Men Can Stop Rape

THE MASCULINITY CONVERSATIONS: JARED WATKINS ON MASCULINITY IN COLLEGE

2012-01-03T15:31:00.000-05:00

SAYING GOODBYE TO “MY STRENGTH IS NOT FOR HURTING”

2011-12-14T15:39:00.000-05:00

We’ve had some good times, the “My Strength Is Not forHurting” social marketing campaign and Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR). The campaignhas been around for a little more than a decade, its posters, billboards,banners, postcards, and bus ads gracing hundreds of walls, highways, and busesthroughout the U.S. And sometimes it has traveled to foreign countries, like SouthAfrica, Japan, and Scotland. At this point, millions of men have seen itsstriking visuals.

But any campaign that has been around as long as this onebegins to lose its steam. And for good reason. While it was a groundbreaking atthe time – someone just placed a 2002 issue of O The Oprah Magazine on my desk in which the campaign is called“stunning” – it has failed to keep up with the times in two important ways. Firstof all, how we understand and shape consent is beginning to change. Almost allthe “My Strength” messaging springs from the phrase, “No means no,” a popularanti-date rape slogan. A few examples are: “My strength is not for hurting, sowhen she said no, I said okay,” “So when I wanted her, I asked her, and I tookno for an answer,” “So when I wanted to and she didn’t, we didn’t.” The morepositive phrase, “Yes means yes,” popularized by Jessica Valenti and JaclynFriedman’s anthology of the same name, is gaining credence. Yes Means Yes! is based on the idea that the prevalence of rape will substantiallydrop when both women and men value female sexuality and pleasure. While it’s alittle ways off, Men Can Stop Rape wants to create a campaign in the nearfuture targeting young men that incorporates this idea.

Secondly, when it comes to primary prevention bystanderintervention (BI) is where it’s at right now, and the BI component of “MyStrength Is Not for Hurting” has always been miniscule compared to the focus onconsent. (See two past MCSR blogs for more on this issue, one about DavidLisak’s work on predatory rape and college campuses, the other on men and bystander intervention.) The one BI poster* with four men that says, “Mystrength is not for hurting, so when men disrespect women, we say that’s notright,” has always been by far the most popular of all 19 posters, so there hasalways been a strong interest in promoting bystander intervention to men. Fromour perspective now, one BI poster doesn’t do the job. We know from research that a successful BI campaign has multiple examples of intervention that are specific to the particular situation presented. That’s why wecreated the [YMOST] Young Men of Strength for middle school boys and WHERE DOYOU STAND? for college men specifically as bystander intervention campaigns.They offer media materials with more specific situations and interventions thatare addressed in even more detail during train-the-trainer trainings.

So we say a fond farewell to “My Strength Is Not forHurting,” with the recognition that “being strong sometimes means being able tolet go.”

* You could also include the “My Strength” poster with ninemen that says, “Show your strength, stand up, speak up,” in the BI category butthe intervention is so non-descriptive that it’s ineffectual.

THE MCSR MASCULINITY CONVERSATIONS: Part 2 of an Interview with Lena Slachmuijlder about her work in the Congo

2011-11-30T10:10:00.001-05:00

We at Men Can Stop Rape believe that stereotypicalmasculinity (or any other term you might choose: traditional masculinity,hypermasculinity, hegemonic masculinity, dominant masculinity) is still toomuch the air that we breathe. It’s something we often take in automatically,unaware. As one of the significant sources of violence against women across theglobe, as well as other forms of violence, and as an unconscious source ofconflict for many men, stereotypical masculinity causes great harm when it goesunrecognized. We all benefit from developing healthier, non-violentmasculinities. The Masculinity Conversations is intended to raise our criticalconsciousness by talking about masculinity. Sometimes it will follow aninterview format, sometimes it will be a dialogue. Some of the peopleinterviewed will be experts, some won’t. Some will be people who are part ofMCSR’s work, some not. Let’s get the conversation started.

Patrick McGann, MCSR’s Director of Strategy & Planningoversees the Men Can Stop Rape Masculinity Conversations. If you would like totake part, send him an email.

Lena Slachmuijlder haslived and worked in Africa for 21 years as a journalist, editor, human rightsdefender, director, producer, performing artist, cultural facilitator, trainer,and project manager. I first heard her talk about work she did in the Congo ata panel organized by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on “YouthViolence: The Role of Masculinity and Mitigating Factors.” Although she is nowthe Chief Programming Officer for Search for Common Ground (SFCG), we talkedabout work she did in her previous role for SFCG as Country Director in DRCongo. In the DRC, she pioneered tools such as participatory theatre, a realityTV show, and innovative approaches to army and police reform. We specificallyfocused on her efforts to engage Congolese men in the prevention of sexualviolence.

Part 1 of our conversation was posted on November 17 andfocused more on masculine cultures in the Congo; Part 2, below, is morespecifically about the campaign she launched to engage Congolese men in prevention.When I read in the Washington Post that some 18,500 candidates would competefor 500 parliament seats in the Congo elections this week, I was again struckby the diversity of people in the DRC (Lena brought this up in Part 1 of theinterview). Her strategy of using a popular Congolese musician to speak acrossthis diversity seemed very smart. You can learn more about the campaign below.

Watch the videos from the campaign and check out the posters.

PART 2

PATRICK MCGANN: Given the diversity within the Congo, I'm curiousabout how you settled on who you were going to reach and how you were going toreach them.

LENA SLACHMUIJLDER: We had been doing a lot of work in theeast, where sexual violence in often linked to weapons, armed groups and thegeneral insecurity. With this campaign we had the opportunity to reach out morewidely, to parts of Congo that are not ‘at war’ as in the east. So we decided to work with a musicalcelebrity. Although Congolese superstar musicians are vastly popular across thecontinent and in Europe, their music is often about love and romance, and notvery socially engaged. I was part of the team that reached out to some of thetop five musical superstars. They didn’t refuse the idea of doing it, but theirinterest was financial, and they were not necessarily ready to commit the timeneeded to make the campaign work. But Celeo Scram, who was part of Werrasson’sband for 10 years and is hugely well-known, was different. He’s known for hislove songs, and he’s considered cool, and sexy. He was ready to collaboratewith us. We produced five spots, and in each spot, he’s playing a differentmale role: the soldier, the father, the husband, the boss, and the boyfriend. Andbefore and after each spot he’s asking the audience “Are you a Vrai Djo’? It isa popular lingala (Congolese language) was of saying the “cool guy.” It’s neverbeen used in the sense of someone who respects women. So we branded a popularexpression with new meaning.

PM: I just want to make sure I understand the expression.

LS: “Vrai” means truein French, and “djo” means sort of like the guy, so it means “true guy,” “coolguy.” Like if you imagine a girlfriend saying, “Is he the real one? Is he theright one?” And already in some of the areas where we've shown it – even in ourwork with the Congolese Police – we’ve heard people using the expression VraiDjo as a nickname when a guy does the ‘right thing’. And that's what we want.

We did radio spots as well on the same storylines. For thesize of our project it was relatively small and targeted. We put it on TV andradio, and we did screenings with small groups and a few nighttime screenings,and now it continues to be used in the east where we have a lot of ongoingwork. It’s possible that some TV stations still broadcast it if they like it.

What I also liked was the reactions of Celeo’s fans via hisfan base in Congo and in the diaspora. The spots got on line, and peoplethought that it was solely his initiative, and he was getting congratulationsleft and right, from women and men, saying, “Wow! That's great! I wish we hadmore Congolese musicians who took a stand like you did. You should make a wholefilm like this.” That was really surprising, because I thought maybe they'dwonder “whose little nonprofit thing are you doing?” They didn't see it likethat. It was sufficiently cool; he didn't have to step too much out of hispersona, and thus it resonated with his audience, and that for me was one ofthe indicators of success. I knew people watching it out in the villages wouldlike it because of his celebrity, but I didn't know if his fans would think itwas a cool thing for him to do. It was very reassuring that we got the toneright.

PM: It sounds like it's a lot about identity, trying tocreate this masculine identity that's open to a certain kind of interactionwith women that's different than the traditional identity.

LS: Right, there's a scenario where the guy has agirlfriend, they go out, they eat together, he buys her stuff, they visit thepark, and then they go back to his room, and she doesn't want to have sex. Inmany people’s mind, at that point, if the man didn't insist, he would beconsidered ‘weak’. In focus groups people commented, “Well, at that point she'smine, so if I don't do it, my friends are going to laugh at me.” And so it wasquite sensitive redefining that you could still be cool and not force the girlto have sex, even after she is in your room!

PM: And so there was this pretty significant socialmarketing component. Was there any way for men to become part of the campaign?

LS: The project was small and didn’t really enable us tospark a larger campaign at this point. We did consult with experts working oncombating sexual violence, and we pre tested it with different age andeducational groups of men. Then in addition to broadcasting it we did publicscreenings in one northeastern Congolese region as well as integrating it intoour work with the army and police. We didn’t link it in with any emerging men’sgroups because of the short time frame and size of the project. But it’savailable for anyone’s use.

PM: What kind of support is there to address masculinity?

LS: It’s at the early stages. There's not enough recognitionof masculinity as an issue within the organizations working to combat sexualand gender-based violence. The organizations trying to fight rape are largely convincedthat the best way to have an impact on men is through fear, to make them afraidof getting caught. We're living with a weak state and with high levels ofimpunity; even if they get arrested, they frequently escape from prison throughbreakouts or corruption. For me, I think there are limits to the belief that peoplechange because of fear alone. I think that if we don’t understand why they'reraping, even if they're caught, they'll still rape because they are doing it torespond to many other needs. They’re saying ‘I'm pissed off because I'm asoldier and I haven't been paid. Or - This girl, she thinks I can't have herbecause she's so pretty. I'm going to show her’. It's other needs they’re reactingto when they’re committing these acts, even if they know they’re going to go toprison.

PM: The way we would understand that is if your masculinityis lessened in one place how do you bolster it up in another? I think that’swhat you’re suggesting. It’s not unusual in the construct of masculinity thatwe’re familiar with that you’re ashamed as a man, for instance, or you feellike you’re less of a man, and okay, this is a way if not to restore my masculinity,at least feel more like a man.

LS: This sort of thing comes up in our work with theCongolese army. Soldiers are among the most named perpetrators of rape in theCongo. We’ve identified a whole range of dimensions that can influence thesoldiers to want to be a man who protects, not harms. Part of getting there isempathy, through viewing testimonies of rape survivors, and talking about itafterwards, “How would you feel if that’s your daughter,” that kind of thing.Part of it is talking through the reasons that they use to ‘justify’ rape: thatthey are abused and poorly paid and sent out into the jungle with nothing, farfrom their wives for months or even years. And we talk about those. We alsotalk about what happens if they do get caught, and sent to jail, and what theirlives and that of their families will become. We talk about the consequencesfor them as people – not only going to jail – but that they could havenightmares, they could be filled with regret for the rest of their lives, andthey could be looked down upon by others. We get into the psychological andtraumatic aspects. There are discussions at each of those moments, so you havea three-hour session with maybe 50 soldiers led by an officer who is himself atransformed person who is himself ready to open up. And we find they need totalk about this.

PM: That sounds similar to our Men of Strength Clubs wherethis is this hunger and desire to talk about it but there’s no space, and whenyou provide the space and construct it in a certain way, they will takeadvantage of it.

Just one more question. Any moments in the work that you didwith men that stand out in your memory?

LS: I think that what stood out for me was when I wouldfollow around our mobile cinema team projecting films at nightfall from villageto village. By 8:30 the film was over,and the discussion is drawing to a close by 9pm. It’s dark, we’ve got a littlespotlight and microphone there, and some of the women who did come and watchthe films have dwindled away, along with some of the older people. Some of the kidsare all still there, but there’s this group of young men between 14 and 25, whoare really adamant about talking and saying it’s the women’s fault. They staylate, and we’re not playing music to keep them there. They’re talking in a waythat is more extreme than I would expect. They’re saying things that I feelthey should be a little embarrassed to say in the Congolese culture. I livedthere for a long time, and I found that what they said was hitting a chord ofwhat needed to be addressed – that extreme feeling of “this is against me,”“empowering women is an assault on me, telling me that women are the onlyvictims is an assault on me.” “Don’t you realize all the problems that I have?”“Don’t you realize that I have needs?” I felt that that was really powerful.

The other thing that I felt really moved by was our workwith the army and the way in which the team of soldiers and officers that weworked with to empower and go out and facilitate these discussions with othersoldiers really believed in what they we’re saying and we’re living it. Iremember one colonel when I was sitting with him, he said, “Of course I getgirls who come into my office and they’re offering themselves to me. I can givethem money, or I cannot give them money and still just have them. But that’snot who I am. And he was able to say that, even though that’s another excusethat men use – “she just wanted me.” But she’s 14 or 15. He said, “That’s notthe kind of man I am. I don’t want a little girl. That’s the age of mydaughter. That’s not what defines who I am.” I found that that was reallypowerful because that’s what other men need to hear from someone like him. He’ssaying that this is diminishing my pride and my self-esteem, and I’m not goingto do that.

PM: That’s really powerful for me, too, because it is somuch about identity, and I’m convinced that we can talk about behavioral changeall we want, but unless you have an identity that somehow fits that behaviorand appeals to men in some sense, then you’re wasting your time. So it’s reallypowerful to hear him say, “That’s not who I am.”

Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me.

THE MEN CAN STOP RAPE MASCULINITY CONVERSATIONS: An interview with Lena Slachmuijlder about her work in the Congo

2011-11-17T12:31:00.001-05:00

We at Men Can Stop Rape believe that stereotypical masculinity (or any other term you might choose: traditional masculinity, hypermasculinity, hegemonic masculinity, dominant masculinity) is still too much the air that we breathe. It’s something we often take in automatically, unaware. As one of the significant sources of violence against women across the globe, as well as other forms of violence, and as an unconscious source of conflict for many men, stereotypical masculinity causes great harm when it goes unrecognized. We all benefit from consciously developing healthier, non-violent masculinities. The Masculinity Conversations is intended to raise our critical consciousness by talking about masculinity. Sometimes it will follow an interview format, sometimes it will be a dialogue. Some of the people interviewed will be experts, some won’t. Some will be people who are part of MCSR’s work, some not. Let’s get the conversation started.

Patrick McGann, MCSR’s Director of Strategy and Planning oversees the Men Can Stop Rape Masculinity Conversations. If you would like to take part, send him an email.

The first conversation is with Lena Slachmuijlder, who has lived and worked in Africa for 21 years as a journalist, editor, human rights defender, director, producer, performing artist, cultural facilitator, trainer, and project manager. I first heard her talk about work she did in the Congo at a panel organized by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on “Youth Violence: The Role of Masculinity and Mitigating Factors.” Although she is now the Chief Programming Officer for Search for Common Ground (SFCG), we talked about work she did in her previous role for SFCG as Country Director in DR Congo. In the DRC, she pioneered tools such as participatory theatre, a reality TV show, and innovative approaches to army and police reform. We specifically focused on her efforts to engage Congolese men in the prevention of sexual violence.

The conversation is divided into two parts. Part 1 focuses more on masculine cultures in the Congo; part 2 will be more specifically about the campaign she played a role in launching to engage Congolese men in prevention. I was struck in our conversation by how similar and yet how different masculine cultures are in the Congo and the United States.

PART 1

PATRICK MCGANN: One of the things that I think is an issue for us related to our Men of Strength Club is whether in a country in conflict or post-conflict – somewhere like the Congo – something like the Club would be particularly useful. One of the things we do in MOST Club is work with dominant stories and counter stories, so we're looking at what it means to be a man, how the messages men receive affect them and others, especially women and girls, and what are the alternatives. We look at what in dominant stories is harmful and what’s beneficial about counter stories. We've always wondered whether that 22-session format we usually use in schools would make sense in somewhere like the Congo. Who was your audience in the work you did? Why did you settle on that audience? How did you decide the best way to reach them?

LENA SLACHMUIJLDER: I think what was important for us was what we learned from doing a couple years of trying to prevent sexual violence and reaching out to a mass population – through radio programs, through taking a film out and showing it in village after village, by doing comic books, by doing participatory theater. We felt as though we were raising awareness around certain things – that rape is illegal, what constitutes rape, you know, the basics, because some of those definitions have been mixed up with cultures and traditions. But we often found that these sensitizations were creating another reaction on behalf of the men in the audiences. They felt as though they were not getting attention; they invariably stood up and said that they, men, had been raped. But that was coming largely from feeling disempowered. They would often use this phrase, “Women are raping us” referring to the way that women dress or the fact that they have money, giving the impression that the men are unable to resist, and the women are able do whatever they want.

PM: In the states when you hear men talk about dress it's about women dressing seductively. Is that the meaning behind it or is it a different kind of meaning?

LS: That's the meaning, and yet if you go into the majority of these villages you will see women in full length African dress and covered up, and women are being raped in their beds at night by people breaking in. But Congo is like 16 countries because it's so different from east to west. It's the size of one-third of the United States; the US east of the Mississippi is the size of the Congo. So what you have in more urban environments is effectively much more modern dress and men feeling uncomfortable with women who choose to dress that way and taking it to the point where they extrapolate – well, then if the women are victims, it's their fault. They say that very, very openly.

PM: How do they perceive those women? Here there's certain language like “slut” used. Is there similar sort of language?

LS: They wouldn't necessarily call them prostitutes right off, but if they hear that a girl was assaulted, firstly, even without knowing the facts, they would say she was probably wearing a short skirt or something, or if it was a situation where she was nicely dressed because she was with her boyfriend, who then abused her, they’d say it's really not a crime. It's kind of like, “Well, what was she thinking? Of course if she goes with that man, that's what's going to happen.”

PM: I'm trying to wrap my head around this to understand whether there are any differences from what happens here. It sounds similar. Do you perceive any kind of cultural differences between here and there?

LS: I felt that educating people about what rape is and encouraging women to denounce it were perceived as provocative and uncomfortable for the men. So it was more than just using the ‘dress code’ argument. When we were encouraging women to speak up, and denounce men who were raping, the men responded with ‘“Hey, wait a minute, we're actually victims.” In smaller group activities, usually just with men, we would hear men justifying and admitting to rape and sexual abuse and sleeping with minors, saying, “What do you want? I'm a man, she's a girl, she's a woman. I gave her some money, so isn't that okay? She asked me for some money, so isn't that okay?” And thus it's different from here in the sense that it echoed and resonated with how men see themselves in the society and as well the traditions and customs that they feel justify that power relationship.

PM: Can you talk a little bit about what those traditions and customs are and how they connect with masculinity. I'm particularly curious too whether in your perceptions because you talk about the differences within the Congo –

LS: 450 tribes, 70 million people –

PM: There must be differences among men, then, and how masculinity gets played out. So there are really masculinities it sounds like. How would you describe some of those differences?

LS: So much has written about sexual violence in the Congo and some have gone to the point of saying, “Apparently in the past rape was culturally acceptable.” People lashed out against this and said, “What are you talking about? How can you say that? We've got 450 tribes!” So, for example, there are some tribes where – and I'm really not generalizing about all Congolese – but there are some traditions whereby if a man would manage to kidnap a girl, take her, carry her home, and sleep with her, the the tribe would accept that she is now his wife. That's rape. And people are now talking about this tradition as rape. There's not been an analysis of every single tradition and tribe and their ways of courting, but some ways of courting have raised questions about the role of the woman in choosing whether or not she has a relationship with a man. Secondly, there are many different traditional ways of actually going about that marriage, and thirdly, there are many different tribal conditions related to what is the reaction of the family if the woman is violated. And in many – and here I can confidently say “many” - there is basically a fine, meaning reparations are paid. There's no other ‘punishment’. In many cases, the most acceptable thing was for that man to pay the fine and then take the girl as his wife. One of the big obstacles to fighting impunity and rape is still that people feel that that traditional arrangement is the most acceptable justice. The family, the father, of the girl who is violated demands that money be paid – in rural areas it may be goats or cows but in cities it’s money - and then he can also decide to have her marry the rapist.

PM: So it sounds like it's about how power is bestowed upon the male. This is the kind of power a man has, the kind of power the family has, and this is the kind of power the woman doesn't have.

LS: Exactly, we were running into a wall telling men what they shouldn't do. And so we said there aren't enough efforts to give them a model, an ideal. We wanted them to feel attracted to being confident and powerful and cool and good looking, while they were respecting women. It is challenging. In this comic book (Mopila on the Avenue of Love), for example, the girl rejects her boyfriend because he behaves badly. And then we see him sad, angry, but deciding that it’s worth it to say he’s sorry, because he wants her back. The Vrai Djo video spots were also not about showing a man doing something wrong. Instead, we showed a man in a series of situations resembling common interactions with women, and doing the right thing, doing it naturally, doing it confidently, doing it strongly. That was what was inventive in our approach.

PM: One of the things that we've done and always done is appeal to men's best selves, and it sounds like that's what you're doing.

LS: What does that mean to you?

PM: We believe that the majority of men that we work with have a desire to do the right thing and that they have the capacity. They have some sense of what the right thing to do is but they may not get enough support to do it, they may not exactly know what it is they can do, but when they're presented with other men who are doing it, it empowers them to feel like, okay, I'm not the only one who feels this way, so I can do what I think is right. Or now that I've seen somebody else do it, I feel like I can do that too. That was inventive for us as well.

Part 2 will be posted after Thanksgiving break.

Predatory Rape on College Campuses: An Interview with David Lisak

2011-11-09T16:39:00.000-05:00

Does the "predator theory of rape" ignore rape culture? This is a question that has recently come up in relation to Dr. David Lisak's reseach. Dr. Lisak, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston and director of the Men’s Sexual Trauma Research Project, conducts and supervises research on the causes and consequences of interpersonal violence. In particular, he has studied the motives and characteristics of "undetected" rapists – men who rape but who are never prosecuted. He also studies the long term effects of childhood abuse in adult men, and the relationship between early abuse and the later perpetration of interpersonal violence. His research has been published in leading journals in psychology, trauma and violence, and he is the editor of the journal, Psychology of Men and Masculinity.

Patrick McGann, MCSR's Director of Strategy & Planning, interviewed Dr. Lisak in 2008 over email about this very issue and is re-posting part of the interview because of renewed interest.

_________________________

Hi David,

I wrote you a little while back about starting an email dialogue with you that we’ll use during April, Sexual Assault Awareness Month. So I’d like to start it now.

You’ve researched for some years now sexual assault on the college campus and argue that the overwhelming majority of rapes are committed by young men you would term predators responsible for serial rapes. This certainly challenged some of my own assumptions. I realized I had assumed that often college rapes occur because men are misinformed or drunk and out of control. When I heard you present your research, I was struck by how organized the young men are. They almost have the structure of a street gang, in the sense that a young man in college is able to rape a young woman because his circle of supporters helps to make it possible. Is this accurate?

If it is, it certainly opens doors for viable avenues into prevention. But it seems to me that this form of sexual assault is most likely to occur primarily in the context of male-dominated structures and environments – fraternities, sports teams, and so on. Would that be accurate? And are you suggesting that prevention efforts should target only organized male groups, or should efforts be broader in scope?

I hadn’t intended to jump right into the thick of things with difficult questions. I actually thought I would start out with what led you to become involved in researching rape on the college campus, but somehow I never made it there. But I find your work intriguing and challenging and am trying to think through questions related to it. So I appreciate your willingness to participate in this exchange.

I look forward to your response.

Best,

Pat
_____________________

Hi Pat,

Thank you for initiating this dialogue. I’ll do my best to make it as fruitful as possible. I believe very strongly that the activation of men in the service of containing violence is enormously important and promising. Not only for the goal of containing violence, but also for the goal of bringing men together in the service of community goals. So I am delighted to participate.

