Whether we like to admit it or not, there is a war going on, and it’s right in our homes. In fact it’s an age-old battle that started about 11, 000 years ago at the beginning of the agricultural revolution.

That war, folks, is between men and women. I know it sounds dramatic, but there it is. At the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution men somehow managed to marginalise women from being equal stakeholders. Notably during that time the idea that women were inferior took a hold until about two hundred years ago when a plucky Mary Wollstonecraft declared that the only thing women lacked was an education.

The War against Women continues. Educating women hasn’t stopped the war. Like most wars across history, the way the war is being fought has changed. It has become more subtle, more like insurgencies fought in small pockets rather than huge battles. For example, in the United States where the Republican Party is busily tabling legislations that continue to disadvantage and disenfranchise women. They range from the most significant aspect of restricting a woman’s right to determine her rights over her body, to the lack of gender equity in her remuneration for her work.

And this has rightly been declared the ‘War on Women.’

In Australia gender inequity continues on a more subtle level, mainly through glass ceilings in career progression and through the lack of equal remuneration. However, our statistics in domestic violence continue to be a shocking reminder of the home front battlefield that many women face. And we can’t keep blaming the victims in this war. It is not up to women to educate men that violence against them is wrong.

It is up to us men to be accountable, to educate each other and to support each other on how to have more inclusive and co-operative relationships with women. One’s that are not power-based and threatening.

Is this a call to arms in the war? You bet. But we’re not going to fight on the traditional side. As great men we are going to actively promote a leadership that clearly identifies and rectifies the source of the gender war. And that is the patriarchy that has persisted in our society and is still being promoted. I am going to do that in my home, in my workplace, in the institutions that I participate in and in education of young men.

So, ask yourself; am I going to be part of the problem or am I going to be part of the solution?

To understand more about the Making Good Men Great Project and become part of it, Gunter runs programs that help you to align yourself to what really matters as a men in the 21st century.

Come and visit www.goodmengreat.com and become part of the solution.

To set up an exploratory conversation, contact rebecca@goodmengreat.com.