I’ve been working to end men’s violence against women for almost 20 years. And I am doing this work largely because of the inspiration, teachings and welcome of powerful, smart, feminist women. We men (myself included) owe it to these women, and to ourselves, to practice true accountability.
Violence
Twenty years ago I joined my first anti-sexist men’s group. I’ve had a passionate commitment to profeminism ever since, nurtured through men’s anti-violence activism, Women’s and Gender Studies, editing a profeminist magazine, and now pursuing a career in feminist scholarship. Men’s violence against women is an obvious area for anti-sexist men’s activism, as it’s one of the bluntest and most brutal forms of gender inequality. I’ve organised campaigns in groups like Men Against Sexual Assault, run workshops in schools, helped run a national White Ribbon Campaign, designed violence prevention programs for athletes and others, and done research and writing on violence against women. But I’ve also been forced to critique and confront anti-feminist men in ‘men’s rights’ and ‘fathers’ rights’ groups. Their efforts are having a growing influence on community understandings of, and policy responses to, gender issues.
Don’t Be A Dick is a zine written (mostly) for men about the connections between the construct of masculinity, rape culture, and mainstream pornography. It combines (hopefully accessible) theory and personal experiences to address sexual assault in personal relationships. The zine also includes a section on radical consent.
This publication provides an overview of a three-day workshop on 'Strengthening partnership with men and boys to promote gender equality and end violence against girls and boys’, organised by Save the Children Sweden-Denmark, Regional Office for South Central Asia on 23-25 March in Kathmandu. Around thirty participants from the region met and shared their practical experiences of and theoretical insights into working with men and boys on issues (masculinities that promote gender equality and non-violence towards children and women). They also developed strategies and concrete action plans for increasing partnership with men/boys to address violence against girls and boys and for promoting gender equality from a child rights based approach.
This paper explores how to address gender based violence in ways that help empower women and reduce gender inequalities in the context of Papua New Guinea (PNG). It provides an insight into gender-based violence in PNG, including the causes, extent and the social impacts of gender based violence in the community. It concludes with key lessons and recommendations on how to address the issue in ways that engage both men and women.
Please see below for the report, in PDF.
This post is a partial response to finishing the book, Love and Pornography, by Victoria and Garry Prater.
Let's begin with one basic observations about how things work in dominant Western societies:
Misogyny is not only corporately manufactured, but is also promulgated, promoted, heralded, and honored as "sacred" in a society that continually finds new ways to violate and degrade women as a gendered class.
Male privilege is a complex, vast, endemic matter, a bit like air--hard to notice unless it hits you in the face. If you're a woman living in a home with a man, that happens literally with atrocious regularity. I say this with knowledge that in the U.S. it is now "Domestic Violence Awareness" month. (I think it should be called "Let's Do Something About the Terrible Fact that Men Beat the Shit Out of Women at Home" month, but that's a topic for another post.
Interventions that treat men as the villains and women as the victims have not taken us far. Not all masculinities (or ways of being a man) are harmful to men, women and children. This was the starting point for a three-day workshop organised by the South and Central Asia office of Save the Children-Sweden, which was held in Kathmandu in March 2004 on 'strengthening partnership with men and boys to promote gender equality and end violence against girls and boys'.
After a woman who, fearing for her safety, called herself “Claire,” revealed the disgusting details of a gang rape that was allegedly perpetrated against her by an Australian football team, 100,000 people responded in support of the man who, according to her testimony, orchestrated the gang rape against her.