In response to your first question. Yes, I believe the research is quite convincing that the vast majority of rapes are committed by men who are serial offenders. There is considerable evidence from community-based research and from sex offender management research that these serial offenders begin their offending behavior during adolescence and that it becomes a continuing pattern of predatory behavior into adulthood. While this research has been “out there” and accumulating for many years, even decades, it is only recently that data have been pointing to the same phenomena in college environments.

These data paint a picture of sexual violence in college communities that is at variance with what many people believe, including many people who are working hard at preventing such violence. To give an example of some of the implications, consider this. The data suggest that approximately 60% of college rapists are serial offenders, and that on average they commit six rapes. This would mean that if you had 100 rapists on a campus, they would have committed 60 x 6 + 40 x 1 rapes, or 400 rapes during their college careers. Of those 400 rapes, 360 (90%) would have been committed by serial rapists.

There are significant prevention implications here. For we can be quite confident that the behavior of those 60 serial rapists cannot be changed by outreach or education. As we learn more and more about them, we learn that they look very much like sex offenders that we have been dealing with in our criminal justice system and in our sex offender management programs for many decades.

However, we also know that these men do not live or act in a vacuum. They are not solitary predators who skulk and lurk. They are very much part of our campus communities. They frequently gravitate toward social groupings in which their attitudes and priorities are reflected and fostered. Sometimes this means a particular fraternity; sometimes an athletic group. But we must be very careful in making such assumptions. On any campus in which there is an active Greek life, most fraternities are NOT hotbeds of misogyny and sexual violence. When I visit a campus and talk with students it takes about five minutes to figure out which are the particular fraternities that have the most misogynistic and rape-supportive cultures. Likewise, there may be particular athletic groups in which such attitudes have become normative, and many others where there is no such problem.

And of course many of these rapists do not belong to either a fraternity or an athletic team. They will still, almost invariably, gravitate to some type of loose male social grouping in which their activities and attitudes have both an audience and a social mirror to reflect it all back to them. Remember, these men tend to be high in narcissistic traits and often measure their self-esteem with a yard stick derived from sexual conquest and a distorted sense of what it means to be masculine.

I don’t think it is good policy or good strategy to make an assumption that fraternities and athletic teams are the wellspring of sexual violence within a particular community. I would advocate a general, multi-step process that any community could fruitfully engage in:

Articulate the common values of the community, that presumably would include basic respect for all individuals and a universal and shared responsibility by all members of the community not only to live by those values but also to actively foster them.
Examine (study, do research) the community. How much sexual violence is occurring? Who is being victimized? Under what circumstances is the sexual violence occurring and who is committing it? Are there “hotbeds” and if so, where are they?
Mobilize the community. Educate – disseminate the information about the community’s problem with sexual violence. Remind the community members of their shared values and the ways in which sexual violence undermines those values.
Train the community. Bystander education programs (there are many variations), for example, provide a mechanism for both educating and mobilizing and also providing very concrete training in how to constructively intervene in a variety of situations (not only rape-imminent). These interventions, and the mobilization and training of the community members, begin to alter the culture of the community, making sexual violence – and its antecedents – increasingly less normative and simultaneously begin to isolate the serial offenders who have been operating from within the camouflage of that culture.

So, yes, I think rape prevention must be much broader in scope than a program targeting specific groups or sub-cultures.

David

_______________________

Hi David,

Let me ask a few questions in response, but first say that I’m glad you made a point of clarifying that most fraternities and many male athletic teams are not “hotbeds of misogyny and sexual violence.” While teaching at universities for a number of years, I heard repeatedly from male students that all fraternities are not alike – the honors fraternities are not like social fraternities, for instance, and I’m sure that there are significant differences even among social fraternities. When MCSR works with fraternities, often one of our initial strategies is to unpack the stereotypes members experience and help them take steps to intentionally challenge those stereotypes. I also think you would agree that even within a particular college male social group at risk for perpetration, it’s likely that many of the young men are not perpetrators.

I wondered, though, about easily identifying the fraternities, athletic teams, and other loosely organized social male groups that are more at risk for perpetrating sexual violence (you indicate you can learn the particular fraternities with the most misogynistic and rape-supporting cultures in a very short time). Do you have identifying factors you use? It makes me think of the list of red flags intended to help young women identify the early warning signs of dating violence – explosive temper, jealousy, and so on. Would you suggest there is or could be a similar list of warning signs college campuses might use to identify at-risk male social groups? And is it a list that might be useful? Or could it be misused in your view?

I’m pushing here, but I’m interested in your view on prevention: if it is possible to readily identify particular male social groups on a college campus as being at risk for perpetrating sexual assault, why do you believe it wouldn’t be wise to take a doubled approach to prevention? By this I mean engaging in the general, multi-step process you advocate (one espoused by MCSR) at the end of your response, while at the same time making concentrated primary prevention efforts directed at the at-risk male social groups? I would argue, though, that the efforts should positively and productively engage. And is there a need to take different and more concerted approaches in identifying and dealing with the 60 serial rapists, especially if their behavior will not be changed by outreach and education?

Thank you for engaging in this dialogue. It is very interesting and productive. I look forward to your next thoughtful email.

Pat

_________________________
Hi Pat,

I don’t have any list of “identifying factors” or “red flags” that I use to identify hotbeds of rape-supportive subculture within a campus environment or community. That’s not to say that one could not empirically derive such a list – perhaps so – only that I personally have not done that research. But I also think that more important than identifying such factors, even if it could be done, is having each community do the work to identify its own hotbeds. When I meet informally with students at a particular university I do not list the “red flags” and ask which student subculture on that campus is best described by those markers. Rather, I simply ask the assembled students whether they could identify particular groups/places on campus where the attitudes and behaviors that we would call “rape-supportive” are most prevalent. The response typically comes instantaneously. Essentially, everybody in the room knows exactly where these subcultures exist. That’s not to say that all rape in campus is happening within those subcultures. Just that the subcultures are readily identifiable to members of the community. Of course, were one developing a comprehensive strategy of rape prevention for that community, one would do more than informally query a small group of students.

If such hotbeds within a community can be identified I think it would definitely warrant specific attention and the type of multi-faceted prevention approach you refer to – a community-wide effort with additional, focused efforts aimed at those hotbeds. I just wouldn’t assume that the hotbeds will be located in particular groups (e.g., fraternities, athletic groups) without doing the research within the community to positively identify them.

The fact that there are individuals within campus communities who repeatedly victimize other members of the community – serial offenders – presents a real challenge to higher education institutions. It’s a fact that challenges the basic schemas of the institution, and college judicial processes are not designed to respond to this kind of hard core criminal behavior. The general assumption is that errant behavior is subject to education. Further, most college judicial processes are simply not equipped to do the kind of investigation necessary to get beyond the “he said – she said” phase of an investigation. Many college judicial officials have articulated to me their sincere frustration in such cases; they feel helpless to determine what really happened and feel they cannot obtain the kind of evidence they would need to impose serious sanctions even when they suspect it might be warranted. Their frustration is not surprising. It is not reasonable to expect that we can simply ask an alleged offender whether he is guilty of what the victim reports. We don’t approach alleged drug dealers and ask them whether they are, as reported, dealing drugs. We investigate.
David

A Great Suit, a Great Haircut, a Trip Outside the Neighborhood, and the Vice President

2011-10-12T15:26:00.000-05:00

Jason Page, Men Can Stop Rape’s Director of Community Education, attended Vice President Biden’s 17th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) with two Men of Strength (MOST) Club members - Ernest, an eighth grader at Jefferson Middle School, and Josh, a senior at Ballou Senior High School.

Jason describes the experience of taking Ernest and Josh to the Vice President’s house:

Ernest actually had a run-in with the Vice President. The reception took place in Vice President Biden’s back yard, and after he spoke and was walking toward the house for pictures, he complimented Ernest on his haircut and suit. Ernest barely could say thank you he was so shocked. The Vice President shook his hand and asked him his name and then the Secret Service ushered him into the house. Ernest, Josh, and myself went and got in the line to have our picture taken with him. When the three of us got to the front of the line, of course Vice President Biden remembered Ernest from just 10 minutes ago and said to his wife, “Honey, I just met this young man outside. Doesn’t he have a great suit and a great haircut?”

The rest of the evening Ernest had a smile on his face from ear-to-ear, and he thanked me. I know that this was something very special and important to him. I spoke to his mother about it a couple days later, and she thanked me and the organization for giving him the opportunity and said that he had been talking about it a lot around the house.

Josh enjoyed himself; it was great to hear him talk to some other people at the reception about what the MOST Club is, how it is at Ballou High School. I was proud to hear him speak of it the way he did. When you’re in a different setting sometimes you wonder how the guys will explain the Club. What he said wasn’t surprising to me, but it made me feel good. After dropping him off at his house following the reception, Josh sent me a text saying he really appreciated me picking him to go. The next day while we were talking about recruiting new MOST Club members, he mentioned that even though he’s from DC, he’d never been to that part of the city before. It’s a different world to him. That touched me. You can be born and raised in the nation’s capital and never even see the northwest side or never see certain parts, living in the neighborhood he’s from. So I know that meant a lot to him. Days later he’s still talking about it.

He’s going to share his experience with the other guys at Ballou, and I’m definitely going to use him this year when other opportunities like this come up. We look for those guys who will always be there when we call on them to help us out, and at the same time give them those great experiences. I know Josh and Ernest feel more like they’re part of the MOST Club now. Things like this give them a little extra boost, and that’s what our young men need at times.

Take a Stand Against Monotonous Sexism

2011-10-04T09:49:00.002-05:00

by Abigail Eisley, Administrative Assistant

Due to no response, I had all but given up on writing strongly worded e-mails to companies, organizations, or individuals that brought offense to my ideals in some way or another -- until yesterday evening. I was quietly unwinding after a long day at work at Men Can Stop Rape by cruising the blogosphere. I was startled when I came across this "suitcase sticker" advertised on the INFMETRY shop website. The sticker is among a series that allows you to have some fun with your luggage by making one side of it look x-rayed revealing drugs, sex toys, dollar bills, and lastly the one I took issue with, a bound and gagged, crying woman. I had seen this sticker before on feministing.com. They initially noted its existence back in 2010, and I was incensed to realize that despite many complaints made to www.thecheeky.com, the stickers are still for sale. While suitcase stickers may be a fun idea to "take a stand against monotonous travel" as advertised on their website, making light of violence against women and human trafficking is inexcusable. Since when is kidnapping and binding a woman against her will "fun"? And, how does a company place trafficking a human being on the same level as trafficking drugs, wads of cash and sex toys?

Maybe it's because I have been reading Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions by Gloria Steinham, or maybe it was because I have become more confident expressing my distaste of individuals joking about violence against women, or violence in general by working at Men Can Stop Rape, or maybe it's because I just felt like writing a strongly worded e-mail (it had been awhile!). Whatever the reason was, I proactively decided not to keep silent, and I put into practice some bystander intervention we always discuss and defend at work, by sending a strongly worded e-mail to INFMETRY's customer service department. I wrote:

"This is regarding your company's decision to sell this item here: http://www.infmetry.com/toys/wicked/suitcase-stickers.Canada has banned the sale of these stickers for a reason. It is completely offensive and in bad taste to market an item that obviously makes light of violence against women. I hope you can reconsider your poor decision to make a profit off a serious and underreported issue that wreaks havoc on the livelihood of millions of women, girls, and men worldwide."

If you notice, the link above doesn't work. This is because within an hour of berating them electronically, they responded with:

"Hi,

Thanks for you warning, in fact we just think it is a little wicked so we put it in our site, we donot have it in stock, and actually not one of our customer has place the order for it, anyway, we will cancel the page as your will.

Regards,
Infmetry"

Kudos to Infmetry! Not only did I receive the self-satisfaction that one of my strongly worded e-mails finally made some sort of impact, but now this offensive and ridiculous item is removed from their site. However, the fact that is exists still troubles me, and really shows how harmful attitudes towards women exist in many arenas. Sometimes you need to just focus on a job well done, no matter how small, and celebrate that taking action is not always met with roadblocks. I have sent the same e-mail to thecheeky.com, and I urge you to do the same if you feel strongly. Only when we realize that violence against women, human trafficking, and other serious issues focused on destroying individual freedoms are not a joke, will we be able to move past these issues once and for all.

Abigail Eisley has been working as Administrative Assistant with MCSR since June of this year, following an internship with the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance in Richmond, VA. She is a graduate of James Madison University with a degree in Justice Studies: Global Justice and Policy. At MCSR she provides administrative and program support as well as other tasks.

JOIN ME AND LEARN ABOUT PRIMARY PREVENTION AT "ROOTS OF CHANGE"

2011-09-08T12:36:00.000-05:00

by Patrick McGann
Director of Strategy & Planning

I’m excited about the Roots of Change conference this November 2-4 in Portland, Oregon, hosted by the Oregon Sexual Assault Task Force. Men Can Stop Rape is the Task Force’s national conference partner. I’ll be giving the opening keynote: “Getting Friendly with Feminism and Prevention: A Man’s Journey.” I’m excited because the keynote will be a different take on what I’ve been writing about in the “How I Came to Work at Men Can Stop Rape” blog series. And there will be visuals. People will see me when I had more hair and different glasses.

In its 3rd year, Roots of Change: Social Justice and Media promises to bring the expertise, cutting-edge information, and excitement those of us who do sexual assault prevention work are looking for. We’ll get a chance to learn from and meet leaders in the movement to prevent sexual violence, attend a wide range of prevention workshops, and connect with prevention practitioners from all over the nation. As someone who’s been doing this work for going on 15 years, I need all of that. Jessica Valenti of feministing.com fame and Jaclyn Friedman of WAM! Women, Action, and the Media will both be there. That’s a great pairing! Jessica and Jaclyn famously co-edited the book, Yes Means Yes! Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape. If that isn’t enough, Jaclyn will be introducing her brand new book at the conference. I can't wait!

We’ll get a chance to hear from experts on campus prevention, pop culture, media, entertainment, culturally specific prevention, and much more! With over 30 co-sponsors from leading prevention and media projects and organizations, such as Bitch Media, PreventConnect, Feministing.com, Free Press, and The Women’s Media Center, we’re bound to bump into an expert at every corner.

If you’re serious about preventing gendered violence in your community, if you want to meet the leading players in the prevention movement, if you want to make connections for life…join me in Portland, Oregon on November 2nd-4th at the Benson Hotel for Roots of Change: Social Justice and Media.

* * *
Patrick McGann, Ph.D. has been involved with Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR) since the organization’s inception in 1997. As Director of Strategy and Planning, Patrick co-authored a sexual assault prevention strategy for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in 2008 and oversaw the development of the HURTS ONE. AFFECTS ALL. public education campaign for DoD in 2010. He regularly gives presentations across the country on engaging men in the prevention of gender-based violence.

Creating a Healthier Masculinity on the Field: Preventing Concussions

2011-08-16T15:58:00.000-05:00

[I am taking a break from the blog this week because of family health issues, but Joe Ehrmann, former NFL Baltimore Colts player and founder of Coaching for America, is filling in. His blog entry follows. - Patrick McGann]

I officiated the Memorial Service of NFL Hall of Fame player John Mackey this past Saturday, along with his brother, Rev. Elijah Mackey. Having been in pastoral ministry over twenty-five years, I have learned that when someone has led a relationally successful and meaningful life, it is an easy and celebratory service to lead and participate in. None should have been easier than John Mackey’s – but it was not.

As a player John is arguably the greatest to ever play his position. As a man he is one of the most respected teammates, opponents and men to ever play the game. He was the first President of the NFL Players Association and organized the NFL’s first player strike that led to increased player health and pension benefits. He helped lead and win a court challenge to end the “Rozelle Rule” which set the precedent for true free agency and the salaries enjoyed by current players. And for all he accomplished, his greatest legacy will be as a husband, father, family member and friend -- and as a role model of authentic masculinity.

Yet, John Mackey will also be remembered as the most visible face of sports' growing epidemic of traumatic brain injuries. In 2000 John was diagnosed with frontal temporal dementia that eventually led to his spending the last five years of his life in a full -time assisted living facility, unable to communicate, to recognize loved ones or to care for himself. With a push from John’s heroic wife Sylvia, his Baltimore Colt teammates and their advocacy group Fourth & Goal, the NFL and the NFLPA started the “88 Plan” named after John’s jersey number. The 88 Plan provides $88,000-a-year for nursing home care and $50,000 annually for adult day care for players suffering from various forms of degenerative brain damage.

I find it providential that after more than a decade of suffering, John Mackey’s life would end during the NFL’s longest work stoppage as the players and owners reworked their Collective Bargaining Agreement with new guidelines for health, safety and post-career benefits. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, upon learning of John’s passing said, “He worked closely [with] our office on many issues through the years, including serving as the first president of the NFL Youth Football Fund. He never stopped fighting the good fight.” NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith, expressed similar sincere and heartfelt thoughts, “John Mackey has inspired me and will continue to inspire our players and define our institution. He will be missed but never forgotten.” I hope so.

John Mackey’s last sacrificial gift to the NFL and its players is the opportunity to lead the world of sports in educating athletes, parents and coaches of all ages and all sports on how to prevent, diagnose and treat concussions. While football is the most visible of concussive related sports, every game must address and work through the avalanche of evidence pointing to long term mental health issues related to head traumas. Yet, when Commissioner Goodell began changing the rules on hits to the head and imposing fines and suspensions, it was the players who pushed back. All-Pro linebacker Brian Urlacher represented the opinion of many players and fans when he said the NFL should rename itself “the NFFL – The National Flag Football League.” Kevin Mawae, the President of the NFLPA who represented current players at the recent negotiations, ridiculed Goodell’s crackdown stating, “The skirts need to be taken off in the NFL offices.” They represent the decades of players coached to make and celebrate the head-rattling hits that too many fans cheer and applaud.

While I do not know what conversations took place at the negotiating table upon hearing of John Mackey’s death, I’d like to think participants took a long pause and reflected on the life, legacy and tragedy of John’s death. I hope current players rethought the rule changes needed to protect players and the responsibility to model how the game can and should be played. John Mackey will be celebrated at the Memorial, I am sure. But more than words of gratitude and plaudits should be spoken to carry on the legacy of a man who “never stopped fighting the good fight.” To truly honor our fallen teammate and leader, I hope the NFL players will demand -- and the league and union will agree to -- at least one game this season where every player wears a “88” patch on their jersey and each team airs appropriate public service announcements aimed at educating coaches, parents and young athletes on the prevention of head traumas. Then John Mackey’s life will continue to inspire NFL players, address the moral responsibility of the NFL and NFLPA to current, past and future players and honor the game. That would make for a truly celebrative Memorial Service for a man who will be missed -- but should never be forgotten.

Joe Ehrmann

Baltimore Colts ’73-80

Author of InSideOut Coaching: How Sports Can Transform Lives

InSideOut Coaching: Changing Masculinity on the Ballfield

2011-08-11T15:54:00.000-05:00

By Patrick McGann
Director of Strategy & Planning

Let me be upfront: I love Joe Ehrmann. Yes, I’m using the “L” word.

“Respect” doesn’t go far enough. “Admire” won’t cut it. “Appreciate” is way too weak. “Like” seems tepid.

It’s got to be “love.”

I was going to wrap up the “How I Came to Work for Men Can Stop Rape” series, but then Joe sidetracked me. We hosted a book event at a DC Barnes and Noble this past Tuesday night featuring InSideOut Coaching: How Sports Can Transform Lives, Joe’s new book just released on August 2nd. He described the book’s contents and then took questions.

There’s so much to write about in InSideOut Coaching that I’m not sure where to start. How about transactional and transformational coaching? Transactional coaches use players to meet their own “personal needs for validation, status, and identity” (p. 5). They’re all about doing whatever it takes to win. Transformational coaches, on the other hand, “are other-centered.” They “use their power and platform to nurture and transform players” (p.6). They affirm rather than tear down. I mostly experienced transactional coaches. I'm thinking especially of the one that put us through a "gut check" my sophomore year on the high school basketball team.

To become a transformational coach requires the creation of a coherent narrative, an investigation of your own experiences of being coached – hence, the InSideOut in the title. You begin this InSideOut journey by asking these questions:

Why do I coach?
Why do I coach the way I do?
What does it feel to be coached by me?
How do I define success? (p. 109)

Joe’s answer to why he coaches: “I coach to help boys become men of empathy and integrity who will lead, be responsible, and change the world for good” (p. 110). He asserts that the messages young men receive about masculinity prevent boys from becoming men of empathy and integrity. And that’s why Men Can Stop Rape partners with Joe and Coach for America.

Joe steps outside the box and identifies Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz as a transformational coach. Given my love relationship with The Wizard of Oz (I wrote a MCSR newsletter piece years ago about the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion as examples of counter stories of masculinity), I got all excited when this former Syracuse University All-American and NFL Baltimore Colts star suggested this girl in ruby red slippers was one of his coaching heroes.

Let me end by extending Joe’s ideas for coaches by claiming that every single one of us at one time or another is a coach. You. Me. Your family. Friends. Colleagues. Cohorts. Companions. You name it. We all mentor others at some point. So we all need to ask ourselves:

Why do I coach?
Why do I coach the way I do?
What does it feel to be coached by me?
How do I define success?

Next: Reflections on How I Came to Work at Men Can Stop Rape

* * *

Patrick McGann, Ph.D. has been involved with Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR) since the organization’s inception in 1997. As Director of Strategy and Planning, Patrick co-authored a sexual assault prevention strategy for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in 2008 and oversaw the development of the HURTS ONE. AFFECTS ALL. public education campaign for DoD in 2010. He regularly gives presentations across the country on engaging men in the prevention of gender-based violence.

How I Came to Work at Men Can Stop Rape, Part 5

2011-08-04T10:29:00.000-05:00

By Patrick McGann
Director of Strategy & Planning

Just after my experience of the 1992 National Organization of Men Against Sexism (NOMAS) conference in Chicago, we left for Washington, DC where I would be teaching composition full time at George Washington University while finishing my dissertation on the politics of masculinity and academic discourse. I wanted to look for a way to continue the experience I had at the conference but didn’t have a clue how to make that happen in DC.

While we lived in Chicago, Abby and I would grab the Reader every week, an independent newspaper, and we looked for something similar after we moved. The Washington City Paper was the closest we could find. Although it didn’t seem as hip and edgy, we still picked it up each Thursday, and one of those weeks she came across an ad in the classifieds for DC Men Against Rape. She suggested I might want to volunteer with them.

I called and went to a couple meetings, but the timing seemed wrong. Our daughter needed some extra attention, I was teaching three courses a semester, and I was trying to finish a dissertation that not only challenged me academically but also personally, since part of my intent was to break down the barriers between public and private discourses. I didn’t see how I could fit in another thing.

So I told them all of that and said I was sorry. I finished my dissertation in 1995, and shortly thereafter started teaching a composition course on masculinities using Kenneth Clatterbaugh’s Contemporary Perspectives on Masculinities and Michael Messner’s Politics of Masculinities. By the spring semester of 1997, I had changed the course topic to masculinity and violence, using Bernard Lefkowitz’s Our Guys, an investigation into the sexual assault of a mentally challenged 17 year old young woman by a group of privileged high school athletes in Glen Ridge, NJ.

It occurred to me that it would make sense to invite speakers from DC Men Against Rape to come and present to my classes. I contacted them through their website, and Michael Airhart, their volunteer Web master at the time, passed on my request to Jonathan Stillerman and Patrick Lemmon, both of whom were at the few meetings I attended in 1992. Jonathan called my office and said they could present, and then remembered that he needed to ask if I would be able to pay a speaker fee. He and Patrick had just formed a nonprofit called the Men’s Rape Prevention Project.

