Holla Back NYC empowers New Yorkers to Holla Back at street harassers. Whether you're commuting, lunching, partying, dancing, walking, chilling, drinking, or sunning, you have the right to feel safe, confident, and sexy, without being the object of some turd's fantasy. So stop walkin' on and Holla Back: Send us pics of street harassers!
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I got the following question posted as a comment to another thread which can be found here. This is the question:
Violence
This brief article summarizes the characteristics of many sexual violence prevention programs, and the dominant theories in prevention program development.
As described by the author, "This chapter provides an overview of the issues involved in men taking responsibility for sexual assault prevention, suggests a philosophy and pedagogy for rape prevention, provides a developmental model for prevention programs, makes recommendations for advancing the field, and reviews promising interventions and strategies. The chapter’s primary focus is the prevention of sexual assault perpetrated by men against women (or young men and young women) who know each other in college or high school settings."
Many efforts to prevent men's sexual violence have focused on changing some men's belief that most other men approve of rape-supportive attitudes and behaviors, when in fact this is not true. A person's beliefs about the attitudes and behaviors of others, and the way those beliefs influences that person’s own attitudes and behaviors, are called social norms. Changing social norms around sexual violence is an important part of prevention effots.
Men have a positive role to play in helping to end violence against women. Growing numbers of men have come to the realisation that violence against women is an issue that touches their lives in deeply personal ways. And it’s a social problem they can do something about.
This paper sketches a framework for understanding this violence and its relation to the lives and experiences of men. It then looks at two sets of activities in which I have worked to challenge men's violence: the activities of the White Ribbon Campaign, the largest effort in the world of men working to end violence against women and, secondly, work within the educational system.
MEGEN activists share their personal experiences as individuals and as Changemakers. While writing their stories, the activists were asked to reflect on their own change processes: what sparked their activism around gender and violence? And how has the MEGEN platform been helpful in this process? The publication also includes short briefs on the work of the project, highlighting the challenges, successes and lessons learnt in different program areas. In the process of developing this booklet, many people have been of great help; the dedicated MEGEN activists who shared some of their life experiences in their own writing, the then MEGEN Project Coordinator Kennedy Odhiambo Otina and other FEMNET staff members and MEGEN teams.
Rape Myth-Busters is a program for young men developed in South Australia in 1998. It invites young men in Year 9 and above to examine their induction into existing and predominant practices of masculinity. The program recognises that many such practices result in violent and abusive behaviour, such as rape, and are in direct contravention of democratic and social justice principles.
Violence has become a daily occurrence for some young men in Northern Ireland, according to a new report launched by the University of Ulster in June 2009.
And one in 10 teenagers admitted regularly carrying weapons, including knives, on the streets.
The report entitled ‘Stuck in the Middle’ was based on the opinions of 130 young men - aged between 13 and 16 - from different areas across Northern Ireland on their experiences of violence, conflict and safety.
For a moment my eyes turned away from the workshop participants and out through the windows of the small conference room and towards the Himalayas, north of Kathmandu. I was there, leading a workshop, largely the outgrowth of remarkable work of UNICEF and UNIFEM which, a year earlier, had brought together women and men from throughout South Asia to discuss the problem of violence against women and girls and, most importantly, to work together to find solutions.
As I turned back to the women and men in the group, it felt more familiar than different: women taking enormous chances – in some cases risking their lives – to fight the tide of violence against women and girls. Men who were just beginning to find their anti-patriarchal voices and to discover ways to work alongside women. And what pleasantly surprised me was the positive response to a series of ideas I presented about men’s violence: until then, I wasn’t entirely sure if they were mainly about the realities in North and South America and Europe – that is largely-Europeanized cultures – or whether they had a larger resonance. Here, then, is the kernel of this analysis: