Definition
Heroism is great courage and bravery especially in pursuit of noble causes.
Positive interpretations of heroism can contribute to stronger societies, but when used to obfuscate poor funding or poorly functioning systems, the misuse of the hero label instead brings real harm. It rewards dangerous behaviors that go against current policies and silences critiques of bushfire management. Community friction can follow the inherent bias and erratic awarding of bravery medals. The hero status given to many men post-bushfire leads to a community-wide acceptance of their unreasonable hypermasculine behaviors through a sense of gratitude for their firefighting. Men’s violence against women and children is excused, their anger to others in the community is forgiven because of what they’ve been through, and displays of hypermasculinity are accepted:
People keep saying we firefighters are heroes. I wish they would...
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Parkinson, D., Leonard, W., O’Malley, S. (2023). Hero Label: Distortion and Propaganda. In: Encyclopedia of Heroism Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17125-3_265-1
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