044 01:00:12.580 --> 01:00:16.020 And there are, of course, a whole section, 1045 01:00:16.260 --> 01:00:19.440 there is, of course, a whole section of the male population 1046 01:00:19.440 --> 01:00:22.080 that opts for permanent boyhood 1047 01:00:22.740 --> 01:00:25.200 in the shape of a homosexual lifestyle. 1048 01:00:25.960 --> 01:00:30.740 Which I would argue is a defense against masculinization. 1049 01:00:32.060 --> 01:00:32.720 Men are men. 1050 01:00:32.740 --> 01:00:34.940 Male and masculine are not the same, in my view. 1051 01:00:35.260 --> 01:00:37.920 We have a good deal of difficulty working them out. 1052 01:00:38.600 --> 01:00:42.700 But I think the transformation of the male child, 1053 01:00:43.000 --> 01:00:45.200 who is capable of all kinds of things, 1054 01:00:45.940 --> 01:00:50.660 into the masculine man is ultimately a loss. 1055 01:00:52.280 --> 01:00:55.280 Now, there's also, it doesn't surprise me, 1056 01:00:55.340 --> 01:00:57.080 but I want you to think about these ideas 1057 01:00:57.080 --> 01:00:59.220 in very loose and creative ways. 1058 01:00:59.320 --> 01:01:01.780 I don't want to seem as if I know about this subject. 1059 01:01:01.780 --> 01:01:03.980 I wonder about this subject. 1060 01:01:04.200 --> 01:01:06.500 But I think it's not unreasonable to suggest 1061 01:01:06.500 --> 01:01:09.820 that there is an enmity between the man and the boy. 1062 01:01:10.340 --> 01:01:13.680 That the man is jealous of the boy, maybe. 1063 01:01:14.500 --> 01:01:16.640 That he resents the part of himself 1064 01:01:16.640 --> 01:01:18.700 that died when he became a man. 1065 01:01:19.240 --> 01:01:21.960 That he doesn't want to see the boy get away 1066 01:01:21.960 --> 01:01:23.920 with the stuff the boy gets away with. 1067 01:01:24.480 --> 01:01:26.700 There has to, if you look at our civilization, 1068 01:01:26.760 --> 01:01:29.720 you'll see that male authority, 1069 01:01:30.100 --> 01:01:31.760 masculine authority, I should say, 1070 01:01:31.780 --> 01:01:35.440 has always regarded boys as a problem. 1071 01:01:35.840 --> 01:01:38.720 They were a problem that needed to be dealt with. 1072 01:01:39.080 --> 01:01:42.420 That usually they got dragooned into the army 1073 01:01:42.420 --> 01:01:44.200 or into national service, 1074 01:01:44.540 --> 01:01:47.240 where they would get all the boy stuff knocked out of them. 1075 01:01:47.320 --> 01:01:50.980 No more tears, no more foolish games, 1076 01:01:51.180 --> 01:01:53.120 no more clowning, no more fooling. 1077 01:01:53.140 --> 01:01:54.480 Let's be sensible here. 1078 01:01:54.540 --> 01:01:56.200 Life is real, life is earnest. 1079 01:01:56.400 --> 01:01:57.880 You've got to learn how to kill people. 1080 01:01:58.020 --> 01:01:59.340 And if you can't learn how to kill people, 1081 01:01:59.500 --> 01:02:00.480 we'll kill you. 1082 01:02:01.780 --> 01:02:05.600 And we're still sending boys now, and girls, 1083 01:02:05.820 --> 01:02:08.540 into battle to fight for issues 1084 01:02:08.540 --> 01:02:10.620 that they certainly haven't chosen, 1085 01:02:10.860 --> 01:02:12.240 haven't opted for. 1086 01:02:12.540 --> 01:02:15.500 They are still puppets of masculine authority. 1087 01:02:16.100 --> 01:02:19.800 A boy is more likely to commit a crime of violence. 1088 01:02:19.860 --> 01:02:22.280 He is also more likely to be the victim 1089 01:02:22.280 --> 01:02:23.420 of a crime of violence. 1090 01:02:23.760 --> 01:02:25.860 We choose to make a big song and dance 1091 01:02:25.860 --> 01:02:28.580 about female victims for all kinds of unhealthy reasons. 1092 01:02:28.900 --> 01:02:30.620 We put their photographs in the paper 1093 01:02:30.620 --> 01:02:34.660 and we like to gloat over them. 1094 01:02:34.740 --> 01:02:36.900 But in fact, the most likely corpse to be found 1095 01:02:36.900 --> 01:02:39.660 on any street or in any wood is a boy. 1096 01:02:41.640 --> 01:02:44.940 So, when the boys come up against it in school 1097 01:02:44.940 --> 01:02:47.940 and we set about civilizing them 1098 01:02:47.940 --> 01:02:51.260 and drawing them into our social system, 1099 01:02:51.500 --> 01:02:55.240 I want to suggest that we might ultimately be losers. 1100 01:02:56.100 --> 01:02:58.080 That the school is having difficulty 1101 01:02:59.080 --> 01:03:00.320 harnessing their creativity, 1102 01:03:00.620 --> 01:03:03.180 because it is transgressive. 1103 01:03:03.400 --> 01:03:06.000 Why is rap so unpleasant? 1104 01:03:06.540 --> 01:03:09.300 Why does it use every single buzzword? 1105 01:03:09.460 --> 01:03:12.800 Why does it headbutt everybody who listens to it? 1106 01:03:12.900 --> 01:03:16.440 Something is being said about boyhood here. 1107 01:03:16.740 --> 01:03:19.320 Now, we get told all the time that girls are joining in, 1108 01:03:19.420 --> 01:03:20.880 the ladettes are on the way, 1109 01:03:20.880 --> 01:03:22.520 and they're doing their rap and stuff, 1110 01:03:22.580 --> 01:03:24.340 and they're going to be just as evil, 1111 01:03:24.380 --> 01:03:26.100 just as bad as the boys. 1112 01:03:26.680 --> 01:03:29.520 But it doesn't fool anybody, 1113 01:03:29.520 --> 01:03:31.640 because we know that the boys are out there 1114 01:03:31.640 --> 01:03:33.600 on the edge where they're going to be hurt, 1115 01:03:34.720 --> 01:03:36.520 or else they're going to be triumphant. 