Violence against women—it's a men's issue | Jackson Katz | TEDxFiDiWomen

Domestic violence and sexual abuse are often called "women’s issues.” But in this bold, blunt talk, Jackson Katz points out that these are intrinsically men’s issues -- and shows how these violent behaviors are tied to definitions of manhood. A clarion call for us all -- women and men -- to call out unacceptable behavior and be leaders of change.
This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.

Before I begin my presentation

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

with so many impressive women.

I also want to say thank you
to the organizers

[who invited] me to be part of this.

It's important that I say and that men say

when we do the work that we do,

especially in the field
of gender violence prevention

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

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

in the United States
in a multicultural sense

and all around the world
in an international sense,

the growing movement of men

who are standing up and speaking out

about men's violence against women,

and going into parts of male culture

that have historically been
either apathetic about

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

that movement of men

is indebted to the leadership of women

on a personal level,

on a professional level,

on political level,

on an intellectual level,

on every level -

women built these movements

and these are movements that are affecting

in a positive way everybody.

Not just women and girls

but also men and boys.

And often times men like myself

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

that women have been doing
for a long time.

So one of the ways
that we can use the spotlight

is to thank women
and honor women's leadership,

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

(Applause)

Having said that,

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

on the issues of gender violence -

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

sexual abuse of children,
that whole range of issues

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

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

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

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

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

(Applause)

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

but calling gender violence
a women's issue

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

The first is, it gives men an excuse

not to pay attention, right?

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

and we tend to tune it out, and we think

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

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

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

and the neural pathways take our attention
in a different direction

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

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

because a lot of people
hear the word "gender"

and they think it means "women".

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

There is some confusion
about the term "gender",

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

So let's talk for a moment about race.

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

a lot of people think
that means African-American,

Latino, Asian-American, Native American,

South Asian, Pacific, on and on.

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

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

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

think it means "women".

In each case,

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

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

or belong to some
racial category or construct?

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

As if men don't have a gender?

This is one of the ways

that dominant systems
maintain and reproduce themselves,

which is to say

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

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

the ability to go unexamined,
lacking introspection,

in fact being rendered invisible
in large measure

in the discourse about issues
that are primarily about us.

And this is amazing how this works

in domestic and sexual violence,

how men have been largely erased

from so much of the conversation

about a subject
that is centrally about men.

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

by using the old-tech.

I'm old school on some
fundamental regards.

I make films, I work with high-tech,

but I'm still old school as an educator.

And I want to share with you
this exercise,

that illustrates
on a sentence structure level

how the way that we think,

literally the way that we use language,

conspires to keep
our attention off of men.

This is about domestic violence
in particular

but you can plug in other analogues.

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

It starts with a very basic
English sentence

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

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

good sentence.

Now we're going to move
to the second sentence

which says the same thing
in the passive voice:

"Mary was beaten by John"

and now a whole lot has happened
in one sentence.

We've gone from "John beat Mary" to

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

in one sentence, from John to Mary.

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

close to dropping off the map
of our psychic plane.

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

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

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

Over the past generation

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

so we have, "Mary was battered."

And the final sentence in this sequence,

flowing from the others,

is "Mary is a battered woman."

So now Mary's very identity,

"Mary is a battered woman,"

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

but we've demonstrated

that John has long ago
left the conversation.

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

that victim blaming
is pervasive in this realm,

which is to say

blaming the person
to whom something was done

rather than the person who did it.

And we say things like,

Why do these women go out with these men?

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

What was she wearing at that party?

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

This is victim blaming.

And there are numerous reasons for it,

but one of them is that our
whole cognitive structure

is set up to blame victims.

It's all unconscious,

our whole cognitive structure
is set up to ask questions

about women and women's choices,

and what they are doing,
thinking and wearing.

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

it's a legitimate thing to ask.

But let's be clear.

Asking questions about Mary
is not going to get us anywhere

in terms of preventing violence.

We have to ask
a different set of questions

and you see where I'm going with this.

The questions are not about Mary,
but about John.

The questions like,

Why does John beat Mary?

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

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

Why so many men abuse

physically, emotionally,
verbally and in other ways

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

What's going on with men?

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

Why is that a common problem
in our society

and all over the world today?

Why we hear over and over again about

new scandals erupting
in major institutions

like the Catholic Church
or the Penn State Football Program

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

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

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

What's going on with men?

Why do so many men rape women

in our society and around the world?

Why do so many men rape other men?

What is going on with men?

And then -

What is the role of the various
institutions in our society

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

Because this is not about
individual perpetrators.

That's a naive way of understanding

what is a much deeper
and more systematic social problem.

You know, the perpetrators
aren't these monsters

who crawl out of the swamp
and come into town

and do their nasty business

and then retreat into the darkness.

That's a very naive notion, right?

