WEBVTT

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Before I begin my presentation

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I want to say it's a great honor for me
to be part of a program

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with so many impressive women.

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I also want to say thank you
to the organizers

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[who invited] me to be part of this.

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It's important that I say and that men say

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when we do the work that we do,

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especially in the field
of gender violence prevention

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that I'm going to talk with you about
this morning,

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it's important that we acknowledge
that the growing movement of men

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in the United States
in a multicultural sense

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and all around the world
in an international sense,

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the growing movement of men

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who are standing up and speaking out

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about men's violence against women,

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and going into parts of male culture

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that have historically been
either apathetic about

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or openly hostile to women's efforts
to engage them,

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that movement of men

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is indebted to the leadership of women

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on a personal level,

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on a professional level,

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on political level,

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on an intellectual level,

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on every level -

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women built these movements

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and these are movements that are affecting

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in a positive way everybody.

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Not just women and girls

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but also men and boys.

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And often times men like myself

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get a lot of credit and public acclaim
for doing the work

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that women have been doing
for a long time.

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So one of the ways
that we can use the spotlight

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is to thank women
and honor women's leadership,

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going forward today, tomorrow,
and you know, into the future.

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(Applause)

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Having said that,

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I'm going to share with you
a paradigm shifting perspective

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on the issues of gender violence -

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sexual assault, domestic violence,
relationship abuse, sexual harassment,

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sexual abuse of children,
that whole range of issues

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that I'll refer to in short hand
as gender violence issues.

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They have been seen as women's issues
that some good men help out with.

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But I have a problem with that frame
and I don't accept it.

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I don't see these as women's issues
that some good men help out with.

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In fact I'm going to argue that these
are men's issues, first and foremost.

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(Applause)

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Obviously, they are also
women's issues, so I appreciate that,

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but calling gender violence
a women's issue

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is part of the problem,
for a number of reasons.

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The first is, it gives men an excuse

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not to pay attention, right?

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A lot of men hear the term
'women's issues'

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and we tend to tune it out, and we think

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"Hey, I'm a guy, that's for the girls,
for the women."

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And a lot of men literally don't get
beyond the first sentence as a result.

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It's almost like a chip in our brain
is activated,

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and the neural pathways take our attention
in a different direction

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when we hear the term "women's issues".

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This is also true by the way
of the word "gender"

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because a lot of people
hear the word "gender"

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and they think it means "women".

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So they think "gender issues"
is synonymous with "women's issues".

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There is some confusion
about the term "gender",

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and actually let me illustrate
that confusion by a way of analogy.

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So let's talk for a moment about race.

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In the US, when we hear the word "race",

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a lot of people think
that means African-American,

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Latino, Asian-American, Native American,

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South Asian, Pacific, on and on.

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A lot of people, when they hear the word
"sexual orientation",

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think it means "gay", "lesbian",
"bisexual".

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And a lot of people when they hear
the word "gender",

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think it means "women".

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In each case,

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the dominant group
doesn't get paid attention to, right?

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As if white people don't have
some sort of racial identity,

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or belong to some
racial category or construct?

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As if heterosexual people
don't have a sexual orientation?

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As if men don't have a gender?

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This is one of the ways

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that dominant systems
maintain and reproduce themselves,

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which is to say

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the dominant group is rarely challenged
to even think about it's dominance,

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because that's one of the key
characteristics of power and privilege:

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the ability to go unexamined,
lacking introspection,

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in fact being rendered invisible
in large measure

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in the discourse about issues
that are primarily about us.

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And this is amazing how this works

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in domestic and sexual violence,

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how men have been largely erased

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from so much of the conversation

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about a subject
that is centrally about men.

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And I'm going to illustrate
what I'm talking about

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by using the old-tech.

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I'm old school on some
fundamental regards.

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I make films, I work with high-tech,

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but I'm still old school as an educator.

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And I want to share with you
this exercise,

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that illustrates
on a sentence structure level

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how the way that we think,

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literally the way that we use language,

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conspires to keep
our attention off of men.

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This is about domestic violence
in particular

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but you can plug in other analogues.

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This comes from the work
of the feminist linguist Julia Penelope.