I couldn’t pay much of a fee, but they did come and speak to all three of my classes and did a great job. After the last presentation, Patrick told me they were having a speaker training in August and that I should think about participating. I told him to call me, and he did, and I went through the training, and sometime during the next year I started doing presentations in the Metro DC area, and became a volunteer, and later worked for, the Men’s Rape Prevention Project, which in 2001 was renamed Men Can Stop Rape.

Next: Reflections on How I Came to Work at Men Can Stop Rape

* * *
Patrick McGann, Ph.D. has been involved with Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR) since the organization’s inception in 1997. As Director of Strategy and Planning, Patrick co-authored a sexual assault prevention strategy for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in 2008 and oversaw the development of the HURTS ONE. AFFECTS ALL. public education campaign for DoD in 2010. He regularly gives presentations across the country on engaging men in the prevention of gender-based violence.

How Many Politicians Does It Take to Prevent a Sexual Indiscretion?

2011-07-27T13:30:00.000-05:00

By Patrick McGann
Director of Strategy & Planning

I finished writing Part 5 of “How I Came to Work at Men Can Stop Rape” yesterday (the part where I actually finally end up at MCSR) but then this morning read the Washington Post and learned that Rep. David Wu (D-OR) is accused of having “aggressive and unwanted” sex with a teenage daughter of a friend. My reaction, said out loud at the kitchen table: “What is wrong with these guys?” It wasn’t directed at Abby, my wife, as much as it was an expression of exasperation. So, I’m delaying posting Part 5 for addressing political scandal.

Part of me still expects, I suppose, high standards of behavior from our public representatives. Idealistically, I assume they understand their need to uphold and represent our democratic principles, and that “sexual indiscretions” (media language) are not in line with those principles. In a more practical sense, surely they have already seen enough politicians fall from grace so that they are aware of the potential consequences to their own careers? When I went to Texas Tech we told Texas A & M jokes about how many Aggies it takes to screw in a light bulb. Although I can’t quite wrap my head around it right now, I’m thinking there’s a similar joke about how many politicians it takes to stop a sexual indiscretion.

Of course I know why these male politicians keep acting in inappropriate ways. Isn’t traditional masculinity the root cause for so many things we men do? And doesn’t it need a light shined on it in the hallways of our government buildings? It has been invisible for too long in our Capitol, I say! Not only do politicians suffer the consequences when one of their own creates a “Guys Gone Stupid” video, we as citizens lose any sense that the people in charge of our country are credible, responsible, and respectable adults.

Our politicians need help! They can’t prevent these indiscretions on their own or they would have already done so. I challenge them to bring in the masculinity and gender-based violence prevention experts. I personally will guarantee the services of Men Can Stop Rape. We usually limit our From Theory to Practice trainings to 20 participants or so, which means it will take us a while to get through the Senate and the House, but it will be time well spent. Our country will be better for it.

Politicians, I beg you: ask not what masculinity can do for you, but what you can do to change masculinity.

* * *
Patrick McGann, Ph.D. has been involved with Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR) since the organization’s inception in 1997. As Director of Strategy and Planning, Patrick co-authored a sexual assault prevention strategy for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in 2008 and oversaw the development of the HURTS ONE. AFFECTS ALL. public education campaign for DoD in 2010. He regularly gives presentations across the country on engaging men in the prevention of gender-based violence.

Is "My Strength" a Bystander Intervention Campaign?

2011-07-21T15:24:00.000-05:00

by Patrick McGann
Director of Strategy and Planning

[I've been in all day trainings and at a photo shoot this week, so I didn't have time to write the next part of "How I Came to Work at Men Can Stop Rape." I'll continue that next week. This week I'm using a blog I wrote a month or two back to have ready for a situation like this.]

For some time now, I’ve identified our “My Strength Is Not for Hurting” campaign as primarily consent focused rather than bystander intervention focused. The campaign language primarily represents two people in a relationship. Examples include: “So when she changed her mind, I stopped,” “So when I got mixed signals, I asked what she wanted,” and “So when she was drunk, I backed off.” Both people are inside the experience. They’re participants. No bystander would be part of the scenarios according to the definition of bystander: “a person present but not involved; chance spectator; onlooker.”

But Sarah McMahon, Judy Postmus, and Ruth Anne Koenick (2011) present a different view. They update the Bystander Attitude Scale and Bystander Behavior Scale and rename BI the “engaging bystander approach” (EBA) to stress that a bystander can take action. Some of the EBA interventions in their scale fit my understanding of what it means to be a bystander: “Check in with my friend who looks drunk when s/he goes to a room with someone else at a party,” and “Challenge a friend who made a sexist joke,” for instance. But some don’t. Some are very similar to the consent messages in the My Strength campaign: “Stop sexual activity when asked to, even if I am already sexually aroused,” and “Decide not to have sex with a partner if s/he is drunk.”

Overall, I find McMahon, Postmus, and Koenick’s study very helpful – especially their framing of EBA and the Bystander Attitude Scale in relation to what they term the sexual violence continuum. But I also find their article confusing. Who is the bystander in “Decide not to have sex with a partner if s/he is drunk”? Is the suggestion that the person making the decision is the onlooker? Is this onlooker intervening by deciding not to have sex with her/his drunken partner? If s/he doesn’t intervene, does that mean s/he sexually assaults her/his drunken partner? What if we apply this understanding to another situation? Melanie Carlson (2008) writes about the gang rape of an unconscious 15-year-old girl by four males with six other males present. Would we claim that all 10 are bystanders or just the six? Are the lines being blurred between perpetrators and bystanders?

When we go to a college to conduct trainings, one of our goals is to help everyone – students, peer educators, RAs, faculty, campus police, administrators, and so on – get on the same page when it comes to engaging men in the prevention of sexual violence on campus. I’d like to get on the same page with McMahon, Postmus, and Koenick – especially because I respect their work so much.

WATCH FOR MCSR'S NEW COLLEGE BYSTANDER INTERVENTION CAMPAIGN THIS SUMMER!

REFERENCES

Bystander. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved May 5, 2011, from Dictionary.com Web site: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bystander

Carlson, M. (2008). I'd rather go along and be considered a man: Masculinity and bystander intervention. Journal of Men’s Studies, 16 (1), 3-17.

McMahon, S., Postmus J.L., and Koenick, R.A. (2011). Conceptualizing the engaging bystander approach to sexual violence prevention on college campuses. Journal of College Student Development, 52 (1), 115-130.

Patrick McGann, Ph.D. has been involved with Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR) since the organization’s inception in 1997. As Director of Strategy and Planning, Patrick co-authored a sexual assault prevention strategy for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in 2008 and oversaw the development of the HURTS ONE. AFFECTS ALL. public education campaign for DoD in 2010. He regularly gives presentations across the country on engaging men in the prevention of gender-based violence

How I Came to Work at Men Can Stop Rape, Part 4

2011-07-13T11:17:00.000-05:00

by Patrick McGann

Director of Strategy and Planning

My journey leading to Men Can Stop Rape in Parts 1, 2, and 3 had involved engaging with feminism, either in the context of my academic learning and scholarship or in my relationship with Abby. It might seem obvious that part of any man's investment in feminism should automatically include an investigation of traditional masculinity that includes its critique and the construction of alternative, healthier masculinities. This wasn't an obvious part of my political map, though. I was stuck on the back roads and didn't know main roads even existed that traveled through the landscape of masculinity, until in the late eighties and early nineties when I came across masculinity studies scholars like the Michaels – Michael Kimmel, Michael Kaufman, and Michael Messner.

They put masculinity on the map in a way nothing else had for me up to that point, as did Changing Men, a magazine published by the National Organization of Men Against Sexism (NOMAS). I found Changing Men in Barbara's, a bookstore where I bought other alternative news magazines like Z, The Progressive, and Mother Jones. Through it I learned that NOMAS would hold its 1992 conference at the Chicago Convention Center. Normally, I wouldn't have been able to afford registration and travel, but since it was in the city where I attended graduate school and since I could attend as a volunteer, I signed up. The conference was attended by both academics devoted to masculinity studies and male activists committed to realizing the goals of feminism, so it merged these parts of me. And I got to hang out with Fred Small.

Fred has been hailed by Pete Seeger as “one of America's best songwriters.” He sings songs of conscience in the tradition of Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs. The conference organizers needed someone to pick him up at the airport. I had Abby's and my car at the Convention Center, so I volunteered. I heard him sing that night. And it was an emotional experience – especially when he sang “Every Man,” a song from his I Will Stand Fast album. Here are some of the lyrics to "Every Man":

I have killed but I am not a killer
I have cried out at the devil in the dark
I have reached out through the bars of my confinement
I have watched the tower I built fall apart.

Gonna listen for the breathing of the baby
Gonna hold him in my arms when he cries
Gonna meet my lover's gaze without turning
Gonna see myself and be satisfied.

He captured for me something I’d never heard so clearly in a song before: being caught between the pressure to be the “real man” – to be aggressive, to be in control, to show no fear – and the desire to have caring and connected relationships with others. His music seems a little preachy to me now (ironic, given that he became a Unitarian minister), but at the conference I felt like I did when I was a teenager and heard the Beatles' Abby Road for the first time. When he needed to get back to the airport, I made sure that I was the person who took him.

I returned to the conference just as it was winding down. The organizers, as a final ceremony, asked everyone to form a line in the ballroom and to curve around and move like a snake so that we had the opportunity to look directly into the eyes of those ahead of or behind us in the line. It felt awkward to stare at people I didn’t know, but a month after the conference, I took the memory of that roomful of mostly men with me when we moved to Washington, DC, the home of Men Can Stop Rape.

To be continued…

Patrick McGann, Ph.D. has been involved with Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR) since the organization’s inception in 1997. As Director of Strategy and Planning, Patrick co-authored a sexual assault prevention strategy for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in 2008 and oversaw the development of the HURTS ONE. AFFECTS ALL. public education campaign for DoD in 2010. He regularly gives presentations across the country on engaging men in the prevention of gender-based violence

How I Came to Work at Men Can Stop Rape, Part 3

2011-06-30T15:28:00.000-05:00

by Patrick McGann
Director of Strategy and Planning

In Part 2, I'm stuck in my own public / private dichotomy after writing “Women and the Dichotomy of Literacy: Public / Private Discourse” in graduate school. At the end of that paper, I recognize that by “establishing male standards as the norm, all other possible standards are devalued, or—as in the case with women's writing at various times in history—denied existence” and argue that a way out of this toxic split is pluralism. Public and private discourses would be treated as equal.

So, that’s what I aspired to do in 1989 after reading Carrol Smith-Rosenberg’s Disorderly Conduct. I was especially struck by the chapter, “The Female World of Love and Ritual.” Smith-Rosenberg, after studying the letters and diaries written in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by women and men in 35 families, concludes that during this time sensual and emotional intensity between middle class literate women was, rather than deviant, a cultural norm accepted by both men and women. Language generally considered normal for romantic heterosexual relationships was common in letters between women. Consider Molly and Helena, two women who became close friends over a period of years. Molly writes to Helena, thanking her for a gift: “Imagine yourself kissed a dozen times my darling. Perhaps it is well for you that we are far apart. You might find my thanks so expressed rather overpowering.”

I set out to use Molly as my role model.

By the late ‘eighties Abby had been complaining for a while that I never seemed to need her, that when we hugged, it didn’t feel like I was there with her. In other words, I was emotionally distant and resistant to intimacy.

I knew I couldn’t academically write my way out of this relationship issue with Abby, but I thought I might be able to make some headway through letters. Abby and I spent the summer of 1990 apart; she was teaching summer classes at Texas Tech University, while I stayed back in Illinois, teaching a summer course at the University of Illinois at Chicago. I wrote four letters while she was still in Chicago, sealed them in envelopes, dated when she was supposed to open each one, and gave them to her before she boarded her plane for Texas, knowing that it would take three or four days for the Post Office to deliver the first letter I wrote after she left. Using Molly as my inspiration, I wrote in the first letter:

“Dear Abby,
“I suppose I’ll really be missing you now—especially at night. I always like it when you roll over against me. It’s a nice way to slip into the dream world, which isn’t always so warm and comforting. When I think about when we were first together and how I couldn’t sleep with you pressed against me, I’m amazed, because now it’s hard for me to sleep with you not close to me. I’m glad that’s something that’s changed, and I’m sure you are too.
I don’t know when the poetry group is going to meet that you’re going to attend in San Antonio. That should be fun; you seem to get more of a kick now that you used to out of reading your poems to people. Have I ever told you how much I like your poetry? If you put out a book of your poems, I would be the first one standing in line waiting to purchase it.”

The more I continued writing letters while she was away, the harder it got. A week-and-a-half into the process, I commented in one letter how writing to her daily was starting to seem “sort of neurotic to me at times.”

Feminism, Abby, and Molly had helped me take some initial steps toward being a different kind of man, but I couldn’t sustain it. I needed additional support. That would come from other men and masculinity studies.

To be continued…

Patrick McGann, Ph.D. has been involved with Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR) since the organization’s inception in 1997. As Director of Strategy and Planning, Patrick co-authored a sexual assault prevention strategy for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in 2008 and oversaw the development of the HURTS ONE. AFFECTS ALL. public education campaign for DoD in 2010. He regularly gives presentations across the country on engaging men in the prevention of gender-based violence.

How I Came to Work at Men Can Stop Rape, Part 2

2011-06-22T13:44:00.000-05:00

by Patrick McGann
Director of Strategy and Planning

Part 2 takes up where Part 1 ended: “Getting friendly with feminism.” It might be more accurate, though, to write: “Getting academic with feminism.” Although initially resistant to the women’s movement, I began to realize that if Abby’s and my relationship was going to last, I might need to learn about more than bra-burnings, which apparently didn’t even occur.

Both Abby and I had finished our M.A. degrees at Texas Tech University and were ready to move onto the Ph.D. phase. We left Lubbock for Chicago, where people wouldn’t say “Howdy” to you as you passed them on the sidewalk but where the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) offered both of us financial aid to pursue our higher degrees – Abby in philosophy and me in composition and rhetoric.

I was on probation at UIC that first year, though. Because my M.A. was in literature studies with a specialization in creative writing, they wanted to know that I was capable of PH.D. work in composition and rhetoric. They told me to enter their M.A. program and then, assuming I had done well, reapply for the Ph.D. program at the end of the year.

That all happened without a hitch; I reapplied and was accepted into the Ph.D. program primarily, I believe, on the strength of my first year seminar paper I submitted as part of the application: “Women and the Dichotomy of Literacy: Public / Private Discourse.” The study highlighted "women’s literacy within the context of America from the Colonial period until the present, in order to illustrate how the uses of literacy can be political, stressing how men have traditionally shaped and controlled who shall be literate and what shall be viewed as literate, not only within the educational system but also outside the educational system. Feminists interpret men’s control of literacy as a result of a public / private dichotomy established by males."

Looking back, it seems I was more capable initially of integrating feminism into my life in an abstract, intellectual way than I was in an intimate, personal way. I had yet to explicitly realize that the politics of masculinity are very much related to feminism, and so the paper dances around that topic without every landing on it. As long as literacy issues weren’t overtly tied to masculinity, I could de-personalize the topic, keep it at a historical distance where it was less about me and more about the actions of other men.

The paper included a quote from Erica Jong about the difficulty of publishing Fear of Flying, the novel I refer to in Part 1 of this series and had so much trouble reading as a high school junior: “The first typesetter would not set type for Fear of Flying. The networks would not run ads for the paperback. I was constantly told that women could only write certain kinds of books, and there was a certain built-in self-censorship of women writers. We were supposed to be shy, schizoid, shrinking and strange. It’s easy to forget how much ground women writers have gained.” Her observations apply to women writers of many kinds; I know that Abby experienced similar struggles as a graduate student writing feminist papers.

While she was fighting for validation in the masculine world of philosophy, I was receiving affirmation left and right. “Women and the Dichotomy of Literacy” received high praise from the female professor who taught the Ethnographies of Literacy seminar. I submitted a proposal to present the paper at the College Composition and Communication Conference and it was accepted. The Education Resources Information Center requested that the paper be added to their database. All the accolades helped my academic life but not my personal life.

I was stuck in my own public / private dichotomy.

To be continued...

Patrick McGann, Ph.D. has been involved with Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR) since the organization’s inception in 1997. As Director of Strategy and Planning, Patrick co-authored a sexual assault prevention strategy for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in 2008 and oversaw the development of the HURTS ONE. AFFECTS ALL. public education campaign for DoD in 2010. He regularly gives presentations across the country on engaging men in the prevention of gender-based violence.

Father's Day Tribute: Final Lessons

2011-06-15T15:44:00.034-05:00

by Patrick McGann
Director of Strategy and Planning

[NOTE: In my last blog, I began explaining how I came to work at Men Can Stop Rape; I am taking a break from that to write about my father but will pick it up again next week.]

In the late 1950s at about the age of four, I shaved the area above my upper lip with my father’s razor.

If I had watched my father in the mornings more closely, I might have put on shaving cream first. But I hadn’t sorted out all the steps and so went everywhere with a bandage for a week or two. Two memories stand out: screaming when the bleeding started and trying to eat ice cream with the bandage above my lip.

I never learned the shaving lesson very well. To this day, I’ll only use an electric razor, and I’m not good about consistently using it. He taught me well in other, more important areas, though, related to men and masculinity. His most recent lessons are about how to be a man facing death and dying.

At 85, he’s developed Alzheimer’s, had a heart attack, and most recently bladder cancer. He went through chemo and radiation, which proved successful but only for a short while. The cancer returned and now, because radiation is no longer an option, he’s starting chemo again, which will slow down the cancer but won’t eliminate it. I don’t know how many more Father’s Days I’ll have with him.

Last week at the doctor’s office, he stood up and told them they couldn’t make him re-enlist. Even though I’m assuming he was referring to the military, I think the statement could be applied to the medical system. The last couple years he’s been put through the wringer when it comes to health care, spending more time being diagnosed and treated than a college student spends on Facebook.

The nurses always say how sweet he is. My sisters tell me how sweet he is. That’s not a word I typically would use to describe men. And that’s not how I would have described him in the past. Independent. Sure. Silent type. Uh huh. Stubborn. Yep. Caring. Absolutely. Sweet?

When I visited my parents in January, Dad and I put a lot of puzzles together – or I put puzzles together and he helped. It was sweet how appreciative he was when I went out and bought more after we had finished the ones my sister had gotten. It was sweet how I would start working on a puzzle by myself, and he would see me and join in. It was sweet how excited he got when he found pieces that fit together. It was sweet how complimentary of me he was when we completed one.

When I’m facing the end of my life, I want to be sweet, like my father.

Men Can Stop Rape is committed to playing a larger role in this country's discussion on fatherhood. This year, we will launch the Fatherhood Initiative: a series of workshops, conversations, and resources geared toward engaging men around the concept of positive and healthy versions of fatherhood. With your help, we can bring Men Can Stop Rape's message and positive lessons to the youngest of boys and their families, through fathers.

This Father's Day, please donate and support Men Can Stop Rape's Fatherhood Initiative.

We want to hear from you! Send us your stories about the importance and impact of having your father present in your life. Your story could be featured on Men Can Stop Rape's website.

Patrick McGann, Ph.D. has been involved with Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR) since the organization’s inception in 1997. As Director of Strategy and Planning, Patrick co-authored a sexual assault prevention strategy for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in 2008 and oversaw the development of the HURTS ONE. AFFECTS ALL. public education campaign for DoD in 2010. He regularly gives presentations across the country on engaging men in the prevention of gender-based violence.

How I Came to Work at Men Can Stop Rape, Part 1

2011-06-01T12:23:00.000-05:00

by Patrick McGann
Director of Strategy and Planning

At Men Can Stop Rape’s recent staff retreat, we were talking about how we came to be involved in mobilizing men to prevent violence against women. I’ve been thinking about this for a while and just how different my path might have been than that of a young man in our Men of Strength Club. Sharing these lived process stories might help to demystify and normalize why we do this work – both men and women.

It’s hard to know exactly where to start my story. I could relate, for instance, how as the oldest sibling I stepped outside 1950s and early ‘60s’ gender norms when helping to take care of my baby sisters – changing their diapers, for example, and feeding them banana and corn baby food (finishing whatever they wouldn’t eat).

But the 1980s might be a better place to begin – 1983 to be more exact, the year when, as a Texas Tech University graduate student, I became involved with Abby, another graduate student. A year later we would marry, and shortly thereafter, she would declare herself a feminist. Had I been better able to read the signs, I might have known she was headed in that direction before I stood in the Lubbock Rose Garden dressed in a new suit, listening to Bill Welter, another graduate student, play guitar and sing “When I’m Sixty-Four” as I waited to say my vows.

Okay, I can’t remember whether it was an actual declaration. Maybe she didn’t stand in our living room and announce while I was watching TV, “I am now a feminist.” I suppose it became clear by the books she read, the classes she took, the topics she brought up – and the arguments we had. My body of feminist knowledge was based on Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, which I tried to read as a high school junior because I’d heard about the “zipless !@$%,” but I managed only about 40 pages before giving up; and Nancy Friday’s My Mother /My Self, which I read in my twenties because I thought it might illuminate the mysteries of females. These two books apparently rendered me knowledgeable enough to claim that feminism was limited by tunnel vision.

That didn’t sit well with Abby. In fact, maybe it was that perspective that led to a pull-over-to-the-side-of-the-road argument when we were driving to Plainview to visit my parents. We stood outside the car in the middle of nowhere yelling about gender, the flat plains surrounding us, the yellow stripes of the road disappearing over the horizon. I thought feminism was restrictive, that it only cared about half the population, and that the well being of people was at issue, not just women. Abby said I didn’t understand, that the implications of feminism were much broader than I thought, and that I wouldn’t understand until I learned more about it.

After more arguments and disagreements over the next year, it became clear to me that feminism wasn’t going anywhere. I was going to have to find a way to live with it – if I wanted Abby’s and my relationship to continue. And so starting about 1986, I began to get friendly with feminism.

To be continued…
Please, share your story.

Patrick McGann, Ph.D. has been involved with Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR) since the organization’s inception in 1997. As Director of Strategy and Planning, Patrick co-authored a sexual assault prevention strategy for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in 2008 and oversaw the development of the HURTS ONE. AFFECTS ALL. public education campaign for DoD in 2010. He regularly gives presentations across the country on engaging men in the prevention of gender-based violence.

Masculinity and Bliss: Men and the Science of Happiness

2011-05-25T14:02:00.000-05:00

by Patrick McGann
Director of Strategy and Planning

I just finished reading Eric Weiner’s The Geography of Bliss. He’s a correspondent for National Public Radio who took time off to travel to some of the world’s happiest countries (yes, there is a “science of happiness,” and research measuring a country’s level of happiness; in 2010, Norway topped the list). He worked in one or two of the unhappiest also (the standout was Moldova, a landlocked country in Eastern Europe that used to be part of the Soviet Union). In each country he met with some of its citizens to try and discern what it is exactly that makes them happy – or unhappy. In Thailand, for instance, he supposedly learns that the path to happiness lies in not thinking; in Switzerland it lies in regulation and even extends into boredom; and in the U.S. happiness is just around the corner waiting for us if we put in the effort.

One of my takeaways from the book is the role of trust in creating happiness. It would seem, perhaps not surprisingly, that one of the strong indicators of unhappiness is distrust – from the smallest to the broadest sense, from personal relationships to work to the government and other institutions. This resonates with me. I know from the experiences of people in my life, for instance, that when they have worked under someone they distrust, when their supervisor does not have their best interests at heart, they exhibit symptoms of unhappiness – sleepless nights, trouble concentrating, anger, anxiety, and insecurity. I assume the reverse is true as well, that people who are distrusted aren’t truly happy.