1116 01:03:36.720 --> 01:03:38.100 The two things go together. 1117 01:03:39.380 --> 01:03:42.160 It's not usually recognized that our great musicians 1118 01:03:42.160 --> 01:03:44.420 become great musicians when they're boys. 1119 01:03:44.600 --> 01:03:47.020 Yehudi Menuhin played the violin as well at 16 1120 01:03:47.020 --> 01:03:49.100 as he did at the height of his career. 1121 01:03:49.400 --> 01:03:51.960 We don't usually realize that mathematicians 1122 01:03:51.960 --> 01:03:54.100 make their big breakthroughs when they're boys. 1123 01:03:54.380 --> 01:03:56.460 But not for nothing is Apollo, 1124 01:03:56.600 --> 01:03:59.160 the god of poetry and mathematics and medicine, 1125 01:03:59.160 --> 01:04:02.360 a boy, a blond-haired, beardless boy. 1126 01:04:03.000 --> 01:04:05.180 The boy is a precious thing, 1127 01:04:05.360 --> 01:04:08.300 not a phase to be passed through. 1128 01:04:08.520 --> 01:04:12.600 And there will still be many male people in our society 1129 01:04:12.600 --> 01:04:14.880 who opt for permanent boyhood. 1130 01:04:15.060 --> 01:04:19.220 And that is a tough role to take, 1131 01:04:19.400 --> 01:04:21.420 to be constantly denigrated, 1132 01:04:21.560 --> 01:04:23.160 to be constantly feminized, 1133 01:04:23.880 --> 01:04:25.600 to be constantly marginalized, 1134 01:04:25.680 --> 01:04:29.040 because you simply reject the hard character 1135 01:04:29.160 --> 01:04:30.800 and the hard pace that you have to develop 1136 01:04:30.800 --> 01:04:34.040 in order to be successful in the corporate world, 1137 01:04:34.360 --> 01:04:38.180 which is one vast metallic phallus. 1138 01:04:44.020 --> 01:04:45.460 In other words, 1139 01:04:46.220 --> 01:04:49.700 the enemy of the boy is the man, 1140 01:04:49.800 --> 01:04:52.240 and in particular the phallocratic society 1141 01:04:52.240 --> 01:04:54.560 into which he must be inducted, 1142 01:04:55.160 --> 01:04:59.140 in which everyone is ultimately a loser. 1143 01:05:19.220 --> 01:05:20.740 Thank you, Germaine. 1144 01:05:20.780 --> 01:05:22.780 It is now time, boys and girls, 1145 01:05:22.880 --> 01:05:24.040 to ask your questions. 1146 01:05:24.840 --> 01:05:27.120 And I want your body language 1147 01:05:27.120 --> 01:05:28.800 and your phrasing of the questions 1148 01:05:28.800 --> 01:05:29.140 to be as clear as possible. 1149 01:05:29.140 --> 01:05:31.460 I would like to echo the observations of Germaine Greer. 1150 01:05:32.320 --> 01:05:35.360 If we can recognize we have two microphones, 1151 01:05:35.660 --> 01:05:37.140 one in the Reps, one in the Senate. 1152 01:05:38.180 --> 01:05:40.280 And please don't waste this opportunity. 1153 01:05:42.320 --> 01:05:43.600 Four extraordinary people 1154 01:05:44.220 --> 01:05:46.240 and a really intriguing topic. 1155 01:05:46.380 --> 01:05:48.320 I must say, listening to all the speakers, 1156 01:05:48.400 --> 01:05:49.780 I'm glad I had four daughters. 1157 01:05:52.180 --> 01:05:54.820 Is there anyone in the Senate who would like to... 1158 01:05:56.560 --> 01:05:58.400 You all want to go and have a coffee, do you? 1159 01:05:58.400 --> 01:05:58.980 This is... 1160 01:05:58.980 --> 01:06:00.680 Here's a boy. 1161 01:06:03.140 --> 01:06:04.700 Thank you, boy. Speak up. 1162 01:06:04.920 --> 01:06:07.100 I'm all alone here, am I? 1163 01:06:08.700 --> 01:06:11.300 With Germaine's comment about the vast metallic phallus 1164 01:06:11.300 --> 01:06:12.780 of the corporate sphere, 1165 01:06:12.920 --> 01:06:14.840 having been involved in that myself, 1166 01:06:15.060 --> 01:06:17.240 I have noticed there usually is a knob at the top. 1167 01:06:24.580 --> 01:06:27.840 But having had the title of the knob at the top sometimes, 1168 01:06:27.840 --> 01:06:30.240 I sometimes wonder about my fellow knobs at the top. 1169 01:06:30.580 --> 01:06:33.520 But I've also noticed a lot of them are sociopaths as well. 1170 01:06:34.080 --> 01:06:36.040 But just wanting to have a... 1171 01:06:36.040 --> 01:06:38.280 It's a vast topic, a vast topic. 1172 01:06:38.660 --> 01:06:42.640 And having... I have to say that I find it amusing 1173 01:06:42.640 --> 01:06:43.940 that we have a three-to-one ratio 1174 01:06:43.940 --> 01:06:46.320 on the discussion on boys' manhood. 1175 01:06:47.840 --> 01:06:49.600 And unfortunately, as somebody, I feel, 1176 01:06:49.700 --> 01:06:53.360 who had a very fortunate transition from boy to manhood, 1177 01:06:54.680 --> 01:06:57.260 I've often wondered about the ongoing debate 1178 01:06:57.260 --> 01:06:59.060 for my own boys, that is, 1179 01:06:59.140 --> 01:07:01.340 of the intellect... 1180 01:07:01.340 --> 01:07:02.500 ..of the intellectual discussion 1181 01:07:02.500 --> 01:07:04.440 on the transition of boy to manhood. 1182 01:07:05.040 --> 01:07:08.540 A word that I would have liked to have seen discussed, 1183 01:07:08.660 --> 01:07:10.220 and perhaps I missed the point a bit, 1184 01:07:10.360 --> 01:07:12.920 was the importance of self-esteem 1185 01:07:14.100 --> 01:07:16.760 amongst boys and their transition to manhood. 