For the past few weeks I’ve been addressing female and male students around the country on the issue of the representation of women and girls in media and popular culture. I’ve been urging the boys to reject cultural messaging that socialises them into a calloused and brutalised version of masculinity. Yesterday I received a Facebook message from Ethan, in Year 8 at a Sydney school. I was so encouraged.
Hi Melinda my name is Ethan, I was at your seminar. I was in the year 8 talk and what you were saying really moved me. It made me realise that even when I make joke how much it can affect girls. Im really going to watch what I say from now on. I would just like to say thank you, I learnt a lot (: Ethan
It has been heartening to see so many boys joining Collective Shout because they want to fight sexploitation and make a difference. To see them getting angry, to hear them asking from the audience: “What? How can that be allowed”? To listen to their concerns for their sisters and even for their future daughters.
I was reflecting on this as I finally got around to watching this Ted talk by Jackson Katz. So many people had mentioned it to me on my travels. It is such a timely message. As Katz says, violence against women isn’t a women’s issue – “This issue is primarily about us.”
One Response
Jackson Katz is correct in stating it is men who are the ones clinging on tightly to socio-economic power and this ensures the focus is always on blaming women and girls for not supposedly preventing pandemic male violence against them. The dominant socio-economic struture was created by men to maintain and justify their pseudo right to dominate and control all women and girls.
Gender violence against women is a neat euphemisim which hides who or what the perpetrators. ‘Gender’ does not commit violence against women, whereas the term male violence against women names the perpetrator and ensures the reader is immediately focused on the perpetrator(s).
Jackson Katz is echoing what feminists have been saying for decades and decades – we cannot begin to challenge male dominance over women if we refuse to name the problem.
However, men don’t want to focus on their collective accountability because the dominant male supremacist system has to maintain the myth issues of male violence against women and girls is always a female one – never males.
Jackson katz also repeats what feminists have constantly been saying and that is each incident of male violence against women isn’t an individual and isolated one. He is spot-on in naming the interlocking male created systems which maintain male domination over women and maintain male power.
Note too Jackson Katz repeats the term mens’ violence against women and he recognises he has the power to name the issue because he is male and is therefore accorded power men continue to routinely deny women and girls. Misogyny was created by males to maintain male power over women and girls and this is why innumerable males continue to shout down any woman or girl who challenges them on their attitudes and women-hating behaviour.
Katz is right – focusing on powerful men and challenging their women-hating/contempt for women attitudes is the right approach but challenging men’s socio-economic power is very, very difficult because powerful men and their allies will never relinquish their power or accept their accountability willingly.
Women don’t need men to ‘take care of us women’ – we demand that men finally recognise women and girls are human but this would mean the total elimination of our centuries old male supremacist system and sadly that will not be happening soon.
Male power over women is commonly invisible which is why when males are challenged concerning their power they always retaliate by claiming they are the victims of some unknowable and unnameable system. Individual males won’t change the power structure but individual males who challenge other males on their women-hating stance does challenge the common male belief that ‘it is not my problem but is either a women’s issue or is an issue ‘over there’ – never in my backyard!