I’m interested in applying this equation of trust and happiness to masculinity. It seems to me that hyper or hegemonic masculinity as we experience in the U.S. has an individualistic leaning and is in part based on distrust. If one of the goals is to prove yourself as better than the men and women around you – prove you can beat them at sports, prove you can out drink them, prove you can make more money, prove you are tougher, and so on – it can be hard to eliminate the sense that most men are in the end invested in looking out for themselves to make sure they are on a higher rung of the masculine ladder. Yet I wonder if this dynamic really makes most men happy.

I, of course, don’t think it does. So I propose that masculinity be added to the geography of happiness. Assuming that masculinity has different cross-cultural constructions, it would be interesting to investigate which constructions in which cultures and countries are happier. I would bet my bottom dollar that those men in countries where masculinity is more connected to gender equity are a happier bunch. But I’d like to know for sure.

So all you science of happiness scientists, get your gender on. Take a look at masculinity.

REFERENCES

Weiner, E. (2009). The geography of bliss: One grump's search for the happiest places in the world. New York, TWELVE.

Patrick McGann, Ph.D. has been involved with Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR) since the organization’s inception in 1997. As Director of Strategy and Planning, Patrick co-authored a sexual assault prevention strategy for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in 2008 and oversaw the development of the HURTS ONE. AFFECTS ALL. public education campaign for DoD in 2010. He regularly gives presentations across the country on engaging men in the prevention of gender-based violence.

Starting to Define Healthy Masculinity

2011-05-18T14:27:00.001-05:00

by Patrick McGann
Director of Strategy and Planning

When I typed in “defining healthy masculinity” to do a Google search, the first link that came up was to “Choosing Healthy Masculinity and What That Means” on the Men Can Stop Rape Web site, and I thought, oh, good, maybe we’ve already defined it. “Healthy masculinity” seems to be a term gaining credence in world of gender-based violence prevention. I use it all the time. We’re all about healthy masculinity, I say. And I mean it. Even if I don’t know exactly what it means.

Joe Samalin (2009), my colleague who wrote “Choosing Healthy Masculinity…” gives examples – it “is a group of high school boys volunteering at a local domestic violence shelter, it is straight and cis-gendered college men partnering as allies with LGBTQ student organizations, and it is the enlisted men and officers in the Air Force who come to us for training on how to create safer workplaces.” But when it comes to defining it, he claims “there is no single definition or ideal of healthy masculinity—there are as many definitions as there are men.” I love Joe; it’s an honor to work with him, but that is a lot of definitions.

So is healthy masculinity a kind of “I know it when I see it” thing? Or is it, “You do your healthy masculinity, I do mine”? Maybe it’s the recovering academic in me, but I’m feeling definition-deficient. Maybe I’m holding onto some grand ivory tower illusion that a definition will help solidify our shared understanding of the term.

I did manage to track down one attempt to define healthy masculinity. Michael Obsatz (2003) takes a stab at it, listing 15 qualities, all of them beginning with P:

1. Purpose
2. Power for and with, not over
3. Passion
4. Paternity
5. Piety
6. Persistence
7. Presence
8. Patience
9. Pardon
10. Partnership
11. Pliability
12. Playfulness
13. Peacemaking
14. Politeness
15. Perspective

He goes onto explain each of the 15 in a sentence or two. While I am a fan of the letter P and while I appreciate his comprehensiveness, I was hoping for a little more compactness. So, I’ll attempt something briefer, with the recognition that it’s very much a definition in progress. Healthy masculinity:

• involves the ability to recognize unhealthy aspects of masculinity – those features that are harmful to the self and/or others
• replaces risky and violent masculine attitudes and behaviors with empathetic behaviors and attitudes that benefit men and others
• is based on supporting gender equity and other forms of equity
• includes social and emotional skills used to positively challenge in yourself and in others unhealthy masculine attitudes and behaviors

Anyone else out there feel the need to define? If so, indulge your elucidation tendencies and say what you would keep or change about these two definitions of healthy masculinity.

REFERENCES

Obsatz, M. (2003). From shame-based masculinity to holistic masculinity. Retrieved May 12, 2011 from the Anger Resources Web site: http://www.angeresources.com/shamebased.html

Samalin, J. (2009). Choosing healthy masculinity and what that means. Retrieved May 12, 2011 from the Men Can Stop Rape Web site: http://www.mencanstoprape.org/info-url2699/info-url_show.htm?doc_id=1090665

Patrick McGann, Ph.D. has been involved with Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR) since the organization’s inception in 1997. As Director of Strategy and Planning, Patrick co-authored a sexual assault prevention strategy for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in 2008 and oversaw the development of the HURTS ONE. AFFECTS ALL. public education campaign for DoD in 2010. He regularly gives presentations across the country on engaging men in the prevention of gender-based violence.

When is a Hookup Not a Hookup?

2011-05-11T13:17:00.000-05:00

by Patrick McGann

Director of Strategy and Planning

We’ve been conducting focus groups with the help of our Men Creating Change chapters to develop a new college bystander intervention public education campaign, and we realized we needed to update our understanding of what the most common sexual assault scenarios are on campuses. After talking with some sexual assault service coordinators at universities, it would seem that the most common assault scenario involves a young woman, alcohol, a peer group, and what some students might perceive as the start of a hookup.

I first heard Antonia Abbey (2002) present her research on alcohol and sexual assault at a summit organized by the U.S. Department of Defense. She’s one of the foremost experts on the subject, and she’ll tell you that at a minimum, 50% of college students’ sexual assaults involve alcohol use. She’ll also make clear alcohol isn’t the cause of acquaintance rape, but it increases the likelihood. Some of the coordinators we talked to would put the percentage of assaults involving alcohol even higher – 90% or 95%.

And they would tell you that alcohol and the hookup – a sexual encounter with no strings attached – have become so commonplace on college campuses, that many students have a difficult time telling when a line is crossed. The sexual assault scenario can go something like this: a young woman is at a house party or club with a group of friends; she gets drunk. A guy – usually someone she sort of knows, like a friend of a friend – starts paying attention to her, and she becomes separated from her group of friends. Maybe she makes out with the guy – something some of her friends notice. Later, her friends see her, very drunk, getting in a cab with the guy or getting in his car or going upstairs with him, and they think, well, she made out with him earlier. They’re hooking up.

Afterwards, though, the friends find out from her that she didn’t want to get in the cab or the car or go upstairs and that she didn’t want to hook up.

This scenario leaves us with some questions we’re hoping that those of you on college campuses can help answer:

1. Is the above a common sexual assault scenario on your campus? Are there other common scenarios?

2. What attitudes and behaviors make it difficult for young men and women as bystanders to tell when a line might be crossed in a potential hookup?

3. How can a bystander – especially a young man – intervene to make sure an apparent hookup is safe and consensual?

4. If you provide services for sexual assault survivors on a college campus or/and conduct bystander trainings on a college campus, would you be willing to talk with us about your work? Email Patrick McGann.

REFERENCES

Abby, A. (2002). Alcohol-related sexual assault: A common problem among college students. Journal of Studies on Alcohol. Supplement 2002; (14): 118-28.

Patrick McGann, Ph.D. has been involved with Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR) since the organization’s inception in 1997. As Director of Strategy and Planning, Patrick co-authored a sexual assault prevention strategy for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in 2008 and oversaw the development of the HURTS ONE. AFFECTS ALL. public education campaign for DoD in 2010. He regularly gives presentations across the country on engaging men in the prevention of gender-based violence.

Are You Talking to Me? What We Know about Men and Bystander Intervention

2011-05-04T15:13:00.001-05:00

by Patrick McGann

Director of Strategy and Planning

In the cramped confines of a flight to Knoxville and the University of Tennessee, Patrick Lemmon and I spent most of our time brainstorming. It was 2000 and my first out-of-town trip for the Men’s Rape Prevention Project, now know as Men Can Stop Rape. Patrick would be speaking during Tennessee’s Take Back the Night, and then the both of us would conduct a workshop for men immediately after the event. In those days, we were advocating bystander intervention before we knew it was called bystander intervention. It wasn’t until later that we learned what we were doing.

Before we left, we had been revising and developing our training manual, and Patrick wanted to use the time on the plane to continue working on it by coming up with reasons why men don’t speak up when other men behave in sexist and potentially sexually violent ways. We wanted to personalize the reasons, so they were all first person, and the list was long. I managed to track down the list on our server and will only present half of it:

I don’t rape so it’s not my problem * They’ll think I’m gay * My friends will laugh at me * No one will agree with me * I’ll get my ass kicked * I’ll lose my “manhood club” card * It’s not my responsibility * I’m not into that touchy-feely stuff * People will know I’m gay * The jokes are funny * Women choose to be in Playboy * None of my friends do it * Maybe she just needed to get laid * I don’t know what to say * What can one guy do? * Maybe she asked for it * Look what she was wearing * It won’t make any difference anyway * I don’t know the person * I’m no activist * That’s women’s work * What’s the big deal * I’m too drunk * They’re just words * Can’t she take a joke? * It’s okay if women don’t hear it * It’s just guy talk * Women do it too * I’m just minding my own business * It’ll piss my friend off * I’d be confronting people all the time * It’s how THEY talk, not me * There’s only one of me and a bunch of them * He didn’t mean it that way * He’ll think I’m being racist * I did it once and it didn’t go well * Why do I always have to be the one? * I’ll get fired * It’ll piss her off * It’s a compliment * I do that, say that, feel that, and believe that, too.

We don’t use the list any longer, but I wanted to share it because it suggests the complicated and myriad ways that men react to and resist opportunities for intervention. Recent research suggests that men’s resistance is stronger than women’s. We are starting to know from studies like Sarah McMahon, Judy Postmus, and Ruth Anne Koenick’s (2011) that compared to college age males, college age females have more positive bystander attitudes and behaviors. The researchers claim that gender “is a salient factor….” Vicki Banyard, Mary Moynihan, and Elizabeth Plante (2007) come to a similar conclusion and call for more studies to investigate whether bystander intervention education may be different for men and women. Sarah McMahon and Alexandria Dick (2011) also comment on how men are less likely to intervene and attribute it to the social norms of hegemonic masculinity, characterized by “heterosexuality, strength, and sexual prowess.” The pressure to “do masculinity” is especially present in certain group contexts where hegemonic norms dominate. Therefore, men are concerned about how other men will see them and treat them if they speak out against those norms, and this is a significant inhibiting factor.

I bring up this difference between men and women because it indicates that we shouldn’t overlook gender in relation to bystander intervention. If we want men to speak up and talk to others when they have the opportunity to intervene, we first have to listen to them when developing our trainings and programs. Then, on the basis of what we hear, we have to make sure that we are talking to them – or in the words of Men Can Stop Rape, that we’re meeting them where they are. And the research suggests we can’t do this without addressing masculinity.

Patrick McGann, Ph.D. has been involved with Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR) since the organization’s inception in 1997. Patrick co-authored a sexual assault prevention strategy for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and oversaw the development of the HURTS ONE. AFFECTS ALL. public education campaign for DoD. He regularly gives presentations across the country on engaging men in the prevention of gender-based violence.

REFERENCES

Banyard, V.L., Moynihan, M. M., & Plante, E. G. (2007). Sexual violence prevention through bystander education: An experimental evaluation. Journal of Community Psychology, 35 (4), 463-481.

McMahon, S. and A. Dick. (2011). “Being in a room of like-minded men”: An exploratory study of men’s participation in a bystander intervention program to prevent intimate partner violence. The Journal of Men’s Studies, 19 (1), 3-18.

McMahon, S., J. L. Postmus, and R. A. Koenick. (2011). Conceptualizing the engaging bystander approach to sexual violence prevention on college campuses. Journal of College Student Development, 52 (1), 115-130.

NYC Community Responds to Seward Park Library Incident

2010-06-04T16:58:00.001-05:00

Men Can Stop Rape will join over 30 community groups at a public forum for families, leaders, and elected officials to discuss and raise awareness on preventing sexual assault of children.

Sunday, June 6, 2010
1:00pm to 2:30pm
Mazer Theater of The Educational Alliance
197 East Broadway, NYC

(This forum takes place exactly one month from the day a 9-year old girl was sexually-assaulted inside the library.)

What? This is a public forum for families, leaders, and elected officials to discuss and raise awareness on preventing sexual assault of children.

Why is this important? Come and share your views. Learn how communities prevent and address these kinds of crimes in our community.

Visit Facebook event page to see up to date information on speakers.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=126303760732923&index=1

(Reposted from http://www.paradigmshiftnyc.com/feminism/2010/06/community-forum-in-response-to-seward-park-library-sexual-assault/)

ONE TEAM- ONE HEART-ONE LOVE=ONE MOVEMENT

2010-05-21T12:06:00.007-05:00

Below is a piece written by Joe Ehrmann, former NFL star, president of Coach for America, and a 2005 honoree at our Men of Strength Awards. Joe is the subject of the New York Times Bestseller Season of Life by Jeffrey Marx and co-founded Building Men and Women for Others (BMWO) with his wife, which addresses issues of masculinity and femininity and seeks to redefine and reframe the social responsibility of sports, coaches, parent and players.

I went to Yeardley Love’s funeral with my twenty two year old son. The University of Virginia lacrosse player was murdered early this month apparently at the hands of a former boyfriend. My son, a college lacrosse player, was friends with Yeardley, her accused murderer, and many of the men and women on the UVA lacrosse teams. Sitting next to him, I could feel and see him trying to process the conflicted emotions surrounding the enormity of this tragedy, compounded by knowing both the victim and the victimizer. The young men sitting around me sobbed and sniffled.

At one point in the ceremony I turned to an emotionally distraught young man and asked him if I could give him a hug. I was surprised at the strength and endurance of his hug as he held onto me seeking comfort and, I suspect, affirmation of his emotions and manhood. As he let go he said “thank you” without ever looking at me. Here lies part of the problem and a solution to the epidemic of violence women experience every day in Maryland and America.

At an early age, boys are fitted with emotional straightjackets tailored by a restricted code of behavior that falsely defines masculinity. In the context of “stop crying,” “stop those emotions,” and “don’t be a sissy,” we define what it means to “Be a Man!” Adherence to this “boy code” leaves many men dissociated from their feelings and incapable of accessing, naming, sharing, or accepting many of their emotions. When men don’t understand their own emotions it becomes impossible to understand the feelings of another. This creates an “empathy-deficit disorder” that is foundational to America’s epidemic of bullying, dating abuse and gender violence. Boys are taught to be tough, independent, distrusting of other males, and at all cost to avoid anything considered feminine for fear of being associated with women. This leads many men to renounce their common humanity with women so as to experience an emotional disconnect from them. Women often become objects, used to either validate masculine insecurity or satisfy physical needs. When the validation and satisfaction ends, or is infused with anger, control or alcohol, gender violence is often the result. Violence against women is often thought of as a women’s issue; but it is a mistake to call men’s violence a women’s issue. Since men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of this violence, this men’s issue calls to question the cultural values that produce men who hurt women. Sadly, Yeardley Love was only one of four women murdered by intimate partners that day. Who knows how many others were raped, battered, sexually abused, harassed or exploited by men that day and every day in America?

Since Yeardley’s funeral was packed with athletes, coaches, parents of athletes and sports fans, we need to look at the role sports could play in preventing future tragedies. Athletic Directors, coaches and educators have an almost unparalleled platform to bring together youth, families, and community partners to break the silence of gender violence and then design, implement and create preventive programs and activities. Educating boys and men in prevention programs is critical to reducing all forms of violence. Coaches can and should teach their players to challenge the attitudes and assumptions that dehumanize women. Players need to be taught how to confront abusive peers and how stand up and speak out on behalf of their mothers, sisters, daughters, grandmothers, aunts and female friends. Since so many boys no longer have a mentoring network of fathers, uncles, elders, and other males to initiate, train and guide them into manhood, coaches should and must assume part of this responsibility.

I’d like to think Athletic Directors and coaches all over America brought their male and female teams together to help process Yeardley’s death and to implement prevention strategies within their schools and communities. Yet as someone involved nationally in the sports world, I know that did not happen. A teachable moment was overlooked in the name of business, schedules, tournaments and the reality that men often choose apathy and indifference when confronting the conditions that foster abusive male behavior. Two weeks after Yeardley’s death I watched the UVA male and female teams take field under the banner of ONE TEAM-ONE HEART-ONE LOVE. In the name of the world I want my sons and daughters to live in; I can only hope Yeardley Love’s murder sparks ONE MOVEMENT to eradicate gender violence. Robert Kennedy said, “Let no one be discouraged by the belief there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills, against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence….Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of our generation.” Each man and every coach must start challenging the social norms that define manhood and hold other men and players accountable for their behavior toward women.

Joe Ehrmann
President, Coach for America
www.coachforamerica.com

MOST Club News: MOST TV & Costa Rica!

2010-05-05T09:27:00.002-05:00

MOST TV's third episode "Who's the Strongest Man?" (featuring Redskins linebacker Rocky McIntosh) has been airing on DCTV throughout April and May.

If you live in DC and haven't had a chance to watch, tune in to DCTV on May 7 at 6:30 pm or May 8 at 2:30 pm

In other MOST Club news, Courtney Robinson, our MOST Club facilitator at New York City's The Facing History School, took his MOST Club members on their senior trip to Costa Rica. Every young man you see in this photo is a MOST Club member, has met graduating requirements, and is going on to college - go MOST Club!

Campus Strength in the News

2010-05-04T17:34:00.006-05:00

Now in its second year, MCSR's Campus Strength program has Men Creating Change (MCC) chapters at colleges throughout the country - Georgetown University, John Jay College in NYC, North Carolina Central University, San Jose State University, Savannah State University, University of Hawai'i at Hilo, and University of North Carolina at Greensboro. We are also in partnership with HHS to create a program aimed at Historically Black Colleges and Universities; targeted HBCU's include Bowie State, Clark Atlanta University, Howard University, LeMoyne-Owen College, Morehouse College, and Xavier University.

Last month, AAUW and SAFER (Students Active for Ending Rape) gave Campus Strength a mention in their "Campus Sexual Assault Programs in a Box" series, which provides info about the prevalence of campus sexual assault and ideas for action - you can download it from their website.

MCC at Georgetown University - GUMCC was featured on The Georgetown Voice three times last month for rallying in support of pro-choice, participating in a campus Take Back the Night, and responding to a recent sexual assault on campus...

MCC at San Jose State - SJSU's student newspaper interviewed Men Creating Change members for their role in organizing a Take Back the Night event on campus...

MCC at Savannah State - On April 20, local news station WSAV NEWS 3 interviewed MCC members for their participation in a Walk A Mile in Her Shoes event.

Learn more about our Campus Strength program.

Men Can Stop Rape Trains Hundreds in Hawaii During Sexual Assault Awareness Month

2010-04-30T15:19:00.027-05:00

Hello, and more specifically, Aloha from Men Can Stop Rape! We wanted to take a quick second and share some thoughts from our very successful recent series of trainings in the state of Hawaii, as well as to highlight some of the incredible work that is being done to address men’s violence against women there.

Men Can Stop Rape is honored to be an integral part of Hawaii’s Statewide Plan for the Primary Prevention of Sexual Violence. This plan, begun a few years ago and as the Department of Health as a lead partner, is an ambitious attempt to spread the message of primary prevention of violence against women throughout as many communities in the state of Hawaii as possible. The plan is being created and put into place be a large and diverse range of community leaders throughout Hawaii.

After months of planning and discussion, Joseph Vess, MCSR’s Director of Training and Technical Assistance and myself, Joe Samalin, MCSR’s Campus Strength Coordinator spent a week in Hawaii meeting with, learning from, and training communities here in Hawaii to help enhance and support all the incredible work being done there already. During our multi-day trainings in Hilo and Maui, we met with, trained, learned from, and were challenged in new ways by community leaders there.

A huge Mahalo (thank you) to EVERYONE who helped with the training, logistics, and recruitment for both trainings, including but not limited to:

Hawaii Department of Health
Prosecuting Attorney Offices in Maui County and Hilo
University of Hawaii Maui College
University of Hawaii at Hilo
YWCA Hilo

Last but not least, we want to thank all of the hundreds of people who attended our trainings and acknowledge all of the wonderful work you are doing. We enjoyed working on what primary prevention work can and does look like in Hawaii – especially what masculinity looks like in Hawaii and how prevention can be tied into key Hawaiian cultural concepts such as community and extended family (Ohana), community responsibility (Kuleana), and of the course Aloha spirit, as well as what primary prevention engaging men can look like across the wide breadth of diverse communities statewide.

Training participants ranged from foster care workers to men’s group members, college students and staff to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated men, criminal justice employees and government agency staff, faith based leaders, coaches, community leaders, folks in recovery from substance abuse and helping others, and many more.

We especially want to thank those participants who were courageous and generous enough to share with all of us the gifts of their stories as both survivors of and perpetrators of violence. It is through these stories that we all find the motivation and the strength and courage to continue doing what we do.

Media Coverage

Trainings in Hilo and the Big Island

Our first two-day training took place in Hilo (a community on the East side of the ‘big island’ of Hawaii) and was coordinated by the Hilo prosecuting attorney’s office, the DOH, and the YWCA in Hilo. It was held at the YWCA and both days were attended by about 35 community leaders ranging from foster care workers to substance abuse counselors, from community elders and men’s group members, to University of Hawaii at Hilo staff and folks in reentry programs.

Our first day of training in Hilo focused mostly on dominant and counterstories of masculinity specific to Hawaii and Hilo. Concepts of men as protectors and providers for their families and communities were a central theme, as well as having a large family, being tan and athletic (especially water sports like surfing and paddling), hunting and fishing and more. A really powerful piece of the day was people sharing who men of strength in their personal lives were and why.

The second day in Hilo was a half day continuation focusing more on concrete next steps for engaging men and boys locally. We looked at bystander intervention (funny skit). We closed the training by splitting the participants into groups based on the types of men they work with (teens, college students, foster care youth, and adult men) and ask them first to envision the concrete changes a community would face if there was NO violence in that community. We then worked backwards towards that goal by asking what primary prevention would look like, and lastly, how the communities that everyone live and work in can begin to engage men and boys around masculinity. It was a powerful piece though difficult for people to answer off the top of their heads.

After the end of the second day, before going back and crashing out at the hotel, Joe Vess and I were lucky enough to have a little time to explore the downtown market area of Hilo – looking at and shopping for local crafts, fruits and flowers.

Trainings in Maui

Maui was a different training on a few fronts. Held on campus at Maui College, the first day was open to the general community and we had in attendance over 80 people. It changed the dynamic of the room a bit, but everyone participated and we had a great time. It is fun personally doing larger trainings sometimes as you get bigger laughs when you make a joke. It just feels good sometimes. We want to give a special thanks to especially to (Aris and Ben and Phyllis) for putting in so much hard work to make the training a success. Messages about being a man in Maui included a wide range of things such as warrior culture, having a pit bull as a pet, standing up for yourself, your family, your culture, being respected, having tattoos, enjoying BBQ and large trucks, and more.

On the flip side, some of the strong men talked about included local pastors, fathers and uncles, dad of a best friend from high school, husband and best friend. These men were compassionate, leaders in thr communities, respectful to their wives and partners, overcame and exceeded their own limitations, supported and taught their children well, and had the courage to show their weaknesses as well as their strengths.

For the Maui training we were also asked to focus a little more pointedly on the effects of media on the issues of preventing men’s violence against women. To do this we shared a number of print and television ads that showcase the dominant story of masculinity in society. Doing this activity we got some pushback and were challenged by the group.

We are greatly anticipating being partners in this process moving forward, and to planning next steps!