1186 01:07:17.060 --> 01:07:19.920 And in particular, I've noticed in my own experiences, 1187 01:07:19.980 --> 01:07:22.440 both military, corporate and social, 1188 01:07:23.840 --> 01:07:25.460 the extreme importance 1189 01:07:25.460 --> 01:07:28.880 of the extreme importance of the self-esteem 1190 01:07:28.880 --> 01:07:31.940 of those who have the authority over the boys. 1191 01:07:32.640 --> 01:07:34.280 And the negative side of that 1192 01:07:34.280 --> 01:07:35.780 is sometimes the emotional violence 1193 01:07:35.780 --> 01:07:37.540 of the language of derision 1194 01:07:37.540 --> 01:07:41.560 from the self-esteem-deficient males and females 1195 01:07:41.560 --> 01:07:43.460 who are given authority over them. 1196 01:07:43.960 --> 01:07:46.860 It's beautifully phrased, but does it lead to a question? 1197 01:07:46.880 --> 01:07:48.020 My question is... 1198 01:07:48.800 --> 01:07:50.600 My feeling is that only when they escape 1199 01:07:50.600 --> 01:07:52.400 or are put under the authority of a role model 1200 01:07:52.400 --> 01:07:54.900 who speaks to them with self-respect can they learn to grow. 1201 01:07:54.900 --> 01:07:55.960 And I feel we've heard a lot of that. 1202 01:07:56.780 --> 01:07:59.740 I feel this also then touches on the rites of passage. 1203 01:08:00.440 --> 01:08:02.640 I've heard it mentioned that you've discussed there 1204 01:08:02.640 --> 01:08:05.020 that there seems to be the removal of the rites of passage. 1205 01:08:05.320 --> 01:08:08.280 In my own experience, in my own observation, 1206 01:08:09.140 --> 01:08:11.160 that removal of the rites of passage, 1207 01:08:11.880 --> 01:08:15.160 the absence of it, I feel, is of critical... 1208 01:08:15.160 --> 01:08:17.460 ..of critical importance. 1209 01:08:18.080 --> 01:08:19.460 Let's turn that into a question. 1210 01:08:19.620 --> 01:08:22.280 That's my question. Phil, you finish the question for me. 1211 01:08:23.460 --> 01:08:24.380 Jemaine, I think... 1212 01:08:24.380 --> 01:08:26.000 If you'd tackle that first, please. 1213 01:08:27.140 --> 01:08:27.660 Ahem. 1214 01:08:29.420 --> 01:08:30.680 You know something? 1215 01:08:30.960 --> 01:08:33.940 I've written quite a lot about women's defect, 1216 01:08:34.580 --> 01:08:35.860 defective self-esteem. 1217 01:08:37.020 --> 01:08:38.940 Their dissatisfaction with their bodies, 1218 01:08:39.100 --> 01:08:41.780 their lack of confidence, their tentativeness. 1219 01:08:42.320 --> 01:08:44.200 You know, a woman will accept... 1220 01:08:44.200 --> 01:08:48.940 ..will never apply for a job that's advertised at £40,000 a year, 1221 01:08:49.060 --> 01:08:50.960 but she will apply for the same job 1222 01:08:50.960 --> 01:08:54.100 if it's paid half as much money, da-da-da, all of that. 1223 01:08:54.380 --> 01:08:58.460 And I've always said it's because of the conditionality 1224 01:08:58.460 --> 01:09:01.720 of father's love and father's closeness and father's support, 1225 01:09:01.920 --> 01:09:04.160 that girls get used to being disappointed. 1226 01:09:05.360 --> 01:09:07.520 Whereas I reckon it's true to say 1227 01:09:07.520 --> 01:09:09.680 that the vast majority of boys 1228 01:09:10.360 --> 01:09:15.020 have the unquestioning love and support of their mothers 1229 01:09:15.020 --> 01:09:17.660 in a way that girls don't have with their fathers. 1230 01:09:18.000 --> 01:09:20.620 I don't know that the defect in self-esteem 1231 01:09:21.380 --> 01:09:24.360 is as crucial for boys as it is for women. 1232 01:09:24.380 --> 01:09:24.560 It's as crucial for girls. 1233 01:09:25.060 --> 01:09:28.200 And I mean, I have no real evidence for this 1234 01:09:28.200 --> 01:09:29.940 because it's too difficult to quantify, 1235 01:09:30.180 --> 01:09:32.340 but it's always struck me as strange, you know, 1236 01:09:32.420 --> 01:09:35.440 that men think they can make a pass at any woman 1237 01:09:35.440 --> 01:09:38.060 and they've got a passable chance of success, 1238 01:09:38.420 --> 01:09:40.640 even if they're completely hideous. 1239 01:09:42.980 --> 01:09:45.020 Thank heavens, thank heavens. 1240 01:09:45.180 --> 01:09:49.520 Whereas the most beautiful woman in the world, we're told, 1241 01:09:49.680 --> 01:09:51.580 is full of fear and weeping 1242 01:09:51.580 --> 01:09:54.280 and is anticipating rejection 1243 01:09:54.380 --> 01:09:54.640 and is expecting rejection. 1244 01:09:55.760 --> 01:09:57.360 I think it might be a bit... 1245 01:09:57.360 --> 01:10:00.500 In the case of the use of derision, 1246 01:10:00.680 --> 01:10:03.880 I mean, I mentioned the reliance of the boy upon the peer group. 1247 01:10:04.060 --> 01:10:06.840 Boys get involved in societies, secret societies. 1248 01:10:07.520 --> 01:10:09.560 They're a bit like gorillas in the mist. 1249 01:10:09.820 --> 01:10:11.680 You know, they play roles. 