Men: End Men's Violence

Friends reading in Malawi, 2005, Photo: Steve Evans

Sexist violence (rape, domestic violence, pornography, prostitution, stalking, sexual harassment, sex trafficking, etc.) is widespread. Best estimates are that a majority of women are victimized by these forms of violence at some point in their lifetimes. All of these forms of sexist violence are perpetrated predominately by men -- they are in fact best described as forms of men's violence. Our work for peace needs to involve stopping forms of violence that target women -- such as these forms of men's violence.

One way to start is to begin framing sexist violence as a "men's issue." It is a men's issue because men perpetrate these forms of violence. The men who do perpetrate these forms of violence, along with the men who don't, benefit from the fact that this violence is perpetrated, and the harms that are experienced by women as a class.

Men's violence stems and reinforces sexism. It maintains a multi-tiered system in which women as a class are subjugated, and different classes of women are subjected to multiple and intersecting systems of oppression -- all of which are maintained by men's violence.

Preventing sexist violence requires men's involvement (if prevention is understood as meaning stopping sexism and violence before it is perpetrated). Placing the responsibility for stopping men's violence on women is patently unfair, contributes to victim-blaming and anti-feminist sentiment, and does nothing to stop the violence. Stopping men's violence requires that men make a commitment to stop our own and other men's sexism and violence.

Once defined as a men's issue, men can begin to become part of the solution. Often, in the process of providing men an opportunity to accept some ownership of sexism and violence, activists run into men's defensiveness. Men frequently claim that they are being unfairly blamed for men's violence. This defensiveness is largely a defense mechanism.

Men generally know that these forms of violence are men's behavior. In spite of their protests, men also know that they don't fear women's violence to nearly the same degree that women fear men's violence, and they know that women are at much greater risk of being victimized in these ways than men are. Trying to avoid this reactionary defensiveness ultimately only disengages men. So be honest -- this is men's violence and as such it is men's responsibility.

One dynamic which complicates effectively educating men is the fact that not all men experience sexism, male privilege, entitlement and men's violence in the same ways. Men of different class, ethnic, and religious backgrounds, and men of different sexual or affectional orientations have different experiences of, and relationships with, sexism, male privilege, male entitlement, and men's violence.

For example, some men experience male privilege, but are victimized by white-skin privilege. One of the ways that white men have maintained racism is to use sexism and men's violence in ways that harm not only African American, Latino, Asian, and Native American women, but also African American, Latino, Asian, and Native American men. Reaching men means finding ways to reach all men. Effectively reaching men requires that activists be prepared to address the intersection of oppression, violence, and privilege that most men experience in relation to sexism and violence.

Maneuvering through these processes provides a basis to begin defining clear and concrete ways that men can be involved in working to end sexism and violence. There is a group in Boston (Men of Faith Against Sexism) who once a year stand outside hardware stores to solicit donations from men for local domestic violence shelters.

In Louisville, KY, men organize to cook and deliver a Mother's Day brunch for the women in the local domestic violence shelter as a way to remember the very mothers who are most likely to be forgotten or ignored on Mother's Day.

There are men who organize fundraisers for local women's agencies and programs, men who hold marches against domestic or sexual violence, and men in the Philippines who organize against prostitution and sex trafficking under the banner of "real men don't buy women."

We will not successfully end men's violence without involving men. The process of engaging men begins by reaching men -- with a message of gender equality and gender justice; the ways that gender justice is tied to racial, sexual, economic and other forms of justice; and how we can be a part of the solution.