Men Can Stop Rape PSA Campaign Will Reach 3.6M Tennesseans

2010-04-29T17:02:00.006-05:00

This week the Tennessee Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence and Verizon Wireless announced the "My Strength is Not for Hurting" an educational campaign that we (Men Can Stop Rape) were asked to create for them. Check out the banner (above) and video PSA (below).

From TCADSV's press release:
'My Strength' is a public awareness initiative focused on preventing first-time perpetration of sexual violence. The campaign works with young men and centers on the theme, "My Strength is Not for Hurting," which emphasizes positive masculinity and enables men to utilize their strength to stand up and speak out against sexual violence. The campaign launches statewide in April and includes digital billboards and television and radio public service announcements.

"Statistics show that one in five female high school students reports being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner," comments Kathy England Walsh, Executive Director of the Tennessee Coalition. Walsh continues, "This campaign will help us get the message out to 3.6 million Tennesseans that young men can prevent violence and break the cycle of abuse."

"Verizon Wireless is proud to support the Tennessee Coalition's effort to bring awareness to a topic like domestic abuse and violence, which effects one in three women in their lifetime," comments Jerry Fountain, President of Verizon Wireless in the Carolinas and Tennessee region.

We sell similar posters, banners, and postcards on our website, www.mencanstoprape.org. We can create a tailored campaign for your organization or community - learn more.

Coast Guard Features Guest Blog Post from MCSR: SAAM is Never Over

2010-04-28T13:53:00.007-05:00

The Coast Guard Compass, the U.S. Coast Guard's blog, features a guest post from Pat McGann, Ph.D., MCSR's director of strategy and planning.

Pat offers a frank assessment of the Coast Guard’s efforts to eradicate sexual assault and reminds readers that sexual assault awareness and prevention should not end in April during Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

Check out Pat's post...

Over the last two years, MCSR has been working with the the Department of Defense’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office to help create a "culture of prevention" in every military branch.

Here's a couple of the video PSA's that we created:

Where is Your Line?

2010-04-27T14:17:00.002-05:00

THE LINE (along with Working Films, Chicken and Egg Pictures) recently hosted a screening and panel discussion at NYC's 92YTribeca to discuss THE LINE's use in educational programming.

On the panel were Nancy Schwartzman, director of THE LINE; Michelle J. Anderson, Dean and Professor of Law at CUNY School of Law; Don McPherson, former NFL football player; current sports announcer and activist; Meghan O’Connor, NYC Alliance Against Sexual Assault; and Neil Irvin, MCSR's Executive Director.

Check out summaries of the panel discussion as well as intended outcomes for MCSR's use of the film in our educational programs and outreach.

Our Men Creating Change chapter at Savannah State

2010-04-20T10:55:00.015-05:00

Our Men Creating Change chapter at Savannah State is featured on WSAV NEWS 3 for their "Walk a Mile in Her Shoes" march.

Learn more about our Campus Strength program and our Men Creating Change chapters.

How do we create “men of strength” in the NFL?

2010-04-19T14:12:00.013-05:00

Last month a 20-year-old college student accused Ben Roethlisberger, quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers, of sexually assaulting her in the bathroom of a Georgia nightclub. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell responded to the incident with a memo sent to NFL teams that reads, "The policy makes clear that NFL and club personnel must do more than simply avoid criminal behavior. We must conduct ourselves in a way that is responsible, that promotes the values upon which the league is based, and is lawful.”

While we support the general intent of the memo, we hope that the NFL takes concrete steps to create an environment that encourages their players to prevent violence against women.

As a national organization that works with men of all ages, Men Can Stop Rape recognizes that team sports, like football, build character and positive life skills. We take it a step further with the athletes in our programs by encouraging them to be “athletes of strength” – meaning men who treat women and other men with respect, men who have the courage to make the right choices, and men who represent themselves and their community with integrity.

Joe Ehrmann, who we honored in 2005, is a prime example of an “athlete of strength.” A former NFL defensive lineman for the Baltimore Colts and subject of the New York Times bestseller Season of Life, Joe has preached his coaching mantra - “building men for others” - to various coaches and athletes around the country.

Another example of “athletes of strength” is the group of University of Maryland college football players we taught at the University of Maryland, College Park. For an entire summer, these young men learned about the stereotypes and “dominant stories” that society teaches them about masculinity and how it relates to sports and relationships. More importantly they learned how to be a better man for their team, school, and community. The end of the class culminated in a mentoring project in which the athletes role-modeled “strength” to Boys and Girls Club middle school students.

Violence against women is promoted so heavily in our society that we have to counteract it with more than one workshop or seminar. Creating “cultures free from violence” can only be done through a sustainable, long-term approach. Holistic efforts that include ongoing education programs for athletes, the institution of policies, and the implementation of public awareness campaigns, are the only way to end this epidemic and create “men of strength” within the NFL.

Patrick McGann is Men Can Stop Rape’s Director of Strategy and Planning. He can be reached at pmcgann@mencanstoprape.org.

Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR)'s mission is to mobilize men to use their strength for creating cultures free from violence, especially men’s violence against women. Named by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as one of the world’s most innovative violence prevention programs, Men Can Stop Rape has reached over 2 million youth and professionals since 1997. MCSR has worked with organizations such as the DoD Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, US Department of Health & Human Services, and various school systems and universities throughout the country. More information about our programs is available at www.mencanstoprape.org.

- # # # -

Men Can Stop Rape Announces Neil Irvin as New Executive Director

2010-04-14T09:49:00.009-05:00

WASHINGTON, DC – Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR) is pleased to announce the promotion of Neil Irvin as the organization’s new Executive Director.

“After conducting an extensive national search, I can think of no one more uniquely suited to do this work other than Neil. His passion and commitment to men’s involvement in ending violence against women, as well as his diverse skill set, were instrumental in our decision,” said Men Can Stop Rape’s Board President Heather Peeler. “We are delighted that he accepted the position.”

Irvin recently served as Senior Director of Programs, a position he held since 2008, following five years as Director of Community Education. He joined Men Can Stop Rape in 2001.

“Throughout my time here at Men Can Stop Rape I have witnessed the breadth and impact of our work with young men, and I am both thrilled and humbled to lead this organization’s work,” Irvin said. “Men Can Stop Rape is truly unique not only for its mission, but for its commitment to challenging social norms of masculinity and its connection to violence. This is an incredible opportunity for me personally, but there is also tremendous potential for MCSR to help young men create ‘cultures free from violence’ if we strengthen our relationships with organizations inside and outside this field.”

“Over the past nine years Neil’s grown MCSR’s curriculum-based youth program from one school in Washington, DC to over 100 locations in ten states throughout the country,” said Peeler. “He’s also played an instrumental role in our partnerships with local and national organizations doing this work. I have every confidence Neil’s leadership and brilliant understanding of the communities that we serve will be critical to the fulfillment and expansion of Men Can Stop Rape’s mission in the years ahead.”

As Executive Director, Irvin will be responsible for continuing Men Can Stop Rape’s national work in the field of primary prevention of men’s violence against women, as well as cultivating strategic partnerships with state and federal agencies and private and corporate foundations. He will oversee all programs of the twelve year old non-profit which include its award-winning youth program the Men of Strength Club, its college program Campus Strength, its Strength Trainings for youth-serving professionals, and its “My Strength" public awareness campaign.

Irvin played a critical role in Men Can Stop Rape’s partnership with the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault, which in 2005 established a $2 million comprehensive social marketing campaign and programming throughout California. In 2007, he led MCSR’s Strong Moves initiative to place the Men of Strength Club in every public high school in the District of Columbia, the largest city-wide effort of its kind in the country.

Identified by the Centers for Disease Control as a “promising practice,” the Men of Strength Club, or MOST Club, provides male teens with a structured space to build individualized definitions of masculinity that promote healthy relationships. Now in its tenth year, Men Can Stop Rape’s middle school and high school curriculum are taught in schools throughout California, District of Columbia, Florida, Kansas, Maryland, Missouri, New York City, North Carolina, Ohio, and South Carolina.

Well known throughout the country in the field of gender-based violence prevention, Irvin has served as a consultant to The White House Commission on Violence Against Women and Girls, the Department of Justice Office of Violence Against Women, Boys and Girls Club, Ford Foundation, and Liz Claiborne Foundation. He serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Health and has been a regular lecturer at American University, George Washington University, and Howard University. Prior to joining MCSR, he worked for the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene at the Regional Institute for Children and Adolescents.

Irvin resides in Silver Spring, MD with his wife and two daughters. He can be reached at nirvin@mencanstoprape.org.

Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR)'s mission is to mobilize men to use their strength for creating cultures free from violence, especially men’s violence against women. Named by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as one of the world’s most innovative violence prevention programs, Men Can Stop Rape has reached over 2 million youth and professionals since 1997. MCSR has worked with organizations such as the DoD Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, US Department of Health & Human Services, and various school systems and universities throughout the country. More information about our programs is available at www.mencanstoprape.org.

Media Contact:
Nicole Player
Men Can Stop Rape
202-534-1835
nplayer@mencanstoprape.org

MCSR Joins Initiative Asking to Restore Local Control of Crime Victims Fund

2010-04-13T13:10:00.004-05:00

Washington, DC -Next week, communities throughout the nation will rally to honor and support victims of crime in observance of National Crime Victims’ Rights Week. The traditional lineup of vigils, unity gatherings, and community fairs will trumpet a national theme of “Fairness. Dignity. Respect.”

In the District, a group of victim advocates and service providers plan to ask lawmakers to introduce a new tradition to honor crime victims, by restoring local control of the District’s Crime Victims Compensation Fund, which has been under federal control since 1997.

The move would restore millions of dollars of crime victim services funding to the beleaguered city budget. Nearly two dozen crime victim advocacy organizations and service providers, backed by over 1,600 supporters from around the country, are urging federal lawmakers to give the city control of the District’s Crime Victims Compensation Fund.

The Fund is designated to assist crime victims and their families with expenses such as funeral costs, medical and mental health costs, and lost wages. Those who benefit are victims of violent crimes, including rape, robbery, domestic violence, child abuse, and the families of homicide victims.

“The Crime Victims Compensation Office draws millions in annual revenue from court fines and fees paid by District residents,” said Denise Snyder, executive director of the DC Rape Crisis Center, where more than 3,000 sexual assault victims receive crisis support and counseling services each year. “How can it be that the District has no control over how these local funds are used to help our community’s most vulnerable crime victims?” Initiative

Read the full press release...

If you support what we're trying to do, then let your voice be heard! Take action by signing the petition to ask the federal government to restore control of Crime Victims Compensation Funds to the District government in FY2011. Sign now!

MCSR's College Chapter Breaks Down "Jersey Shore"

2010-04-09T16:11:00.015-05:00

Georgetown students watch an episode of Jersey Shore

Check out this post from Jared, a member of Men Can Stop Rape's college chapter at Georgetown University, Men Creating Change (GUMCC):

Yesterday GUMCC hosted a viewing of MTV reality show Jersey Shore and invited Georgetown's Take Back the Night and Diversity in Justice and Action Magis Row House to give their two cents.

The show is a great and hilarious way to look at performances of hypermasculinity and how these performances are not entirely acceptable when they play out with people in real life.

The episode we watched dealt with the aftermath of one of the female characters, Snooki, being punched by a man at the bar.

We discussed the aggressive responses the characters had to that specific case of violence against a woman. One character, Vinny, stated that he would have rushed the police in order to get the man that hurt Snooki.

What was lost in the demonization of the man who hit Snooki (he was often called a lunatic and crazy) was that his violence was not a result of mental instability, but was very much encouraged by the overly masculine culture of the Shore.

At one point in the episode, Vinny basically claims that some women are whores and other women you have to treat like human beings.

If there are only some women that Vinny feels he has to treat like human beings, why is he so bewildered when a man treats a woman like something less than human?

This contradiction shows the deeply ambivalent attitude our culture has towards violence. If we as a culture are going to cheer Ronnie’s show of masculine power in knocking a man unconscious, then we have to be prepared when such violence hits the people we love.

We talked about Mike (aka The Situation) and how his alpha-dogness is easily subverted when a woman he likes stands him up.

We also found interesting how the men of Jersey Shore’s hypermasculinity is so closely connected with what could be considered a “feminine” attention to looks as embodied in the GTL (gym, tan, laundry) philosophy of life:

The fact that their masculinity is bound up with characteristics often considered feminine demonstrated for us the incoherence of the concept of the “real man.”

All in all, we had a great event with a lot of laughs and a lot of deep discussion.

Jared Watkins, a double major in English and Women’s and Gender Studies, is from Farmington, New Mexico. Jared is also interning for Men Can Stop Rape's Training & Technical Assistance department.

Hurts one. Affects all…Preventing sexual assault is everyone’s duty

2010-04-08T17:34:00.017-05:00

On Thursday, Men Can Stop Rape's Director of Training and Tech Assistance Joseph Vess presented a workshop a workshop for military officers and civilian staff at Virginia's Defense Supply Center Richmond (DSCR). DSCR is a US Department of Defense installation that provides support to all branches of the US armed forces.

The presentation, held as part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM), focused on working with men and women service members to prevent sexual assault in the ranks.

Also discussed was the “My Strength is for Defending” social marketing campaign that Men Can Stop Rape created for the DoD's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO) in April 2009. Posters, radio, TV, and digital PSA's were disseminated to every U.S. military installation throughout the world.

The 2010 campaign - "Hurts one. Affects all…Preventing sexual assault is everyone’s duty" - will focus on the effects sexual assault has on the military’s mission readiness. See SAPRO's website sapr.mil for more info.

Thanks to Barbara Bothwell, DSC Richmond Sexual Assault Response Coordinator, for the pictures.

Check out this video of the DoD's "SAPRline of Courage" t-shirt exhibit being held in the Pentagon throughout April for SAAM:

Date Rape is a Crime, Not an “Incoherent Concept;” American U. Column and its Media Coverage Distort and Confuse the Issue

2010-04-05T09:05:00.020-05:00

WASHINGTON, DC, April 5, 2010 - The recent opinion column in the American University student newspaper – and its ensuing media coverage – fails to accurately represent the reality of sexual assault on college and university campuses. Rape is not an “incoherent concept” for the estimated one in four college women who will be raped by classmates, boyfriends, friends, or dorm-mates during their college career.

Rape is any form of penetration without consent and by force or threat of force; in nearly every state, someone who is intoxicated cannot legally consent to sex. Even though we know that rape is a felony, we are taught that the line of consent is blurry – perhaps even malleable. When a woman drinks too much at a party, or goes home with a certain guy, or goes into his bedroom, consent is too often taken for granted. It is not only the survivors who lose because of these problematic assumptions. On the one hand, eighty percent of survivors know their perpetrators, making it nearly impossible for women to distinguish “safe guys” from “potential rapists.” On the other hand, while the vast majority of these perpetrators are men, most men do not rape women.

Many of the college and university men that Men Can Stop Rape works with nationwide are engaged around this issue precisely because they have seen firsthand the devastating effects of sexual assault on the women they care about. These men know that the two percent of false rape reports are not the real problem; and they focus on supporting the millions of women – like family, friends, classmates, coworkers, and service members – who are sexually assaulted every year. These men work with women as allies in creating safe, healthy relationships and behavior.

It is not likely that the media will stop victim-blaming unless more people speak out against attitudes like “rape is an incoherent concept.” Last week on April 1st marked the beginning of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. There is no better time for individuals, especially men, to learn how they can stand up, be strong, and take action to prevent rape and date rape.

Here are five things men can do to prevent date rape:

Does kissing mean that a person wants to have sex? How do you know? When a situation is unclear, asking before you act will ensure safe and healthy sex for everyone.
Accept when consent is withdrawn. Even after a person has given their consent, that person can withdraw it at any time. We all deserve the right to change our minds.
If a person is drunk or high and can’t give consent, back off and wait until you both are sober.
You’ve heard of designated drivers. Now use the same principle to prevent rape. At a party, designate someone among your group of friends to keep an eye on a guy that might be behaving in ways that could lead to sexual violence.
You probably will never see a rape in progress, but you will hear attitudes and see behaviors that degrade women and promote a culture of violence. When your friend tells a rape joke, let him know it’s not funny.

Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR)'s mission is to mobilize men to use their strength for creating cultures free from violence, especially men’s violence against women. Named by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as one of the world’s most innovative violence prevention programs, Men Can Stop Rape has reached over 2 million youth and professionals since 1997. MCSR has provided youth and college programming, public awareness materials, and training for the Department of Defense, Office of Health & Human Services, Liz Claiborne, Inc. (Love is Respect), DCPS, California Coalition Against Sexual Assault, and more.

Re-posted on:

Date-Rape Columnist Adds Race To His Conversational Repertoire [Jezebel]
Date Rape is a Crime, not an “Incoherent Concept” - Our Response to the AU Column [Paradigm Shift]
Men Can Stop Rape's Response to American University Rape Apologist [Change.org]

GU Men Creating Change at the National Conference on Sexual Assault in our Schools

2009-11-25T10:10:00.012-05:00

Men Can Stop Rape's college chapter at Georgetown University

From November 13-15 I attended the National Conference on Sexual Assault in Our Schools in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. It was a weekend full of presentations, disgruntled tourists, $10 churros, networking/hanging with movement folks, and spotty wi-fi. It’s been a weird and inspiring journey for me from the sexism town hall my freshman year to presenting about the successes and challenges of our GU Men Creating Change (GUMCC) group last weekend. There’s been a lot of hard work, even more samosas, and plenty of K Street bike rides involved in getting me to spread the gospel of GU Men across the country.

The highlight of the conference for me was the opportunity to meet a lot of cool folks who are deeply involved in the anti-violence movement. It is not often that I get to hang out with non-college students let alone people who have been doing awesome work in a variety of locations and situations. I want to thank those people for making me as a young person feel welcome and important at the conference and in this work. I learned a lot from them as professionals in this field and I hope they learned from me as a student doing this work with other students.

Most of the presentations I saw offered me valuable insight and information about the broader anti-violence movement and specific groups that are doing effective work. The U niversity of Rhode Island Peer Advocates presented on what their group does and I appreciated seeing how a large-scale and institutionalized peer education group works.

It reinforced for me that one of the major strengths of the Campus Strength program is that it allows for a more long-term change in campus culture through its emphasis on community building and collaboration as well as presentation, and in its flexibility in facing campus-specific challenges. Later, I got a sneak peek of Men Can Stop Rape’s new and improved bystander intervention presentation and found it to be an even more effective and challenging approach.

The last presentation I saw was by Dr. John Foubert on barriers to rape prevention (he focused on social norms marketing, post-modernism, and pornography as barriers). I was particularly interested in attending this workshop because GUMCC works from a postmodernist theoretical perspective. I appreciated Dr. Foubert challenging what he saw as barriers to successful rape prevention, but I have to say I disagreed with his assessments, especially about postmodernism. His main argument against postmodernism is that it does not believe in one essential truth and therefore ranks a perpetrator’s “truth” alongside a survivor’s “truth.” Postmodernism, though, asserts that “objective truth” is a white, cis-gendered, heterosexual, middle-class, male truth which is neither objective nor often true. We examine the truths that society produces which allows and even encourages rape. It is because of this postmodern perspective, firmly placed within third-wave feminist thought, that I believe we can effectively address what causes and allows men to rape and prevent rape. It was great to see another viewpoint expressed, though, and to have an opportunity to share my own and our group’s perspectives.

All in all, I had a very good and energizing weekend. I learned a lot from the other people at the conference and I felt reassured that I am doing important work. It is good to know that I have allies and friends from across the country that I can count on for support, guidance and accountability.

Jared Watkins, a double major in English and Women’s and Gender Studies, is from Farmington, New Mexico. Jared is also interning for Men Can Stop Rape's Training & Technical Assistance department.

Note: GU Men Creating Change is part of MCSR’s Campus Strength Program. For more details about Campus Strength, please contact Joseph Vess at jvess@mencanstoprape.org.

Jezebel Asks "What's Being Taught In College Rape Prevention Programs?"

2009-11-20T20:00:00.005-05:00

A post on Jezebel caught our eye - not just because the accompanying image is one of the Strength Mediaworks posters we created for CALCASA - but because of its focus on college rape prevention programs.

"What's Being Taught In College Rape Prevention Programs?" starts off:

Asking men to visualize being raped is a graphic way to prove a point-but is it an effective strategy to prevent assault? College campuses around the country are beginning to adopt prevention programs and a new article examines their tactics.

On Sunday, the Chronicle of Higher Education published a piece exploring the struggles of colleges trying to measure the effectiveness of programs designed to reduce rape and sexual assault. These programs have shifted the focus from women to men - and have stepped up the idea that men can assist in preventing third party assaults...(read more)

We encourage everyone to check out our college program, Campus Strength, which has over 45 schools as chapters or affiliates. Some of our partners include DOJ Office on Violence Against Women, HHS Office of Women’s Health; Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN); Students Active for Ending Rape (SAFER); and Greeks Against Sexual Assault. Our members examine and challenge masculinity as it relates to themselves and society, rejecting harmful aspects of traditional masculinity in favor of individual masculinities that affirm their unique realities and experiences. This positions them to create healthier, safer, and ultimately happier lives for themselves and the men and women they care about...

Check out some of the work our chapter at Georgetown University, Men Creating Change, has done on campus.

Feministing Posts MCSR's Response to "What's the Alternative to Tucker Max?"

2009-11-20T11:59:00.001-05:00

Feministing posts an excerpt from "Choosing Healthy Masculinity...and What That Means" our response to Courtney Martin's "What's the Alternative to Tucker Max?" and "Do Young Men Need A New Kind Of Masculinity?" by Jezebel blogger Anna North.

Martin says:

I got so many amazing emails after publishing my column last week about masculinity and pro-feminist men and plenty of blogs picked up on the analysis and added their own, as well. I wanted to share some of the excerpts here:

From Joe Samalin and Joseph Vess of Men Can Stop Rape:
The thousands of men and boys that we engage every year show us daily what healthy masculinity looks like. It is a group of high school boys volunteering at a local domestic violence shelter, it is straight and cis-gendered college men partnering as allies with LGBTQ student organizations, and it is the enlisted men and officers in the Air Force who come to us for training on how to create safer workplaces. These boys and men are all moving deliberately toward who they want to be.

Putting the support and encouragement of healthy masculinity at the center of what we do has taught us two key things. First, there is no single definition or ideal of healthy masculinity--there are as many definitions as there are men. Second, developing healthy, authentic masculinity is a journey, not a destination.

Continue reading Feminist Masculinity Round Up

MCSR in NY Times: NFL Star Larry Johnson "Needs to Be Held Accountable"

2009-11-18T12:59:00.006-05:00

Men Can Stop Rape is featured in a New York Times column that focuses on troubled running back Larry Johnson and his recent signing to the Cincinnati Bengals.

Johnson has been in and out of the news for assaulting four women and more recently for posting homophobic slurs on Twitter.

"In Johnson's Signing, Talent Prevails," MCSR's VP of Programs Neil Irvin speaks about the important of holding Johnson accountable for his actions.

Kudos to columnist (and frequent ESPN The Sports Reporters guest) William C. Rhoden for focusing on men's accountability for violence against women. Check out a snippet below:

"In Johnson's Signing, Talent Prevails"

Neil Irvin has carefully monitored Larry Johnson's movement, from the time rumors began that he would sign with the Cincinnati Bengals until Tuesday, when the Bengals announced that they had signed Johnson, the problematic running back.

Irvin is a football fan, but his interest in Johnson was professional. He is the vice president of programs for Men Can Stop Rape, based in Washington, where for nearly 10 years he has put in place programs for young men and college athletes designed to stop domestic violence and violence against women by stressing prevention.