1250 01:10:12.000 --> 01:10:14.880 Here is the leader, here is the person being groomed by the leader, 1251 01:10:15.020 --> 01:10:16.880 here is the Mr Step and Fetch It, 1252 01:10:16.980 --> 01:10:19.040 here is the clown of the group and so on. 1253 01:10:19.220 --> 01:10:22.160 And that will... that pattern will be replicated 1254 01:10:22.160 --> 01:10:24.000 as they go into adult life. 1255 01:10:24.380 --> 01:10:27.400 You will see the same thing at the head of the Labour Party 1256 01:10:27.400 --> 01:10:30.620 or you'll see the same thing around the board table 1257 01:10:30.620 --> 01:10:31.860 and you'll see the same thing 1258 01:10:32.380 --> 01:10:34.120 when men are dining together in a restaurant. 1259 01:10:34.300 --> 01:10:36.560 You can practically... there's the silverback, 1260 01:10:36.740 --> 01:10:37.900 you know, there's the one being... 1261 01:10:37.900 --> 01:10:41.300 And only the silverback is allowed to have a proof 1262 01:10:41.300 --> 01:10:43.680 of his heterosexual activity, namely the wife 1263 01:10:43.680 --> 01:10:45.900 or the consort alongside him. 1264 01:10:46.060 --> 01:10:47.740 Notice Tony Blair, perfect example. 1265 01:10:49.860 --> 01:10:53.600 So, you know, I'm not sure about this self-esteem thing. 1266 01:10:53.600 --> 01:10:57.500 I think it's much more to do with the esteem of the gang, of the group. 1267 01:10:58.540 --> 01:11:02.500 Any other contributions from the quartet? 1268 01:11:03.640 --> 01:11:04.160 Well... 1269 01:11:04.160 --> 01:11:04.820 Yeah. 1270 01:11:05.360 --> 01:11:09.100 I'd just say, to pick up on a couple of points I tried to make 1271 01:11:09.100 --> 01:11:12.500 within the earlier discussion, 1272 01:11:12.680 --> 01:11:16.340 is that I think the reason why we do see young boys 1273 01:11:16.340 --> 01:11:19.180 now thinking their rite of passage is to be arrested 1274 01:11:19.180 --> 01:11:23.580 is because I think that that's the strongest evidence we can have. 1275 01:11:23.600 --> 01:11:27.300 Of the need to have that acceptance and that rite of passage. 1276 01:11:27.420 --> 01:11:28.940 And as Jermaine said, you can see them, 1277 01:11:28.980 --> 01:11:32.400 when they don't have that support from a mentor group 1278 01:11:32.400 --> 01:11:33.560 or within their own culture, 1279 01:11:33.680 --> 01:11:36.960 they find it from their peers in what can be a more dangerous way. 1280 01:11:37.080 --> 01:11:39.640 And it's the reason why circle sentencing works. 1281 01:11:39.740 --> 01:11:42.800 It goes back to the heart of allowing people 1282 01:11:42.800 --> 01:11:46.440 to find relationships that can guide them, 1283 01:11:46.540 --> 01:11:48.100 that can break learned behaviour 1284 01:11:48.100 --> 01:11:52.600 that they're subjected to in unhealthy environments. 1285 01:11:53.660 --> 01:11:55.340 Gary, do you want to have a word on this, 1286 01:11:55.400 --> 01:11:57.320 from the interest of gender balance? 1287 01:11:58.300 --> 01:12:00.760 My observations about self-esteem with boys 1288 01:12:00.760 --> 01:12:05.140 is that it often actually comes through doing significant and meaningful things. 1289 01:12:06.860 --> 01:12:11.240 One of the arguments always was that boys do not do well 1290 01:12:11.240 --> 01:12:12.780 because their self-esteem is poor. 1291 01:12:13.080 --> 01:12:16.200 I think self-esteem actually comes from success 1292 01:12:16.200 --> 01:12:19.280 rather than success coming from self-esteem. 1293 01:12:19.560 --> 01:12:21.840 So one of the challenges schools face, I think, 1294 01:12:21.840 --> 01:12:23.580 is to give boys opportunities to do that. 1295 01:12:23.600 --> 01:12:25.840 To do successful and meaningful things. 1296 01:12:26.380 --> 01:12:29.860 And when I was talking about leadership programmes for boys, for example, 1297 01:12:30.020 --> 01:12:32.380 and one of our indigenous boys was involved in this, 1298 01:12:32.520 --> 01:12:34.740 we had a couple of our boys go to Sydney 1299 01:12:34.740 --> 01:12:36.240 to the National Mind Matters Conference 1300 01:12:36.840 --> 01:12:39.140 and because of the fact that these two boys 1301 01:12:39.140 --> 01:12:42.320 gained such tremendously positive feedback from that, 1302 01:12:42.520 --> 01:12:46.100 even though they were probably the two best footballers in the team, 1303 01:12:46.200 --> 01:12:48.480 there's no doubt that they felt better about themselves 1304 01:12:48.480 --> 01:12:52.460 for having done this than they did about other things that they were doing. 1305 01:12:52.460 --> 01:12:56.700 So boys, I think, like to leave their mark in a very positive way. 1306 01:12:57.140 --> 01:12:58.480 And in a school environment, 1307 01:12:58.600 --> 01:13:02.380 that's why being able to do things which are permanently there 1308 01:13:02.380 --> 01:13:05.920 as a recognition that they did exist in the school 1309 01:13:05.920 --> 01:13:08.480 and did contribute something positively, 1310 01:13:08.800 --> 01:13:12.220 whether it's through buildings that they've been involved in constructing or whatever, 1311 01:13:12.500 --> 01:13:15.900 they do need to do significant things and feel that they're taken seriously. 1312 01:13:16.700 --> 01:13:18.800 A question from the upper house, please. 