A candid discussion on gender roles and the importance of positive role modelling.

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To mark International Women’s Day and in honour of six years of MIMCO’s partnership with Our Watch, we’re bringing you a series of candid conversations on gender equality.

Father, husband and AFL player, Ben Brown, and gender quality advocate, podcast host and marriage celebrant, Hester Brown became Our Watch ambassadors in 2018. Passionate about using their platform to advocate for gender equality and the prevention of violence against women, we invited the couple to respond to a series of thought-provoking questions and share their stories about how we can all make choices that can lead to change.

Watch the video or read the full interview with Ben and Hester below.

What is the role of a parent in shaping how their child perceives gender stereotypes?

Hester: We’ve both said that as soon as you become a parent, you notice just how prevalent gender stereotypes are. We want to show our girls that they can wear any colour, just like they can do any job. And the same with our men; they don’t have to just wear blue and they don’t have to love cars. They can follow their dreams, they can be emotional, they don’t have to be stoic or strong or any of those gendered words we think about. It’s about what we role model back to them.

Ben: At the end of the day those stereotypes are just part of how we box people up and expect them to be a certain way. They might seem harmless, but Our Watch’s work shows how they have an impact on domestic violence.

Who does the majority of the housework in your relationship?

Hester: We do an equal amount of housework! It’s important to share the jobs, and sometimes that can look a different way than you expect. It’s about making sure that it’s fair and that we’re both comfortable with the work that we’re doing. That no one feels like they’re taking on too large of a share of the emotional load, as well.

I think a lot of people can remember a time where they might have had a dinner party with their parents and all the women were in the kitchen cleaning up afterwards or getting the food ready—that sort of thing has been conditioned into our society for a really long time, so it’s about unlearning and working together to do that.

How do you think men are impacted by the stereotype that calls for men to be dominant, in control, tough, aggressive and stoic?

Ben: It can affect men in a whole heap of ways, just as it affects women. You look at suicide rates among men—these things are directly correlated. Studies have shown that men who feel like they need to be strong and in control are more likely to suffer from depression. At the end of the day, it affects our ability to have relationships effectively.

Hester: We know now that rigid stereotypes affect everyone. There’s the pretty clear negative effect on girls and women and the impacts that you’re talking about on men. But we also know that it doesn’t service people who identify outside of the gender binary and we need to be looking after everyone.

Do you think women should be able to play every sport a man does?

Ben: Absolutely! I think part of Our Watch’s work is [showing] that everyone deserves the opportunity to go out in life and try to achieve whatever they want to achieve. When it comes to sport historically, girls and women have been disproportionately impacted by society’s expectations of them and what they can and can’t do. And I’ve loved being involved with the AFLW since its inception because it shows that, of course, women and girls can dominate on the footy field.
If sport is saying, ‘men can do this and women can’t’, you’re not going to tell me that that’s just having an impact on sport alone. It’s going to have an impact on how young people grow up as adults and how they feel about their place in society.

Find out more about MIMCO’s partnership with Our Watch.