... Parallel to having a society in which women are raised to be targets, we’re raising our men to target. Men chose to perpetrate sexual violence, at whatever form of sexual violence, because they live in a culture that teaches men lessons about who they are as men, how to act as men, how to treat women, how to “get” sex, and power. All men are part of these cultures and all men learn these same lessons. To some degree, all men are at some risk for perpetrating different forms of sexual violence. For some reasons that we don’t yet fully understand, some men choose to actually perpetrate sexual violence, while others don’t. Some of these lessons include teaching men that they should be the initiators/aggressors in terms of dating and sexual activity (and where is that line between initiating and aggressing?), teaching men that they have the right to have the final say in some aspects of our relationships, and the lessons that men are taught about women, power and sex.
Please see the attachment below, in Word.
Violence
From around 2005 until early 2006, I delusionally entertained an idea of myself as ungendered. Then a radical activist friend, Yolanda Carrington, pointed out to me how politically absurd this notion of mine was. And I realized that the white male supremacist mind—mine in particular—is quite capable of generating lots of mental CRAP. How could I have grown up in a deeply white male supremacist society, and not be socially and interpersonally gendered? Her point was that regardless of what I thought of myself as, I am in a real world where gender—and race—matter, a lot. And being gendered, as a woman or man, a girl or a boy, is not something one can escape. Privileges and power are distributed based on how we are perceived, and according to our anatomy. The anatomy is biological, but the political meaning is entirely social.
Michael Kaufman discusses the need to both address and involve men in ending violence against women (VAW), a few of the pitfalls and guiding principles, and shares his thoughts on what is the most developed example of this work, that is, the White Ribbon Campaign.
Please see below for the attachment, in PDF.
By Julian Real, 2007, with invaluable input from Celie's Revenge
Here's a list of what men can do:
First, recognize and accept that the personal is political, and that interpersonal behavior is part of your political work as a responsible humane being. Stop either/or'ing the private and the public, the personal and the social, the interpersonal and the institutional. All are breeding grounds for male domination of women and children.
Given the above:
By George Marx, 1987.
I. INTRODUCTION
This paper focuses on men's anti-rape organizing from the perspective of one member of a men's pro-feminist anti-rape group. We work at educating ourselves and other "normal" men. I hope that a lot of my ideas will be adaptable to others' situations. I will try to separate issues into fairly distinct sections, although they will inevitably overlap.
John Stoltenberg's Refusing to be a man is a passionate manifesto for a new male way of being. It's a renunciation of sexual injustice and a call to action for all men of conscience.