..."If you absolutely believe this is the person for your franchise," Irvin said, "you should have a clear expectation that there is a zero tolerance for any kind of bad behavior..."

Read more "In Johnson’s Signing, Talent Prevails"

Men Can Stop Rape: Two Trainings for January 2010

2009-11-13T12:17:00.006-05:00

Men Can Stop Rape is proud to announce that it will be conducting two trainings this January 2010 - our semiannual From Theory to Practice Strength Training Jan 7-9 and a new training on Jan 21-22 for schools/agencies who are seriously interested in starting a a Men Of Strength Club for their middle school or high school students. See below for information. Please forward to interested parties!   

"From Theory to Practice" Strength Training
Thur, Jan 7 - Sat, Jan 9, 2010
Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC  

Wondering how you can stop sexual assault and domestic violence before it even starts? Register for Men Can Stop Rape's three-day "From Theory to Practice" Strength Training" and learn the primary violence prevention strategies that have helped over 9,000 of MCSR's training recipients engage young men in this work. This is a great opportunity to broaden your knowledge and expertise in gender violence prevention, build relationships with other professionals in this field, and sight-see in our nation's capitol!  

Who Should Attend?

Youth-serving professionals searching for better ways to teach males about healthy masculinity and positive relationships
Rape crisis and domestic violence center personnel looking for ways to engage men
Military SARC's, SAVI's, and officers
Activist men strategizing new ways to engage males in their community to role model strength without violence
College and university students, staff, and faculty who want to engage men on their campus
Anyone interested in doing this work

Learn how to:
1) Identify masculinity's "dominant stories" and "counterstories" and recognize how "dominant stories" contribute to violence against women 
2) Explore the challenges of engaging men and learn effective ways to overcome these challenges 
3) Mobilize men to become better allies with women 
4) Strategize with others about how to involve men 
5) Speak with men about sexism and connecting it to other "-isms" or forms of oppression

How do I register? 
The 20-25 person trainings usually fill up very quickly, so please go to our website to register. Registration closes Dec 15.

Contact Joseph Vess with questions at 202/534-1836 or jvess@mencanstoprape.org.

********************************************************************** 

Men of Strength (MOST) Club Training  
Thur, Jan 21 - Fri, Jan 22, 2010 
Center for Education on Violence Against Women, Washington, DC  

If your agency is serious about starting a middle school or high school Men of Strength (MOST) Club to prevent sexual assault & dating violence, this is the training to sign up for. Identified by the CDC as one of the top four gender violence prevention programs in the country, MOST Club has over 100 locations in DC, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, NYC, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina and California (through CALCASA).   

Who Should Attend?

Agencies interested in starting a MOST Club in middle schools, high schools, or youth-serving organizations 
Youth-serving professionals interested in facilitating (part-time) our DC MOST Club sites

Training Objectives: 
1) Learn the necessary steps for establishing a successful Men of Strength Club
2) Learn how to better frame sexual assault as a problem young men can play a positive role in ending 
3) Build skills for speaking with young men about sexism and strategies for effectively challenging the culture that supports violence against women 
4) Explore the challenges and opportunities of engaging male youth and learn effective ways to use both
5) Provide participants with practice responses and facilitation skills to common reactions and questions from male audiences

How do I attend?
This training requires an application process; Please go to our website to apply by the Dec 30 deadline.

Contact Neil Irvin or Kedrick Griffin with questions at nirvin@mencanstoprape.org or kgriffin@mencanstoprape.org or call 202-534-1837/1838.

Choosing Healthy Masculinity...and What That Means

2009-11-13T11:57:00.007-05:00

We greatly appreciate the points raised by Courtney Martin and Anna North in their recent posts for American Prospect and Jezebel. For men and men's organizations working for gender equity, the focus is all too often limited to critiquing, protesting and saying what we're against.

However, speaking out against traditional masculinity is both a necessary first step toward new and more positive masculinities, as well as a lifelong opportunity and challenge for all men.

It is essential, as Courtney notes, not to get stuck in “stage one of gender consciousness.” We also saw men and women across the country protesting Tucker Max this summer, and being against him is, for most men, a very simple step. But in addition to signs reading “Rape is not funny” and “Men Against Tucker Max,” men also held signs reading “Sexual Equality Rocks” and “Real Men Respect Women,” clearly highlighting healthy visions of masculinity.

We see this constantly in our work at Men Can Stop Rape. The thousands of men and boys that we engage every year show us daily what healthy masculinity looks like. It is a group of high school boys volunteering at a local domestic violence shelter, it is straight and cis-gendered college men partnering as allies with LGBTQ student organizations, and it is the enlisted men and officers in the Air Force who come to us for training on how to create safer workplaces. These boys and men are all moving deliberately toward who they want to be.

Putting the support and encouragement of healthy masculinity at the center of what we do has taught us two key things. First, there is no single definition or ideal of healthy masculinity—there are as many definitions as there are men. Second, developing healthy, authentic masculinity is a journey, not a destination. Most significantly, this journey creates the space and the obligation for us to engage our humanity as we look at the intersections of class, race, gender identity and sexual orientation that we see as integral to the prevention of men's violence.

We completely agree with Courtney and Anna that there aren't nearly enough spaces and support for men to create their own versions of healthy masculinity, and at the same time we want to ensure that we are fully aware of and making the most of the spaces and support that exist and continue to grow.

Joe Samalin is the Campus Strength Coordinator and Joseph Vess is the Director of Training and Technical Assistance at Men Can Stop Rape.

CALCASA's Thoughts About Our Response to Michael Murphy Critique

2009-11-11T11:44:00.000-05:00

Check out CALCASA's thoughts to our response to Michael Murphy's article “Can ‘Men’ Stop Rape? Visualizing Gender in the ‘My Strength is Not for Hurting’ Rape Prevention Campaign.” Our response was recently published in the journal Men and Masculinities. (If you don't have access to the journal, please e-mail us to request it.)

I just read Pat McGann’s response to an article “Can ‘Men” Stop Rape?” published in the journal Men and Masculinity analyzing Men Can Stop Rape’s “My Strength Is Not For Hurting” posters. I did blog about this article when it was initially ePublished. While I do not use a “Batman and Robin” story to make my points (as Pat did in his response), I agree with Pat that we need to determine the value of prevention materials in part by looking how it serves prevention practice. Continue reading

Men Can Stop Rape Responds to Richmond Gang Rape in PTA Magazine

2009-11-04T10:49:00.004-05:00

Our response to the gang rape case in Richmond, CA appears on a special section on PTA Magazine's website, "Preventing Sexual Violence among Teens." The featured section also includes pieces written by the PTA, Break the Cycle, and the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Violence.

"We Can Change the Culture of Rape"
By Patrick McGann and Neil Irvin

Everyone would agree that the gang rape outside Richmond High School was horrific. While this criminal act is particularly troubling because of the large number of perpetrators and witnesses, the incident should not be viewed in isolation. According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN), a sexual assault occurs every two minutes in the United States. In Men Can Stop Rape's (MCSR) view, rape happens because we as a country have not committed to creating cultures of prevention focused on sexual and dating violence in our schools and communities.

If we pay attention to who commits rape, we see that the majority of assaults are perpetrated by men attacking women and other men. But the majority of men do not commit sexual violence and therefore are potential allies with women. By providing a blueprint for transforming bystanders into active agents of social change, MCSR mobilizes young men across the country to create cultures of rape prevention in their schools and communities.

What gets in the way of prioritizing the creation of these cultures nationwide? Victim-blaming, for one. We worry that people will hold the the young woman in Richmond accountable for her assault, especially since there were reports in the media that she had been drinking alcohol. No rape survivors are ever at fault for their assault, whatever the circumstances. To place responsibility on her is a way of diverting responsibility from the young men who committed the rape.

Outsiders typecasting sexual assault as occurring in communities with troubled youth serves as another way of not addressing rape as a social issue. In an October 28 Contra Costa Times article, one student is deeply disturbed that all the Richmond High students were described as animals in response to the assault. There were 400 students at the prom who did not commit rape. And there were female and male students who took steps to call the police. What enabled them to act in a humane manner? These students should be part of the story.

So, what can we do? First, we need an understanding of rape prevention that is broader in scope, that involves females and males, and that is based on respecting our cultures and ourselves. Historically, preventing sexual assault has been thought of in terms of females engaging in risk reduction, such as walking in pairs or dressing conservatively. For lasting change to occur, however, men and women can prevent sexual violence by challenging the attitudes and assumptions that dehumanize women. Atianna Gibbs, a recent Richmond High graduate, says in the October 28 Contra Costa Times article, "That could easily have been their sister, their mom. ...Nobody deserves that." Her comment suggests that it is easier to hurt someone who is of no importance to us than someone who is. This act of dehumanization is an attitude connected to rape and other forms of violence. Racist violence, gay bashing, and rape clearly all share this dynamic.

Fathers can serve as role models of healthy masculinity for their sons and daughters by treating everyone with respect and empathy. Mothers and fathers can discuss with their children what consent and healthy relationships look like. They can become involved with groups like PTA to work to ensure that there are multiple ways schools engage in creating a culture of rape prevention, such as classroom curricula, after-school groups, teacher trainings, and public education campaigns.

Parents should support their sons' involvement with youth programs that encourage healthy masculinity and relationships, like Men Can Stop Rape's middle school and high school Men of Strength Clubs.

Through our clubs, young men choose to define their own masculinity by evaluating whether messages about manhood, like "don't take 'no' for an answer," play a role in creating unhealthy and unsafe relationships.

They learn skills to speak out effectively when they see attitudes and behaviors that degrade women and girls. Club members translate their curriculum lessons into public education and peer education, uniting a wide cross-section of the community consisting of students, parents, educators, administrators, and business leaders. The young men in the club pledge to be men whose strength is used for respect, not for hurting.

If we want healthy cultures, empathy must occupy the center of a culture's core, nonviolence must be a shared value, and everyone must matter. Men and women can prevent rape by sharing responsibility and by recognizing that if our cultures are going to be healthy, everyone must play a part in caring to make them so.

Patrick McGann, PhD, is vice president of communications for Men Can Stop Rape, Washington, DC.

Neil Irvin is vice president of programs for Men Can Stop Rape and a member of the Forrest Knolls PTA of Silver Spring, Maryland.

where is your line? > where the men at?

2009-11-02T12:25:00.002-05:00

Men Can Stop Rape, Inc. is mentioned in a post by The Line about the gang rape in Richmond, CA

Love this photo from the Pace Screening a few weeks ago, and it seems particularly relevant in light of last weekend’s gang rape in Richmond California, where bystanders actually became perpetrators. They laughed, joked, took photographs and joined in. A very strong piece, “On Rape and Men” expresses the writer’s rage as a man, and demands that we approach gender violence as a men’s issue. Unfortunately, some of the reader comments suggested instead that women arm themselves with guns, or that we all collectively turn back to religion! On Facebook, Men Can Stop Rape linked to CNN’s article about bystander behavior, and these three comments were particularly interesting:

Not surprising that in the article they don’t delve into rape culture or male violence against women. Just ‘people’ who stand by and watch ‘people’ hurt ‘people’. (I know there was one example of male-male violence w/ the honor student’s killing.) I think there are deeper issues at play here regarding our society’s treatment of women and acceptance…

J says: I think a major part of the problem is America’s cultural repression of most of men’s full range of emotion/feelings, which leads to homophobia, isolation, competition, and anger. The constricted “relationship” many men end up having with women (as a result of this repression) lead to this violence.
D responds: J is typically making excuses and pointing at some external source (not the men themselves), as being the cause of their stupidity. J honey, men rape women because they want to. There is no other reason. They want to because they feel entitled to women’s bodies, to rule women’s thoughts, to be superior to women, for women to be submissive

Read the rest of the article here

The Messages We Send Young Men: Roman Polanski as a Hollywood “Our Guy”

2009-10-02T16:30:00.006-05:00

In 1998, investigative journalist Bernard Lefkowitz published Our Guys (which later went on to be A New York Times Notable Book of the Year).

Lefkowitz conducted hundreds of interviews to tell the story of a 17-year-old mentally challenged young woman and a group of high school boys in Glen Ridge, NJ, an affluent, idyllic suburb. She had been lured into the basement by one of the teens she had a crush on. Four of the young men gang raped her while a number of others watched.

They were all popular athletes who came from good families – the kind of young men who could do no wrong in the eyes of the community. When rumors of the sexual assault started circulating, the town rallied to the defense of their “guys” and further ostracized the young woman.

Part of the point of this book is that Glen Ridge is no atypical town. And apparently Hollywood is not so atypical when it comes to the likes of sexual assault and Roman Polanski. They are claiming him as one of their “guys.” Stars of all stripes are rallying around him, from the likes of Harvey Weinstein to Whoopi Goldberg to Woody Allen to Harrison Ford. Of course, a significant difference from the citizens of Glen Ridge is that these artists are supporting someone already known to have committed rape. It’s common knowledge that after giving a 13-year-old girl Quaaludes, Polanski proceeded to rape her vaginally and anally. The girl pleaded for him to stop and he did not. While on bail, he fled the country to France. These facts are indisputable.

Granted, the violence took place in 1977. So should we let bygones be bygones? What’s the point of putting him in prison for something that happened 32 years ago?

How about this: What message do we want to send young men now?...That accountability fades with time, especially when you’ve made some highly acclaimed movies? That if you have enough friends in high places who make enough noise, you’ll be freed from any responsibility for your actions?

What does it mean to be a friend? Do you have to excuse someone’s harmful actions and stand by him no matter what? Or can you be a friend to someone by holding him accountable for his behavior? The answer is clear for us at Men Can Stop Rape.

Capturing Masculinity

2009-08-18T15:12:00.006-05:00

“Are you masculine?”

Well, are you? Because if you are, Chad States wants to take your picture.

A photographer based in Philadelphia, States used this opening question in a Craigslist ad to gather subjects for his recent most recent photo project. Curious as to what defines masculinity and the ways in which individuals project their own manhood, States snapped images of over a dozen individuals who wished to be captured in “their most masculine moments”. The result is a wide span of men, women and transgenders whose presentations are strikingly personal, varied and surprising.

Going in to look at the photos, I was not expecting variety or surprise. Even having read a review prior to viewing, I expected most of the photos to emulate the visual advertisements we see in our own culture; muscular, polished, shirtless men engaging in a sort of rough and gruff activity. And without a doubt, a large portion of the pictures and captions actually do contain at least the tiniest traces of dominant masculinity. Some of the subjects, in fact, are shirtless and muscular. Others stand tall, scowling with folded arms. For others, it is their language and opinions that reinforce traditional masculine ideals. Franco, for example, says that “to be a masculine is to dominate in one’s field of study” while John Peters explains he is masculine because “he is fiercely competitive.”

But there was something about the photos, even the traditionally masculine ones, that defied the images of manhood we are fed in everyday media. For example, almost all the photos (with a few exceptions) appear to be taken in the subjects’ homes. It is rare to see men photographed their own personal yet domesticated spaces. But as an interview with States implies, we have every reason to believe that the subjects chose these locations. And this is the unusual part. These subjects had control over how and where they wanted to be photographed. As States explained, he gave his subjects no instructions; they were free to dress and pose however they wanted. Thus, these subjects are being documented in their most masculine moments, but they are projecting their masculinity in ways that that they see fit and that they determine. Though many seem to have been at least slightly influenced by societal definitions of manhood, their display of manhood and their perceptions of manhood are still based on the individual. And it is that very concept that makes these photos look unlike any masculine images we have seen before.

Take Greg for example. Greg is stretched out on his bed, stomach down, completely nude. His caption reads, “I feel most masculine when I am lying in bed naked.” In a society where the media portrays men as powerful and firm, ready to fight, Greg’s is an image that feels unusual in its in its presentation of vulnerability. And not just its vulnerability, but Greg’s seemingly casual attitude about it. However, I admired this image because it’s take on masculinity is unlike any I had seen in the mainstream (when was the last time we saw Bruce Willis posing like this to advertise a “Die Hard” movie?). More importantly, however, this was a version masculinity I had not encountered before precisely because it was Greg’s version. It is through snapshots like these that one realizes masculinity means more than one thing to many different people.

But at the end of the day, these photos are still photos. In the same way that subjects were given freedom to pose and dress however they wished, they were also setting up and creating scenes where they could look and feel their most masculine. In other words, very much like mainstream advertisements, these photos are still images that are constructed; they are specifically designed to portray a precise feeling and message (the difference is that this message is catered to the subject’s idea of masculinity, not that of the photographer). This is not to say that these subjects aren’t masculine or “real men” the rest of the time. It does however point out that masculinity itself is constructed, either by the society or the individual subject. It does not just spring up on its own, but someone has to take the step to define it. The question is, who do we want defining masculinity? Or, do we really need a definition at all?

Perhaps we would all do well to remember these questions more often, whether we are assessing the subjects in State’s pictures, the images in advertisements, or even the men in our own lives.

For further information, all of the photos are on the photographer’s website (please know that some of the photos feature nude subjects)
http://www.chadstates.com/

Here is an interview featuring Chad States and some of the photos.
http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/men_at_their_most_masculine/

Too Manly for Medicine?

2009-08-18T14:59:00.002-05:00

If you’re a man then you probably know the deal, but looking at health statistics confirms what some of us might already guess: men’s health in the U.S. isn’t anything sing about. For example, compared to women, men’s death rate from chronic liver diseases and heart disease is twice as high. Heart disease itself it reported as the number one killer for men in the U.S., followed shortly by cancer. Men are more likely than women to report binge drinking, smoking and overweight/obesity. Oh yes, and men’s life expectancy is about 5.3 years lower than women.

Not such a great outlook. But for the men out there, have you ever considered that your views on masculinity could be playing a role in your health?

To elaborate, this past week’s Google News has seen considerable circulation of a particular health study, one that links men’s beliefs in traditional manhood to decreased likelihood for seeking preventative health care. The study, headed by Kristen W. Springer at Rutgers University in New Jersey, used a sample of 1,000 men from a long-range study group. The men were given eight statements that assessed their attitudes about masculinity. These statements included things like, “Men have greater sexual needs than woman” and “It bothers me when a man does something I consider feminine.” Men were then divided up according to how strongly they agreed with the statements, as well as by factors such as job status, wealth and education.

The findings?

Men who held more strongly to traditional and stereotypical beliefs about masculinity (or who agreed with the statements most) were less likely to seek out preventative health services. Specifically, these men were less likely to check for prostate cancer, less likely to get yearly physical exams and less likely to get flu shots than other men.

In other words, perhaps some of the health risks listed in the beginning are just so darn high because certain men do not feel the need to address their health on a regular basis. Though the study gave no clear indication that men’s feelings about masculinity cause them consciously avoid the doctor, much of the logic makes sense. If being a man means not showing pain and vulnerability, then that might lead to a strong neglect of situations that compromise this attitude, including going to the doctor. Unfortunately, going to the doctor regularly is the very thing that allows for symptoms and disease to be detected early on. Thus, being “real” man and not taking necessary steps for your health means you could pay for it later on.

As Dr. Springer noted, “It’s ironic that the belief in the John Wayne, Sylvester Stallone archetype of masculinity — and the idea that real men don’t get sick and don’t need to see the doctor, and that real men aren’t vulnerable — is actually causing men to get sick….These stereotypes and ideas are actually a reason why men do get sick.”

There were some exceptions to the findings. Notably enough, the study revealed that the men who held stereotypical beliefs about masculinity still went to the doctor regularly if they held blue collar jobs. Researchers thought this might be because these types of jobs require employees to be in better health. They also considered that having a job among this stratus of men was a greater indicator of masculinity than whether or not you sought help for your health.

Of course, nothing absolutely conclusive can be made from the study, especially since the sample size did not include all demographics (including men of color). And once again, a link does not imply causality. But these findings are important to think about, as they beg the greater question, how does personal attitude about masculinity affect a man’s behavior and lifestyle? Are there certain beliefs about masculinity that put some men at risk or influence them to act in ways that are detrimental to their health? And what about women? Do some women’s standards of femininity affect their health?

As for me, I’ll skip on Sylvester Stalone and John Wayne, as long as the men in my life are happy, healthy and alive.

From Theory to Practice: Her & His Reflections of Our 3-Day Strength Training

2009-07-28T14:58:00.017-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, Men Can Stop Rape, Inc. (MCSR) held its biannual three-day Strength Training, "From Theory to Practice." For three days, 21 strangers - varying from college students to direct service providers - bonded through group exercises, role playing and discussion that connected the dots between the "dominant story" of masculinity and men's violence against women.

Below are two participants take on the training...

Julie
American University

We put on skits, brainstormed, interrogated media, and shared personal moments. We even played with toys.

All in all, Men Can Stop Rape’s “From Theory to Practice” Training this past July 16-18 was considerably more fun than any sort of training I’d ever attended, and yet never before could I say that a training had so inspired me on both a personal and professional level.

This is no small statement to make; as a current staff member of MCSR, my position as an “intern” was, in my head, synonymous with “insider.” I have skimmed a dozen of our publications and spent an extensive amount of intimate time with our training manual: I thought I had considerable expertise on how you address male audiences about violence against women. But as the training’s title implies, it is one thing to learn something in theory, and another to learn through application.

So what was so special about this application if I had already learned and understood much of the content? The difference, I believe was in the approach.

Trainers and speakers didn’t just lecture or present material: I think we would agree that such a style isn’t very effective, and we generally don’t appreciate preaching. However, we will almost always embrace opportunities for reflection, guidance, critical thinking, personal growth and a space in which to share these things with others. Indeed, such opportunities are the most powerful ways to learn, and it is these opportunities that unfold in the very exercises that MCSR uses. In other words, the methods of MCSR allows one to truly internalize and see the impact behind men’s violence against women.

Activities such as describing the strongest men in our lives, listing the qualities of “real men”, linking these qualities to sexual assault and sharing our perspectives, helped us to make the bigger connections between masculinity and violence against women and to see how these issues were present in our own lives. And given that many of these exercises are done with MCSR’s young male audiences, we were enlightened as to how they too could make those same connections, making sure to keep in mind factors of sensitivity, support and neutrality.

But what was better than this process was the overwhelming sense of camaraderie that arose from other participants. Even as an employee of MCSR, I find that I still lose sight of the all dedicated people, women and men, doing this work. The training was a wonderful opportunity to meet individuals who shared the same concerns and struggles, where the act of voicing these struggles opened up doors for bonding and collective problem solving.

And even while men’s contributions to this field are still being tested, the number of eager and open-minded men sitting beside and communicating with receptive and dedicated women became, for me, a confirmation of how gender as well as age and location could be overcome for the sake of progress.

It was there in those moments that I was proud to be involved in this field, a member of this cause and a supporter of all the individuals who do this work.

Jordan
University of Michigan

After graduating from the University of Michigan in 2006 with a degree in sociology, I became passionate about ending men’s violence against women. I have worked at both a rape crisis center and an organization dedicated to raising awareness of domestic violence. As an advocate for social justice, I am constantly looking for the root causes of societal problems, and their solutions. When it comes to the abhorrent level of sexual assault in this country, my eyes focus not on practical steps that women can take to avoid becoming victimized, but rather the forces that cause men to become violent in the first place.

For these reasons, I am attracted to the nonprofit Men Can Stop Rape and the philosophy it espouses. I recently attended the From Theory to Practice training conducted by MCSR. Although I am familiar with the sociological forces contributing to men’s violence, Men Can Stop Rape conducted a series of exercises that furthered my understanding.

More importantly, the organization provided me with a variety of activities and tools to engage men in rape prevention education. I am now equipped with an expanded repertoire of strategies that I can use for approaching a variety of different groups.