1313 01:13:20.440 --> 01:13:21.120 Thank you. 1314 01:13:21.120 --> 01:13:26.000 Some of us here in Adelaide are trying to work with African youth 1315 01:13:26.000 --> 01:13:29.100 who have recently come to our shores in large numbers, 1316 01:13:29.640 --> 01:13:33.540 and I wonder if the last two members of the panel would care to comment. 1317 01:13:34.600 --> 01:13:37.340 We'd want to make some of the same mistakes that have been made 1318 01:13:37.340 --> 01:13:39.940 in North America working with black youth. 1319 01:13:40.380 --> 01:13:42.500 And secondly, from Germaine Greer, 1320 01:13:42.600 --> 01:13:46.520 the notion of how we can retain that natural, lovely wildness 1321 01:13:46.520 --> 01:13:48.500 that some of the black youth bring to our shores. 1322 01:13:49.460 --> 01:13:50.560 Lisa, you first. 1323 01:13:56.560 --> 01:14:00.140 Well, the first thing I think I would say is that 1324 01:14:00.960 --> 01:14:05.480 when you have African youth coming here from Africa, 1325 01:14:05.620 --> 01:14:09.840 you have a culture that is pretty much intact. 1326 01:14:10.240 --> 01:14:14.400 And much of the information that I... 1327 01:14:14.400 --> 01:14:16.000 Well, I won't say pretty much intact, 1328 01:14:16.200 --> 01:14:18.780 because colonialism, of course, has destroyed a lot. 1329 01:14:19.320 --> 01:14:21.100 But I think you have a culture that is pretty much intact. 1330 01:14:21.100 --> 01:14:21.900 And I think we have a culture that has a greater potential 1331 01:14:21.900 --> 01:14:27.620 for access to traditional African means of education. 1332 01:14:28.060 --> 01:14:31.100 And there's a great author, Asa Hilliard, 1333 01:14:31.200 --> 01:14:36.780 who's looked at some aspects of traditional African notions 1334 01:14:36.780 --> 01:14:38.640 of educating children, 1335 01:14:38.920 --> 01:14:45.180 and I think we could really find some great ways 1336 01:14:45.180 --> 01:14:48.160 of thinking about educating boys and girls 1337 01:14:48.160 --> 01:14:51.720 by looking at traditional thoughts. 1338 01:14:52.700 --> 01:14:58.420 One of the things that traditional societies seem to have over us in many ways 1339 01:14:58.420 --> 01:15:04.840 is that they really view children as the future, even though we say it. 1340 01:15:05.000 --> 01:15:07.920 We don't treat them as though they are. 1341 01:15:09.600 --> 01:15:16.520 We have, in African culture, for example, the children are referred to as the sons, 1342 01:15:16.520 --> 01:15:23.300 and they don't mean S-O-N-S, but S-U-N-S, of the society. 1343 01:15:24.640 --> 01:15:29.080 They are the ones who bring the future, who bring the nurturance, 1344 01:15:30.020 --> 01:15:33.160 who bring the potential for the continuation. 1345 01:15:34.780 --> 01:15:38.820 I think if we can find our way to some of those, 1346 01:15:40.240 --> 01:15:43.760 rethinking education in some of those more traditional ways 1347 01:15:43.760 --> 01:15:45.460 or looking to the traditional societies 1348 01:15:45.460 --> 01:15:46.500 to think about the future, 1349 01:15:46.500 --> 01:15:48.160 to think about what we should do with children, 1350 01:15:48.260 --> 01:15:54.220 I think we'd have a much better chance of educating all children. 1351 01:15:55.480 --> 01:15:57.340 So I would suggest that. 1352 01:15:57.500 --> 01:15:59.560 I think the children you're getting are... 1353 01:15:59.560 --> 01:16:03.500 In other words, the children you're getting present a resource to you 1354 01:16:03.500 --> 01:16:07.900 for changing education in a way that will benefit all. 1355 01:16:09.060 --> 01:16:11.180 J.J., do you want to have a crack at this? 1356 01:16:11.920 --> 01:16:13.580 I couldn't put it better. 1357 01:16:13.640 --> 01:16:15.800 It's obvious that we don't... 1358 01:16:16.500 --> 01:16:18.000 The difficulty with... 1359 01:16:19.140 --> 01:16:20.820 Let me get myself into trouble here. 1360 01:16:21.260 --> 01:16:25.880 The problem with Australians is that they assume that they've got to teach everybody else 1361 01:16:25.880 --> 01:16:29.880 that in the multicultural society, they're all trying to learn the same thing, 1362 01:16:29.900 --> 01:16:30.960 which is how to be like us. 1363 01:16:31.820 --> 01:16:33.360 And they're not. 1364 01:16:33.560 --> 01:16:34.980 A, they don't want to be like us. 1365 01:16:35.120 --> 01:16:37.240 They have less respect for us than we think. 1366 01:16:37.400 --> 01:16:39.880 They are less impressed by what we do than we think. 1367 01:16:40.100 --> 01:16:43.580 And we should just belt up and listen for a change. 1368 01:16:50.720 --> 01:16:53.340 Jemaine, you're really going to have to watch the sort of things you say, 1369 01:16:53.460 --> 01:16:55.420 otherwise you'll become notorious, so... 1370 01:16:56.640 --> 01:16:58.660 Do we have another question from the reps? 1371 01:16:58.820 --> 01:16:59.560 Yes, we do. 1372 01:17:00.440 --> 01:17:01.260 Thank you, Philip. 1373 01:17:01.620 --> 01:17:03.980 This question is directed mainly to Jemaine, 1374 01:17:04.040 --> 01:17:05.900 but we may also get some feedback from Gary. 1375 01:17:06.680 --> 01:17:11.060 Jemaine's particular focus on the dichotomy between boys and men, 1376 01:17:11.120 --> 01:17:16.000 or boys and manhood, and your references to music, 1377 01:17:16.000 --> 01:17:19.400 and I've got nothing against your comments about Mick Jagger 1378 01:17:19.400 --> 01:17:20.540 and his inability to grow up. 1379 01:17:20.620 --> 01:17:24.060 However, you did mention in the same sort of breath Yehudi Menuhin. 