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It starts with a very basic
English sentence

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"John beat Mary" -
that's a good English sentence,

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John is the subject,
beat is the verb, Mary is the object.

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good sentence.

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Now we're going to move
to the second sentence

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which says the same thing
in the passive voice:

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"Mary was beaten by John"

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and now a whole lot has happened
in one sentence.

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We've gone from "John beat Mary" to

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"Mary was beaten by John",
we've shifted our focus

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in one sentence, from John to Mary.

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And you can see John is very close
to the end of the sentence,

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close to dropping off the map
of our psychic plane.

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The third sentence,
John is dropped, and we have,

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"Mary was beaten"
and now it's all about Mary.

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We're not even thinking about John,
it's totally focussed on Mary.

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Over the past generation

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the term we've used synonymous
with "beaten" is "battered",

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so we have, "Mary was battered."

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And the final sentence in this sequence,

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flowing from the others,

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is "Mary is a battered woman."

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So now Mary's very identity,

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"Mary is a battered woman,"

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is what was done to her by John
in the first instance,

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but we've demonstrated

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that John has long ago
left the conversation.

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Now those of us who work in domestic
and sexual violence field know

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that victim blaming
is pervasive in this realm,

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which is to say

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blaming the person
to whom something was done

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rather than the person who did it.

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And we say things like,

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Why do these women go out with these men?

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Why are they attracted to them?
Why do they keep going back?

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What was she wearing at that party?

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Why was she drinking with this group
of guys in that hotel room?

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This is victim blaming.

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And there are numerous reasons for it,

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but one of them is that our
whole cognitive structure

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is set up to blame victims.

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It's all unconscious,

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our whole cognitive structure
is set up to ask questions

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about women and women's choices,

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and what they are doing,
thinking and wearing.

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And I'm not going to shout down people
who ask questions about women,

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it's a legitimate thing to ask.

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But let's be clear.

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Asking questions about Mary
is not going to get us anywhere

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in terms of preventing violence.

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We have to ask
a different set of questions

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and you see where I'm going with this.

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The questions are not about Mary,
but about John.

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The questions like,

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Why does John beat Mary?

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Why is domestic violence
still a big problem in the Unites States

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and all over the world? What's going on?

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Why so many men abuse

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physically, emotionally,
verbally and in other ways

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the women and girls and the men and boys
that they claim to love?

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What's going on with men?

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Why do so many adult men sexually abuse
little girls and little boys?

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Why is that a common problem
in our society

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and all over the world today?

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Why we hear over and over again about

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new scandals erupting
in major institutions

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like the Catholic Church
or the Penn State Football Program

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or the Boy Scouts of America?
On and on and on!

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And in local communities
all over the country and all the world.

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We hear about it all the time -
sexual abuse of children.

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What's going on with men?

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Why do so many men rape women

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in our society and around the world?

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Why do so many men rape other men?

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What is going on with men?

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And then -

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What is the role of the various
institutions in our society

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that are helping to produce the abuse
of men at pandemic rates?

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Because this is not about
individual perpetrators.

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That's a naive way of understanding

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what is a much deeper
and more systematic social problem.

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You know, the perpetrators
aren't these monsters

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who crawl out of the swamp
and come into town

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and do their nasty business

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and then retreat into the darkness.

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That's a very naive notion, right?

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Perpetrators are much more normal
than that and everyday than that.

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So the questions is,

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What are we doing here in our society

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and in the world?

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What are the roles of various institutions

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in helping to produce abusive men?

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What is the role of religious
belief systems?

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The sports culture,
the pornography culture,

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the family structure, economics?

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And how that intersects?

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And race and ethnicity
and how that intersects?

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How does all this work?

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And then, once we start
making those kinds of connections

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and asking those important
and big questions,

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then we can talk about
how can we be transformative.

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You know, how can we do
something differently,

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how can we change the practices?

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How can we change
the socialization of boys

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and the definitions of manhood

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that lead to these current outcomes?

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These are the kind of questions

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that we need to be asking

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and the kind of work
that we need to be doing.

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But if we're endlessly focused on

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what women are doing and thinking

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in relationships or elsewhere

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we're not going to get to that piece.