The MCSR training reaffirmed by belief that the true answer to preventing rape and sexual assault is working with groups of men and helping them to challenge traditional definitions of masculinity.

Only through this approach, can we truly expect to live in a world without violence.

Ritualized Violence Between Man and Beast

2008-07-14T14:26:00.030-05:00

Today marked the final day of the annual running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. Tens of thousands of visitors came from across the globe. 45 people, mainly men, are reported to have been seriously hurt or hospitalized, while the Red Cross reports a total of 457 injuries. The running only lasts a few minutes each day, starting promptly at 8am, however collisions, falls, and bullhorns cause a variety of injuries to the heads, necks, groins, and abdomens of participating men. This year's injured consist of a fairly diverse set of nationals, including men from Spain, the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Greece, South Africa, South Korea, Romania, Colombia, and Ghana.

The running of the bulls is a tradition that goes back 400 years, and was popularized worldwide around the 1920s in the writings of Ernest Hemingway (who interestingly enough never did actually run with the bulls himself). Bulls that have been bred in fields and are unaccustomed to large crowds of people are kept in small dark enclosures before they are released into the streets. Blinded by sunlight, prodded with electric shocks, and hit by participants with rolled up newspapers, the large animals are forced to navigate through narrow streets. Oftentimes, they lose their footing and slide into walls, breaking bones and injuring themselves even before they reach their final destination and are herded into the bull ring. The latter is the purpose of the entire event, which has evolved from simply the laborious preparation of bullfights into a cultural spectacle of masculinity and world-renowned tourist attraction.

The internationally-attended running and all its chaos is then merely a precursor to the main attraction--a fight to the death between man and beast in the name of entertainment. Blurring the lines between tradition and sport, bullfighting seems to exploit a subconscious and masculine desire for violence against that which is wild and feared. In its most popular form, bullfighting has spread from 18th century Spain to all parts of the world, including Portugal, France, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Guatemala, and more recently, the United States.

"Bullfighting is nothing more than a public massacre. It shouldn't exist in any part of the world," says an animal activist and Mexican lucha libre (wrestler) who goes by the name of Super Animal. Super Animal, who refuses to give his real name, argues that most people do not support bullfighting, but don't bother to speak up. Together, the activists proposed the government hold a referendum in Mexico on bullfighting, to ask citizens if they would support a ban on the killing of bulls. The idea went nowhere.

Whether cruel or cultural, bullfighting continues to have an important economy of tourism and training. In France and Spain, many young men are enrolled by their parents in bullfighting schools. They learn at a young age how to stab young bulls, which often suffer a great deal in the process due to the inexperience of pupils. These schools exist by the thousands and are subsidized by their respective governments, not unlike cultural programming for the arts, and reveal just how institutionalized men's violence, in this case against animals, can be.

"What do you think continued international popularity for the running of the bulls and bullfighting suggests about cultures of masculinity?"

Please take the time to comment and also fill out our poll at: http://www.mencanstoprape.com/

The Side Effects of Being American

2008-06-13T14:22:00.010-05:00

Bigger, Stronger, Faster* is a new documentary that explores the cultural and personal issues surrounding steroid use in the United States. Stylized in the same vein as Moore and Spurlock, first-time director Christopher Bell develops an engaging personal account of steroid-use within his family of three testosterone-filled brothers as they are driven to the limits of hypermasculinity.

The Bell family drama provides an emotional and humorous tone for the film, which is craftily mixed with key interviews and nostalgic images of muscle wrenching from the likes of Hogan, Schwarzenegger, Stallone and company. Bell's experiences allow him to successfully engage gym rats, athletes, policymakers, and others, adding a unique mix of voices to the debate. One of the more interesting interviews in the film involves an individual living with HIV/AIDS who claims that steroids saved his life.

Ultimately, the film explores an ambitious male body image, which can at times be both disfiguring and crippling to the human condition. At the same time, there also seems to be a series of contradictions between the moral consensus against performance-enhancement and a culture of masculinity committed to being Bigger, Stronger, Faster*, and American.

http://www.biggerstrongerfastermovie.com/

"Do you think super heroes, athletes, and action stars create unhealthy body images for young boys?"

Fill out our poll at: http://www.mencanstoprape.com/

Gray Rape - A New Form of Rape? Or a Way of Holding Men Less Accountable?

2007-10-24T15:46:00.000-05:00

Ever heard of the term "GRAY RAPE?"

Prompted by a controversial COSMOPOLITAN magazine article published in September (read it here) investigating what is believed to be a new form of date rape, Cosmopolitan hosted a dialogue at NYC’s John Jay College last week to discuss the impact and meaningfulness of “sex that falls somewhere between consent and denial.”

Neil Irvin, National Director of Men Can Stop Rape’s Men of Strength Club, and other panelists strongly refuted the notion of "gray rape." In attendance was Cosmopolitan’s editor-in-chief as well as the writer of the article, Laura Sessions Stepp, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the Washington Post.

Read Stepp’s article, "A New Kind of Date Rape" before viewing coverage of the panel discussion from the New York Times blog City Room and the Metro, which includes quotes from Neil Irvin’s primary violence prevention-based perspective.

We believe "gray rape" lessens men’s accountability while pointing the finger even more strongly at women. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section...

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Men Can Stop Rape offers a PSA series and Strength Trainings/Workshops that focus on CONSENT during possible alcohol and drug intoxication. Reach young men with our highly affordable posters, banners and postcards and paradigm-shifting workshop discussions. ORDER OUR PSA MATERIALS OR SERVICES TODAY!

Sex work or sex crimes?

2007-09-12T15:41:00.003-05:00

A recent Guardian article raised the possibility that the British government may be criminalizing the purchase of sex, rather than its sale, in order to reduce demand for prostitution.

Two members of Parliament quoted in the article raised the following points:

Fiona Mactaggart MP...dismissed arguments that prostitution was an inevitable part of society, adding: "We have always had murder - that doesn't make it right. The price of prostitution is enormously high for women...[And] the more vulnerable the woman is, the cheaper the price is for men."
Denis MacShane MP, a former minister and campaigner against sex trafficking, added: "Until you have the Wilberforce moment when you say those who buy [sex] are just as guilty as those who are selling [women], it will continue to grow. It's not until there is a regular flow of men before the courts because they have paid for sex with illegally trafficked sex slaves that we will see a change in culture."

The question of sex work is a tough one for many people who work to end violence against women, with both the abolition and decriminalization camps making strong cases. If you view it as violence against women, then making a decriminalization case is pretty hard, but many argue, as this follow-up opinion piece points out, that "until women are given real choices in their lives, no amount of draconian legislation will change the current landscape of prostitution."

Both articles also reference Sweden's experiment with criminalizing the purchase of sex, and reached opposite conclusions, but this older piece from the New Statesman magazine suggests that it has been successful, at least to some degree.

I'm interested to see where this goes, and the strategy works. It's a debate I'm not hearing in the US, but think it's an important one to have. Regardless of the outcome, I'm glad there are so many great organizations out there working with individuals that sell sex to support them and ensure that they are safe and have resources. A few based in DC include:

HIPS
Polaris Project
Different Avenues

Gender in La Chureca

2007-08-23T15:12:00.003-05:00

One of the most beautiful and amazing places I have ever been isn't the place you might think in Central America. Before my last trip, a co-worker from El Salvador referred to my destination as "the poor country in Central America." What makes this even a little more odd is that I was headed to probably the poorest place in the "poor country." Over the past two years I've been twice to Nicaragua, and both times I got to work, play and get dirty with the residents of La Chureca.

The name has a beautiful ring to it, but La Chureca is the city trash dump in Managua, Nicaragua. In it there is a community of about five hundred people working and living in the dump. When I first rode in, the view was breathtaking to say the least. As our car followed a dump truck, a friend explained that those who work in the dump follow the trucks and pick through the trash to find anything of value. Something to eat, sell, recycle or use in their homes. We continued to drive past the cows and horses walking along the make shift road between the mountains of trash. It wasn't until a little girl, Ileana, came up to our car and invited us to her shanty house that we stepped out of the car.

The family was made up of about nine children and we ended up playing music and (of course) soccer with the kids and younger adults. It wasn't until I left that I started to think about how gender affects one's life in the dump. I found, after asking others who I was with, that child prostitution was rampant in the trash dump. From as early as nine years old the girls would be "earning" money for their families. That same little girl that we met who was so full of youth and fun loving energy, we later found out had already been exposed to the darker side of the dump. The child prostitution isn't limited to the girls. Often boys will walk around and almost act as little pimps for their sisters or others they know. When families are asked about it, they often support it as a way of helping support the family. To them it is an inevitable part of their lives.

In the dump the gender roles are laid out from the start. At a young age the children all play together, but as the boys get to be around ten years old, they break away from the girls and their families and take on roles similar to their older brothers or fathers. While I hate to make a generalization, most men don't do the work in their families, abandon their families, or abuse members of their families. One person I interviewed about the dump who had worked there said that 99% of all of the females had been a victim of some form of abuse.

While on the surface it looks like a very male driven community, inside the house it flips and the woman is not only the one taking care of the house chores, but also doing the work out in the dump. The men have no actual power, aside from physical strength in the relationship.

What I saw in the dump was gender roles that imprisoned both genders. Women do almost all of the work yet are abused and seen as less than a man. Boys, as they grow older, are forced to conform into a tougher more hegemonic masculinity and are conditioned to act the way they do. This "hyper" division of gender hinders the community strength and makes the effort of relief to this area much harder.

Blood and ice

2007-07-27T08:53:00.000-05:00

I'm not a serious hockey fan, but I've always found it interesting the way fighting is often portrayed as an essential part of the sport. It seems like a dominant story; this article about a camp to teach kids how to fight in hockey games actually surprised me with the information that fighting is in fact outlawed in the amateur ranks, Olympics, and most leagues outside of the NHL. The way that famous Canadian commentator Don Cherry and others talk about it, you would think it ranked just below goal-scoring in importance.

Yet, when I was at the Hockey Hall of Fame earlier this month on a visit to Toronto, there wasn't anything even remotely related to fighting. No photos of players throwing down their gloves, no bloody grimaces--the only indications were some pictures of players with missing teeth (which probably was the result of an errant puck), and one old jersey with some suspicious looking stains on it.

In our "From Theory to Practice" training this past weekend, we talked about how dominant stories--those narratives that shape our perceptions but all too often don't reflect our lived experience--are often presented as immutable, eternal truths, but in fact are constantly changing. Fighting in hockey seems like a great example of this. Is hockey in college or the Olympics not "real" hockey because there's no fighting? I doubt you'd find many people who would make that case. Many of the arguments presented in the article for fighting seem disingenuous as well; football is hardly a less violent, physical sport, and fighting rarely breaks out, and when it does players are immediately disciplined. There are such sublime moments of skill in hockey, it's a shame that the picture many people have of it is a sport of goons and penalty boxes.

NEBRASKA JUDGE BANS THE WORD "RAPE" FROM SEXUAL ASSAULT TRIAL

2007-06-21T15:38:00.000-05:00

Slate.com reports that a Nebraska district judge granted a motion by defense attorneys to bar the use of the words “rape”, “sexual assault”, “victim”, “assailant”, and “sexual assault kit” from the trial of Pamir Safi - accused of raping Tory Bowen in October 2004.

Dahlia Lithwick writes, “The result is that the defense and the prosecution are both left to use the same word—‘sex’ - to describe either forcible sexual assault, or benign consensual intercourse. As for the jurors, they'll just have to read the witnesses' eyebrows to sort out the difference."

Go to Slates's wesite to read the article. Do you agree or disagree?

Men Can Stop Rape Celebrates 10 Years of Work with Young Men

2007-06-20T16:38:00.001-05:00

Problems with my Penis

2007-06-15T08:28:00.000-05:00

PROBLEMS WITH MY PENIS: A CHECK-IN WRITTEN BY PAT MCGANN, MCSR'S
COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR

Our occasional "Check-Ins" provide a place for Men Can Stop Rape staff to reflect on how the topics that MCSR addresses touch us personally. The opinions expressed in the "Check-Ins" are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of MCSR.

PROBLEMS WITH MY PENIS
by Pat McGann

Years ago, when I started doing workshops for Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR), or as the organization was known at the time, Men’s Rape Prevention Project (MRPP), one of the opening grabbers was “Sexual Calisthenics.” At first I felt uncomfortable facilitating it, as did some of the other MRPP presenters, but I decided the only way to perform it was with gusto. So after telling participants the name of the exercise, and then asking everyone to stand and raise their hands above their heads and repeat after me, I would yell as loudly as I could, “Testicles,” followed by “breast,” “vagina,” and “clitoris.” I always saved for last, and shouted with all the energy I could muster, “Penis.”

The high school students would yell and giggle with no problem. Professionals always sounded embarrassed and half-hearted, their hands halfway up. The loudest, most booming group I ever heard was an assembly of 80 soldiers in an auditorium at a military base in Virginia, where Patrick Lemmon, Jonathan Stillerman, and I were co-facilitating a workshop. Patrick – no shrinking violet – told the soldiers to stand, raise their hands, and yell, “Penis.” What I had always thought of as his loud shout became the equivalent of a mechanical squeak when the soldiers sounded off, their roar like an airplane leaving the runway.

Those were exhilarating penis-days, moments of hollering the word with utter abandon, reveling in the power to publicly voice what had been kept private, cleaning it up and stealing it away from the exploitative world of pornography.

But nowadays I hear that the penis has problems, and mine is no exception. Every morning when I open my email inbox, there are messages with offers to help me. I don’t know the people who send them or where the emails come from, but there are so many, from every Tom, Dick, and Harry or Trish, Donna, and Heloise it seems like. I guess I should be thankful they’re concerned about me since my penis has never had a large support group. In fact, until I started receiving these emails, you could count on two hands – okay, one hand – the number of people who have ever shown any interest in my penis.

I can’t help feeling a little confused by it all, though. It seems, for instance, that someone out there wants me to have a “turbo penis,” which on the surface of things seems fairly positive and I initially appreciated, but after thinking about it, I realized that I didn’t have a clear sense of “turbo penis.” It sounds like my private parts will turn into the Batmobile, fire shooting out the back. There’s also the emailer who will give me the means to make my penis “hard as steel,” again difficult to conceptualize, unless I turn into Colossus, a Russian mutant and X-Man who has the ability to turn his body into organic steel – something I’m fairly certain Kitty Pride, his X-Woman, wouldn’t appreciate in moments of an intimate nature.

While the above comments about my penis confuse me, some of the others kind of scare me. I wonder, for instance, about the size of the “megadick” that one person promises to help me grow. I imagine it as gargantuan, Godzilla or King Kong size, something you’d see at a circus, a humongous body part that everybody would point at and say, “There’s that guy who’s a freak of penis pills, mechanical penis enlargement devices, penis weight-hanging, penis patches, penis exercises, penis herbal enhancement formulas, and various other natural penis enlargement methods.” Even if, as one emailer claims, you can “double your penis size,” what would I do with all those extra inches? Where would they go? In fact, if the trend toward “megadicks” continues, if penises increase in size exponentially, at what point, as Patrick Lemmon, MCSR’s executive director has asked, will we run out of room? As the polar ice caps continue to melt away, it seems possible that they’ll be replaced by millions of penises inching either north or south, depending on the side of the equator you inhabit.

All this attention over email to my penis and penises across the world makes me think it needs a lot of shoring up, that we spend so much time generating methods to super-size it and turbo-charge it because, in the end, the penis is generally a pretty small thing.

Men Can Stop Rape Invited to Speak on Capitol Hill to Discuss Poll Results Showing Men's Increasing Desire to End Violence

2007-06-08T11:20:00.000-05:00

Rafael Suarez, a graduating high school senior at School Without Walls as well as a member of the Men of Strength (MOST) Club (a youth program of Men Can Stop Rape), was invited to speak at a Roundtable on Capitol Hill yesterday (June 7) to discuss results of a recent poll that show men desire to be more active in preventing violence against women. Suarez, honored by Men Can Stop Rape this year for his gender-violence prevention work in the DC community, joined men from all walks of life - senators, athletes, and corporate CEO’s from Macy and Verizon Wireless - to discuss how men and even institutions could do more to prevent domestic violence and sexual assault.

Please read the press release from the Family Violence Prevention Fund below:

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For Immediate Release
June 7, 2007

Most Men Willing to Get Involved in Efforts to Prevent Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault
Father's Day Poll Released on Capitol Hill with Sen. Harkin, Rep. Honda, NY Giants Wide Receiver Amani Toomer, Macy's West CEO Robert Mettler

WASHINGTON, DC & BASKING RIDGE, NJ - More than half of men think it is very or fairly likely that, at some point in their lives, they will know a victim of domestic violence or sexual assault, and most are willing to take action to raise awareness, help victims, and promote healthy, violence-free relationships, according to a poll released in Washington, D.C. today.
Issued in time for Father's Day, the poll was conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the Family Violence Prevention Fund, with support from Verizon Wireless.

The new poll was released at a Roundtable on Capitol Hill with men, youth and activists. It featured Senator Tom Harkin (IA), Representative Mike Honda (CA), Macy's West Chairman and CEO Robert Mettler, New York Giants Wide Receiver Amani Toomer and his father, Donald, of the Oakland School System who is a survivor of family violence, as well as DC United Soccer CEO Kevin Payne. Peter D. Hart Research Associates President Geoff Garin discussed the poll. Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Ron Adrine, who chairs the Family Violence Prevention Fund's Board of Directors and youth activist Rafael Suarez of Men Can Stop Rape also spoke. Derek McGinty of WUSA-TV moderated the Roundtable.

"Across the board, men want more done to stop domestic violence and sexual assault," said Verizon Wireless President and CEO Lowell McAdam. "Men are ready to do their part by talking to the next generation, donating wireless phones to help victims, and more. Verizon Wireless will continue its commitment to stop violence, and encourages men - and women - to take action."

According to the poll, 56 percent of men - and 60 percent of those age 18 to 34 - have reason to believe a member of their immediate or extended family, a close friend or acquaintance has been in a domestic violence or sexual assault situation. More than half (57 percent) think they can personally make at least some difference in preventing violence, and 73 percent think they can make at least some difference in promoting healthy, respectful, non-violent relationships.

And, the poll finds, men are taking action. Two in three fathers (68 percent) have talked to their sons about the importance of healthy, violence-free relationships, and 63 percent have talked to their daughters. Fifty-five percent of the men surveyed have talked to other boys who are not their sons.

"There has been a sea change in men's attitudes toward domestic, dating and sexual violence, and especially in their willingness to take action to stop it," FVPF President Esta Soler said. "That's one reason domestic violence has been declining in this country. But it's still a tremendous problem. We need many more individuals and institutions to get involved. We are asking Congress to fully fund the Violence Against Women Act, and the sports, business and other communities to step up and do their part. It is within our reach to dramatically reduce violence against women, but we all need to be part of the solution. That so many men say they are willing to act gives us real hope."

According to the new poll:

Two-thirds of men (67 percent) say domestic violence and sexual assault are very or fairly common in the United States. Just 15 percent of men (and just 12 percent of young men) say it is not likely that, at some point, a woman or girl they know will be a victim.
Seven in ten men are willing to talk to children about healthy relationships (up from 55 percent in a poll conducted in 2000) and an equal proportion are willing to donate old wireless telephones to programs that help victims and prevent violence. Two-thirds say they would sign a pledge; an equal number would sign a petition or contact lawmakers about the issue.
Men give no institutions high marks for doing enough to raise awareness and address domestic violence and sexual assault. More than 60 percent say the sports and entertainment industries, government, school and colleges, the news media and businesses should do more.
87 percent want employers to provide information for victims, 83 percent want employers to adopt policies to help victims, 77 percent want supervisors and managers to be trained to support victims, and 72 percent want employers to provide resources to employees on how to talk to children about healthy, violence-free relationships.

From April 23 to May 3, 2007, Hart Research conducted this national survey for the Family Violence Prevention Fund and Verizon Wireless among a representative sample of 1,020 American men age 18 and over. The margin of error for this survey is + 3.1 percentage points

The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that on average, more than three women are murdered each day in this country by their husbands or boyfriends. The health care cost of intimate partner rape, physical assault and stalking totals $5.8 billion each year, nearly $4.1 billion of which is for direct medical and mental health care services, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

# # # #

Information on the poll is available at: http://www.endabuse.org/07menspolland www.verizonwireless.com/surveyresults.

About the Family Violence Prevention Fund
The Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF) works to end violence against women and children around the world, because every person has the right to live free of violence. In 2003, the FVPF and The Advertising Council launched a campaign to encourage men to teach boys that violence against women is wrong. Coaching Boys into Men includes television, radio and print public service announcements, and numerous resources. The FVPF's Founding Fathers campaign includes CEOs, professional athletes, entertainers, coaches and others who are mobilizing men to teach the next generation to treat women and girls with honor and respect, and to teach boys that violence does not equal strength. More information is available at www.endabuse.org.

About Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless operates the nation's most reliable wireless voice and data network, serving 60.7 million customers. The largest US wireless company and largest wireless data provider, based on revenues, Verizon Wireless is headquartered in Basking Ridge, N.J., with 66,000 employees nationwide. The company is a joint venture of Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) and Vodafone (NYSE and LSE: VOD). Find more information on the Web at http://www.verizonwireless.com/. To preview and request broadcast-quality video footage and high-resolution stills of Verizon Wireless operations, log on to the Verizon Wireless Multimedia Library at www.verizonwireless.com/multimedia.

Virginia Tech: A Month Later

2007-05-15T12:49:00.000-05:00

I wrote this piece as a letter to the Virginia Tech community, to where the events of a month ago brought me back.

Wearing Our Pain:
A reluctant Hokie puts on his orange and maroon

I feel small. Insignificant. Even as I recite “Hokie, Hokie, Hokie, Hi” on occasion, I rarely feel connected to my days of cheap wings at P.K’s, tests in McBride, Ultimate Frisbee on the Drillfield, and study sessions by the Duck Pond. But the shootings have shattered a bubble, a force-field I’ve erected to protect myself from memories of who I was a few years ago, and the pain I feel even now. We are miles apart but I offer this as my attempt to be there with you in Blacksburg, in a place I’ve wanted to desperately leave before, a place from which I now feel it’s impossible to pull myself away.

My freshman year I lived in Pritchard Hall, where I wrote my first email, watched my first downloaded movie, and woke up six hours late for my first test. I was lucky to find friends from my hometown in nearby dorm rooms, a comforting presence in an environment where I felt overwhelmed with pressure to simultaneously perform well academically and socially. I felt like I had to take the right classes, get the right grades, say smart things, impress people I’d never met, do well in beer-pong, understand the BCS, and hide the fact that deep down I really missed my home. I didn’t want to be at college but it was a part of the upward mobility my Southern grandmother preached as my right as a young white man; I saw no alternative. Feeling alienated and not knowing how to deal with my pain I drank, smoked a lot of weed, studied hard, went to football games, discovered internet porn, froze outside during fire drills at 3 a.m., and in other ways plotted my escape. I felt pain but couldn’t name it. I didn’t belong to a campus community that felt most unified while watching Michael Vick dash on the football field. I was planning the details of a study abroad trip to Finland. It never happened. This first year of college, eight years ago now, is a dream that must sound appealing to so many that woke up on a Tuesday morning with a cold chill; a touch of suffering hazy and hidden under the covers.