1380 01:17:24.380 --> 01:17:26.280 Yes, he was genius as a child, 1381 01:17:27.040 --> 01:17:31.340 but couldn't it also be argued that he's a genius as a man, an adult man, 1382 01:17:31.540 --> 01:17:34.700 and that we could also celebrate sometimes a beautiful boy 1383 01:17:34.700 --> 01:17:36.880 becoming a beautiful, soft man? 1384 01:17:41.080 --> 01:17:44.980 I presume the women in this audience have had their tongues torn out. 1385 01:17:44.980 --> 01:17:47.020 They are the huge majority, 1386 01:17:47.100 --> 01:17:49.880 and they have yet to ask to make a contribution. 1387 01:17:50.340 --> 01:17:52.740 I'd just like to have a bit of a beef about that. 1388 01:17:56.160 --> 01:17:58.260 A beautiful, soft man. 1389 01:17:59.700 --> 01:18:02.780 I think Mae West and I have something in common there. 1390 01:18:05.160 --> 01:18:07.480 Question without notice from the Senate. 1391 01:18:09.200 --> 01:18:13.800 I would like to address the disservice done to boys 1392 01:18:13.800 --> 01:18:14.960 by the government. 1393 01:18:14.980 --> 01:18:17.200 Say the judiciary, big business, 1394 01:18:17.500 --> 01:18:22.020 in their forming what's pejoratively known as boys clubs, 1395 01:18:23.040 --> 01:18:24.640 which are pretty exclusive, 1396 01:18:24.800 --> 01:18:27.780 which do a lot of damage. 1397 01:18:27.820 --> 01:18:31.700 And should the men in these positions of power 1398 01:18:31.700 --> 01:18:34.460 be accountable for diminishing 1399 01:18:34.460 --> 01:18:37.940 the essence of the good in boys 1400 01:18:37.940 --> 01:18:40.280 through their boys clubs? 1401 01:18:40.760 --> 01:18:41.420 Yes. 1402 01:18:41.460 --> 01:18:42.280 Yes. 1403 01:18:44.980 --> 01:18:45.380 That's it. 1404 01:18:45.560 --> 01:18:45.720 That's it. 1405 01:18:45.740 --> 01:18:46.120 That's it. 1406 01:18:46.180 --> 01:18:46.560 That's it. 1407 01:18:46.600 --> 01:18:46.980 That's it. 1408 01:18:48.440 --> 01:18:48.820 That's it. 1409 01:18:52.200 --> 01:18:52.740 That's it. 1410 01:18:54.720 --> 01:18:55.480 That's it. 1411 01:18:55.480 --> 01:18:55.740 That's it. 1412 01:18:55.900 --> 01:18:56.280 That's it. 1413 01:18:56.280 --> 01:18:56.440 That's it. 1414 01:18:56.920 --> 01:18:57.300 That's it. 1415 01:18:57.300 --> 01:18:57.580 That's it. 1416 01:18:58.260 --> 01:18:58.740 That's it. 1417 01:18:59.340 --> 01:19:00.000 That's it. 1418 01:19:00.100 --> 01:19:00.240 That's it. 1419 01:19:00.520 --> 01:19:01.120 That's it. 1420 01:19:01.220 --> 01:19:01.540 That's it. 1421 01:19:03.080 --> 01:19:03.460 That's it. 1422 01:19:03.960 --> 01:19:04.360 That's it. 1423 01:19:04.620 --> 01:19:05.140 That's it. 1424 01:19:05.320 --> 01:19:05.420 That's it. 1425 01:19:05.420 --> 01:19:05.540 That's it. 1426 01:19:05.540 --> 01:19:05.800 That's it. 1427 01:19:05.980 --> 01:19:06.340 That's it. 1428 01:19:06.980 --> 01:19:07.620 That's it. 1429 01:19:12.300 --> 01:19:16.040 So I guess I see it in lots of places. 1430 01:19:16.320 --> 01:19:21.640 And, you know, I take the point about that those sorts of networks give boys a bad name. 1431 01:19:22.660 --> 01:19:31.360 But I think that it's probably an important comment to remind us that while we can celebrate the fact that in law schools there are 60% of women, 1432 01:19:31.420 --> 01:19:38.520 and when we look around the 400 Indigenous students that we now have at the university that I'm at, there's a majority of them who are women, 1433 01:19:39.660 --> 01:19:43.440 that there is a glass ceiling there that can't be broken. 1434 01:19:43.580 --> 01:19:47.060 So I don't know that I've got much more to say about it than that. 1435 01:19:48.260 --> 01:19:50.520 Perhaps, Jermaine, you should take the question. 1436 01:19:50.980 --> 01:20:04.140 Well, it seems to me clear that what's being referred to is the development of microcosms of what will eventually be the corporate world in which men are meant to function. 1437 01:20:04.540 --> 01:20:08.500 And there's the additional part of that is that women also become onlookers. 1438 01:20:08.520 --> 01:20:11.880 Honorary men in those capacities when they're trained in that way. 1439 01:20:12.740 --> 01:20:20.960 Mrs. Thatcher came out of the boys' club of the Tory party and ultimately became the most masculine member of her cabinet in everybody's belief. 1440 01:20:21.360 --> 01:20:32.440 So if we're going to hold organizations accountable, we've got to develop enough power to counterbalance those institutions. 1441 01:20:33.040 --> 01:20:37.360 And in the way the corporate world is structured at the moment, 1442 01:20:38.240 --> 01:20:38.500 there is a lot of power in the way that we're going to hold organizations accountable. 1443 01:20:38.500 --> 01:20:40.420 There is no power outside it. 1444 01:20:40.560 --> 01:20:43.000 We have no labor unions with any power. 1445 01:20:43.280 --> 01:20:53.160 There is nothing we can counterpoise against the corporate state and corporate institutions that are in some cases more powerful than the state. 