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Now I understand

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that a lot of women who have been trying
to speak out about these issues

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today and yesterday
and for years and years

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often get shouted down for their efforts.

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They get called nasty names like

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"male-basher"

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and "man-hater"

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and the disgusting
and offensive "feminazi".

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Right?

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And you know what all this is about?

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It's called "kill the messenger".

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It's because the women
who are standing up and speaking up

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for themselves and for other women

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as well as for men and boys,

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it's a statement to them
to sit down and shut up.

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Keep this current system in place

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because we don't like it
when people rock the boat,

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we don't like it
when people challenge our power.

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You better sit down and shut up,
basically.

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And thank goodness
that women haven't done that!

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Thank goodness that we live in a world

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where there is so much women's leadership

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that can counteract that.

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But one of the powerful roles
that men can play in this work

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is that we can say some things
that sometimes women can't say.

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Or better yet,

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we can be heard saying some things

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that women often can't be heard saying.

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Now I appreciate, that's a problem,
it's sexism, but it's the truth.

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And so one of the things
my colleagues and I always say, is,

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we need more men
who have the courage and the strength

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to start standing up

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and saying some of this stuff

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and standing with women
and not against them

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pretending that somehow
this is a battle between the sexes

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and other kinds of nonsense.

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We live in the world together.

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And by the way,
one of things that really bothers me

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about some of the rhetoric
against feminist and others

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who have built the battered women's,
and crisis movements around the world

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is that somehow, like I said,

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that they're "anti male".

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What about the boys
who are profoundly affected

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in a negative way,

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by what some adult man
is doing against their mother,

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themselves, their sisters?

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What about all those boys?

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What about all the young men and boys

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who have been traumatized
by adult men's violence?

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You know what,

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the same system that produces men
who abuse women,

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produces men who abuse other men.

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And if you want to talk about
male victims, let's talk about them.

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Most male victims of violence

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are the victims of other men's violence.

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So it's something

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that both women and men have in common.

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We are both victims of men's violence.

00:10:44.405 --> 00:10:46.415
So we have it in our
direct self-interest -

00:10:46.415 --> 00:10:49.043
not to mention the fact
that most men that I know

00:10:49.043 --> 00:10:51.328
have women and girls
that we care deeply about.

00:10:51.328 --> 00:10:53.458
In our families,
in our friendship circles,

00:10:53.458 --> 00:10:54.626
and in every other way.

00:10:54.626 --> 00:10:57.361
So there is so many reasons
why we need men to speak out.

00:10:57.361 --> 00:10:59.703
It seems obvious saying it out loud
doesn't it?

00:11:00.590 --> 00:11:03.226
The nature of the work that I do
and my colleagues do,

00:11:03.226 --> 00:11:06.468
in the sports culture,
in the US military, in schools,

00:11:06.483 --> 00:11:08.204
we pioneer this approach

00:11:08.204 --> 00:11:09.891
called the "bystander approach"

00:11:09.891 --> 00:11:11.598
to gender violence prevention.

00:11:11.598 --> 00:11:13.051
And I just want to give you

00:11:13.051 --> 00:11:15.153
the highlights of the bystander approach,

00:11:15.153 --> 00:11:17.356
because it's a big, sort of,
thematic shift,

00:11:17.356 --> 00:11:19.302
although there is lots of particulars.

00:11:19.302 --> 00:11:20.476
The heart of it is:

00:11:20.476 --> 00:11:22.764
Instead of seeing men as perpetrators,

00:11:22.764 --> 00:11:24.369
women as victims,

00:11:24.369 --> 00:11:27.394
or women as perpetrators, men as victims,

00:11:27.394 --> 00:11:29.126
or any combination in there.

00:11:29.136 --> 00:11:30.609
I'm using the gender binary.

00:11:30.609 --> 00:11:32.584
I know there is more than men and women,

00:11:32.584 --> 00:11:34.238
more than male and female.

00:11:34.238 --> 00:11:36.297
And there are women who are perpetrators,

00:11:36.297 --> 00:11:39.520
and of course men who are victims,
there's a whole spectrum.

