ABSTRACT
“Pop-psychology”—this is the term used by sociologist Raewyn Connell (2010, 2003) to define the obsession in public discourse and public media with labelling of gender differences as if these differences are biologically set-in-stone. Western society’s captivation by such dichotomy-based definitions has problematic outcomes when, for example, in leadership debates men and women are portrayed as being incapable of getting along because their ways of communicating are too different (Klenke 2011). I was witness to this very scenario at a Community Engagement and Fire Awareness Conference hosted by the New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSW RFS) for four hundred odd staff and volunteers in 2011. The much publicised keynote speaker was Allan Pease—co-author of books, such as Why Men Lie and Women Cry (2006), Why Men Don’t Have a Clue and Women Always Need More Shoes (2004) and Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps (2000). During the hour-long keynote on differing communication styles of men and women, I watched a room packed to the rafters with predominantly male firefighters, enthralled and captivated with Allan Pease’s vigorous body language and entertaining PowerPoint slides that reinforced biologically deterministic gender stereotyping to an extent that left me feeling nauseous. What intrigued me, however, was the way in which Allan Pease’s arguments of biologically determined gender differences were so compelling to the enrapt audience. Why was I so surprised by their uncritical agreement? The fire fighting profession as well as the rural hinterland from which the NSW RFS traditionally has drawn the majority of its volunteers are deeply embedded in testosterone-fuelled, patriarchal-structured systems that place many, if not most, female staff and volunteers in the logistical and care-providing roles that are associated with women in traditional rural landscapes (Bryant and Pini 2010; Desmond 2007; Campbell et al. 2006). It angered me that Allan Pease would disguise his arguments in so-called “scientific proof” mangled from biological and evolutionary theories of Stone Age behaviour, which have been substantially disproved by rigorous feminist, sociological and cultural studies. Work by Raewyn Connell (2010) and Bob Pease (2002, 2010), for example, demonstrate how a shift in focus from gender difference to gender relations, reveals gender to be a matter of social relations—i.e. social structures with enduring or widespread patterns, rather than an expression of dichotomous biology.
So we cannot think of womanhood or manhood as fixed by nature. But neither should we think of them as simply imposed from outside, by social norms or pressure from authorities. People construct themselves as masculine or feminine. We claim a place in the gender order—or respond to the place we have been given—by the way we conduct ourselves in everyday life. (Connell 2010, 6)