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

So the questions is,

What are we doing here in our society

and in the world?

What are the roles of various institutions

in helping to produce abusive men?

What is the role of religious
belief systems?

The sports culture,
the pornography culture,

the family structure, economics?

And how that intersects?

And race and ethnicity
and how that intersects?

How does all this work?

And then, once we start
making those kinds of connections

and asking those important
and big questions,

then we can talk about
how can we be transformative.

You know, how can we do
something differently,

how can we change the practices?

How can we change
the socialization of boys

and the definitions of manhood

that lead to these current outcomes?

These are the kind of questions

that we need to be asking

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

But if we're endlessly focused on

what women are doing and thinking

in relationships or elsewhere

we're not going to get to that piece.

Now I understand

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

today and yesterday
and for years and years

often get shouted down for their efforts.

They get called nasty names like

"male-basher"

and "man-hater"

and the disgusting
and offensive "feminazi".

Right?

And you know what all this is about?

It's called "kill the messenger".

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

for themselves and for other women

as well as for men and boys,

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

Keep this current system in place

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

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

You better sit down and shut up,
basically.

And thank goodness
that women haven't done that!

Thank goodness that we live in a world

where there is so much women's leadership

that can counteract that.

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

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

Or better yet,

we can be heard saying some things

that women often can't be heard saying.

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

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

we need more men
who have the courage and the strength

to start standing up

and saying some of this stuff

and standing with women
and not against them

pretending that somehow
this is a battle between the sexes

and other kinds of nonsense.

We live in the world together.

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

about some of the rhetoric
against feminist and others

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

is that somehow, like I said,

that they're "anti male".

What about the boys
who are profoundly affected

in a negative way,

by what some adult man
is doing against their mother,

themselves, their sisters?

What about all those boys?

What about all the young men and boys

who have been traumatized
by adult men's violence?

You know what,

the same system that produces men
who abuse women,

produces men who abuse other men.

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

Most male victims of violence

are the victims of other men's violence.

So it's something

that both women and men have in common.

We are both victims of men's violence.

So we have it in our
direct self-interest -

not to mention the fact
that most men that I know

have women and girls
that we care deeply about.

In our families,
in our friendship circles,

and in every other way.

So there is so many reasons
why we need men to speak out.

It seems obvious saying it out loud
doesn't it?

The nature of the work that I do
and my colleagues do,

in the sports culture,
in the US military, in schools,

we pioneer this approach

called the "bystander approach"

to gender violence prevention.

And I just want to give you

the highlights of the bystander approach,

because it's a big, sort of,
thematic shift,

although there is lots of particulars.

The heart of it is:

Instead of seeing men as perpetrators,

women as victims,

or women as perpetrators, men as victims,

or any combination in there.

I'm using the gender binary.

I know there is more than men and women,

more than male and female.

And there are women who are perpetrators,

and of course men who are victims,
there's a whole spectrum.

But instead of seeing it
in a binary fashion,

we focus on all of us
as what we call bystanders.

And a bystander is defined as anybody

who is not a perpetrator or a victim
in a given situation.

So in other words:

friends, teammates, colleagues, coworkers,

family members,

those of us who are not directly involved
in a dyad of abuse.

But we are embedded

in social family, work, school,

and other peer culture relationships

with people who might be
in that situation.

What do we do? How do we speak up?

How do we challnge our friends?

How do we support our friends?

But how do we not remain silent
in the face of abuse?

Now when it comes to men and male culture,

the goal is to get men who are not abusive
to challenge men who are.

And when I say abusive,

I don't mean just men
who are beating women.

We're not just saying that a men

whose friend is abusing his girlfriend

needs to stop the guy,
at the moment of attack.

I mean, that's a naive way
of creating a social change.

It's along a continuum

we're trying to get men
to interrupt each other.

So for example if you are a guy

and you are in a group of guys,

playing poker, talking, hanging out,
no women present,

and another guy says

something sexist or degrading
or harassing about women,

instead of laughing along

or pretending you didn't hear it,

we need men to say,

"Hey, that's not funny."

"You know it could be my sister
you're talking about.

Can you joke about something else?"

or "I don't appreciate that kind of talk."

Just like if you are a white person

and another white person
makes a racist comment,

you'd hope - I hope -

that white people would interrupt
that racist enactment

by a fellow white person.

Just like with heterosexism,

if you are a heterosexual person,

and you yourself don't enact
harassing or abusive behavior

towards people
of varying sexual orientations.

If you don't say something

in the face of other heterosexual people
doing that, then in a sense,

isn't your silence a form of consent
and complicity?

Well, the bystander approach

is trying to give people tools
to interrupt that process

and to speak up

and to create a peer culture climate

where the abusive behaviour
will be seen as unacceptable,

not just because it's illegal,

but because it's wrong and unacceptable
in the peer culture.