00:11:39.520 --> 00:11:41.748
But instead of seeing it
in a binary fashion,

00:11:41.748 --> 00:11:44.392
we focus on all of us
as what we call bystanders.

00:11:44.392 --> 00:11:46.277
And a bystander is defined as anybody

00:11:46.277 --> 00:11:49.547
who is not a perpetrator or a victim
in a given situation.

00:11:49.925 --> 00:11:51.007
So in other words:

00:11:51.007 --> 00:11:53.181
friends, teammates, colleagues, coworkers,

00:11:53.181 --> 00:11:54.447
family members,

00:11:54.447 --> 00:11:57.587
those of us who are not directly involved
in a dyad of abuse.

00:11:57.587 --> 00:11:59.408
But we are embedded

00:11:59.408 --> 00:12:01.282
in social family, work, school,

00:12:01.282 --> 00:12:03.027
and other peer culture relationships

00:12:03.027 --> 00:12:05.378
with people who might be
in that situation.

00:12:05.378 --> 00:12:07.114
What do we do? How do we speak up?

00:12:07.114 --> 00:12:08.886
How do we challnge our friends?

00:12:08.886 --> 00:12:10.480
How do we support our friends?

00:12:10.480 --> 00:12:13.182
But how do we not remain silent
in the face of abuse?

00:12:13.182 --> 00:12:15.436
Now when it comes to men and male culture,

00:12:15.436 --> 00:12:18.717
the goal is to get men who are not abusive
to challenge men who are.

00:12:18.717 --> 00:12:19.939
And when I say abusive,

00:12:19.939 --> 00:12:22.034
I don't mean just men
who are beating women.

00:12:22.034 --> 00:12:23.799
We're not just saying that a men

00:12:23.799 --> 00:12:26.421
whose friend is abusing his girlfriend

00:12:26.421 --> 00:12:29.226
needs to stop the guy,
at the moment of attack.

00:12:29.226 --> 00:12:33.484
I mean, that's a naive way
of creating a social change.

00:12:33.638 --> 00:12:35.665
It's along a continuum

00:12:35.665 --> 00:12:37.961
we're trying to get men
to interrupt each other.

00:12:37.961 --> 00:12:39.509
So for example if you are a guy

00:12:39.509 --> 00:12:41.122
and you are in a group of guys,

00:12:41.122 --> 00:12:43.679
playing poker, talking, hanging out,
no women present,

00:12:43.679 --> 00:12:44.830
and another guy says

00:12:44.830 --> 00:12:49.149
something sexist or degrading
or harassing about women,

00:12:49.805 --> 00:12:51.335
instead of laughing along

00:12:51.335 --> 00:12:53.070
or pretending you didn't hear it,

00:12:53.070 --> 00:12:54.138
we need men to say,

00:12:54.138 --> 00:12:55.450
"Hey, that's not funny."

00:12:55.450 --> 00:12:58.245
"You know it could be my sister
you're talking about.

00:12:58.245 --> 00:13:00.319
Can you joke about something else?"

00:13:00.319 --> 00:13:02.426
or "I don't appreciate that kind of talk."

00:13:02.426 --> 00:13:04.245
Just like if you are a white person

00:13:04.245 --> 00:13:06.560
and another white person
makes a racist comment,

00:13:06.560 --> 00:13:07.727
you'd hope - I hope -

00:13:07.727 --> 00:13:10.787
that white people would interrupt
that racist enactment

00:13:10.787 --> 00:13:12.148
by a fellow white person.

00:13:12.148 --> 00:13:13.733
Just like with heterosexism,

00:13:13.733 --> 00:13:15.383
if you are a heterosexual person,

00:13:15.383 --> 00:13:18.213
and you yourself don't enact
harassing or abusive behavior

00:13:18.213 --> 00:13:20.422
towards people
of varying sexual orientations.

00:13:20.422 --> 00:13:21.837
If you don't say something

00:13:21.837 --> 00:13:25.101
in the face of other heterosexual people
doing that, then in a sense,

00:13:25.101 --> 00:13:27.534
isn't your silence a form of consent
and complicity?

