There’s something unseemly about Davos – a modern day Mount Olympus, where a collection of mainly men - only 20% of delegates are female - cast themselves as the world’s decision makers and hang out loftily above the rest of us deciding the future of the planet and all that happens on it. Paradoxically, in a glaring conflict of interest, private jets line up on the tarmac as world leaders fly in to discuss climate change, seemingly untouched by the day-to-day consequences of the world’s problems. It’s easy to see how the charge of out-of-touch elite can be levelled against them. Their credibility on other crushingly important topics that get an airing at Davos is also tenuous, such as how to improve the place of women in society.
Gender diversity has been on the Davos radar for quite a few years. Back in 2011 a quota was imposed requiring corporations to send one woman for each four men in their delegation, which I suppose accounts more or less for the 20% of women who are allowed in. But progress beyond that seems minimal. As a barometer for women’s representation more generally, Davos seems like a good one. Quotas are met, but little else changes. Ann Cairns, the Vice Chairman of Mastercard described this week how Joe Biden assumed, when introduced at Davos to her and her husband, that it was Mr Cairns he was supposed to be meeting rather than her. There are lots of words and powerful presentations, but actions rarely speak loudly.
The problem with words is that they are somehow equated with action, as if we can talk our way into an alternate reality (a bit like the Brexit negotiations and our approach to climate change). But, sadly, it’s not that easy. Attitudes and behaviours are entrenched, interests are heavily vested, the truth is not readily discernable and change is difficult to achieve in an era where experts are no longer valued or believed and conspiracy theorists abound. Descending for a moment from the rarefied atmosphere of Davos, we do know it t be true that on all accepted measures of power, women lag behind and still require protection to help them achieve economic independence and even physical safety. One piece of legislation has made it recently through the UK’s parliamentary process, paralysed as it is by the Brexit standoff, a law on domestic violence, passed this week. It formally recognizes financial control of a life partner as criminal abuse. The main beneficiaries of the protection will be women. Whilst the legislation is welcome and necessary, it is remedial rather than preventative. It doesn’t tackle the underlying causes of women’s continued dependency on and vulnerability to exploitation and abuse by men.
There are many reasons for this, including that we cling to stereotypical ideals and expectations of women which often restrict them to the home or limit their earning potential. In the West, we are in what academics describe as the “post feminist” era where women can succeed at work but must remain “women” as opposed to “men.” Their difference is highlighted and often used as justification for why we need more of them in the workplace. Women are more nurturing, better listeners and more inclusive, with men by implication being the opposite. Many of the successful women we see both in real life and portrayed in fiction are also much, much more glamorous than their male counterparts. It seems to be as difficult for women as it is for men to give up these preconceptions even though they demonstrably hold us back. Neuroscience has proved that at birth there is no difference between male and female brains. Most of the gender differences we observe in later life are likely to result entirely from how we bring up our boys and girls and the different expectations we place on them. At a superficial level, in the business world, it is absolutely not Darwinian evolution for men to dress in an indistinguishable array of grey suits or jeans and t-shirts, whilst women are locked into a seemingly endless battle, where the bathroom scales must go down, heel height goes up and glamour is imperative. London’s first private members club for business women contains both a nail bar and a yoga studio. Aesthetics are everything.
The precarious position women occupy – they are more vulnerable and therefore need to be more appealing, and are also required to conform to a tough man’s world - is being played out before our eyes by our Prime Minister. In her big jewellry and kitten heels, the glucose monitor attached to her arm an outward sign of potential frailty, she faces every day a raucous chamber dominated by grey-suit-wearing, braying men. Regardless of what you think of her policies, it’s a terrifying sight but one that is familiar in our collective psyche. Since as far back as Greek mythology we have accepted without question stories of male dominance and violence against women that continue to play out in the modern world.
In turbulent times such as these, it sometimes takes a great artist to capture the truth of the moment we live in. Enter Fiona Benson, with her new, astounding anthology of poems, “Vertigo & Ghost.” In the first part of it she revisits Mount Olympus, recasting Zeus in a modern setting as a violent, serial rapist from whom women never feel safe and against whom there is no justice: “I kept the dictaphone running/ it recorded nothing/ but my own voice/ vulcanised and screaming/ ‘you won’t get away with this’.” Her poems conjure up the Harvey Weinsteins of this world and also populist strongmen such as a raging Trump and his glamorous, potentially vulnerable, female entourage. Benson makes explicit analogies to the #MeToo movement as well as modern day war and violence. Depicting their fate in the Holocaust and Syria she describes women and children’s enduring peril: “…and you are a mother/ running for your life with a baby tied to your back/ and two small children by the hand.” Even in the relative security of the West, in covert ways we teach our girls to fear and run: “I don’t know who I’m teaching you to hide from/ but look how you learn.”
What we learn needs to change, but as Martin Woolf wrote in the Financial Times this week (“The rise of the populist authoritarians”) the strong men in power are increasingly entrenched in their narrow populist world views, exploiting social media to propagate alternative facts, reinforcing traditional male stereotypes and eating away at truth and democracy from within. When Gillette decided to tap into the #MeToo zeitgeist they faced a backlash from the more populist tabloid media and on social networks against their entreaty for men to let go of “boys will be boys” stereotypes and to take more responsibility for their behaviour. As if asking men to stop fighting and cat-calling women was setting the bar too high: Gillette could have shown images of destroyed towns in Syria with children buried in the rubble as the ultimate playing-out of boys being boys with toys. The corollary of changing the roles into which we traditionally cast men is that we must also let go of ideas around girls being girls who grow into skinny, consensus-seeking women in figure hugging dresses and vertiginous heels, their currency dependent on pleasing men. Benson portrays women (including Zeus’ wife, Hera) not only as victims but as protectors of the vulnerable, constraining dangerous male excesses: “Hera vouchsafe./ Vouchsafe our children in the world./ Keep him in the prison of your vigilance.” On the other hand, the “Like A Girl” advertising campaign powerfully portrayed some of the deeply rooted stereotypes we hold about how weak and silly it is to be a girl.
In many ways Benson’s anthology is pessimistic. If it was ever thus, how can women’s dominance and control by men be ended? Her poems are nonetheless a call for change, as are the advertising campaigns highlighting “toxic masculinity,” but resistance to them is strong. Artists, creative campaign creators and others with a public platform must relentlessly observe and call out how we constantly draw on dangerous stereotypes of both men and women that lock men into positions of excessive power and women into a lesser place in society. Martin Woolf entreats the men (and women) of Davos to use their power to restore faith in democracy by making it work better. He draws hope from the inability of authoritarian male leaders to offer real, positive solutions to their countries’ problems. I’m not sure I agree that our hope for change lies in the hands of Davos delegates. They don’t, frankly, have a great track record. Power can be more diffuse, rising up from the bottom (a better source of societal change) rather than working from the top down. If women, drawing on Hera, and like-minded men are vigilant, then strong men can be contained and overcome. In Benson’s anthology Zeus gets his come-uppance, but the fear he provokes endures. I suppose we have to remember that “strong men” are a stereotype too and perhaps not as invincible as they would have us believe, if we can only find the means to expose them for what they are. This is one of the challenges of our time; and it is not easy.