For me, human rights are fundamentally personal, while simultaneously being social, economic, political and increasingly environmental. A lazy take on human rights often presents them as essentially a United Nations agenda and responsibility, not really personal but societal.
This allows us (as individuals, societies and states) to point the finger at the UN, to blame that institution for the world’s many rights failings and to absolve ourselves of our due obligations. It remains a recurring trope that the UN is useless and there is little that can be done until it is replaced or at least completely reconfigured.
Such a view spectacularly fails to understand the nature, history and value of the human rights story and its immediate relevance. This is painfully so with respect to women’s rights and the vexed question of violence against women and of men’s ongoing role in that regard.
Like everyone else, I have many, many women in my life story – without them, I would have no such story. So, in that context, it deeply saddens and infuriates me to witness the current pushback against the rights of those women, the attitudes that underpin it and the nature and impact of the violences associated with it.
This reality impacts directly not just on the women who surround me but also on women worldwide who nurture and enrich our world in so many vital ways.
In the western world, that pushback agenda has long been evident in the obnoxious and misogynist attitudes and behaviours of men like Donald Trump and Andrew Tate, their fellow travellers and supporters. Bizarrely, both are deemed to be ‘role models’ for many younger men, especially those who inhabit social media’s ‘manosphere’.
In recent weeks it has also been highlighted in the cases of ‘celebrities’ such as TV presenter Greg Wallace and martial arts fighter Conor McGregor. Both have been at the centre of intense controversy, and, in the latter case, legal action related to male attitudes and behaviours.
Broadly characterised, the pushback agenda asserts that women’s rights and feminism generally have ‘gone too far’ - so far that now men and men’s rights are mysteriously ‘in danger’. And this despite the overwhelming evidence that if current trends continue, it will take over 250 years to bring an end to laws that discriminate against women and girls.
As we mark Human Rights Day on December 10th, the issue is once again thrown into relief locally by the results of the recent Eurobarometer survey which exposed entrenched misogynistic beliefs among Maltese men and, sadly Maltese women.
The survey revealed that despite the progress achieved with respect to violence against women, blaming women themselves (their dress, behaviour, their ‘mixed’ messages etc.) for that violence remains persistent. Like so many other societies deeply held misogynistic attitudes encourage that blaming culture which makes life immensely harder for its victims but crucially absolves men for their behaviour and its consequences.
Such attitudes zero in on the victims of such violence diverting attention from its perpetrators. This is a key issue not just for the law in all its dimensions but more generally for social and cultural norms.
It should be a matter of widespread alarm that the survey also found that one in three respondents believed women fabricate or exaggerate rape claims. Again, the focus is on the supposed ‘culpability’ of female victims rather than male perpetrators.
Many of these issues and the norms that surround them were highlighted in the recent successful civil action (for rape) by Nikita Hand against MMA fighter Conor McGregor in Dublin.
In addressing the issues to the jury, the judge noted that the fact that a woman engages in what many might describe as ‘risky activity’ (getting drunk, taking drugs or sharing ‘risqué’ photos or wearing ‘revealing clothes’) cannot be taken to mean they are ‘up for sex’.
He reminded the jury (society?) that they cannot operate on a presumption that women who engage in such behaviours are sexually promiscuous and therefore culpable. They should avoid ‘lazy assumptions’ or ‘victim blaming’.
The judge also reminded the jury that they should be cautious about drawing conclusions on what they think a person sexually assaulted should or should not have done and how they behaved following such an assault.
For a change, the case challenged many of society’s preconceptions about the attitudes and behaviours of predatory men, especially those deemed to be celebrities. It focused also on the power dynamics in many such situations.
Accepting that human rights are personal and immediate offers each of us the opportunity to move the dial in a progressive direction and to challenge the pushback so rife today especially on social media.
Contrary to much lazy public debate, women’s rights continue to challenge men, me included.