00:13:27.534 --> 00:13:28.923
Well, the bystander approach

00:13:28.923 --> 00:13:31.652
is trying to give people tools
to interrupt that process

00:13:31.652 --> 00:13:32.836
and to speak up

00:13:32.836 --> 00:13:34.624
and to create a peer culture climate

00:13:34.624 --> 00:13:37.316
where the abusive behaviour
will be seen as unacceptable,

00:13:37.316 --> 00:13:38.888
not just because it's illegal,

00:13:38.888 --> 00:13:41.767
but because it's wrong and unacceptable
in the peer culture.

00:13:41.767 --> 00:13:43.605
And if we can get to the place

00:13:43.605 --> 00:13:45.409
where men who act out in sexist ways

00:13:45.409 --> 00:13:46.468
will loose status,

00:13:46.468 --> 00:13:49.254
young men and boys
who act out in sexist and harassing ways

00:13:49.254 --> 00:13:50.579
towards girls and women,

00:13:50.579 --> 00:13:52.475
as well as towards other boys and men,

00:13:52.475 --> 00:13:54.706
will loose status as result of it,
guess what?

00:13:54.706 --> 00:13:57.225
We'll see a radical diminution
of the abuse,

00:13:57.225 --> 00:14:00.018
because the typical perpetrator
is not sick and twisted,

00:14:00.018 --> 00:14:02.437
he's normal guy in every other way,
isn't he?

00:14:03.821 --> 00:14:05.495
Among the many great things

00:14:05.495 --> 00:14:08.021
that Martin Luther King said
in his short life was,

00:14:08.021 --> 00:14:11.277
"In the end, what will hurt most
is not the words of our enemies,

00:14:11.277 --> 00:14:12.950
but the silence of our friends."

00:14:12.950 --> 00:14:16.254
"In the end, what will hurt most
is not the words of our enemies,

00:14:16.254 --> 00:14:17.884
but the silence of our friends."

00:14:17.884 --> 00:14:20.451
There has been an awful lot of silence
in male culture

00:14:20.451 --> 00:14:21.854
about this ongoing tragedy

00:14:21.854 --> 00:14:24.665
of men's violence against
women and children, hasn't there?

00:14:24.665 --> 00:14:26.545
There has been an awful lot of silence.

00:14:26.545 --> 00:14:27.973
And all I'm saying

00:14:27.973 --> 00:14:29.907
is that we need to break that silence.

00:14:29.907 --> 00:14:31.795
And we need more men to do that.

00:14:32.742 --> 00:14:34.564
It's easier said than done.

00:14:34.564 --> 00:14:36.868
Because, I'm saying it now,
but I'm telling you,

00:14:36.868 --> 00:14:38.620
it's not easy in male culture

00:14:38.620 --> 00:14:40.376
for guys to challenge each other.

00:14:40.376 --> 00:14:42.637
Which is one of the reasons why,

00:14:42.637 --> 00:14:44.838
part of the paradigm shift
that has to happen

00:14:44.838 --> 00:14:48.011
is not just understanding
these issues as men's issues,

00:14:48.011 --> 00:14:50.275
but they are also leadership issues
for men.

00:14:50.275 --> 00:14:51.765
Ultimately, the responsibility

00:14:51.765 --> 00:14:53.626
for taking a stand on these issues

00:14:53.626 --> 00:14:55.959
should not fall on the shoulders
of little boys

00:14:55.959 --> 00:14:57.547
or teenage boys in high school

00:14:57.547 --> 00:14:58.743
or college men.

00:14:58.743 --> 00:15:00.673
It should be on adult men with power.

00:15:00.673 --> 00:15:03.944
Adult men with power are the ones
we need to be holding accountable

00:15:03.944 --> 00:15:05.683
for being leaders on these issues.

00:15:05.683 --> 00:15:08.158
Because, when somebody speaks up
in a peer culture

00:15:08.158 --> 00:15:09.962
and challenges and interrupts,

00:15:09.962 --> 00:15:12.417
he or she is being a leader,
really, right?

00:15:12.418 --> 00:15:13.555
But on a big scale,

00:15:13.555 --> 00:15:15.607
we need more adult men with power

00:15:15.607 --> 00:15:17.893
to start prioritizing these issues

00:15:17.893 --> 00:15:20.069
and we haven't seen that yet, have we?