1446 01:20:53.380 --> 01:20:56.280 We're in serious trouble when it comes to human freedom. 1447 01:20:56.540 --> 01:20:57.680 And it's getting worse. 1448 01:21:03.760 --> 01:21:05.420 I've lost track of proceedings. 1449 01:21:05.680 --> 01:21:06.900 Who's turn is it for a question? 1450 01:21:07.880 --> 01:21:08.980 Upstairs or downstairs? 1451 01:21:09.340 --> 01:21:10.020 Okay, downstairs. 1452 01:21:10.080 --> 01:21:11.080 I can see someone there. 1453 01:21:11.740 --> 01:21:14.540 This is a question for Germaine Greer also. 1454 01:21:15.160 --> 01:21:18.640 You talked about the necessity of... 1455 01:21:18.640 --> 01:21:19.940 Can you back off the mic a bit? 1456 01:21:19.980 --> 01:21:20.740 You're distorting. 1457 01:21:20.740 --> 01:21:21.040 Thanks. 1458 01:21:21.580 --> 01:21:22.160 Better? 1459 01:21:22.420 --> 01:21:22.880 Better. 1460 01:21:23.020 --> 01:21:23.400 Okay. 1461 01:21:23.660 --> 01:21:30.740 You talked about the necessity of the man slaying the boy in that transition. 1462 01:21:31.480 --> 01:21:36.880 My question is, is it necessary for this to happen for the maintenance of our so-called society? 1463 01:21:36.880 --> 01:21:37.700 For civilized society? 1464 01:21:38.220 --> 01:21:43.340 Or is it a good thing for boys to remain boys until they're in their dotage? 1465 01:21:48.520 --> 01:21:54.580 Well, I could answer that question flippantly and say that the proper partner for the boy is an older woman. 1466 01:21:54.800 --> 01:21:56.000 And therefore I have no... 1467 01:21:56.000 --> 01:22:00.860 I feel no anxiety about turning him into a man. 1468 01:22:00.920 --> 01:22:06.760 And the thing is that if we're going to keep our notion of the corporate state, 1469 01:22:06.880 --> 01:22:14.360 if we're going to see ourselves as needing to bully the rest of the world with fantastic displays of strength, 1470 01:22:14.640 --> 01:22:21.600 then we're going to need these hard-nosed people who've made themselves deliberately insensitive. 1471 01:22:22.000 --> 01:22:31.900 I mean, we can see how that would fit in with the human history of warring peoples struggling for a foothold on this small planet. 1472 01:22:32.060 --> 01:22:34.000 But we can't proceed that way. 1473 01:22:34.420 --> 01:22:36.320 We've got to find a different way. 1474 01:22:36.880 --> 01:22:41.420 And it may be that what I'm sort of indicating in my bumbling way 1475 01:22:41.420 --> 01:22:46.080 is that manhood might be on the verge of becoming obsolete. 1476 01:22:47.040 --> 01:22:56.720 And we might be going to have the whole male creature to live alongside instead of this one-dimensional man. 1477 01:22:56.960 --> 01:23:01.140 Remember, it's a very old idea, but it was a good idea at the time. 1478 01:23:01.180 --> 01:23:03.300 And it's an idea we should still be thinking about. 1479 01:23:03.500 --> 01:23:05.020 What we don't want... 1480 01:23:05.020 --> 01:23:05.840 And as a... 1481 01:23:05.840 --> 01:23:06.520 As a... 1482 01:23:06.520 --> 01:23:08.900 Women's liberationist, I've argued this all along. 1483 01:23:09.120 --> 01:23:13.340 We don't want one-dimensional woman to join one-dimensional man. 1484 01:23:13.560 --> 01:23:17.440 If that happens, we will have lost our capacity to survive. 1485 01:23:18.140 --> 01:23:19.540 Then I would lose hope. 1486 01:23:19.640 --> 01:23:22.120 Then I would think we will destroy this planet. 1487 01:23:22.440 --> 01:23:24.680 As it is, it's a moot point right now. 1488 01:23:24.940 --> 01:23:29.800 And it strikes me that the direction to go in is the direction of boyhood. 1489 01:23:29.980 --> 01:23:34.300 The direction of remaining creative, flexible, young, 1490 01:23:34.540 --> 01:23:36.500 and not full of... 1491 01:23:36.520 --> 01:23:38.980 of phallic anxiety and imaginary fears 1492 01:23:38.980 --> 01:23:42.540 and building paranoid states, state structures 1493 01:23:42.540 --> 01:23:45.280 that are calculated to shake the globe to pieces. 1494 01:23:46.040 --> 01:23:46.500 Thank you. 1495 01:23:53.300 --> 01:23:57.000 If you'll forgive the expression, we've got time for a quickie. 1496 01:23:58.300 --> 01:23:58.940 Madam. 1497 01:23:59.260 --> 01:24:00.100 Thank you. 1498 01:24:00.820 --> 01:24:05.460 A question, I guess, for Larissa, but with reference to what Germaine's been saying. 1499 01:24:06.520 --> 01:24:10.460 Um, having had a cross-cultural relationship with an Indigenous person 1500 01:24:10.460 --> 01:24:15.660 and had children, what I've intuited that the, um, 1501 01:24:16.380 --> 01:24:19.680 the original rite of passage in this country may have been for a boy 1502 01:24:19.680 --> 01:24:24.360 to become mature by being able to now care for others 1503 01:24:24.360 --> 01:24:27.600 and, uh, preserve life and provide. 1504 01:24:27.660 --> 01:24:31.660 And women had a similar, um, rite of passage. 1505 01:24:31.720 --> 01:24:35.720 So is that perhaps what we should look back to and renew? 1506 01:24:36.920 --> 01:24:40.120 If, if that's a correct, uh, intuition. 