How to reduce sexual and verbal assaults against women on college campuses and in the military? Gender violence expert Jackson Katz says it'd help if society encouraged men to speak up when they witness attacks.
Katz calls this the "bystander approach," which he says he helped pioneer in the '90s and is now commonplace. Katz will talk about the connection between "Violence and Silence" at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 22 at Western Michigan University's 2452 Knauss Hall.
Katz is a co-developer of the Mentors in Violence Prevention Model. It began in 1993 at Boston-based Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society, and intentionally started out with training male college athletes in the bystander approach -- that is, calling out peers who treat women in offensive manners, even physically intervening when safe to do so, if needed.
"It was about using the prominence of sports and the status of student atheletes," Katz said in an interview last week with WMUK's Earlene McMichael. "In particular, initially, it was about male student athletes because my thinking was, if we could get guys who already have status on campus with their peers to speak out about rape and sexual assault and abuse, it would open up space well beyond the locker-room, if you will."
Not long after, the training was expanded to non-athletes, as well as with women. Workshops have also been done with many NFL and Major Baseball League teams and the military, but primarily Katz spreads his message to high school and college students.
At the high school level, for instance, upperclassmen are trained to be "mentors" and hold small- group discussions with lower-classmen. Katz said the idea is for students to hear directly from someone closer to their age rather than from an adult.
Katz said why some men hurt women is complex -- it's more than just how they were raised in their home or if they have a drinking or some other problem. Outside forces that he referred to as "systems" affect their parents' and the men's own beliefs, he added.
"The norms, the social norms that underpin abusive behaviors have multiple sources, whether it’s peer cultures, media culture, pornography culture, sports culture, religious belief systems," said Katz, whose visit is part of WMU's "Raise Your Voice" anti-violence speakers series. "All of them play a role in shaping how people think and how people think about what it is to be a man or a woman."
Why don't more men intervene when they see another man engaging in sexually inappropriate behavior?
Katz said some fear that it'll be viewed as "an act of softness" and their masculinity questioned. The truth is, Katz said, it's really "an act of strength" and leadership to speak up, and society needs to make the cultural shift.
Katz is the author of "The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help." His TED Talk, "Violence Against Women is a Man's Issue" has been viewed more than 2.5 million times.