00:15:20.069 --> 00:15:22.988
Now, I was at a dinner
a number of years ago,

00:15:23.713 --> 00:15:27.196
and I worked extensively
with the US military, all their services.

00:15:27.196 --> 00:15:29.662
And I was at this dinner,
and this woman said to me

00:15:30.478 --> 00:15:33.209
- I think she thought
she was a little clever, she said,

00:15:33.209 --> 00:15:34.975
"So how long have you been doing

00:15:34.975 --> 00:15:36.958
sensitivity training with the marines?"

00:15:36.958 --> 00:15:40.474
And I said, "With all due respect,

00:15:40.489 --> 00:15:42.790
I don't do sensitivity training
with the marines.

00:15:42.790 --> 00:15:45.068
I run a leadership program
in the marine corps."

00:15:45.068 --> 00:15:47.975
Now I know it's a bit pompous,
my response,

00:15:47.975 --> 00:15:50.690
but it's an important distinction,
because I don't believe

00:15:50.714 --> 00:15:52.599
that we need a sensitivity training.

00:15:52.599 --> 00:15:54.221
We need leadership training.

00:15:54.221 --> 00:15:55.362
Because, for example,

00:15:55.362 --> 00:15:56.755
when a professional coach

00:15:56.755 --> 00:15:59.214
or a manager of a baseball team
or a football team

00:15:59.214 --> 00:16:01.603
- and i work extensively
in that realm as well -

00:16:01.603 --> 00:16:02.929
makes a sexist comment,

00:16:02.929 --> 00:16:04.510
makes a homophobic statement,

00:16:04.510 --> 00:16:05.705
makes a racist comment,

00:16:05.705 --> 00:16:07.944
there'll be discussions
on the sports blogs

00:16:07.944 --> 00:16:09.296
and in sports talk radio,

00:16:09.296 --> 00:16:10.392
and some people say,

00:16:10.392 --> 00:16:12.218
"Well, he needs sensitivity training."

00:16:12.218 --> 00:16:13.132
Others will say,

00:16:13.132 --> 00:16:15.722
"Get off it, that's political correctness
run amok,"

00:16:15.722 --> 00:16:17.858
and "He made a stupid statement,
move on..."

00:16:17.858 --> 00:16:20.477
My argument is,
he doesn't need sensitivity training,

00:16:20.477 --> 00:16:21.957
he needs leadership training.

00:16:21.957 --> 00:16:23.623
Because he's being a bad leader,

00:16:23.623 --> 00:16:26.672
because in a society with gender diversity
and sexual diversity,

00:16:26.672 --> 00:16:27.962
(Applause)

00:16:27.962 --> 00:16:29.542
and racial and ethnic diversity,

00:16:29.542 --> 00:16:31.352
you make those kinds of comments,

00:16:31.352 --> 00:16:33.098
you're failing at your leadership.

00:16:33.098 --> 00:16:35.263
If we can make this point that I'm making

00:16:35.263 --> 00:16:37.734
to powerful men and women in our society

00:16:37.743 --> 00:16:40.440
at all levels of institutional authority
and power,

00:16:40.440 --> 00:16:41.882
it's going to change.

00:16:41.882 --> 00:16:44.585
It's going to change the paradigm
of people's thinking.

00:16:44.930 --> 00:16:48.175
For example, I work a lot in college
and university athletics

00:16:48.175 --> 00:16:50.669
throughout North America, right.

00:16:50.671 --> 00:16:54.635
We know so much about how to prevent
domestic and sexual violence, right?

00:16:55.354 --> 00:16:58.509
There is no excuse
for a college or university to not have

00:16:58.509 --> 00:17:01.000
domestic and sexual violence
prevention training

00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:02.904
mandated for all student athletes,

00:17:02.904 --> 00:17:04.561
coaches and administrators

00:17:04.561 --> 00:17:06.538
as part of their educational process.

00:17:06.538 --> 00:17:08.935
We know enough to know
that we can easily do that

00:17:08.935 --> 00:17:10.358
but you know what's missing?

