MARTYN NAMORONG | Supported by the Chalapi Pomat Writing Fellowship

I WAS AWOKEN AT 1 AM BY A DRUNK. It was a rainy night and I was a bit disorientated and couldn't work out what was causing the confusing sounds piercing through the darkness and irritating my ears.

"Yu disla mangi Kairuku wai na yu chip shot long mi ya!" [‘Young Kairuku man, why are you having a cheap shot at me!’].

I won't repeat the expletives and grunting, hissing and yelling that coloured his slurred speech.

But what added salt to the drunk's wounded ego was the fact that the girls laughed at him.

Or perhaps they didn't but he kept shouting and swearing and repeating that "ol meri ol lap long mi" [‘The women are all laughing at me’].

I won't say where the drunk was from or where the incident happened simply because this seems to be a typical scenario in most parts of Papua New Guinea.

Some guy gets beaten up and won't stop acting like a bitch in order to recover lost pride. And because society seems too polite to tell them to put their tail between their legs and retreat, they give them their 15 minutes of notoriety and hot air.

So the consolation for a broken ego is that one is allowed to wake up the neighbourhood at 1 am and declare to everyone that you would have beaten the other guy's butt but for the 'cheap shot' he gave you.

Of course the entire neighbourhood knows your butt got whopped, but they'll be silent and enjoy hearing you hang yourself.

Eventually the alcohol wears off or the drunkard becomes satisfied that the rather large wound in his ego has been treated and he stops bitch'n.

This sort of behaviour by a vast majority of men in PNG, whether under the influence of liquor or not, has significant developmental implications.

The recent political impasse is an example of such egocentric behaviour.

And other disputes arise due to ego as well.

Administrative matters in the public service get thrown before a judge and crushed egos battle it out in the courtroom to save face. Even the election petitions are an example of some bruised ego having a 'cheap shot' due to vote buying, even though the entire electorate knows the petitioner also ran a dirty campaign.

Many such men would not like to see women participating in decision making processes. Indeed most of them would rather be in control of family finances as described recently in the Canberra Times by the CEO of Care Australia, Julia Newton-Howes.

Newton-Howes described the community's perception of income generated from coffee as being 'men's money". She pointed out that if women had control over income they were more likely to spend it on food and children's needs compared to men.

Some commentators in PNG jumped the gun and declared that there was no need for affirmative action to get women in Parliament following the historic election wins by three women. They declared that women had an equal opportunity to win.

What these mostly male commentators failed to see was that women account for less than 3% of seats in parliament even though they account for half the population.