People have been asking why the women on the Labour benches in parliament did not stand up in defence of Marlene Farrugia, when she was threatened with assault by one of their number.
On the contrary, they did the opposite, with the Minister for Equality and Civil Liberties even seeking to justify a man's retaliation when a woman causes offence with her tongue - a tongue which, presumably, should be used for other purposes if the tastes of at least one Labour MP with a fake Facebook profile are anything to go by.
Most people would assume that their behaviour is due to partisan politics, that they did not stick up for Farrugia and the sisterhood because she turned her back on the Labour Party. But I don't think that's the real reason. When you understand the true nature of misogyny in Malta - and all those women in parliament cannot help but know exactly what I am talking about - you will not stand by, just because you don't like her, while a man threatens a woman with assault. There's something more fundamental at stake than that: when you are a woman who has grown up in Malta, the sound of a man shouting violent threats at a woman is the sound of Maltese society, a sound that you will want to see stamped out for good.
So why were they silent? I'll tell you why. They were silent for the very same reason that other women in other situations stay silent: they want the approval of men. Even if they might not have the selfknowledge and insight to be aware of it themselves, Helena Dalli and those other women sitting with her on the Labour benches did not speak out against Debono Grech's behaviour because they have been trained from birth to seek the approval of men.
Helena Dalli, who was once a beauty queen - and a beauty queen is the exemplar of all that I am talking about - was late to the idea of women's rights and equality. A beautiful woman in her youth, on an island and in a political party full of men who behaved then far more like troglodytes, Neanderthals and boors than they do now, her early learning was in a very different way of being, and feminism had nothing to do with it. It is hard to shake off the habits of a lifetime, even when you are in your 50s and a cabinet minister, your beauty queen days far behind you.
Maltese society is hell for those women who don't wish to conform, to be obedient and to kowtow to men, to speak softly to them, give them plenty of positive reinforcement, and let them think that the good ideas are all theirs even when they are not. The forces which conspire to
maintain the status quo gather to crush her. The more she demonstrates that she won't be crushed, the worse the attacks become, whispered or overt.
In general, Maltese women are trained from birth by their mothers in the fine art of manipulating men by stroking their ego and by putting ideas into their head so that those men end up doing what the woman wants but saying what a terrific idea they've had themselves. This is the obvious natural development of a society in which women are historically disempowered and disenfranchised. With no power or money themselves, their only means to getting their way and getting what they want is by manipulating the men who have the power and money. In the end it becomes a habit, so that even with improved status of women under the law, and access to money and the workplace, women still can't get out of the habit of being 'nice' to men as a strategic way of getting something.
Any Maltese woman who hasn't been trained this way, either because she did not have that kind of mother who was a manipulator herself or because she resists the social pressure to be like that, has a massive problem on her hands. You are expected to be that way, and if you are not, things are a hundred times more difficult. Because Maltese men never acknowledge or see that they are being manipulated, that women are not naturally 'nice' and accommodating but are doing it for a reason, they don't know how to handle women who are not 'nice' and accommodating. They see such women as a strange threat and challenge. Their defences go up.
Why are Maltese women trained from their early years to seek the approval of men as a way of manipulating them? It's very simple, though the ramifications are complicated. Men have always controlled access to all resources in Malta, and this right into the present day. Children learn this early in the home when they begin to notice that everything comes from the father. Yes, mother cooks the food, but she wouldn't have any food to cook if father didn't give her the money to buy it. Children work that one out. Most Maltese women who are married with children don't work and have no income of their own. Whatever the law says about community of acquests, what children perceive is that their father earns the money and that their mother does not. They work out that mother is as financially dependent on father as they are. On that basis, they make several
assumptions about the power dynamics between men and women. In many Maltese homes, the situation is extreme, with women actually speaking about receiving a 'paga' (pay) from their husband, which is what you would call the housekeeping money. By calling it 'paga' they are effectively positioning themselves as employees of their husband, paid servants in their own household. They have no access to disposable income for anything they might want to buy for themselves, and so they have no choice but to obtain these 'extras' by wheedling them out of their husband. They teach their children to do the same. If a boy wants a new bike, or a girl a new dress, mother will say, "Be good and your father might buy it for you." Those are the words that have set countless numbers of men and women up for disaster in their adult life.
The children are watching, and what the girls learn is that you wheedle things out of men, but if you are not nice to them - for example, if you get angry and speak sharply, or criticise the man - the wheedling will not be successful and you will not get what you want. What the boys learn is that this kind of behaviour is normal and acceptable, and that women have to be nice to men and not speak out of turn, failing which the man will respond by closing off all access to resources or restricting them until the woman is 'good' again.
This kind of deeply-embedded cultural conditioning is next to impossible to shake off because society itself conspires to perpetuate it. That is what we saw happening in parliament these last few days. Those women who refused to stand up for one of their own gender, despite all their talk of feminism and progressiveness, behaved that way because they believe it is what will get them most approval from men. Marlene Farrugia, on the other hand, is a cypher for everything that Maltese men most hate, fear and feel threatened by in a woman. Sticking up for her would mean allying themselves to her, with the attendant risk that men will perceive them as being like her. And that is the last thing they want, because it means that those men might withdraw their approval and access to resources.