00:17:10.358 --> 00:17:11.701
The leadership!

00:17:11.701 --> 00:17:13.797
It's not the leadership
of student athletes.

00:17:13.797 --> 00:17:15.951
It's the leadership
of the athletic director,

00:17:15.951 --> 00:17:17.752
the president of the University,

00:17:17.752 --> 00:17:21.286
the people in charge who make decisions
about resources and priorities

00:17:21.286 --> 00:17:23.075
in the institutional settings, right?

00:17:23.075 --> 00:17:25.705
That's a failure, in most cases
of men's leadership.

00:17:25.705 --> 00:17:26.734
Look at Penn State.

00:17:26.734 --> 00:17:29.541
Penn State is the mother
of all teachable moments

00:17:29.541 --> 00:17:31.019
for the bystander approach.

00:17:31.019 --> 00:17:33.333
You had so many situations in that realm

00:17:33.347 --> 00:17:35.698
where men in powerful positions

00:17:35.698 --> 00:17:38.665
failed to act to protect children,
in this case boys.

00:17:38.665 --> 00:17:41.228
It's unbelievable, really,
but when you get into it,

00:17:41.228 --> 00:17:43.366
you realize there are pressures on men,

00:17:43.366 --> 00:17:46.054
there are constraints within peer cultures
on men

00:17:46.054 --> 00:17:49.148
which is why we need to encourage men

00:17:49.161 --> 00:17:50.909
to break through those pressures.

00:17:50.909 --> 00:17:52.512
And one of the ways to do that

00:17:52.512 --> 00:17:54.524
is to say there is an awful lot of men

00:17:54.524 --> 00:17:56.363
who care deeply about these issues.

00:17:56.363 --> 00:17:57.986
I know this. I work with men.

00:17:57.986 --> 00:18:01.011
I've been working with tens
and hundreds of thousands of men

00:18:01.011 --> 00:18:02.345
for many many decades now.

00:18:02.345 --> 00:18:05.199
It's scary when you think about it
how many years, but ...

00:18:05.199 --> 00:18:06.345
There is so many men

00:18:06.345 --> 00:18:08.207
who care deeply about these issues,

00:18:08.207 --> 00:18:09.841
but caring deeply is not enough.

00:18:09.841 --> 00:18:11.301
We need more men

00:18:11.301 --> 00:18:13.913
with the guts, with the courage,
with the strength,

00:18:13.913 --> 00:18:15.711
with the moral integrity

00:18:15.711 --> 00:18:17.296
to break our complicit silence

00:18:17.296 --> 00:18:19.279
and challenge each other,

00:18:19.279 --> 00:18:21.726
and stand with women, not against them.

00:18:22.111 --> 00:18:23.753
By the way, we owe it to women

00:18:23.753 --> 00:18:25.276
there's no question about it.

00:18:25.276 --> 00:18:26.994
But we also owe it to our sons,

00:18:26.994 --> 00:18:28.597
we also owe it to young men

00:18:28.597 --> 00:18:30.537
who are growing up all over the world

00:18:30.537 --> 00:18:32.887
in situations where
they didn't make the choice

00:18:32.887 --> 00:18:36.311
to be a man in a culture that tells them
that manhood is a certain way.

00:18:36.311 --> 00:18:37.836
They didn't make the choice

00:18:37.836 --> 00:18:40.529
we that have a choice, have an opportunity

00:18:40.529 --> 00:18:42.493
and a responsibility to them as well.

00:18:42.493 --> 00:18:44.578
I hope that going forward

00:18:44.578 --> 00:18:46.587
men and women working together

00:18:46.587 --> 00:18:47.903
can begin the change

00:18:47.903 --> 00:18:49.775
and a transformation that will happen

00:18:49.775 --> 00:18:52.587
so that future generations
won't have the level of tragedy

00:18:52.587 --> 00:18:54.343
that we deal with on a daily basis.

00:18:54.343 --> 00:18:55.434
I know we can do it.

00:18:55.434 --> 00:18:56.756
We can do better.

00:18:56.756 --> 00:18:58.608
Thank you very much. (Applause)