During the convocation on the Tuesday after the shootings, Nikki Giovanni passionately called on us to use this suffering to identify with a death given to unconsidered around the world. Children, men, and women do in fact hide from a rogue army in the night, swearing in blood and hoping to protect one another with only words…Jeremy Davidson, a three-year-old boy, really was crushed as he lay sleeping by a boulder rocked lose during the devastation of mountain-top removal coal mining in Appalachia, Virginia; these things are happening. I wonder how much of it I can feel now. I don’t have the memories to place myself in those shoes the way I can close my eyes to remember dozing my way through biology class in Norris Hall. I might be wrong. Perhaps Nikki Giovanni is right and now I do have these memories. Perhaps now we all have pieces of a collective memory riddled with fear, anxiety, and violence. I have faith that the more we connect through this memory, this suffering, the more we will find solace and time to breathe. That’s the message I found in Nikki Giovanni’s words. Midst a few deep breaths of my own, my eyes finally peeled away from the opportunistic media coverage of the shootings on April 16th, I have a few thoughts to share beyond my sincerest condolences:

I now work in Washington D.C. for an organization that does violence prevention work with young men. We engage young men to ally with women in challenging sexism and preventing men’s violence against women. My email signature is a quote from a favorite book of mine, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity and Love by bell hooks. She writes, “The unhappiness of men in relationships, the grief men feel about the failure of love, often goes unnoticed in our society precisely because the patriarchal culture does not care if men are unhappy.” From email after email this quote has been calling to me over the last few days. Watching the videos Cho sent to NBC before his rampage it’s obvious that he was in a lot of pain, going so far as to say he was Christ-like, nailed to a cross. Taking a deep look at this pain is more urgent than talk of campus security and gun control. And this pain is not Cho’s alone. In fact, of all the dozens of school shootings in recent years the shooter has virtually always been a man. And this man’s violence has often been catalyzed by the paradoxical coupling of a supposed desire to save women with an actual brutality towards them, found in music videos on CMT, BET, all over the magazine aisle, and in the Iraq War.

Patriarchy at its most fundamental is an imbalance of power – men with more power personally and politically than women of the same rank. This, along with rigid gender expectations promoting the promise of invulnerability, homophobia, competition amongst men, and addictive sexuality based on the objectification of women’s bodies, shapes the training of men in our culture. Growing up, the promise of power is appealing; a gem that we may pursue regardless of the emotional loss that comes with it, or the pain it causes those around us. I remember standing up to my father’s coercive authority but I have also too often mimicked it. I also remember a class I took my senior year with Dr. Alexander-Floyd. I remember that I was more likely to challenge her than I would a male professor. With my male professors I usually felt intimidated, more likely to ask questions, and while I resisted it by joking around, ultimately I was eager to please. This stands out as one of my critical moments. It started the path I’m trying to walk now, taking a hard look at my socialization as a man and how to overcome the pain I carry with me. It’s not easy. Most of the men closest to me carry so much pain with them it’s hard to talk about it, we’ve all been hurt by one another playing a seemingly never-ending game of “king of the hill.”

When I’ve exerted power over others, and felt a need to control, it’s not been to cause pain but to justify my own. And a satisfying justification never comes; only more alienation and pain that gets measured out to women and other men that don’t fit into the boxes we want to put them in. I know I need to confront the images of naked female bodies that I consumed while on Pritchard Hall. Instead of huddling together around a magazine or two I came to Tech with my own PC and stayed isolated gazing at a monitor supplying my fantasies. This bred a sexuality that was so based on body parts that I was scared of intimacy with whole, real women. I was more content to obsess over distant crushes. Now, I want to be clear - this is about me, not Cho. But his videos, his last words to the world all looked familiar, if a bit extreme and severe. While the media has theorized over the influence of his race identity (remember, the majority of school shooters were not only men but white men), which on a predominantly white middle class campus certainly may have contributed to his alienation, why the distance from his gender identity?

The idea that “boys will be boys” has deeply thwarted our imagination. Do we so expect violence from men that it doesn’t deserve comment? Does ignoring men’s pain create an anger we are taught has to be written with fists? In my work with young men I know that so much is possible. Even at Virginia Tech I know that with every mainstream comes a margin. We are a school known for Engineering with poets like Nikki Giovanni in our midst; a College of Agriculture and Life Sciences that researches pesticides along with students that volunteer on small organic farms; a campus with a Core of Cadets up the hill from students that hold up signs of protest on Henderson Lawn; a school with fanatical football fans and young men in Pritchard Hall crying along to pilfered versions of American Beauty on their computers (yeah, that was me); a school now nationally known for a tragedy; a school nationally known for a forestry department that can teach us something about new growth.

I don’t want to feel connected through singular, dramatic events. I want to be part of a community that breaks through alienation by finding itself together not only when we feel similar in our excitement (like when Vick took the Hokies to the National Championship) or in our loss, but also when we feel most different.

I finally did study abroad, a year in Nicaragua that may have saved me. But I don’t think we need to travel far away to recognize the power in communication, discernment, and challenges by those we may have hurt. We all have a lot of work to do but men, especially those young and white, have an ability to respond that should especially motivate us. How many of us know guys that suffer emotionally but don’t open up to talk about it? How many times have we felt uncomfortable about the way women, gay men, lesbians or transgender people were talked about but stayed silent? How can we take on the work to make us whole and remember to stay accountable to those under a thumb that looks like ours? In answering these questions with action, with mistakes and joys, I’ve begun to find myself, my humanity.

My years in Blacksburg weren’t all something that I wanted to escape, by no means. I struggled with unhealthy ways of dealing with the pain and hurt that to some degree comes with living. But I also connected with people that continue to care for me and challenge my thinking, and left me with a sense of myself that extended beyond what is now being called the “Hokie Nation.” See, I’ve never worn orange and maroon. I just never felt secure in the cries for an “Orange Effect.” That is, until recently.

While it's understanding that when we feel alienated we desire security, it's important to remember that the kind of security offered by cameras and police is never guaranteed. It isolates and divides. And this creates a cycle that leaves us desirous of more security. Directly after graduating from Tech I spent six months in federal prison after being arrested at a protest against US militarism in Latin America. I was in an environment managed, ID-checked, and draped with security. But it was there that I found the book Men’s Work by Paul Kivel (paulkivel.com) and had discussions with other prisoners that challenged me and opened my heart. My security has come with connection, with an openness, with change.

My only refuge comes from acknowledging the parts of myself that I may not recognize; the parts of myself that wanted counseling those first years at Tech but found it easy to turn away from because of the social stigma seen in the media’s treatment of Cho’s diagnosed mental illness. My refuge comes from friends that I can be vulnerable with. As I give voice to my own margins, my pain, I am reminded that voice must be given to those on the margins of our community, those that may never feel included in the Hokie Nation. So I’ll put on my orange and maroon for the first time, as a reminder that similarity can be found in our differences. I’ll again find my security in connection. Like two colors that at first glance don’t seem to go together, I’ll wear my pain.

Patrick Lincoln graduated with a BA in Spanish in 2003. He reconciled his relationship with sports thanks to the beauty of Michael Vick on the field, found amazing people at YMCA Student Programs while at Virginia Tech, and is currently the Director of Consulting and Training at Men Can Stop Rape. He can be reached at plincoln@riseup.net and would love to hear from you.

Big Surprises: "Big Love"

2007-05-02T10:34:00.000-05:00

What do you think of when I say the word polygamist? What images and words come to mind? Take a second and think about it before you continue to read this entry…………

All of those things that you’re thinking of are probably very similar to what I think of: patriarchal family systems, compounds, conservatives, fundamentalism, Jesus, maybe even sexual abuse or statutory rape. I think with any sort of extremist group, everyone has the ability to generalize. As with any sort of stereotype or generalization, there is a counterstory. That is why I have recently fallen in love with “Big Love.”

“Big Love,” a show on the HBO network, is about a modern polygamist family living in Utah. This family doesn’t wear old-fashioned clothes or live on a compound. Each wife lives in one of three suburban houses that were bought by the main character Bill Hendrickson played by Bill Paxton. Right off the bat, these set of circumstances do not sound familiar for the schema of polygamy. It’s clear that the writers of the show are trying to tackle this strange crevice of American society in a new way. This concept becomes even truer when you see how Bill Hendrickson’s masculinity is portrayed. The reason I love this show so much is in part because of this character. In such a patriarchal frame like polygamy, I found it really surprising that the main character is a strong masculine figure that is also a loving, and tender father and husband.

Although I found this counterstory in a strange place, I think it’s important to generate some conversation about this show and this character. It’s great to see this strong, ambitious man - living in social situation that is dominated by traditional concepts of masculinity - show tender affection towards each member of his family, especially his sons.

-Liz Harmon, Men Can Stop Rape intern (sadly, leaving our office all too soon)

New anthology on the “non-profit industrial complex” AND “Creating a World Without Sexual Violence: National Day of Truthtelling”

2007-04-04T13:46:00.000-05:00

In our work we strive to engage young men to think critically about patriarchal masculinity. To have this discussion we frequently look at pop culture – using images of President Bush, 50 Cent, Toby Keith, Bill Gates, and others we discuss the characteristics that makes these “real men" in the eyes of the dominant culture. This often leads to a look at power and how it relates to masculine expression – whether it be political, military, economic, or physical power, the dominant story is about power held over others.

In our high school and college Men of Strength Clubs we invite members to think about strength as something built in a community, rather than held as an individual like a power over others. Power with not power over. We try to translate this to our work outside of the clubs – in community activist projects, in our group decision-making process, and in the form and content of our organization. However, as organizations have formalized into non-profits this translation becomes more difficult, some would argue impossible. Do non-profits operate in relation to social movements in the same way that the institutions of patriarchy relate to gender expressions – seeing them as objects to control, manage, limit? What vision of power do non-profits encourage?

INICTE! Women of Color Against Violence has released an anthology that asks these, and many other critical questions. In The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Paul Kivel, in his contribution Social Service or Social Change?, explains:

In the non-profit industrial complex, accountability is directed toward the ruling class and its managers – toward foundations, donors, government officials, larger non-profits, research institutes, universities, and the media. These are all forms of top-down accountability. I am suggesting a bottom-up accountability guided by those on the frontlines of grassroots struggles for justice. In which direction does your accountability lie?

We live in conservative political times and in a contracting economy in which racial, gender-based, religious, and homophobic violence is widespread and accepted. You may be discouraged about the possibility of doing effective political work in this context. You may be fearful of losing your job and livelihood or lowering your standard of living if you take risks. These are real concerns. But this is also a time of increasing and extensive organizing for social justice. It is an opportunity for many of us to realign ourselves clearly with those organizing efforts and reclaim the original vision of an end to the violence and exploitation which brought us into this work. This is a vision of social justice and true equity, built from community leadership and collective power.

This book is important reading for anyone in the men’s anti-violence movement. Find out more, buy the book and check out the other INCITE! anthology, Color of Violence, at www.incite-national.org.

A first step toward the vision Paul Kivel lays out could be attending the march, “Creating a World Without Sexual Violence: National Day of Truthtelling,” taking place in Durham, N.C., on April 28th.

The organizations responsible for this day of action are Raleigh FIST (Fight Imperialism, Stand Together), UBUNTU, Men Against Rape Culture, SpiritHouse, Southerners On New Ground, Independent Voices, Black Workers For Justice the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

Click here to see how to get involved in an exciting grassroots effort that's brought together a broad and diverse coalition of community activists.

-Patrick Lincoln

Masculinity and Grey’s Anatomy

2007-04-03T14:59:00.000-05:00

Although we don’t have a water cooler at the office, the staff at MCSR often comes in on a Friday where we engage in a little “water cooler conversation” about the one and only: Grey’s Anatomy. After several of these conversations, we started talking about how masculinity affects the storylines we have all become so comfortable with. In the show, traditionally masculine/feminine behavior is typically represented through the current relationships the show is focusing on. After last night’s episode (3/22 where George, played by T.R. Knight and Izzie, played by Katherine Heigl deal with the aftermath of their drunken hook-up), I felt I could not wait any longer to talk about some of these issues.

The relationship that is irking me the most is the most recent: the out-of-the-blue sexual relationship between George and Izzie. While I was watching, I kept saying to myself, “This is so WRONG!” After I thought about it a little bit, I realized why this new conflict is bothering me so much- Izzie is represented as a more traditionally feminine woman while George is portrayed as a more feminine male. The combination of these two gender characterizations is against the gradient of what viewers expect from these genres of characters. Even to someone like myself who believes in eliminating the stereotypical notions of masculinity in our society, I feel a little uncomfortable with this new relationship.

Think about it: Izzie’s character is a formal model and serves as the physical representation of traditional beauty in American culture. She’s blonde, gorgeous, sweet, a little naïve, and she constantly bakes. Last season, she was engaged to a bruiting, strong, unshaven heart diseased patient who seemed to be the perfect counterpart to her character. Now she potentially has feelings for George who is portrayed as kind and sweet but also weak and feminine. I love George’s character- even though I think the writers sometimes portray George’s sensitivity in a negative way, but I am not comfortable with this new development. How sad is that?

I wanted to start a discussion about all of this. What do you think about this new development? How do you think George’s masculinity will affect the outcome of the relationships he’s involved in? How is it that even someone like me can be taken aback by this new pair?

-Liz Harmon

"Eating Disorders: Not Just for Women"

2007-03-27T15:45:00.000-05:00

"Last month, Harvard researchers reported the results of the first national study of eating disorders in a population of nearly 3,000 adults and found that 25 percent of those with anorexia or bulimia and 40 percent of binge eaters were men."

I can't imagine that this is new. But while we are all familiar with the eating habits of women and girls, the effects on men of our American Idolizing of the "perfect body" (People Magazine recently ran a story on male contestants slimming down for the show) are often overlooked. Are we more culturally comfortable with the image of the physically strong man, and willing to turn a blind eye to the collateral damage? Is it easier to pathologize women for their behavior? This is what bothers me the most - when this issue is covered, regardless of gender, it's treated as an individual's problem rather than another example of the pain we all suffer as a result of a popular culture that tells us what we can call beautiful, and distorts what we see as healthy.

Read the full article from The Washington Post.

-Patrick Lincoln

Not if you were the last man on earth

2007-03-14T13:08:00.000-05:00

I finally picked up the first few books in the comic series “Y: The Last Man,” written by Brian Vaughan and drawn by Pia Guerra, after hearing about it on and off since it came out five years ago. The book opens with all mammals with Y chromosomes suddenly dying,
except Yorick and his pet monkey. Various complications help make the plot suitably complicated: Yorick's mom is a US Representative; he doesn't want to save the world, just find his girlfriend, who is inconveniently in Australia.

In a post-apocalyptic terrain of decomposing men and crashed cars, the series subtly but repeatedly explores what violence in a post-men society might look like. “After all the men died, I thought you guys would be holding hands down at the United Nations or
something,” Yorick says to his mother. “When the hell did women get so petty and...and power hungry?” Early on a group of wives of dead Republican Congressmen get their guns and go after the surviving Democratic women Representatives and Senators, and a vicious gang calling themselves the “Amazons” tries to hunt down Yorick and rid the country of other traces of men, including transgender men, invoking the history of sexism. “Didn't you all lose fathers? Brothers? Friends?” Yorick asks one. “No. We lost rapists and dictators.”

In these early sections (the series is now approaching the end of its 60-issue life, but
this book contains just the first five issues), the characters make the case that violent
behavior is learned, and repeated, over time. After ordering one of her underlings to
kill an innocent woman, the leader of the Amazons says, “I despise barking orders like a
patriarch. Rest assured when the game is over, the queen and pawn go back into the same
box.” Meanwhile, Yorick is treated the way many women are today—as a prize specimen to be
sheltered from the dangerous outside world. He's under the constant watch of a Secret
Service agent; after all, someone's got to protect him from all those violent women.

I'm interested to see where this series goes. With no men around, the distribution and
types of gender roles changes dramatically, and Vaughan and Guerra also seem to enjoy
playing with Yorick's confusion at living in an all-female world.

-Joe Vess

"Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and The Search For What Saves Us"

2007-03-01T10:50:00.000-05:00

I discovered this book from an email tagline. Quoting from the publisher:

An extraordinary personal and theological examination of what's wrong with the crucifixion. In an emotionally gripping and intellectually rich combination of memoir and theology, Rita Brock and Rebecca Parker show how emphasizing Christ's obedience to God and sacrifice on the cross sanctions violence, exacerbates its effects, blesses silence about the abuse of human beings, and hinders the process of recovery--giving the fullest and most powerful critique to date of the theology of atonement.

And the email tag that piqued my interest:

As Bill spoke he placed both his hands on his own chest. "This is my manhood," he said, tapping a rhythm with his hands upon his body. "That I can feel. That I can care. That I can grieve. That I can love. That I hate war. That I had the courage to question. That I was willing not to obey."

Find the book at Powells.com

-P. Lincoln

Britney Spears and Her Shaved Head

2007-02-21T09:54:00.000-05:00

I had no intentions of posting anything on the fact that Britney Spears has shaved her head. However, this is Masculinities in Media, and news outlets like ABC are all over this story. Her haircut has raised a lot of concern, and her locks were going for $1 million dollars on Ebay. Quoting from the ABC article 's grave assessment:

While psychologists and those around Spears speculate about the cause of her downward spiral, two things seems clear: The one-time pop princess is acting out and in dire need of help.

The BBC has written a slightly more sensible piece exploring the reasons behind so much concern over a simple shaved head. They rely heavily on evolutionary psychologists for their analysis - using the "women have long hair because it's a natural way to attract men, and allow for children to hold on tight" argument. I was listening to a Canadian Broadcast Corporation radio interview with the psychology giant Jerome Kagan and even he, a scientist that studies what's inately human for a living, discredits such a simplistic take on human custom.

How does long hair connect to a society where women are objectified as sex objects? How might our reactions to this new exSpearsience change if we embraced a "need to widen what's acceptable for women and men, and accept there are different layers of femininity and masculinity in one person," as Nicki Hasitie recommends at the end of the BBC article?

-P. Lincoln

John Amaechi

2007-02-16T10:29:00.000-05:00

My favorite sports commentator, Dave Zirin, sounds off on former NBA basketball player John Amaechi's coming out as a gay man:

"Sports is one of the last grand hamlets of homophobia. Amaechi poses a real challenge to the realities of the locker room, the press box and the owner's box: all places where I have heard homophobic comments used as casually as a comma. "

Read the full article

Also, see this piece on PopPolitics.com - Out in the Open: Tim Hardaway, John Amaechi, and the Search for Manhood and Meaning

P. Lincoln

Rape and Prison

2007-02-15T11:28:00.000-05:00

A report recently issued by the Department of Justice detailed increased rates of sexual violence in U.S. prisons. Quoting from an article in The New Standard:

Based on the records of system officials, the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) reported that 6,241 incidents of sexual misconduct and violence took place in 2005, or almost 3 violations per 1,000 inmates nationwide. Fifty-five percent of incidents were described by the report as “sexual misconduct” or “sexual harassment” perpetrated by staff against inmates, while 45 percent involved inmate-on-inmate “coerced sex acts” or “abusive sexual contact.”

This information has the potential to feed into a number of common misconceptions about rape and men in prison. They should be addressed before getting into the implications of the report itself.

First of all, we only hear about male survivors of sexual assault within the context of prison (we all know the “don’t drop the soap” joke). This is a convenient way for us to distant ourselves from the reality that men are raped outside of prison cells, in our communities, by fathers, community leaders, brothers, cousins, friends, lovers. Statistics on prison rape can also feed into a second misconception - of men in prison. Not all men in prison are violent and hyper-sexualized, or submissive and taken advantage of. Consensual sex does occur in prison, and as The New Standard addresses in their article, more often than not the violence is born from the institution and its staff rather than from prisoners - beyond rape committed by prison guards there is the more institutional rape of the standard strip-search.

This isn’t to overshadow the fact that sexual violence is a problem in prison, or as I would argue, an inherent aspect of prison – and with women being the fastest growing prison population, it clearly tortures women prisoners as well. But by quoting The New Standard article once again, we see that by focusing on prison reform we may miss the larger questions:

Vanessa Huang of Justice Now, a California-based advocacy group for female prisoners, said that activists should avoid “just focusing on the conditions of confinement” and instead view incidents of sexual abuse as an outgrowth of “structural” power imbalances – both inside and outside prison walls – along lines of race, class, gender and sexuality. In her view, “Imprisonment is fundamentally a violent system.”

As long as power is held by one so fiercely over another, whether by men over women, or by institutions like prison over their inmates, the dynamic will be recreated in the most intimate of ways – against our bodies. Our response to rape in prison cannot be only to push for more counseling services for prisoners, or more segregated housing units, but must include questioning the way we address crime in this society, and the role of the prisons themselves in creating this crime.

Resources:

Critical Resistance
JusticeNow!
Incite! Women of Color Against Violence and Critical Resistance joint statement on prison abolition and VAW

Patrick Lincoln

What Men Don't Talk About: Masculinity and Sex Education

2007-02-12T14:08:00.000-05:00

Recently Liz Harmon wrote a post looking at male sexuality on the popular youth networking site Facebook. Perhaps it won’t come as a surprise that many men were representing themselves as sexually aggressive, and presenting women as sex objects to be abused. After all, this particular brand of male sexuality presents itself in MAXIM Magazine, music videos on MTV, CMT and BET, and in the Iraq War. It can feel downright depressing to think of the expectations this sexuality places on all of us, as men and women. And it can feel overwhelming to think about transforming this sexuality into something genuinely inspiring and fulfilling.

The author and psychologist Gary Brooks labels the dominant male sexuality in U.S. society the “centerfold syndrome.” In his book of the same name, he lays out the characteristics of this syndrome – voyeurism (obsession with visual sexual stimulation), objectification (fetishizing body parts, rating of size and shape), trophyism (treatment of women as collectibles), and fear of intimacy. One of the reasons this syndrome persists to affect all of our lives to greater or lesser extents - is the lack of dialogue that exists on sex in general, and on male sexuality in particular. Women’s liberation movements have done tremendous things to make female sexuality more open and empowered. Less has been done to do the same for men. In addition, youth mentors are increasingly finding it difficult to reach out to young boys and talk honestly about sex because of the influence of abstinence-centered sex education. And because young men don’t have enough mentors to turn to, or examples to live by, Facebook masculinity, or the centerfold syndrome, can more easily take hold to shape male sexuality.

The organization I work for, Men Can Stop Rape, frequently explores how to engage men around the prevention of men’s violence against women without blaming or inducing guilt. We try to reach out to men in a positive way, a way that will inspire action. On a recent trip to work with high schools in South Carolina, a colleague and I presented to hundreds of young men with a wide array of perspectives. The one thing we found in common was an energized desire to talk about sex. And the conversations that followed are linked to the prevention of sexual violence. As our organizational hand-out “Stopping Rape: What Men Can Do” says:

Sexual violence often goes hand in hand with poor communication. Our discomfort with talking honestly and openly about sex dramatically raises the risk of rape. By learning effective sexual communication – stating your desires clearly, listening to your partner, and asking when the situation is unclear – men make sex safer for themselves and others.

This same open communication can also be used for men to explore the diverse possibilities of their sexual expression. This is definitely a positive, and potentially very pleasurable exploration. What I’m talking about is sometimes called comprehensive sex education, and can include (though often doesn’t) – information on the male multiple orgasm (debunking the “blue balls” myth), perineum stimulation, vasectomy as a contraceptive option, male masturbation, etc. Men have a lot to benefit from talking about sex beyond the ways the centerfold syndrome expects us to, and by doing so maybe the violent sexuality so prevalent on Facebook, won’t feel like the only option.

Here are a few resources to use:

The Birds and Bees Project
Advocates for Youth
Coalition for Positive Sexuality
SexualHealth.com
The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States
The Education of Shelby Knox (a documentary film screening Feb. 12th at 7:30pm at the warehouse next door 1021 7th st nw Wash DC 20001, to benefit the great conference Visions in Feminism)

-Patrick Lincoln