It’s time to get real - very real. We’re all in the same boat and its sinking fast. That’s both good news and bad news. The bad news is obvious; it’s an awesome planet with snow and surf and music and wonderful creatures along with some great people and a bunch more who are asleep - we are gunna lose all that without major changes.

The good news is a little more obscure -it’s about opportunity. That’s right; the current global crisis is another choice point or opportunity for our human family to grow wise.

Since it’s my passion to empower men to save themselves and maybe save the planet along the way, we men need to keep looking at our male programming. I said it above. It is time to get “real” - that’s right it’s time to become real, “real men”- to become authentic and that takes courage and inegrity.

We can’t save the planet without those qualities. Life is wonderfully precious, we are meant to be fit, find love, feel good, contribute, be creative. We were not given a life to end up violent, killed, binge drinking, drugged dumb, suicided or in prison - yet that is what many of our young men do.

Damn, I’m angry about that! Most of the boys and men I’ve met in prisons or juvenile detention centres are not bad guys - they just made stupid choices backed by powerful and awfully Neanderthal programming -the -’ be a man’ programming.

There are so many healthy ways to be happy and have wonderful and fullfilling lives that it is just plain dumb that so much of the male programing aims at turning us into violent alcoholic morons. Add some porn addictions or sexual weirdness into that mix as well. 

So lets us men tap into the wisdom we all have inside us. Yep even some of our sporting heroes, guys like Wayne Carey, Ben Cousins, Sam Newman and poor ole Nick D’Arcy, have a chance to become wise men and lead our brothers towards our greatest brave act - saving ourselves as we save the planet. Yep the two go together.

One good leader can’t do it if the massses beneath him/her are Neanderthal - that is why I’m always encouraging the male half of the masses to wake up - do our growth work. There is a lot at stake but in the meantime you/we will be happier, healthier and feel better about ourselves - our souls will rejoice!

To illustrate the point that most men are fed up with our dumbing down programming I’m bringing forward an old story I wrote in the late nineties about a whitewater rafting trip I led. It is a story of some heroism, some stupid male behaviour and a wonderful conclusion. It soon went on websites all around the world …enjoy

Confronting Sexism on a Whitewater Rafting Trip

Published by Pip Cornall on October 27, 2007 12:32 am under

A true story about confronting sexism in whitewater rafting:

I was guiding a group of men on a two-day white water rafting trip on the Upper Klamath River near the Oregon border. This wild, isolated section of the Klamath slices through the rugged Cascade Mountains of southern Oregon and northern California. With its unparalleled wilderness beauty and over 30 major rapids including Hells Corner Gorge, it is one of the west’s finest Class IV-V river trips. I’ve included a paragraph from one of the rafting company’s brochures below.

This is a challenging river run. Paddling class IV or V rapids is an athletic event and a team activity that requires a prolonged, strenuous effort. You must be physically fit, have good stamina and be a competent swimmer. A distinguishing characteristic of Hell’s Corner Canyon is its old west flavor: High buttes crown the canyon rims. Abandoned settler’s cabins are visible on the banks. We float past lava caves once used by Native Americans, and toward the end of the run antique log bridges span the river. This place has remained unchanged since covered wagons creaked nearby along the Oregon Trail in the 1800’s.

Our run started with a five-mile section of easy water (class II & III) and then entered the gorge for about 8 miles. Approaching the gorge the river disappears from the horizon, dropping into Caldera, a boulder-choked chute of solid white water. This is was serious rafting consisting of lots of class IV rapids and a number of class IV+ becoming V at higher water levels. The names of the rapids are indicative of the respect the guides have for them such as, Caldera, Satan’s Gate, Hell’s Corner, Branding Iron, Dragon’s Teeth, Snag Island Falls, Ambush, Scar Face and Ole’ Bushwaker.

My group consisted of 11 men aged between thirty and fifty. My helper was a competent young guide called ‘E’ who had not guided a commercial trip on this river before. I’d kept him close to me as we negotiated the tricky class IV+ rapids in the gorge. It turned out that we had a very successful run through the gorge and even played a significant part in a rescue involving two other rafts. One of the other boats had flipped and several participants were injured. After the rescue I took several of the injured in my boat and placed two of my strongest paddlers in each of the weaker boats with instructions to ‘follow my lines’ in the gorge.

Although I’d had a lot of experience in the gorge and ran it regularly throughout summer, I was quite tense about the situation. I’d lost four good paddlers and replaced them with two injured passengers. The men I placed in the other rafts had extensive rafting experience so I told them to steer the boats from the front since the guides were struggling in the bigger water. Consequently we had all experienced the level of bonding which occurs in some danger sport activities. I could not have been happier with the performance of the men I’d put in the other boats. They had done well and followed my lines perfectly!

As we drifted on the calm waters leading to our pullout we were happy, tired and content. This was rafting and companionship at its best! At the pullout we transferred the injured paddlers and said goodbye to the other rafts. For them it was mostly easy water for the remainder of their trip. Our group would be meeting our driver to be transported back to the head of Hell’s Corner Gorge where we would camp the night. In the morning we would run it again, this time as paddle boats without oar assist. I would be using a guide paddle and would not have as much control in big water but would have to rely more upon the paddling ability of the crew. This was a both a reward and acknowledgement of their excellent assistance in the gorge.