1507 01:24:42.320 --> 01:24:47.260 I think for me, when I look at the way in, in, you know, 1508 01:24:47.300 --> 01:24:50.860 I, I wouldn't want to romanticise pre-colonial society 1509 01:24:50.860 --> 01:24:54.040 because there were a lot of things about it that weren't very, very pleasant. 1510 01:24:54.380 --> 01:24:59.080 Um, and, but if I look back on the values that were instilled with me 1511 01:24:59.080 --> 01:25:05.920 within an Aboriginal family, um, and compare that to what I see, um, in the world outside, 1512 01:25:05.920 --> 01:25:11.040 and to look at families that didn't have the same cohesiveness within my family, 1513 01:25:11.100 --> 01:25:17.320 um, I think that the very separate roles for, um, men and women, 1514 01:25:18.140 --> 01:25:23.400 um, was important in two ways in the way that it, that it worked in traditional society. 1515 01:25:23.760 --> 01:25:28.740 The first is that it, it recognised the specialness about the roles of each gender 1516 01:25:28.740 --> 01:25:35.620 and recognised the importance of the intergenerational, um, relationships of, of, of gender. 1517 01:25:35.920 --> 01:25:38.040 Uh, uh, of each, uh, members of each gender 1518 01:25:38.040 --> 01:25:42.640 and it was very much about ensuring that women learnt from the knowledge of their mothers 1519 01:25:42.640 --> 01:25:45.320 and their grandmothers and that men learnt from the knowledge 1520 01:25:45.320 --> 01:25:47.240 of their fathers and their grandfathers. 1521 01:25:47.560 --> 01:25:50.460 They were, as you'd know, very complicated relationships 1522 01:25:50.460 --> 01:25:54.280 between the sexes and between marriages that we won't go into, 1523 01:25:54.380 --> 01:25:58.560 but I think that element of ensuring the cohesiveness 1524 01:25:58.560 --> 01:26:00.140 uh, uh, knowledge through generations 1525 01:26:00.140 --> 01:26:05.720 was a very important part and it- the aspect of allowing you to understand the strengths- 1526 01:26:05.720 --> 01:26:07.760 and the role of your gender was very important. 1527 01:26:07.980 --> 01:26:11.580 But the thing I think was really important about that traditional aspect 1528 01:26:11.580 --> 01:26:17.180 was that it didn't have that element of subjugation 1529 01:26:17.180 --> 01:26:21.160 that's been so much a part of Western women's experience with men, 1530 01:26:21.340 --> 01:26:25.740 where one was necessarily assumed to be subservient to the other. 1531 01:26:25.800 --> 01:26:29.640 There were many ways in which the role of women within traditional society 1532 01:26:29.640 --> 01:26:33.360 were enormously important, both economically and spiritually. 1533 01:26:33.680 --> 01:26:35.440 So, for example, in Camilleroy culture, 1534 01:26:35.720 --> 01:26:39.800 Aboriginal women would choose where conception and birth took place, 1535 01:26:39.940 --> 01:26:43.740 and these would profoundly influence the role of the child 1536 01:26:43.740 --> 01:26:47.360 in the relationship with the community and the clan. 1537 01:26:47.740 --> 01:26:51.300 So there were ways in which that was a very strong element. 1538 01:26:51.580 --> 01:26:53.360 And I can remember as a child, 1539 01:26:53.460 --> 01:26:58.120 when I would attend meetings with my father on political issues, 1540 01:26:58.160 --> 01:26:59.240 and he was very active, 1541 01:26:59.440 --> 01:27:01.560 the men would get up and bluster at the beginning 1542 01:27:01.560 --> 01:27:03.560 and yell and shout about what we'd have to do, 1543 01:27:03.660 --> 01:27:05.300 but at the end of it, it would be the women 1544 01:27:05.300 --> 01:27:07.480 who'd quietly say what they thought, 1545 01:27:07.560 --> 01:27:09.460 and that at the end of the day would hold the sway. 1546 01:27:09.740 --> 01:27:13.600 So I think that despite the fact that we do get a really bad rap 1547 01:27:13.600 --> 01:27:16.400 in terms of the perceptions of Aboriginal people, 1548 01:27:16.500 --> 01:27:20.400 and all of those things that Lisa was saying about African-American men 1549 01:27:20.400 --> 01:27:24.020 are so much imprinted on Aboriginal men as well. 1550 01:27:24.100 --> 01:27:28.000 I think that there are ways in which that respect 1551 01:27:28.000 --> 01:27:32.100 for the relationship of equals amongst Aboriginal people 1552 01:27:32.100 --> 01:27:34.380 I think I've seen in the way I was growing up, 1553 01:27:34.420 --> 01:27:35.220 and that's... 1554 01:27:35.300 --> 01:27:36.840 That's where I think there's a lot to learn. 1555 01:27:36.960 --> 01:27:41.040 That understanding of difference, but respect for the roles, 1556 01:27:41.200 --> 01:27:43.080 and no subjugation in it. 1557 01:27:43.180 --> 01:27:46.340 That's where I think, for me, the greatest lesson has been. 1558 01:27:47.080 --> 01:27:48.780 Ladies and gentlemen, that's a wrap, 1559 01:27:48.940 --> 01:27:50.080 and we have to clear the hall. 1560 01:27:50.300 --> 01:27:53.780 Please be careful when opening the overhead luggage compartment 1561 01:27:53.780 --> 01:27:56.700 in case it shifted during the flight. 1562 01:27:56.900 --> 01:28:01.740 But let us conclude by thanking Lisa, Larissa, Gary and Jermaine, 1563 01:28:01.760 --> 01:28:03.300 and Greer for Governor-General. 1564 01:28:06.200 --> 01:28:07.520 Thank you.