And if we can get to the place

where men who act out in sexist ways

will loose status,

young men and boys
who act out in sexist and harassing ways

towards girls and women,

as well as towards other boys and men,

will loose status as result of it,
guess what?

We'll see a radical diminution
of the abuse,

because the typical perpetrator
is not sick and twisted,

he's normal guy in every other way,
isn't he?

Among the many great things

that Martin Luther King said
in his short life was,

"In the end, what will hurt most
is not the words of our enemies,

but the silence of our friends."

"In the end, what will hurt most
is not the words of our enemies,

but the silence of our friends."

There has been an awful lot of silence
in male culture

about this ongoing tragedy

of men's violence against
women and children, hasn't there?

There has been an awful lot of silence.

And all I'm saying

is that we need to break that silence.

And we need more men to do that.

It's easier said than done.

Because, I'm saying it now,
but I'm telling you,

it's not easy in male culture

for guys to challenge each other.

Which is one of the reasons why,

part of the paradigm shift
that has to happen

is not just understanding
these issues as men's issues,

but they are also leadership issues
for men.

Ultimately, the responsibility

for taking a stand on these issues

should not fall on the shoulders
of little boys

or teenage boys in high school

or college men.

It should be on adult men with power.

Adult men with power are the ones
we need to be holding accountable

for being leaders on these issues.

Because, when somebody speaks up
in a peer culture

and challenges and interrupts,

he or she is being a leader,
really, right?

But on a big scale,

we need more adult men with power

to start prioritizing these issues

and we haven't seen that yet, have we?

Now, I was at a dinner
a number of years ago,

and I worked extensively
with the US military, all their services.

And I was at this dinner,
and this woman said to me

- I think she thought
she was a little clever, she said,

"So how long have you been doing

sensitivity training with the marines?"

And I said, "With all due respect,

I don't do sensitivity training
with the marines.

I run a leadership program
in the marine corps."

Now I know it's a bit pompous,
my response,

but it's an important distinction,
because I don't believe

that we need a sensitivity training.

We need leadership training.

Because, for example,

when a professional coach

or a manager of a baseball team
or a football team

- and i work extensively
in that realm as well -

makes a sexist comment,

makes a homophobic statement,

makes a racist comment,

there'll be discussions
on the sports blogs

and in sports talk radio,

and some people say,

"Well, he needs sensitivity training."

Others will say,

"Get off it, that's political correctness
run amok,"

and "He made a stupid statement,
move on..."

My argument is,
he doesn't need sensitivity training,

he needs leadership training.

Because he's being a bad leader,

because in a society with gender diversity
and sexual diversity,

(Applause)

and racial and ethnic diversity,

you make those kinds of comments,

you're failing at your leadership.

If we can make this point that I'm making

to powerful men and women in our society

at all levels of institutional authority
and power,

it's going to change.

It's going to change the paradigm
of people's thinking.

For example, I work a lot in college
and university athletics

throughout North America, right.

We know so much about how to prevent
domestic and sexual violence, right?

There is no excuse
for a college or university to not have

domestic and sexual violence
prevention training

mandated for all student athletes,

coaches and administrators

as part of their educational process.

We know enough to know
that we can easily do that

but you know what's missing?

The leadership!

It's not the leadership
of student athletes.

It's the leadership
of the athletic director,

the president of the University,

the people in charge who make decisions
about resources and priorities

in the institutional settings, right?

That's a failure, in most cases
of men's leadership.

Look at Penn State.

Penn State is the mother
of all teachable moments

for the bystander approach.

You had so many situations in that realm

where men in powerful positions

failed to act to protect children,
in this case boys.

It's unbelievable, really,
but when you get into it,

you realize there are pressures on men,

there are constraints within peer cultures
on men

which is why we need to encourage men

to break through those pressures.

And one of the ways to do that

is to say there is an awful lot of men

who care deeply about these issues.

I know this. I work with men.

I've been working with tens
and hundreds of thousands of men

for many many decades now.

It's scary when you think about it
how many years, but ...

There is so many men

who care deeply about these issues,

but caring deeply is not enough.

We need more men

with the guts, with the courage,
with the strength,

with the moral integrity

to break our complicit silence

and challenge each other,

and stand with women, not against them.

By the way, we owe it to women

there's no question about it.

But we also owe it to our sons,

we also owe it to young men

who are growing up all over the world

in situations where
they didn't make the choice

to be a man in a culture that tells them
that manhood is a certain way.

They didn't make the choice

we that have a choice, have an opportunity

and a responsibility to them as well.

I hope that going forward

men and women working together

can begin the change

and a transformation that will happen

so that future generations
won't have the level of tragedy

that we deal with on a daily basis.

I know we can do it.

We can do better.

Thank you very much. (Applause)