After a short wait we met our driver and began the slow climbing trip back to our campsite. As we prepared the evening meal there was a lot of boisterous boasting and story telling as the men recaptured the excitement of the gorge. I remember thinking what a great day it was and how much I loved my job as raft guide. What a surprise I was in for! After a while I noticed that the men had launched into serious drinking. As I listened to their joking it dawned on me that this was a stag trip! They were here to celebrate the impending wedding of one of their members. Soon the evening activities became debased and crude. They passed around pictures of women engaged in degrading sex acts and other sorts of porn. The jokes had a demeaning sexist tone to them. I felt uncomfortable and wanted to remove myself from the group, but was obliged to stay until I had fed them all.

Like any group of men at a ‘stag’ party they wanted to include me in their activities. They kept pouring me drinks and laughingly implied my ‘Aussie image’ would be reduced if I refused to join them. This was very hard for me. I had got a lot of mileage from my ‘Aussie” image; it had opened many doors for me in America. Also I liked the men; we had shared danger together and had been generous in the rescue of the other rafters. Any refusal on my behalf to join would also brand me an outcast, a ‘wus’. My heart pounded as I realised I was up against that old male tribal thinking which said “We’ll accept you, protect you, but now you must do as we do, you will not go against the traditions, you must follow the rules of the tribe.”

I checked in with myself and decided to talk to them. Summonsing all my courage I told them that since I did gender awareness work in the schools and with men in the wider community, I could not condone this behaviour. I knew that demeaning sexist behaviour ultimately supports sexual assault and other forms of violence against women. I explained how this tore at me since I liked them as a group and wanted them to enjoy their rafting trip. I suggested they have fun and celebrate the impending marriages without having to demean women. By this time they had downed a number of hard drinks so my speech was appeared futile. Some of them indicated I was being a spoilsport! Unfortunately E, the young guide joined in with them, but I could hardly blame him! He had neither the maturity nor the education and understanding to do otherwise, he was just being one of the boys.

As soon dinner was over I moved my bedding up river out of earshot from the group. I’d rather be amongst the bears than be involved with the debauchery but I had the usual sick feeling in my gut when I heard women being degraded. It reminded me of my of my youth in rural Australia when I’d had to choose between supporting women and any aspects associated with the feminine or being included in the dominant male group. When I’d tried to resist the group I’d been teased but if I went along with them I felt dirty and in betrayal of the women I loved. As I sat on my bedroll I felt alone and sombre in contrast to the laughter floating up the valley from the ‘party’. I took a deep breath and tried to let the bad taste leave my body. I rolled back and laid there looking up at the stars trying to connect with nature and to calm the confusion I felt. Eventually I began to feel grounded and fell asleep to the sounds of river and the animals of the night.

I was in camp early the next morning to get a strong brew of coffee going. We had some very serious rapids to run and I did not want any of the group to be hung over. They needed to be fit and alert. The men filtered down to breakfast one by one but surprisingly appeared bright and energetic. These guys were obviously conditioned to solid drinking sessions. After hash browns and pancakes I went down to prepare the rafts. I was shocked when I saw that both rafts had a life-size blow up doll lashed to their bows. Oars and paddles had been crudely shoved into any orifice and the effect was grotesque.

I was in shock. I had hoped the evening’s activities would be forgotten. I normally loved the mornings on the river. It was my quiet time, a time to connect with nature and prepare for the day.

I really had no choice, another showdown was imminent. I gathered the men who were giggling like schoolkids. E was carried along by their antics and was not much help to me as I made my stand. I asked that they remove the blow-ups and stated again that I was not happy at the disrespect to women. I suggested that these attitudes might be carried into their marriages. One man argued vehemently against me. He was the Vietnamese son of an American GI. He had in the past, led some of the group on trips to Vietnam where they visited prostitution houses. Last night I’d heard them laughing and boasting about what they’d done to women on their last trip.

We faced off, I was alone and some of them were large strong men. I wondered where this might end. I told them that once again I was compromised. I had to walk my talk on sexist issues and yet that was hard because I felt bonded to them. There was some nasty arguing mostly led by the brothel trip leader. Eventually I insisted that if the blow-ups were not removed the trip would end there and we would all have to walk out. I did not like making a stand like this at all and wondered how it might affect our rafting ability if we got on the river.

Eventually the men agreed and we spent the next hour working hard to break camp and tie everything into the rafts. They were muttering amongst themselves and I felt I was the butt of their joking. I was confused and felt leaden. I had little energy! Camp is usually a serene environment. Our trestle tables are set up facing the river and it is common to see bears feeding in the evening and early morning, while we prepared our meals. It was all I could do to focus on the task ahead. My fingers fumbled and it was clear that the events had affected me deeply. I asked E to double-check everything I did so that our safety was not jeopardised.

I breathed a sigh of relief as we pushed off into the current. I could focus on being a river guide again. We all had a chance for a new start; in fact it was necessary to put our problems aside and be present to the rapids ahead. The next moment took me by surprise. Four of the six men in my boat turned to me, looked me in the eye and thanked me for having the courage to make a stand as I had. They explained they had wives, sisters and women they loved at home, that they also felt compromised by the group behaviour. Individually they had struggled with breaking male traditions, upsetting their friends or spoiling the fun!

I was astounded! I wondered if the majority of men in the other raft felt the same way. I guess I’ll never know!

Copyright by Pip Cornall. This is a true story and may be used with permission from the author to further violence prevention work against women. It shows the difficulty men experience when they confront their peers and illustrates the code of silence concerning entrenched male behaviours.